‘Blue Bloods’ ‘expansion’ series sends Donnie Wahlberg’s character to Boston

Donnie Wahlberg will reprise his character Danny Reagan from “Blue Bloods” for a new series to be set in Boston, and which will launch on CBS during the 2025-26 season, the network announced Tuesday.

The new show is not being labeled a spinoff but rather an “expansion” of the “Blue Bloods” universe, according to the announcement. CBS said Wahlberg’s Reagan will take “a position with Boston PD [and] once in Boston, he is paired with detective Lena Peters, the eldest daughter of a prominent law enforcement family.”

No other cast announcements were made Tuesday. The network said the working title for now is “Boston Blue.”

In at least one obvious sense, this “expansion” sidesteps a challenge that “Blue Bloods” would have faced had CBS decided upon a spinoff. Because “Blue Bloods” is so specifically tied to New York City, and to the cast that had been part of it over those 14 seasons — Tom Selleck, above all — any spinoff would have probably had to embrace some combination of both. To simply move the series to another city wouldn’t have worked — according to this thinking — while adding only a few of the cast members without Selleck wouldn’t have either.

So CBS took the next logical step — bring back just one popular character, and move him to an entirely different town.

Of course, let the questions now begin: Why does Danny leave the force, and how do his other family members feel about that? Moreover, what happens to each of them? And will this true-blue New Yorker suddenly become (banish the thought) a Red Sox fan?

CBS handed the “expansion” story to Deadline as an exclusive that was published a few minutes before the network sent out its own release. Deadline reported that the producers, Brandon Sonnier and Brandon Margolis — neither associated with “Blue Bloods” — had pitched “CBS Studios and CBS a drama that follows a family of police officers in Boston whose eldest daughter is partnered with a new transfer from LAPD. The network ordered a script based on that pitch, sources said.”

“Given Boston native Wahlberg’s deep ties to the city, CBS and CBS Studios zeroed in on Danny Regan and approached the Boston Blue creative team about changing the LAPD transplant character to NYPD’s Danny,” according to the Deadline report. ” At the time, the network also ordered backup scripts while Wahlberg was approached about reprising his role.”