Blue Bloods is in a bit of an odd spot. The long-running cop drama has been renewed for another season by CBS, but it was delayed to 2024 after the writers and actors involved with the show went on strike. The writers strike has been resolved, and the network has already started up production on a number of different shows, including NCIS and Fire Country.
Outlets like Deadline started that procedural shows that were light on visual effects would be given top priority, since they would be faster and easier to resume. Blue Bloods certainly fits the bill, given the show’s emphasis on family drama and criminal investigations, but as of early Oct., there’s no word on when production will resume.
When is Blue Bloods coming back?
Granted, it’s still early in the resolution of the writers strike, and the actors strike is still ongoing, so we could be looking at an instance in which Blue Bloods receives the green light in a week or a month, depending on what CBS has in store. The good news is that the show will not be pushed all the way back to September 2024, which was a concern that a great many industry insiders had as the strike wore on through the summer.
If the writers and actors strikes stretched on into the new year, then shows would not be able to produce even half a season, and would have been forced to push back the release date further. To make matters worse, the incredibly limited production windows would have resulted in seasons that were only 6-8 episodes.
The fact that the writers have already struck a deal is an encouraging sign, and Deadline states that it’s going to increase the number of episodes produced for most shows to around 12-13 episodes. It’s not ideal, but it’s certainly more than we thought we’d get, and much sooner.
The Blue Bloods cast have not been able to speak on the show due to the strike, but Donnie Wahlberg made it clear that he was eager to get to work back in April.
“I don’t know how many seasons the studio and network will make the show,” Wahlberg told TV Insider. “But I can say that I made a commitment to Tom and Bridget in Season 1 that I was with them as long as they wanted to go.”
