Tom Selleck isn’t ready to say goodbye to his hit CBS series “Blue Bloods” — and neither are its fans.
“CBS will find an awful lot of people aren’t ready to say goodbye to it,” Selleck told TV Line. “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.”
CBS announced in November that “Blue Bloods” will end its 14-season run as a staple of the network’s Friday-night lineup. The series is shot on location in New York City.
Eighteen episodes are scheduled to air starting Feb. 16 through the end of this season, with the last eight episodes airing this fall, according to Deadline.
The series stars Selleck as New York Police Commissioner Frank Reagan, the patriarch of a closely-knit family fighting crime as part of the NYPD and the DA’s office.
It has been a Friday-night staple on CBS since premiering in 2010. It is the night’s top-rated series, averaging over 9.5 million viewers per week last season with a cast including Donnie Wahlberg, Will Estes, Bridget Moynahan, and Len Cariou as Detective Danny Reagan, ADA Erin Reagan, and retired NYPD Commissioner Henry Reagan.
“For the past 13 years it has been an honor and a privilege to work on a show that only celebrates the men and women who protect and serve New York City, but also displayed the importance of family, Selleck said in a statement when CBS announced the show’s departure.
Selleck told TV Line that he’s not ready to retire just yet.
“I’m not counting the days so I can do something else,” he said. “I love the work. Sometimes the hours are a little harder because I’m older, but so what? I want to work as long as they’ll have me.”
He was noncommittal when asked if Frank Regan is ready for retirement.
“He picks fights because he’d like somebody to take the weight of this responsibility [off] his hands and fire him,” Selleck told TV Line. “But he has a hyperactive sense of responsibility and he’s stuck with it.”
He said “playing a flawed but strong father” makes him most proud of his series’ achievements.
“On television and commercials, Dad is usually the idiot,” he said. “It’s not my mission on the show, but the by-product is an example of an important patriarch to the family. That’s getting rarer in our culture.”
Selleck then looped back to one of the show’s trademarks: the Regan family’s weekly dinner scene.
“It’s the audience’s favorite part,” he said. “When I saw the eight-page dinner scene in [executive producer] Leonard Goldberg’s pilot script, I said, ‘They’re going to cut that, aren’t they?’
He added: “And he answered, ‘No, that will be a centerpiece of the show.’ He was right.”