Season ends for the dependable ‘Blue Bloods’
There isn’t much fancy about “Blue Bloods” (10 p.m., CBS, TV-14), ending its seventh season tonight. It’s as dependable as meatloaf. And that’s why so many people like it and why it sticks around.
At a time of “peak TV,” when critically acclaimed series like “Fargo” challenge and reward viewers with a rich diet of novelistic plotlines and daring narrative experiments, “Blue Bloods” offers a comforting, if predictable, buffet of procedural action, courtroom strategy and city-hall politics that concludes each week with a nice little family meal where several generations of Reagans discuss their ideas.
The key ingredient of this meat-and-potatoes drama is Tom Selleck as Police Commissioner Frank Reagan. He projects the same slightly grumpy taciturnity as his long-running TV movie detective Jesse Stone. He spits out words as if they cost $100 a piece. Whether he’s talking to the mayor, his children or, as in last week’s episode, a savvy archbishop (Stacy Keach), he keeps things to a minimum. In lesser hands, this Pinter play dialogue could seem a tad affected. But Tom Selleck knows we’ll follow him anywhere. And most of the action belongs to Donnie Wahlberg (as Danny Reagan) anyway.
“Blue Bloods” hints at topicality but never comes down too heavily on one side. Last week’s episode abounded with crimes involving immigrants and squabbles about sanctuary cities, but as the show wrapped up with its “Last Supper” scene, the Reagan family recalled how they were not terribly far removed from immigrant status and that some of their Irish relatives who never emigrated were probably considered “terrorists” by the British after the Easter Uprising of 1916. History lesson concluded, the clan raises a glass or two to a land that welcomes the tempest-tossed.
“Blue Bloods” will return for an eighth season.
MISSION TO MARS
Streaming today on Netflix, the 2017 documentary “The Mars Generation” (TV-PG) follows self-professed “space nerds” at space camp as they undergo simulations for a possible trip to the Red Planet. Footage of these enthusiastic teens is mixed with documentary history lessons about America’s space program and observations from astronomy buffs and scientists including Neil de Grasse Tyson and Bill Nye.
Time spent with teenagers who aren’t your own is always a bit of a challenge, so the film’s 97-minute running time may seem like an endurance test for some. Not as lengthy as a trip to Mars, but …
VIOLENT VISIONS
Also on Netflix today, the long-awaited second season of “Sense 8” (TV-MA) from Lana and Lilly Wachowski and J. Michael Straczynski. The show follows eight strangers who each experience a violent vision that links them all, both mentally and emotionally.
TONIGHT’S HIGHLIGHTS
› A couple appears to be fluent in the language of love on “First Dates” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).
› Barbra Streisand, who turned 75 on April 24, stars in the 1970 comedy “The Owl and the Pussycat” (8 p.m., This TV), followed by the 1996 comedy “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (10 p.m.).
› A new twist on the belt buckle on “Shark Tank” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
› “Latin Music USA” (10 p.m., PBS, repeat, TV-PG) surveys the music of Mexican-Americans in California, Texas and the Southwest. › A “Daily Show” veteran gets his own culinary-themed comedy special in “Al Madrigal: Shrimpin’ Ain’t Easy” (9 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).
› A Realtor becomes an “Undercover Boss” (8 p.m., CBS, TV-PG).
› A guitarist’s murder strikes a chord on “Lucifer” (8 p.m., Fox, repeat, TV-14).
› Dolls with wigs are put to the test on “The Toy Box” (8 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).
› A new threat on “The Originals” (8 p.m., CW, TV-14).
› A threat to Oahu on “Hawaii Five-0” (9 p.m., CBS, TV-14).
› “Dateline” (9 p.m., NBC).
› A car crash points to a plot on “Lethal Weapon” (9 p.m., Fox, repeat, TV-14).
› Mary launches a coup against Elizabeth on “Reign” (9 p.m., CW, TV-14).
› “20/20” (10 p.m., ABC).
› The gimmicky, and not a little
creepy, Fox reality series “You the Jury” has been canceled after two episodes.
Contact Kevin McDonough at kevin.tvguy@gmail.com.