We’re saying it right here. Blue Bloods‘ cancelation may go down in TV history as one of CBS’ biggest mistakes.
This show has a huge fan base, many of whom have stuck with it for fourteen years and who are furious that it has been canceled.
CBS did what it felt it had to for financial reasons, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less, especially in a TV landscape where family-oriented programs are few and far between.
Getting Rid Of It Was Never Going To Be Easy
CBS didn’t cancel Blue Bloods because the show had slipped in the ratings, which makes the decision a head-scratcher.
All network TV has been having financial problems since streaming became big enough to compete with them, and the writers and actors’ strikes in 2023 didn’t help, so I can understand that they were having trouble finding a way to afford another season of the top-rated crime drama.
Blue Bloods Season 14 cast is one of the largest out there. Eleven main characters appear most weeks, and many of them are actors who have been with the series since the beginning.
That’s far more expensive than a cast of newbies, and if you throw in the fact that it’s filmed on location in New York and Tom Selleck has been a Hollywood staple since the 1980s, you’ve got one high-budget show!
Still, CBS should have tried harder to find a way to make it work. Thousands of angry fans, many of whom will make good on their promise to boycott CBS forever, doesn’t seem like a winning strategy if they want people to watch their other offerings.
The cast and crew were able to negotiate the final season by agreeing to a pay cut, and if that wasn’t enough this time, CBS could have explored other options.
Of course, we don’t know what happened around the negotiating table, only that the end result was Blue Bloods’ cancelation, but it still seems like there had to be a way to keep this series going until the actors were ready to quit.
Replacing It With Other Procedurals Won’t Work
The reason Blue Bloods was a winner for CBS for fourteen years wasn’t the police procedural aspects.
Those were strong, to be sure, and Blue Bloods’ dedication to realism and to showing the NYPD in a fair light were also selling points.
However, the main reason for Blue Bloods’ success was the family aspect of the series. The Reagans weren’t just any cops — they were a multigenerational family that sat down to dinner together every week without fail.
No matter what happened in the episode, the family put it all aside on Sundays. In Blue Bloods’ almost 300 episodes, the family dinner was NEVER cut, not once.
That was what made Blue Bloods special and what made people flock to it. In real life, many people are too busy to sit down and eat dinner with their families every week, never mind every night, and many viewers hunger for a world where that isn’t the case (no pun intended).
The Reagans helped fill in some of that gap, allowing the audience to spend time with a family at dinner, even if it wasn’t their own.
Blue Bloods’ cancelation not only leaves a gaping hole because of its focus on family, but leaves many of us feeling as if we’ve lost a beloved set of friends whose home we visited for Sunday dinner every week.
No matter what goes in that time slot — and right now CBS’ plan is for S.W.A.T to move into it — it won’t hold a candle to Blue Bloods unless it is another family drama.
That means people will tune out. That can’t be good for CBS!
Blue Bloods Unified A Polarized Society
Today’s polarized political climate has bled over into television. America is so divided that people with different political beliefs don’t even watch the same shows. for the most part.
Blue Bloods was different.
Although the show’s more balanced views of cops and its take on criminal justice issues in New York were more conservative than the average show, its refusal to force opinions on the audience and its focus on family appealed to people all over the political spectrum.
That is something that is so rare that when it happens, it should be treasured and not canceled prematurely.
I didn’t always agree with the Reagans’ point of view on issues, but that didn’t matter.
The stories were interesting, and the bickering and teasing at that week’s family dinner made up for any annoyance about how the characters thought things should work.
If you agreed with their point of view, you could cheer them on. If you didn’t, it gave you something to think about.
I was studying social work and working within the criminal justice system for part of Blue Blood’s run, but it was still my favorite show, and it sparked lots of great discussions with people online who had a different point of view.
Blue Bloods was successful in this partially because Frank was such a special and unusual character.
Like the heroes in old-time Westerns, he lived by his own moral code, doing what he thought was right no matter the personal or professional cost.
Sometimes, he came across as a grumpy curmudgeon, but even when Frank was stubborn, it was such a breath of fresh air to have someone who had a value system they did their best to live by and who wasn’t afraid of being hated for it.
CBS Has Made Similar Errors Before
This isn’t the first time CBS has done this. In 1970, it canceled a bunch of popular comedies, such as The Beverly Hillbillies and Mayberry RFD, because it wanted to change its image by getting rid of any hint of rural settings in its line-up.
Worse yet, in 1985, after 11 years on the air, it canceled The Jeffersons without informing the cast.
Not only did this beloved sitcom not get a proper finale, but lead actor Sherman Hemsley learned he was out of a job when he read about the cancelation in the newspaper.
Blue Bloods’ cancelation seems just as disrespectful as that! At least it will get a finale, but that’s about all that can be said about this.
It’s too late for CBS to change direction now; it’s sold all of the Blue Bloods sets. The best we can hope for is a reunion movie or a Blue Bloods spinoff down the line.
That’s a shame. This beautiful show deserved at least one more season if not many more.
Over to you, Blue Bloods fanatics.
Hit the comments to sound off about how you feel about Blue Bloods’ cancelation.
