Blue Bloods is one of CBS's longest-running series, with 13 seasons having aired and Season 14 on the way. Fans have seen the Reagan family grow and change significantly through the years. As a family heavily involved in law enforcement, the Reagans experience more drama than the average household.
There's no doubt the show has fans invested, but there are aspects of earlier seasons of Blue Bloods that viewers miss. Whether it's characters who have been written out or elements of the show that made it different from other police procedurals, the later seasons have also changed in many ways. Audience members occasionally find themselves looking backward at these high points from previous Blue Bloods episodes.
In the early years of Blue Bloods, each Reagan got a fresh storyline every season. Now the series has pulled away from that idea and kept characters in the same place they were the season before or given the same storyline to a different character. This lack of originality has taken Blue Bloods from having one of the best police procedural arcs to feeling redundant.
In real life, families see their children grow up and move away, which causes them to miss family events. Blue Bloods has included this realistic element; the younger Reagans are now college-age and don't make it to every dinner.
However, fans miss seeing the entire family together, as it allowed them to discuss their lives and reminisce as a group.Early seasons of Blue Bloods included cases that highlighted New York City. Season 4 showed Maria Baez and Danny Reagan interviewing drag queens to get information about a victim. With New York City having a prominent drag scene, this felt like a case that also highlighted part of the city.
7 Jackie and Danny Being Partners
Since Blue Bloods Season 3, Maria Baez has been Danny's partner and Marisa Ramirez has done a wonderful job in the role.
However, this hasn't stopped fans from missing Jennifer Esposito's character Jackie Curatola, Danny's partner in seasons 1 and 2. Season 13 highlighted how missed Jackie was when she returned to ask Danny and Baez for help with an investigation.Blue Bloods' selling point is every character is focused on being a parent or puts their family first. Danny's defining characteristic was being a present father to his children. And after Linda's death in Season 7, Danny's dedication to his kids increased. But in later seasons, Danny's kids have become less of a focus in his life and the show -- even though part of that is their growing up.
Nicky is depicted as the black sheep of her family, with progressive social views and less conservative politics than her older family members. Now that she's attending college in California, Nicky doesn't appear on Blue Bloods as much. Fans miss her bringing relevant conversations to the dinner table and verbally sparring with her family, which was part of the first 10 seasons.
Blue Bloods fans are still heartbroken over Linda's death in Season 7. One of the few members of the family who wasn't involved in law enforcement, Linda connected with her in-laws but provided them with new perspectives.
Since her death, the Reagans don't have an outsider to function as a moderator or call them out for fighting over something that isn't affecting them, like the mishandling of a case none of them are working.Romances are part of many police procedurals, and Blue Bloods is no different. Since Season 5, fans watched Jamie and Eddie fall in love, leading to their marriage in Season 9. While they are still happily married, Jamie and Eddie's romance doesn't have the same tension or hook that it used to.
Blue Bloods was one of the few police procedurals to regularly employ recurring villains, giving the audience someone to learn about and hate. Yet the show hasn't had a memorable antagonist in several years. The last Big Bad appeared in Season 7, when a powerful cartel was after Danny and they were determined to be behinda Linda's death.
Tom Selleck has a long career with police procedurals dating back to the 1980s. Blue Bloods's early seasons included Selleck's character Frank Reagan jumping in on cases he felt passionate about. Frank helped investigate a cold case he had previously worked on during the first season. Many years later, the show has focused almost exclusively on his political role as police commissioner.
