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Before it wrapped last year, Blue Bloods star Donnie Wahlberg didn't want his time on the popular cop drama to end.
Over the course of 14 seasons, Wahlberg, 56, played NYPD detective Danny Reagan on the series that followed multiple generations of a family working in law enforcement.
Despite good ratings during its Friday night timeslot, CBS pulled the plug on the Tom Selleck-led cop drama. Finances, COVID, and a prolonged actors and writers strike all played a part in hastening its end.
Speaking to Postmedia on a recent Monday morning, Wahlberg says he tried everything to keep the show on the air. He even says he would have worked for free.
But he admits that he always teased the writers on that long-running New York City-based procedural that if it were ever to come to a close, he had some ideas of what should happen to Danny.
"When we were still filming Blue Bloods, I would throw it around to some of the writers. 'If Blue Bloods ever ends, Danny as a fish-out-of-water would be great.' Of course, I was thinking, like Texas or Vegas or L.A., somewhere warm," says the actor and New Kids on the Block member.
After CBS cancelled Blue Bloods last year following a 14-season run, Wahlberg got his wish when producers called him up and offered him a chance to revive Danny in his own spinoff set in his hometown of Boston.
New partner, new city
"Danny being a fish-out-of-water was always something I thought could work," Wahlberg says. "But I never thought Boston."
In Boston Blue, which debuts Friday on CBS and CTV, Danny heads to Beantown after his rookie cop son Sean (played by Mika Amonsen) is injured while investigating an arson/murder case. While there, Danny partners up with local detective Lena Silver (Sonequa Martin-Green), who also hails from a prominent law enforcement family, to investigate the crime.
The premiere episode sets the stage for Danny's permanent move to Boston, leaving behind the rest of the Reagan clan and his NYPD family.
After failing to get CBS to reverse its decision to cancel Blue Bloods (Wahlberg and his castmates "fought tooth-and-nail" to keep the show in its original incarnation on the air), the new series adds an additional chapter to Danny's story and opens the door to other potential spinoffs.
Showrunners Brandon Sonnier and Brandon Margolis (The Blacklist) have kept the procedural element of Blue Bloods intact in this new incarnation — Danny and Lena are charged with solving a new crime every week. The Sunday dinners that were a hallmark of the earlier show are also reimagined with Danny sharing meals with the interracial, multifaith Silver family.
Martin-Green, who previously appeared on Star Trek: Discovery and The Walking Dead, said she's thrilled she gets to be a part of another legacy TV franchise.
"That faith, family and tradition of Blue Bloods is indicative of Boston Blue and also us behind the scenes as well," the 40-year-old actress says. "I feel like we have all those elements of Blue Bloods that made it special, but it is its own thing as well."
Wahlberg credited Martin-Green's character with helping shape Boston Blue.
"Although they have different backgrounds, different faiths and a lot of other different things, Danny kind of sees himself in her and she sees herself in him as well," Wahlberg says.
The cast also includes Ernie Hudson as the patriarch of the Silvers. Bridget Moynahan returns for a cameo in the pilot when Danny's Blue Bloods sister comes to visit him in Boston.
In the second episode Danny goes to Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox, to cheer on the Mets. With the Toronto Blue Jays in the midst of a playoff run, Wahlberg says even though Danny is from New York, he wouldn't allow the character to cheer for the Yankees.
Toronto's postseason success, Wahlberg adds, "is good for baseball."
Keeping the Reagans' story alive
One fifth of the musical group New Kids on the Block, Wahlberg shifted to acting with roles in The Sixth Sense and Boomtown following NKOTB's disbandment in 1994.
With the New Kids back — they just completed a new run of shows in Las Vegas and will return to Sin City later this year — the father-of-two has successfully juggled his life on the screen and the stage for more than a decade.
But Danny Reagan and Blue Bloods have been one of his most important artistic achievements, so he's happy to be able to extend the story as long as audiences remain interested.
"This show wasn't an either or. It wasn't like they asked if I wanted to keep doing Blue Bloods or do this. Blue Bloods had run its course and it was in a last-ditch effort to get Blue Bloods back on the air that I discovered the possibility of this show," he says. "I had to see this show for what it was. It wasn't the end of Blue Bloods; it was the only path to keeping it alive. To keep those traditions alive, to keep family, faith and tradition on television. To keep the Reagans' storyline alive, but in a new world."
Wahlberg knows fans miss Blue Bloods, but he hopes that they'll be reminded of what they loved about that show when they watch Boston Blue.
"The fans of Blue Bloods miss Blue Bloods, but I also know that people miss family, faith and tradition on television already," he says. "People related to the Reagans and I think they can relate to this family, the Silvers, as well. This family has the same three tenets: faith, family and tradition. And they've got law enforcement in their DNA."
Boston Blue airs Fridays on CBS and CTV.
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