'Boston Blue' review: 'Blue Bloods' spinoff pounds a familiar beat

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Det. Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg) gets a call in the middle of the night telling him his son, Sean (Mika Amonsen) — now a rookie with the Boston Police Department — has been injured in an arson fire. (Amonsen replaces Andrew Terraciano from "Blue Bloods.") Danny heads up to Boston and, while Sean recovers, helps Det. Lena Silver (Sonequa Martin-Green) with the investigation. Her kid brother, Jonah (Marcus Scribner), is Sean's best friend and partner, while her sister, Sarah (Maggie Lawson), is police superintendent. The Silvers are also racially mixed — Lena's mother, Mae (Gloria Reuben), the Black Boston D.A., had married a former judge, who was white and Jewish (she converted to Judaism before his death years earlier), while family patriarch, Rev. Edwin Peters (Ernie Hudson), is a celebrated Baptist minister. Saturday dinners — or Shabbat — should be interesting.

Expect a pair of "Blue Bloods" cameos Friday in this much-anticipated "extension" which has Danny relocating to Boston (the series is shot in Toronto).

MY SAY The easy question that needs answering here is whether Long Islanders will like "Boston Blue." To paraphrase some guy who never knew from spinoffs or Long Island (Hamlet), the rest is noise.

If only the answer was so easy. "Boston Blue" is perfectly good in the same way a Bob Ross painting is perfectly good: The mountains, trees and sky are all in the right place. Everything about this show is familiar — the catechistic family dinners, the clannish (and fraught) dynamics, the fourth act resolution which comes off like a comforting pat on the back as you trot off to bed. 

Danny/Donnie are also familiar, as if nothing had changed over the past year. Wahlberg is still that gruff, loveable, take-charge cop whose singular fault is to care just a little too much. Danny is filled with regrets and "what might have beens." This is a chance to be a better father, or the father he never was to Sean. Nothing out of character with that.

The show's pretext isn't all that far-fetched either. Because of an NYPD hiring freeze which Danny blames on budget cuts, Sean "wouldn't let me or my old man pull strings to get him in." Sean heads to the Boston PD instead. Translation: Sean is just as principled as his old man, and his old man (although I do vaguely recall him wearing a Red Sox cap in one scene).

Meanwhile, "Boston Blue" has made at least one welcome advance over the original. Heading up this diverse cast, Martin-Green was also lead in the historic 2017 re-launch of "Star Trek." That show was troubled from the start, though you couldn't ever tell from her performance ("Discovery" lasted five seasons.) She brings the same proficiency to Lena — and flashes of chemistry with Wahlberg as a bonus.

But all this is noise. What about you? My measured opinion is that you will tolerate "Boston Blue." You will be grateful for Danny/Donnie. Yet true love is a precious commodity on TV. It takes 14 seasons to nurture, along with a cast that never lets you down and a city that never sleeps. True love of this sort also comes from deep inside. It's a reflection of who you are, and what your values are, and how those were part of the community you live in, and the lives you've led and the friends you've made. For L.I. fans, "Blue Bloods" was all that as much as any TV show could ever be. There will never be another "Blue Bloods." Not this spinoff, not ever. Sorry to be so blunt, but you're just going to have to deal with it. You pretty much have no choice.

BOTTOM LINE Work in progress, but at least the progress seems to be in the right direction.