‘Blue Bloods’ Donnie Wahlberg Hosts A Reagan Family Virtual Dinner Amid The COVID-19 Pandemic – Watch

Nellie Andreeva and Denise Petski
·3 min read

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EXCLUSIVE: Blue Bloods‘ Reagan family is known for their family dinners, where each Friday they catch up with each other and with what’s going on in each other’s lives. With production shut down due to the coronavirus pandemic, the cast has reunited for a virtual Dinner With the Reagans A Blue Bloods Special video.

“I want to welcome you to our first ever, and hopefully last ever virtual Blue Bloods family dinner special,” says star Donnie Wahlberg, who led the Zoom get-together.

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Wahlberg started by introducing the Reagan family cast members, Tom Selleck, Bridget Moynihan, Len Cariou, Vanessa Ray, Anthony Terraciano, Sami Gayle, and Will Estes, joined by Blue Bloods showrunner Kevin Wade, who are all self-isolating at their respective homes.

Wahlberg wondered how the show will handle the crisis that’s happening in real-life when production gets back up again for the coming season, which has not been formally picked up by CBS, and if it’s something that might be explored in a storyline going forward. “I’m not sure how we go back to the show without addressing it on some level, or do you just run away from it?” he asked.

Said Wade, “I don’t think you can run far away from it, it’s something I’ve been talking about with our writers, with (showrunners) Warren Leight from Law & Order(:SVU) and Glenn (Gordon) Caron from Bull and with a lot of people, just how do you go back embrace it and yet how not have it drive the show, because at the end of the day we were never sort of making a documentary of life.”

The current reality will find its way onto the show. For instance, the series’ signature family dinner scene, in which family members sit inches away from each other at the table, presents its own production challenge for the CBS drama in the era of social distancing.

Wahlberg noted that one of the great things about the show is “we get to explore what’s really going on, but we’re not bound to it.”

Added Wade: “Everything that you see on TV is all about people stepping up, and public service and sacrifice, and the people, the nurses and doctors who come from all over the country here to New York City, we wouldn’t be doing our show right if we didn’t find some way to pay respect to that from our characters.”

Watch the 10-minute video above.

Blue Bloods‘ season 10 finale titled “Family Secrets” airs tonight at 10 PM on CBS.

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