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Fall TV: Friday’s returns and premieres
“Blue Bloods,” 9 p.m. CBS
Tom Selleck (and his thick, lustrous mustache) return to series television tonight in “Blue Bloods,” the new family cop drama from CBS. The actor, whose last recurring series role (besides the Jesse Stone TV movies) was in the short-lived 2007-2008 “Las Vegas,” was burned out on series television, he told critics at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour. He left his iconic “Magnum, P.I.” role, he said, because he was in every shot. “I kind of left it after eight years because I was tired from it, not tired of it,” he said.
So it makes sense that he was drawn to “Blue Bloods,” an ensemble show about a family of New York police officers.
Producer Mitchell Burgess, seeing a pop culture landscape awash with anti-heroes, wanted to “discover a hero and write that,” he said. “Every character you almost see on TV right now, they’re dark, they have this problem.”
It’s unclear from the pilot into which camp Selleck’s patriarchal character, Chief Frank Reagan, falls. His loose-cannon-detective son Danny, well played by Donnie Wahlberg, becomes suspicious of his father’s professional past. Unfortunately, the show’s compelling conspiratorial element feels tacked-on and may come too late in the pilot to hook viewers.
Creators insist that this show is as much family as it is cops and lawyers. Accordingly, a lot of emphasis is placed on family here as the various, intertwining plots — including Wahlberg’s toilet water boarding of a sleazy suspect — come under scrutiny during Sunday meal discussion.
That’s the kind of thing your family talks about at the dining room table, right?
Also premiering tonight (new shows are indicated by an asterisk):
7 p.m.
Medium, CBS
Smallville, The CW
*School Pride, NBC
8 p.m.
CSI: NY, CBS
Supernatural, The CW
The Good Guys, Fox
Dateline NBC, NBC
9 p.m.
20/20, ABC
*Outlaw (regular night and time), NBC
Find more details on these shows in our Fall preview by clicking here.
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