Curious World Staff
When “Blue Bloods” premiered on CBS in 2010, it already piqued viewers’ interest with its stellar cast, which included popular mustachioed actor Tom Selleck. And its premise was virtually unheard of, especially in the tried-and-true world of procedural cr1me dramas. Sure, the show would revolve around catching cr1minals and solving cr1mes. But at its heart was a story about a multigenerational family who also happened to work in the New York legal system. The creators of “Blue Bloods,” Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green, were perhaps the most surprising aspect of the show’s debut.
Burgess and Green had spent years writing about another family on the other side of the law before creating scenes of heated debates at those traditional Sunday dinners. They both worked as writers on HBO’s “The Sopranos,” penning numerous episodes up until the show’s final sixth season.
Switching from the mob to the NYPD appears to be an odd transition, as the Reagan family is portrayed as morally ambiguous in comparison to the great James Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano. However, the duo stated that after years of portraying darker characters, they were more than ready to explore heroic ones.
During a TCA Panel in 2010, Green said, “We did the anti-hero for all those years, it was wonderful, it’s an old tradition…but every great character you see on TV right now is dark, they have a problem, we were very interested, as a curative after ‘the Sopranos,’ to find out what a hero is.” Green was correct about TV’s obsession with charming anti-heroes at the time. Some of the top shows were centered on “Blue Bloods” at the time of its debut.
The era of top TV anti-heroes continued in 2010.
“The Sopranos” has consistently and rightly received praise and analysis for its portrayal of a leading anti-hero character. Its depiction of the flawed but complex Tony Soprano set a precedent for other protagonists to follow. Without Tony Soprano, it’s unlikely that we’d have seen the rise of fantastic characters like Don Draper in “Mad Men” or Walter White in “Breaking Bad.”
By 2010, Don and Walter were still at the top of the list of compelling anti-hero characters. They were also establishing their shows as some of the best of the previous decade. With that said, it’s understandable why Mitchell Burgess and Robin Green wanted to do something different than the landscape of television at the time. After all, their work on “The Sopranos” helped to establish the TV bad boy blueprint.
Burgess stated in the same 2010 Deadline article, “We were very conscious that we wanted to rediscover the hero and write that, we did the other thing, and now we want to do this.” With 13 seasons of “Blue Bloods” to their credit, Burgess and Green appear to have made the right decision. However, after creating the show, they were unable to stay with it for long. After only one season, the two creators of “Blue Bloods” were fired. Nothing, however, can change the fact that they are the reason the show exists.
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