Blue Bloods, Old Fashioned for a Change

When you watch television online you have a fantastically wide selection.   You become a kind of connoisseur,

You see where changes occurred in how a show is presented in 2010 contra 1980 or 1959.  Not just the plot, not just the pace, not even just the intercuts.

Blue Bloods, a police procedural adopted what was once the ‘standard’ for ‘family viewing’ drama.

The father, ‘knows best’ and is as straight as the seams on his suit. His children are a bit ‘rebellious’ but don’t go beyond the ‘borders’ he has set. A grand parent is often included, slightly more off centred than the children.

In this show, the father is the Police Commissioner played by Tom Selleck. You have never seen a more straight laced constipated man in your viewing. He lives according to rules which are never broken, questioned or examined.

His eldest son, who died before the show began, was a police officer as he is, as his father was, (his father was also a Commissioner) who was murdered.

His eldest daughter is a prosecutor, not a cop. His next son is a police detective. His youngest child leaves law school when his brother died and joined the police force.  This son, ‘Jamey’  is exactly like his father; two dimensional and boring.

The elder son, played by Donnie Whalberg is a little unconventional, but married with two sons, to a nurse. He and his partner, a Latina, supply the most interesting conversations and ideas.

All sorts of events are brought into the show, many touching on headlines. The response of the Commissioner, is as square as possible. The reactions of  those beyond his purvey are often unprepared for.  He seems unable to grasp the fact that people don’t behave as he assumes they are supposed to.

Everyone in the show is so tightly wound, you expect them to explode.

Unlike the ease of modern crime dramas, where, for example, you’ll have an over active Goth Abby in NCIS or a ready to go off the deep end leader, as Steve, in Hawaii 50, everyone in Blue Bloods stays in their lane.

Blood Blues, despite being a crime show with many scenes is more relaxing than many because of the characters.

Yes, basically two dimensional, but in a time of six dimensions, it is kind of pleasant to wash up on the shore of Blue Bloods, pretty much knowing it will end with the whole family at Sunday dinner.