It was somehow apropos that CBS premiered not one but two new scripted procedurals on Friday night that not only was part of the premiere week they had promoted for almost six months straight but also in the same week when open enrollment on Medicare began. The numbers don’t lie–an overwhelming amount of those who were likely to care about one of those subecjts were the ones most likely to care about the other.
And while they were technically premieres, they were both spin-offs of shows that have occupied Friday night in essentially a unique way for several years. Their competition has essentially given up on trying to battle them for attention; FOX has turned the night exclusively over to sports and both NBC and ABC are exclusively airing unscripted competition and newsmagazines. That’s despite the fact that since such measurement became available the deltas for delayed viewing of shows that premieres at the outset of a weekend are typically among the highest in the linear TV space. And since older viewers tend to be more creatures of habit than most, doing everything you can to keep things on a continuum while at least going through the motions of introducing novelty might not be exciting, but it’s sound business strategy.
So I wasn’t expecting all that much from either SHERIFF COUNTRY, a spin-off of one of the few truly new and successful series introduced in recent memory, FIRE COUNTRY, nor BOSTON BLUE, a self-described expansion of the world of BLUE BLOODS, which successfully ruled the 10-11 PM hour going back to its 2010 premiere straight through last fall , creating a robust library of 293 eminently repetable shows that have provided CBS’ various entities with multiple returns on investment both within its own ecosystem (via Paramount Plus) and to clients both in and out of house.
But I was a lil’ surprised at how bold a poltlinethe former chose to open up with–a point US WEEKLY’s Yana Grebenyuk was coerced into amplifying in her preview:
During the Friday, October 17, episode of the CBS series, Mickey (Morena Baccarin) is concerned when daughter Skye (Amanda Arcuri) continues to spend time with her boyfriend, who was previously addicted to drugs and was caught with pills. Skye claimed she would put distance between them but instead she returned home bloody after walking in on Brandon’s dead body at his apartment. As the sheriff of Edgewater, Mickey took Skye to the station to process her despite the possible town assumption that Skye was involved in Brandon’s murder.
Yep, those nouns should be familiar to anyone who’s watched the network on a recent Friday night, as THE DAILY BEAST’s Megan Vick confirmed:
Mickey Fox (Morena Baccarin), the estranged step-sister of fire chief Sharon Leone (Diane Farr), is taking center stage in Sheriff Country as Edgewater’s interim sheriff after her predecessor was arrested for being a dirty cop. Mickey has already made two appearances on Fire Country, establishing her connection to the Leones and endearing fans to follow her on her own adventures. [Executive producers] Tony Phelan and Joan Rater have created such a likable, complicated, and interesting character. She’s somebody I want to be friends with,”… “I’m also a little bit afraid of her. She’s got a sense of humor. She drinks beer. She’s surrounded by male deputies and mostly male policemen, and she’s able to hold her own.”
Any world where women in charge are as self-reliant and attractive as Baccarin and Farr is a world I’ll sign up for, and the fact they usually come out ahead in the end makes the experience all the more satisfying for a female-skewing core audience. So if there’s a little experimentation with the usual cadence and storylines one would typically get from, say, the NCIS and FBI-verses, so much the better. Besides, while FIRE COUNTRY is an established hit, it’s not yet firmly entrenched enough to have much at risk if it does happen to stray from its roots.
The same can’t be said for the latter, which has the uneviable task of living up to the pedigree and legacy of its readily available progenitor and without the regular appeal of Tom Selleck to prop it up. VARIETY’s Emily Longeretta, along with ample spoiler alert, set up how BOSTON BLUE is seeking to bring back its faithful:
When “Blue Bloods” came to an end last year after 14 seasons, there were multiple questions viewers still had about what happened to the Reagan clan. Luckily, with spinoff “Boston Blue,” led by Donnie Wahlberg’s Dannie (sic) Reagan, they got one big answer in the first moments of the Oct. 17 premiere. In the finale, Danny finally asked his longtime partner, Maria Baez (Marisa Ramirez) to get pizza. And in the first minutes of the premiere, he was shown in bed with Baez; their banter returned, this time with a romantic twist.
In the premiere, Danny pairs up with Detective Lena Silver (Sonequa Martin-Green), the eldest daughter of a prominent law enforcement family — something he knows a thing or two about — in Boston. He’s taking on a new role with the Boston Police Department in order to stay close to his son, Sean (Mika Amonsen), after he suffers an injury while on the job as a police officer. The show will have a similar tone to “Blue Bloods” and will likely include more familiar faces. Bridget Moynahan’s Erin Raegan (sic) appeared in the premiere, arriving in Boston to make sure Danny was okay, which seems to be just the start.
Don’t be alarmed that you may not recognize Amonsen’s name; he’s a newbie taking over a role originated by Andrew Terraciano. And it’s actually a more subtle shift than another pivot from the OG’s signature structure that actually got my eyebrows raised rather high:
“We will have Shabbat dinner every episode. We hope to honor the original show and their Sunday dinners were so much a fabric of what that show was about, what that family was about,” says (c0-showrunner Brandon) Sonnier. “One of the things Donnie would always tell us about was how many real-life law enforcement people he would meet over the course of working on ‘Blue Bloods’ would express how much they appreciated that the Reagan family reminded them of their family. They would sit down and they would have dinner. This is an organic way to continue that universe. It’s something we do. I sit down to dinner as often as possible with my family. I have four young children. Everyone’s got baseball and dance and all the things that people have. But as often as we can, we sit down and we do celebrate Shabbat, so Friday is our time that we get to connect as a family.”
Seeing a former New Kid on the Block who’s established himself as an Irish-Catholic cop and a hamburger entrepreneur scarfing down a hunk of challah may be seen by some as progress, such as it is. But I have a stronger hunch that those who otherwise were used to Selleck and Len Cariou’s paternal instincts and impeccable taste in non-Kosher cuisine might not be as invested, nor will those who are otherwise coming to CBS for a two-hour dose of a world set in what the rest of us lovingly call the Golden Triangle, where the cooking tends to be infused with shake rather than schmaltz.
Far more significantly, the Boston-based cast that was introduced is nowhere near as talented as the heavyweight-laden group that populated BLUE BLOODS’,–where Wahlberg was a more than capable second banana than having to carry the entire load on his own. We didn’t even get much of a chance to see how Amonsen compares in his intrepretation of Sean since he spends much of the opener lying near-comatose in a hospital bed.
I expect at some point we will, if for no other reason than Sonnier knows where from what side his bread–not necessarily his challah–is buttered. I’ll hope that there’s enough less persnickety devotees that will stick around while knowing that there are 293 more familiar alternatives readily available to them with the cast and cuisine they have come to love.
Assuming, of course, their grandchildren can help them navigate the smart TVs they got for Christmas to get them the chance to do it.
Until next time…