Q&A

Q: Tom Selleck has a reputation for being precise about the weapons he uses in his roles. So why is "Blue Bloods" so full of discrepancies? Why does Frank wear a heavy sweater at the lunch table when the women have on summer tops? Why is Danny the only Re

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Author: 
Adam Thomlison / TV Media

"Blue Bloods" is a hugely popular and successful show -- now going into its 10th season on CBS -- but it's hard to deny you have a point.

Indeed, you're not saying anything critics haven't been saying all along. Way back in the show's very first season, Britain's the Guardian newspaper criticized the show for, essentially, being lazy, and jokingly offered an eight-step guide to writing a "Blue Bloods" script.

To your first point, Step 5 is "insert random and wholly unavoidable error." The article points to similar clothing inconsistencies (and, because the Guardian is British, it also points to a mistake in how the characters played cricket in one episode).

More recently, the New York Post weighed in on the accent question, including Amy Carlson and Donnie Wahlberg (Linda and Danny on the show) on its list of "terrible TV accents that'll have you reaching for the earplugs." They even called in professional dialect coach Patricia Fletcher to help make fun of Carlson and Wahlberg, but it backfired, in a way -- Fletcher went easy on them but said, "If we want to complain about the New York dialects, we really should be critiquing co-stars Tom Selleck [who plays Frank on the show] and Len Cariou [Henry]."

But you asked why these things are happening, and there's a pretty short answer to that: It doesn't seem to matter. Any criticism you want to level at this show can be refuted with two simple words: "Season 10."

People love this show, and so CBS loves this show and keeps renewing it, and so the costumers, writers and actors will keep doing the same job they're doing. Why wouldn't they?

As for Selleck's previous attention to detail regarding firearms, there's another simple answer: Guns aren't accents and they aren't sweaters. It seems that Selleck's careful attention to guns had more to do with his being a firearm aficionado -- he's a former (and maybe current) member of the National Rifle Association and donated a number of his old movie guns to the National Firearms Museum in Virginia.

 

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