Tom Selleck Makes a Bold Statement About 'Blue Bloods' Cancellation

The final eight episodes of Blue Bloods have all been filmed and will begin airing on CBS on Friday, Oct. 18, ending the series after 14 seasons on the air. The show is going out on top, but that isn’t a fact that makes Tom Selleck, who stars as NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan, happy.

“I’m kind of frustrated,” he told TV Insider . “During those last eight shows, I haven’t wanted to talk about an ending for Blue Bloods , but about it still being wildly successful. In a Top 100 Shows of 2023-2024 (in total viewers, we were number 9 out of 100), if you discount the three football shows, we’re #6! I’m not going to turn into a bitter old guy saying, ‘Get off my lawn!’ I don’t believe in holding grudges, but if you were to say to the television network, ‘Here’s a show you can program in the worst time slot you got, and it is going to guarantee you winning Friday night for the next 15 years,’ it would be almost impossible to believe.”

The fact that Blue Bloods is being canceled when it was still a ratings success is something Selleck doesn’t understand, but he thinks it may be because the show was a success from episode one so it didn't get the respect that it deserved.

“My frustration is the show was always taken for granted because it performed from the get-go,” he continued. “So how do I feel? It’s going to take a long time to sort all of this out. I remember after the weekend [of the final episode’s shoot], I said, ‘I’ve got to get to bed early tonight because I have to do my dialogue for Monday.’ Well, there was no Monday. It’s just going to take a while.”

Related: Donnie Wahlberg Gives Hopeful Update that Blue Bloods Isn't Dead

The final day of shooting on Blue Bloods on Thursday, June 20, didn’t require Selleck’s presence on set. He had wrapped up his last scenes a few days previously and returned to Los Angeles, but he made it a point to fly back to New York to be present out of love and respect for his cast and crew.

“I watched the last scenes with Bridget [ Moynahan ] and Steve (Schirripa] and then Donnie [ Wahlberg ] and Marisa [Ramirez] ” Selleck shared. “It was hard, but I didn’t want to just stay home; I wanted to be there, and I felt an obligation to share the experience.”

Selleck’s last scene was a Reagan family dinner, which were always his favorite scenes to film throughout the 14-year run of the series.

Related: Blue Bloods Star Tom Selleck on Being an 'Accidental' Actor, His 'Appetite for Failure' and Retirement

“My last scene was ironically family dinner; that was also the first scene I shot on the show 15 years ago!,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you everything about the last episode…but the family dinner kind of reunites the Reagan family. Erin’s daughter Nicky ( Sami Gayle ) was there and so was Jack ( Tony Terraciano ), Danny’s older son. Everybody agreed with me that we should close the set for the family dinner and not exploit that. Most of them had four more days to shoot, but not me.”

The family dinners always take hours to film, and the final one was no different, but Selleck remembers thinking the end actually came too soon when they called “last shot.”

“I always wanted to say this poem, “Love Is Not All” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. There was crying and there was an enormous amount of hugs. Donnie was really broken up; he didn’t say much. Bridget spoke. Just about everybody said something. Vaness a [ Ray ] was pretty beat up by the experience.”

CBS announced the decision to cancel Blue Bloods in November 2023, but Selleck refused to accept the decision at that time. He kept hoping that the network would come to its senses and uncancel it the way they did S.W.A.T.

The final eight episodes of Blue Bloods premiere Friday, October 18 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Next, Everything to Know About the Reagan Family Return for the Second Half of Season 14 of Blue Bloods