Globe readers regularly reach out to me about “Blue Bloods,” the Tom Selleck (and Donnie Wahlberg) series that is about to enter its 14th season. Mixing together family drama, the private lives of New York cops, and procedural crime solving, the show has been a strong scripted performer for CBS in its regular Friday night slot since it premiered in 2010.
Well: “Blue Bloods” is coming to an end — slowly, but surely. Season 14 will be the show’s last, and — like many series these days, including, most recently, “The Crown” — it will be divided into two parts. There will be 18 episodes in all; the first 10 will air midseason, premiering on Feb.16, and the remaining eight will air in the fall of 2024. When all is said and done, the show will have come up with a total of 293 episodes. That’s an awful lot of meals around the Reagan family dinner table.
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I expect there will be some grief about saying goodbye to “Blue Bloods,” whose fans continue to watch loyally, now on Paramount+ as well as CBS. It has engendered the kind of viewer devotion that has become scarcer on network TV, which is crowded with game and reality shows. But let’s face it, 14 seasons is a goodly lot, and then it’s not over till it’s over, by which I mean that successful series are usually rebooted or spun off at some point. “Blue Bloods: Boston,” anyone?
According to Deadline, by the way, the 14th season renewal happened in the spring (before the strikes) only because the entire cast and producing team agreed to take “a 25 percent pay cut.”
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at matthew.gilbert@globe.com. Follow him @MatthewGilbert.