The upcoming 14th season of CBS’s venerable cop family drama Blue Bloods will be its last. The popular series starring Tom Selleck is getting an extended farewell with a two-part final season which will consist of 18 episodes. The first 10 will air this coming midseason, premiering on CBS on Feb. 16 and streaming live on Paramount+; the remaining eight will run in fall 2024.
CBS has renewed Blue Bloods for the 2023-24 season, which will be the cop drama stalwart’s 14th on the network. The cast of the series, including core original stars Tom Selleck, Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan and Will Estes, are set to return, along with its top producing team, led by showrunner Kevin Wade.
The network has renewed the CBS Studios-produced show, led by Tom Selleck and one of its longest-running and most popular, for a 13th season in 2022-23. The pickup comes 10 days before Blue Bloods airs its 12th season finale on May 6 and three weeks ahead of CBS parent Paramount Global’s May 18 upfront presentation.
CBS is putting one of the last big pieces of its 2020-21 schedule into place. The network has set premiere dates for its Friday dramas MacGyver, Magnum P.I. and Blue Bloods. All three shows are set to debut on Dec. 4, giving the network a nearly full series lineup and at least one hour of originals on every night of the week.
The network will air original episodes of Hawaii Five-O on Friday, March 27, at 9 p.m. with the series finale following at 9 p.m., Friday, April 3. Original episodes of MacGyver will air Friday, March 27, and Friday, April 3, at 8 p.m., and an original episode of Blue Bloods will air Friday, April 3, at 10 p.m.
Grey’s Anatomy and Blue Bloods are also strong performers over the first quarter of the 2019-20 season.
Exclusives
The pickup comes after star Tom Selleck signs a new deal and will keep the Friday night staple going in 2019-20.
If the TV industry gave out an award for the most uncool night of programming, CBS’s Friday lineup would win it hands down. MacGyver and Hawaii Five-O are reboots of old series, an anathema to TV critics who believe the industry is in a golden age of creativity. They lead into Blue Bloods, a combination cop show and family drama, featuring the 72-year-old Tom Selleck, the quintessential 1980s TV star. All three shows rank among the top 20 most-watched broadcast shows in primetime.
Strong ‘Blue Bloods’ Helps Boost CBS To Win
CBS won last week in primetime with an average of 8 million viewers. ABC had 6.4 million, NBC had 5.4 million, Fox had 4.8 million, Univision had 2.8 million, the CW had 1.5 million, Telemundo had 1.3 million and Ion Television had 1 million.
Hulu Plus and CBS announce new SVOD deal for CBS drama starring Tom Selleck. WGN America acquires exclusive basic cable rights while Ion gets exclusive weekday, primetime rights for off-net episodes.
CBS is expected to announce an SVOD deal for the Tom Selleck crime drama as well as pacts with both WGN America and Ion.
They don’t get the ratings of American Idol or Big Bang, but they’re still important to their networks, whether winning timeslots or awards.
