Tom Selleck had a very specific demand for his Season 10 “Blue Bloods” contract, one that addressed a longtime frustration he had with the show’s renewal announcements.
The actor, who portrays New York City police commissioner Frank Reagan, wished for the show’s return to be spotlighted on its own, without the other network successes sharing the moment. “One of the things I said is I want a separate announcement. I’m sick of this,” he explained to Deadline. “We picked up six shows, and oh, yeah, ‘Blue Bloods’ is one of them from the network. I think we’ve earned our own announcement and we got that.”
The series did, in fact, get a solo renewal announcement when CBS renewed “Blue Bloods” for a 10th season in 2019, fulfilling the request Selleck had specifically pushed for.
Tom Selleck wasn’t happy with CBS’s timeline for Blue Bloods
That solo renewal announcement took a while to materialize, however, and the delay appeared to frustrate Tom Selleck ahead of the police procedural’s official Season 10 renewal. “We were in limbo for a long time,” he told Deadline. “CBS has a different timetable than I do on when the show should be picked up.”
Selleck’s proposed contract also added some insult to injury when it finally arrived. The actor revealed that he was not offered a typical two-year deal; instead, he signed on for only a year. He also admitted that he didn’t know why the network made that decision, though he took the irregularity in stride.
Ultimately, Selleck noted that he pretty much always planned to return despite the contractual and renewal delays, and the solo announcement made it that much sweeter. “Let me say that it’s not like you can get a new detective and bring him to the family dinner table. These people are related,” he explained. “So, as long as my fellow actors wanted to come back, and that was my only real criteria, I was coming back.”
