'Blue Bloods' feasts on family bonds

CBS'Blue Bloodsairing tonight (10 ET/PT)

NEW YORK ? It's dinner time for the Reagan clan, and the extended family of CBS' Blue Bloods is crammed around the table, sharing the news that their parish priest has been sent off to Bolivia after allegations of sexual advances, in an episode airing tonight (10 ET/PT).

It's the only time the show's entire main cast, led by Tom Selleck, Donnie Wahlberg, Will Estes and Bridget Moynahan, comes together in its Brooklyn studio.

"Luckily we don't have to eat anything crazy like cheesecake or Chinese food," says Moynahan (who plays daughter Erin, an assistant DA) of Bloods' signature scene, which caps every episode and gives writers a chance to show the family debating the issues raised by the cases.

"I think the audience responds to these things more than any part of the show, really. It's a place where you get everybody's point of view."

It could be the tight-knit family, or Selleck's star appeal, or the unusual blending of a family drama with a sturdy police procedural, but Bloods is this season's most-watched new series. It chugs away on Friday nights, with an average of 12.4 million viewers, and is considered a lock for a second season.

The show was conceived by veteran producer Leonard Goldberg (Charlie's Angels); married Sopranos writers Robin Green and Mitchell Burgess created the show and oversee its writing staff.

Both were attracted to switching from mobster anti-heroes to a family of NYPD heroes, and took inspiration from the Kennedys and The Godfather. "There were elements of those two iconic American families that were part of our thinking," Green says. "Writing's stealing, right?"

Bloods connects its cases to the multi-generational family, led by police commissioner Frank (Selleck), a stoic police commissioner who's sometimes at odds with a mayor who appointed him when his last pick didn't work out.

"He was a way of getting the mayor off the hook for choosing a corrupt man," Selleck says of his character. "His biggest flaw is he cares too much; he has a hyperactive sense of responsibility."

His dad Henry (Len Cariou), a retired commissioner, is a grandfatherly fixture at those dinners, even though Cariou, 71, is actually just five years older than Selleck. Erin (Moynahan), a divorced single mom, is the by-the-book legal compass. But Danny, a hotheaded cop, is an Iraq War vet who "may bend the rules because he knows he's going to get away with it more," Wahlberg says.

"He's going to do what's right to get the job done," even if that means agreeing to testify against a drug lord, which led to the kidnapping of his wife, Linda (Amy Carlson), in last week's episode. (Linda's troubles aren't over: Tonight, her fashion-model niece is poisoned during a runway show.)

And there's Jamie, a Harvard law grad who couldn't resist the family business and became a beat cop after another brother, Joe, was killed in the line of duty. "He's a smart cop, he's got empathy for people," Estes says. But despite his Ivy League pedigree, "there's no replacement for experience. His learning curve is the school of hard knocks just the same."

Now Jamie is part of Blue Templar, a covert squad investigating Joe's death. That's the focus of this season's final three episodes, starting April 29. "The death of the son has impacted this family hugely," Green says, "so the last episode emotionally is about putting Joe to rest."

The pilot was filmed mostly in Toronto, but Selleck and Goldberg insisted the show be shot in New York, where Bloods inherited the Big Apple cop beat from the original Law & Order. Cast and crew travel frequently to tap the city's culture, filming in Chinatown, the Russian neighborhood of Brighton Beach and elsewhere.

But those dinner scenes, which can take hours to film, bring the Reagans home. "I grew up doing big dinners, and to me, looking across at Bridget is just like looking across at my sister," Wahlberg says. "I love my sister more than anyone on the face of the earth, but we fight like cats and dogs."

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