The End of an Era: Will Blue Bloods Conclude After Season 15?
Looks like it's time to hang up the badges and call it a day for the Reagan family. Or, you know, not.
Blue Bloods, aired by CBS on Fridays, is now one of the longer-running series on TV, currently in its 13th season.
The police procedural depicts life and work of the Reagan family – police commissioner Frank (Tom Selleck ), his children, detective Danny (Donnie Wahlberg), lawyer Erin (Bridget Moynahan), sergeant Jamie (Will Estes), and grandfather of the family, former commissioner Henry (Len Cariou), with family meetings for weekly Sunday dinners serving as the constant feature of the series.
The series so far doesn't seem to have suffered an enduring decline in viewership, but one still wonders, for just how long it can run.
Before the Season 13 premiere, when asked if he'd be in to go until Season 15, Selleck said in an interview: "I've got a mortgage. I'm game!"
So, at least two more seasons seem practically certain. But will the series go on after that?
Two seasons are enough to tie up any loose plot threads and make the younger part of the cast move on with their lives and careers. Frank had already been contemplating retiring in some episodes, but a character is not his actor.
It is technically possible for Frank to retire from his post in the police, and still keep connecting the rest of the series through family meetings, so even with this plot development, Blue Bloods could continue. But should it? Again, the series remains popular, but sometimes it is better to retire while on top, rather than drag on indefinitely until the whole concept is worn thin.
TV Insider recently staged a poll about Blue Bloods potentially running for more than 15 seasons (or should it actually end with season 15.) The results, at the moment of this article's writing, were 37% "No", 16% "Yes" and 45% "It should continue as long as Tom Selleck will do it".
As it appears, most of the audience still wants to see more seasons of Blue Bloods, if they're going to have Selleck in them, though a substantial percentage thinks that the series is long enough already. It remains to be seen how viewership and ratings of the latest seasons will reflect such opinions. But so far, it is safer to bet on Blue Bloods continuing past Season 15.