Donnie Wahlberg stars as Danny Reagan in Blue Bloods and the cancelation of the series after season 14 was a blow to fans and actors alike.
When Donnie Wahlberg learned Detective Danny Reagan and the rest of the cast of Blue Bloods would not be solving crimes past season 14, his hopes for his best-known character were dashed. Blue Bloods, the CBS police procedural, premiered in September 2010 and lasted for 14 seasons before its cancelation. The first 13 seasons of Blue Bloods are all contiguous, while the 14th and final are split into 10 and 8-episode halves. Blue Bloods follows the Reagans, an NYC-based Irish American family who have traditionally worked in law enforcement.
The series stars an ensemble cast, and among them is Donnie Wahlberg as Danny Reagan, the eldest son of the Reagan clan. A talented and hardworking detective, Danny Reagan’s hot-headedness in Blue Bloods often gets him and his fellow officers into trouble. Blue Bloods is the New Kids on the Block singer’s most recognizable character of his career, arguably more important than Wahlberg’s memorable role in The Sixth Sense, and his surprisingly internal and affecting performance in Band of Brothers. It’s no wonder that Wahlberg was disappointed when the series was canceled.
Donnie Wahlberg Wanted Danny & The Blue Bloods Characters To Have The Longevity Of SVU
Donnie Wahlberg Saw Blue Bloods Airing For Many More Years
While 14 seasons may sound like a lot of show, it was not enough for Donnie Wahlberg. In fact, he would have liked to have the series match another long-lived procedural. In an interview with US Weekly, before the series was canceled, Wahlberg talked about what show he would like to be able to compare Blue Bloods to:
“Law and Order: SVU, I mean, Ice-T and Mariska Hargitay have been going for gosh, so many years and we hope to last as long as they have.”
Wahlberg goes on to concede that working on a series for several years can be “hard” for some actors “to keep doing”. Law and Order: SVU, along with its parent series Law and Order, are two of the longest-running TV shows of all time. For Blue Bloods to continue on that marathon track, the main ensemble would probably have to be on board. Tom Selleck, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes, Len Cariou, and others would have to commit to a long career on TV. However, it appears that many in the cast would have been happy to keep going.
In that same interview, Wahlberg discussed how he was an optimist about the show’s continued success, saying,
“I’m an optimist. I try to take every episode as it comes. I really do. I think it’s part of why I’ve enjoyed myself on the show for 13 years.”
While his optimism was eventually proven to be misplaced, the fact Wahlberg was excited about the prospect of continuing as Danny Reagan shows that he could very well have been prepared to do many more seasons of Blue Bloods. If the show continued to run, there’s no doubt Danny would keep working for the NYPD, despite how often he butts heads with the higher-ups. Blue Bloods would not be the same without Wahlberg at the helm as a beleaguered but persistent detective.
Wahlberg doesn’t worry about what will happen to his character, however. When speaking about what comes next for Danny, Wahlberg had to say, via US Weekly,
“One of the things I’ve done is I try to just stay very present in each episode and take each script that comes my way and say, ‘OK, what’s gonna happen now? You know, what am I doing this week?’ And kind of find the journey in that particular episode and not get caught up in what’s gonna happen next year, what’s gonna happen in two years.”
It sounds like to Wahlberg, every opportunity he had to play Danny was a blessing and there comes a point that it’s not worth it to worry about next week when participating in a television show. The industry is so fickle that just enjoying the present is any actor’s best bet.
Tom Selleck, who plays the patriarch in Blue Bloods, New York City Police Commissioner Francis “Frank” Reagan, would also have been happy to keep the show going. The legendary mustachioed actor spoke to TV Insider after the series was canceled, and expressed some mixed feelings about the news. When asked what he thought about the show ending, Selleck said,
“CBS will find an awful lot of people aren’t ready to say goodbye to it. The show’s more popular than ever, and I think [numbers] will increase with the interest this year. We’re certainly not out of ideas.”
Selleck thought that there were plenty more stories to tell about the Reagan family and believed that the popularity of the show could have seen it run for longer than 14 seasons. As a prolific and veteran actor of TV and movies, Selleck knows how difficult it can be to keep a show running and how fortunate an actor is to star in one as long-running as Blue Bloods. Wahlberg and Selleck have graciously accepted the fact their show has ended but want to make it clear that they are always willing to work more if given the chance.
CBS Budget Cuts & The Strikes May Have Contributed To Blue Bloods’ Cancelation
A Tumultuous 2023 Paved The Way For Blue Bloods Being Canceled
Blue Bloods season 13 was the most-watched primetime program on Friday nights and the #3 most-watched broadcast drama with 9.54 million viewers. The show has led its Friday 10 PM time slot in total viewers every season since the premiere in September 2010 (via Deadline). So it was not a popularity issue that ended the show. Negotiations for season 14 of Blue Bloods were mired in budgetary issues even before the 2023 WGA Strike and the SAG-AFTRA Strike began.
During talks in March 2023 regarding Blue Bloods’ season 14 renewal, CBS asked for significant budget cuts, including a 25% cut to the above-the-line talent, aka the cast and creative team. Then the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes began in May and July respectively, halting any writing and planning of the series. When negotiations ended in September for the WGA and November for SAG-AFTRA, the Blue Bloods writers returned with plans to write the final season of the show.
According to Deadline, the March renewal came with the presumption that season 14 would be the final season for Blue Bloods and the strikes solidified that it was time for the show to end. The strikes were necessary to improve working conditions for the TV and movie industries as well as increase pay and ensure writers and actors would not be left behind in a changing digital landscape.
Some fallout of those strikes is that certain shows were wrapped up quicker than they might have otherwise. The good news, and part of the point of the strikes, is that in the long run, hopefully, actors and writers will have the ability to do more and be properly compensated for it.
The Blue Bloods Cast Took Pay Cuts For Season 14
The Cast Was Willing To Make Less If It Meant The Show Continued
When CBS told Blue Bloods they would need to take pay cuts for season 14, they all agreed, losing up to 25% of their previous salaries. According to THR, Selleck and the rest of the cast agreed to these heavy cuts to ensure that season 14 was made and to make sure that hundreds of production staffers kept their jobs for the final season. While the stars of some other shows may have refused to accept such brutal slashes, the Blue Bloods cast was willing to absorb them as long as the show continued.
Selleck best expressed how the cast felt about their time on the show when he issued a statement regarding his feelings on the series being canceled, via TV Insider,
“For the past 13 years it has been an honor and a privilege to work on a show that not only celebrates the men and women who protect and serve in New York City, but also displayed the importance of family. Working alongside these incredible actors, writers, producers, directors and crew has been a dream come true and I’m grateful to have been a part of this extraordinary group for over 275 episodes. Thank you to CBS Studios and CBS Network for their steadfast support and we offer heartfelt gratitude to the fans who gathered with us for dinner every Friday night.”
TV series are constantly being canceled; to even get one to go past a single season is an accomplishment. The cast of Blue Bloods understood they had an exceptional situation and was glad to keep it going any way they could. Once the series was officially canceled, however, they didn’t hang their heads. Blue Bloods is a successful TV show and the cast should be proud of what they’ve done over 14 seasons.
How Blue Bloods Could Continue
Sequels And Spinoffs Could Be Next For Blue Bloods
Wahlberg has stated his interest in continuing the show and even pitched an idea to US Weekly,
“Danny and Erin become private investigators and move to Hawaii, but that was too close to Magnum, P.I., so we didn’t want to do that one.”
While his comment was said half in jest, as a way to tease his Blue Bloods co-star Selleck on his iconic ’80s crime drama Magnum P.I., it presents an interesting new route Blue Bloods could take. There is nothing to stop Blue Bloods from continuing past season 14, at least storywise, and if another studio wants to pick up the show, NYC offers endless storylines for the Reagans.
There is also the opportunity to spin off, as Wahlberg joked. Maybe not in Hawaii, but the Reagan family could certainly move. Blue Bloods: Philadelphia and Blue Bloods: Boston could offer a similar feel to the Blue Bloods series but change the setting while keeping it a realistic location for an Irish American police family to up and move to.