TV · in order

Blue Bloods & Boston Blue Watch Order

By the Bingerun team · How we choose the order →

Blue Bloods ran 14 seasons on CBS (2010-2024, 293 episodes, with the final season split into two halves), and Boston Blue follows Danny Reagan to the Boston PD from 2025. Everything aired in order, so this is really a starting-point question: you can begin at Boston Blue, and only four Blue Bloods season-units genuinely feed it.

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  1. Blue Bloods Season 1 2010

    22 episodes, 24 September 2010 to 13 May 2011. Establishes the Reagans, the NYPD hierarchy they occupy, and the Sunday family dinner that Boston Blue later rebuilds around the Silvers. Danny is a detective here with a wife, Linda, and two young sons, Jack and Sean.

  2. Blue Bloods Season 2 2011

    22 episodes, 23 September 2011 to 11 May 2012. Straight procedural expansion of the format; nothing in it is referenced by the spin-off, so it is safe to skip on a short path.

  3. Blue Bloods Season 3 2012

    23 episodes, 28 September 2012 to 10 May 2013, the longest season. Episode 17, Protest Too Much, is where Detective Maria Baez is first paired with Danny, the start of the partnership that outlives the show itself.

  4. Blue Bloods Season 4 2013

    22 episodes, 27 September 2013 to 9 May 2014. Marisa Ramirez moves into the main cast, locking Baez in as Danny's regular partner. Useful context, not required viewing.

  5. Blue Bloods Season 5 2014

    22 episodes, 26 September 2014 to 1 May 2015. Deep in the procedural middle, with the Danny and Baez partnership settled into its routine. Nothing here is required before Boston Blue.

  6. Blue Bloods Season 6 2015

    22 episodes, 25 September 2015 to 6 May 2016. No spin-off setup at all. If you are triaging, this is one of the clearest skips.

  7. Blue Bloods Season 7 2016

    22 episodes, 23 September 2016 to 5 May 2017. Amy Carlson's last season as Linda Reagan. She left when her contract ended and was not brought back to play a death scene, which is why the loss lands in the next season instead of this one.

  8. Blue Bloods Season 8 2017

    22 episodes, 29 September 2017 to 11 May 2018, and the load-bearing one. The premiere, Cutting Losses, opens months after Linda has died in an off-screen helicopter crash, and Danny is a widower from here on. This is the piece of backstory Boston Blue leans on hardest.

  9. Blue Bloods Season 9 2018

    22 episodes, 28 September 2018 to 10 May 2019. A steady year of cases with no consequences that reach the spin-off.

  10. Blue Bloods Season 10 2019

    19 episodes, 27 September 2019 to 1 May 2020. The finale, Family Secrets, introduces Joe Hill, the son Danny's late brother Joe never knew he had, uncovered when Sean runs a match on a DNA site. Worth one hour if you want to know who Joe is when he turns up in the Boston Blue finale.

  11. Blue Bloods Season 11 2020

    16 episodes, 4 December 2020 to 14 May 2021: the shortest season and the only one to start in December, cut back from 22 by pandemic production limits. The premiere, Triumph Over Trauma, locks Danny and Baez in a serial killer's cellar and is the episode fans point to as the turn from partners toward something more; it is also Baez's first Reagan family dinner.

  12. Blue Bloods Season 12 2021

    20 episodes, 1 October 2021 to 6 May 2022. Baez adopts a baby girl in the finale and Danny promises to be there for her, which matters only if you are following the Danny and Baez thread into the spin-off.

  13. Blue Bloods Season 13 2022

    21 episodes, 7 October 2022 to 19 May 2023. The last full-length season, and the show's final ordinary year before the split farewell run.

  14. Blue Bloods Season 14, Part 1 2024

    10 episodes, 16 February to 17 May 2024, ending on The Heart of a Saturday Night. This is one season aired in two halves, not two seasons, which is why episode counts disagree between listings. Nothing concludes here; the farewell is in part 2.

  15. Blue Bloods Season 14, Part 2 2024

    8 episodes, 18 October to 13 December 2024, closing with the series finale End of Tour. The single most useful Blue Bloods hour for spin-off viewers: Henry tells Danny to stop being alone, and Danny asks Baez out for pizza. Boston Blue's premiere picks that up directly. What it does not do is send Danny to Boston, because CBS did not order the spin-off until 18 February 2025, two months after the finale aired.

  16. SpinoffBoston Blue Season 1 2025

    20 episodes, 17 October 2025 to 22 May 2026 on CBS, in the Friday 10pm slot Blue Bloods held for 14 years. Written as a jump-on point: Danny follows his son Sean, now a Boston rookie cop, after Sean is hurt in a suspicious fire, joins the BPD and is partnered with Detective Lena Silver, whose mother is the Suffolk County DA and whose stepsister runs detectives. Baez appears in the premiere, episodes 6 and 15, and the finale; Erin in the premiere and episode 17; Henry in episode 13; Joe Hill in the finale, Patrol, which ends on a cliffhanger.

  17. SpinoffBoston Blue Season 2 2026

    Premieres Friday, October 9, 2026 at 10/9c on CBS, streaming next day on Paramount+; renewed on 3 December 2025, weeks after the season 1 premiere. Episode count not announced. Will Estes joins the cast as Jamie Reagan and Marisa Ramirez returns as Baez; Tom Selleck's Frank Reagan has still never appeared.

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Why this order?

Yes, you can start at Boston Blue. That is the honest answer and it belongs first, because the alternative is 293 episodes of homework. Blue Bloods and its spin-off aired strictly one after the other, so there is no clever chronological alternative to publish here and nothing to untangle. The only real question is how much of the parent show you owe before the new one, and the answer is that none of it is required and only four of the fifteen Blue Bloods season-units actually feed the spin-off.

The reason so little is required is what Blue Bloods is. It is a case-of-the-week procedural first and a family drama second: 293 episodes across 14 seasons, September 2010 to December 2024, most of them self-contained cases bookended by the Reagan family's Sunday dinner. Serialization is deliberately thin. You can drop into season 6 or season 12 cold and lose almost nothing, which is exactly why you can drop into Boston Blue cold and lose almost nothing either. The spin-off restates what it needs: Danny Reagan is a former NYPD detective who has followed his son to Boston, joined the BPD, and been partnered with Detective Lena Silver, whose family runs that city's police and prosecutors much as the Reagans ran New York's.

Four things do carry over, and they are specific. First, the handoff. The Blue Bloods series finale, End of Tour, aired 13 December 2024 and ends with Henry pushing Danny to stop being alone and Danny finally asking his partner Maria Baez out for pizza. Boston Blue's premiere pays that off in its opening scene, with Danny waking up at Baez's place in New York before the call about Sean sends him to Boston. If you watch exactly one hour of Blue Bloods first, watch that one. Second, Danny is a widower. His wife Linda died in an off-screen helicopter crash, revealed in the season 8 premiere Cutting Losses on 29 September 2017, after Amy Carlson left at the end of season 7 and never got a death scene. Third, the Danny and Baez slow burn, which begins when she is first paired with him in season 3 episode 17 and turns in the season 11 premiere Triumph Over Trauma, where the two are trapped in a serial killer's cellar and Baez ends the hour at her first Reagan Sunday dinner. Fourth, the dinner. The Reagan Sunday table is the parent show's entire structure, and Boston Blue mirrors it with the Silvers, whose gathering in the pilot is a Shabbat dinner. Skip Blue Bloods completely and that echo is the main thing you lose.

What is not load-bearing is most of the rest of it. Frank Reagan's police-commissioner storyline, the spine of Blue Bloods for 14 years, simply does not continue: Tom Selleck has not appeared in Boston Blue at all, and told Hour Detroit in November 2025 that he does not think it is his lot in life to keep playing Frank Reagan. Erin's district-attorney cases and Jamie's patrol career do not continue either. The Reagans who do turn up are visitors: Bridget Moynahan's Erin in the premiere and again in episode 17 (she also directed episode 8), Len Cariou's Henry in episode 13, Will Hochman's Joe Hill in the finale, and Will Estes joining as Jamie in season 2. Only Joe Hill rewards homework, and only one hour of it: he is the son Danny's late brother Joe never knew he had, surfaced in the season 10 finale Family Secrets when Sean runs a DNA-matching site.

Two counting traps before you start. Season 14 is one season aired in halves, not two seasons: 10 episodes from 16 February to 17 May 2024, then 8 more from 18 October to 13 December 2024. Anything labelling the back half a fifteenth season is wrong. And Sean Reagan is recast. Andrew Terraciano played him on Blue Bloods for 14 years; Mika Amonsen plays him in Boston Blue, where Sean is now a Boston rookie cop, and the producers say the change was creative rather than contractual. If the face looks wrong, that is why. Boston Blue season 2 premieres Friday 9 October 2026 at 10/9c on CBS and picks up a season 1 cliffhanger, so season 1 is the part you actually need before then, not the 14 seasons behind it.

Timeline 2010-2026

Every entry by release year: rows that share a year are a cluster, and the long droughts are called out on the rail.

  1. 2010 1
  2. 2011 2
  3. 2012 3
  4. 2013 4
  5. 2014 5
  6. 2015 6
  7. 2016 7
  8. 2017 8
  9. 2018 9
  10. 2019 10
  11. 2020 11
  12. 2021 12
  13. 2022 13
  14. 2024 14, Part 114, Part 2
  15. 2025 Boston Blue Season 1
  16. 2026 Boston Blue Season 2

Where to play it today

  • US: all 14 seasons of Blue Bloods stream on Paramount+, and Boston Blue airs Fridays on CBS with episodes on Paramount+ the next day
  • Individual Blue Bloods seasons also rotate through Prime Video, Philo and YouTube TV, and a rotating season is free with ads on Pluto TV
  • Outside the US both shows are licensed regionally and availability shifts; check JustWatch for your country

Availability changes often and varies by region - links search each platform for Blue Bloods.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to watch Blue Bloods before Boston Blue?

No. Boston Blue is written as an entry point and re-establishes Danny Reagan on screen. Blue Bloods is a case-of-the-week procedural with thin serialization, so almost nothing from its 293 episodes is required. The one hour that genuinely pays off is the series finale, End of Tour, which sets up Danny and Baez as a couple before the spin-off opens with them together.

Where should I start with Blue Bloods?

If you want the whole show, start at season 1 (24 September 2010) and go in order; release order and story order are identical. If you only want what feeds Boston Blue, four stops cover it: season 1 for the family and the Sunday dinner, season 8 for Linda's death, season 11 for the Danny and Baez turn, and season 14 part 2 for the finale.

How many seasons and episodes of Blue Bloods are there?

14 seasons and 293 episodes, aired on CBS from 24 September 2010 to 13 December 2024. Season 14 was split into two halves, 10 episodes in spring 2024 and 8 in autumn 2024, which is why some listings miscount it as two seasons.

When does Boston Blue season 2 premiere?

Friday 9 October 2026 at 10/9c on CBS, with episodes streaming on Paramount+ the following day. CBS renewed the show on 3 December 2025. The episode count has not been announced; season 1 was ordered as 20.

Which Blue Bloods characters appear in Boston Blue?

Donnie Wahlberg's Danny Reagan is the lead and Mika Amonsen plays his son Sean. Marisa Ramirez's Maria Baez recurs (the premiere, episodes 6 and 15, and the finale), Bridget Moynahan's Erin appears in the premiere and episode 17, Len Cariou's Henry in episode 13, Will Hochman's Joe Hill in the finale, and Will Estes joins as Jamie Reagan in season 2.

Is Tom Selleck in Boston Blue?

No. Frank Reagan has not appeared in the spin-off, and Selleck told Hour Detroit in November 2025 that he does not think it is his lot in life to keep playing the character. The producers have said they would welcome him, so this could change, but nothing in the show so far depends on it.

Why does Sean Reagan look different in Boston Blue?

He was recast. Andrew Terraciano played Sean across all 14 seasons of Blue Bloods; Mika Amonsen took over for the spin-off, where Sean is a Boston rookie cop. The showrunners have said the change was creative, to match a new chapter for the character, not a contract dispute.

Does the Blue Bloods finale set up Boston Blue?

Only halfway. End of Tour (13 December 2024) sets up Danny and Baez, which the spin-off pays off, but it does not send Danny to Boston: CBS did not order Boston Blue until 18 February 2025. The move happens off screen, and the spin-off's pilot explains it in its first minutes.

Where can I stream Blue Bloods and Boston Blue?

In the US, all 14 seasons of Blue Bloods are on Paramount+, with individual seasons rotating through Prime Video, Philo, YouTube TV and free-with-ads on Pluto TV. Boston Blue airs on CBS and streams on Paramount+ the next day.

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Last verified · Sources: en.wikipedia.org, deadline.com, tvline.com, tvinsider.com, hourdetroit.com, cbr.com, yahoo.com, api.tvmaze.com, justwatch.com

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