Almost to the day, I wrote the following letter three years ago, out of sheer pleasure. It’s not a normal activity of mine to write letters to producers or writers or directors of television shows or movies; in fact, I recall writing only one other, to J J Abrams for making Super 8. That movie worked on my soul as might … well, it came close to catharsis. Anyway, after watching one episode of Blue Bloods, and then another, and another, I felt I had found a rare gem in the saturated category of prime-time “cop shows”: one that emphasizes the Human over the Forensics Lab. It is now the only cop show I enjoy watching. So, below is what I wrote the sometime-writer, sometime-producer of the show, Mitchell Burgess (whose wife does the same work with him). Don’t ask me how I got the address; I’m not even sure it’s his, so I do not know whether the letter ever made it to him. But, on the principle that this website is founded on, it was remedy enough for me to have written it at all.
___________
29 April 2016
Mr Mitchell Burgess
108 Washington Pl
New York, NY 10014-6819
Dear Mr Burgess,
I am not much of a fan of cop shows, particularly the NCIS, SVU, etc., types: their titles are dull and the heroes in those shows are, almost invariably, technicians or, worse (because less interesting), the machines that they use. Technology to the rescue! Ho-hum.
But then I was coaxed into watching an episode of Blue Bloods.
And now I have to say that I am a fan of a cop show. I don’t know precisely what it is about the show that keeps me from my work and on the couch, a beer on the coaster beside me. Maybe it’s that Danny and I are cut from the same cloth; or maybe it’s Jamie’s manly tenderness and humility; or maybe it’s Erin’s fierce commitment to a justice within the law (or simply her beautiful face). It is probably something of all these things, but most of all I think it is the world that gives rise to such characters—a world that unabashedly acknowledges an objective difference between right and wrong, and that is honest about the difficulty of living and working in light of that difference. Authentic people sometimes struggle to live ethically.
Nevertheless, the real masterstroke of the show, to me, is its emblem of this world of real rights and real wrongs, of real joy and real pain—namely, the Reagan family dinner table. Anyway, I believe such a world is worth showing people because it is worth fighting for, and these characters know that with a knowledge that goes beyond “criminal justice.” I think it must be a knowledge that springs not only from a sense of right (imaged by lawyer and cop and commissioner, et al), but also from love (imaged by that dinner table). That their love is framed, even if only nominally, by their faith makes their fight for justice even more meaningful. I just love the show!
I’m not here to teach you about the very thing you created, so I’ll stop talking about the show and end by saying what I really intended to say: Thank You! For writing for and producing this show. I hope you’ll continue to write and produce many more episodes for it.
~ Best regards