Is Blue Bloods new tonight? Why the Tom Selleck series takes breaks
Alas, that’s not happening this time around. After last week’s powerful, Danny-focused “Blues,” it seems as though CBS is fine to give Blue Bloods viewers a sense of the blues themselves. There’s no new episode until Friday, March 8, which is when the episode entitled “Past Tense” is coming on the air. There are new episodes scheduled for both March 8 and March 15, and then after that, we have the annual college basketball break so people like us can waste ridiculous amounts of time creating a terrible tournament bracket based on picking all of the cute animal mascots! Works every time if you want to lose!
Let’s transition now to a larger question: Why does Blue Bloods take breaks in the first place? From a viewer standpoint, we get it — it’s frustrating to go from a new episode to no new episode, then back to a couple of new episodes before another break. Yet, there are some tangible reasons for it — CBS isn’t trying to drive you insane, we promise.
1. Filming television is hard – That’s a really simple way of putting it, so let’s just say that it takes more than a week to film a new episode. If CBS aired a new Blue Bloods every week, production would have to start significantly sooner than when it does. This means that the writers’ room would have to open early, which means in turn that CBS would have to renew the show earlier (which of course we would all be thrilled about)… and with Blue Bloods, negotiate with the cast earlier. It’s just a logistical nightmare to change things from where they are right now. You gotta have breaks in episodes so that the cast and crew can keep up!
2. Scheduling issues get in the way – CBS isn’t even airing a repeat of Blue Bloods tonight — instead, they are airing two Hawaii Five-0 episodes back to back. There are more Hawaii Fivc-0 episodes airing per season than Blue Bloods, so this is bound to happen at some point. Also, CBS has deals with folks like the NCAA to air college basketball — even on the occasion it doesn’t draw big ratings, they are still contractually obligated to air the games.
In the end…
Yes, it’s annoying that Blue Bloods is off the air … but it’ll be back! One of the advantages of there being hiatuses in the schedule is that the show does stretch from September until May, which means in turn that we have a little less time in which the Reagans are not in our lives. It’s basically like a school schedule right now, where Danny, Jamie, and the rest of the family gets a summer vacation.
Are you missing Blue Bloods tonight, and what are your plans to do with the lost time? Share below! (Personally, we recommend getting one of those giant sandwiches from earlier this season and chowing down.) Maybe it’ll help to get you through it.
(Photo: CBS)