‘Boston Blue’ Brings Back a ‘CSI’ Legend, but Its Biggest Problem Remains

Published Nov 12, 2026, 11:04 PM EST Jeffrey is a freelance features writer at Collider. He is an MPA-accredited entertainment journalist and a Tomatometer-approved critic based in the LA area. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a Bachelor of Science in Radio, TV, & Film and a Bachelor of Arts in Theater. The hit CBS series Boston Blue just pulled off a huge coup in the casting department. Emmy Award-winning actress Marg Helgenberger, a television legend and veteran of shows like CSI, will return to the network in the hit Blue Bloods spin-off. Helgenberger will make her series debut in the upcoming Season 2 episode "Bloodlines" on November 13, portraying Gwen Silver, the estranged biological mother of main cast member Sarah Silver (Maggie Lawson). Helgenberger makes a great addition to the series and the overall Blue Bloods saga. However, despite the stupendous casting choice, the show's biggest problem still needs to be addressed. 'Boston Blue' Has Trouble Balancing Its Premise Boston Blue serves as both a continuation and spin-off of its flagship series Blue Bloods. Much like its predecessor, it showcases a multi-generational family of law enforcers with the Silvers. The main connective tissue between the two shows is Blue Bloods veteran Danny Reagan (Donnie Wahlberg) and his son, Sean Reagan (Mika Amonsen, who took over the role from Andrew Terraciano for the new series). Danny uprooted his life to move to Boston to mentor Sean in his own career as a police officer, while Danny also receives a fresh start in a new city, seeking to climb the ladder in his career. Boston Blue struggles to find a balance between these two narratives. Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Iconic Detective Should Solve Your Case? Columbo · Benoit Blanc · Jessica Fletcher · Marlowe Answer eight quick questions and we will tell you who should be assigned to your murder. Four of the most famous detectives ever put on screen, and four completely different ways of getting somebody to admit what they did. 🕵Columbo(Columbo) 🧣Benoit Blanc(Knives Out) 🖨Jessica Fletcher(Murder, She Wrote) 🚬Philip Marlowe(The Big Sleep) FIND YOUR DETECTIVE → 01 What do people assume about you when they meet you? Pick the one that sounds most like you. AThat I am a bit of a mess. BThat I am putting it on. CThat I am completely harmless. DThat I gave up a while ago. NEXT QUESTION → 02 Pick a coat. No wrong answers here. AA beige raincoat I never take off. BSomething loud and very well cut. CSomething practical in a nice colour. DA trench coat with the collar up. NEXT QUESTION → 03 How do you get information out of people? One answer only. AKeep asking one more question. BLet them perform and watch closely. CJust be genuinely lovely to them. DWait until they slip. NEXT QUESTION → 04 How would your friends describe you? Be honest. AScruffy and oddly brilliant. BTheatrical, in a good way. CWarm, and a little bit nosy. DCynical, and loyal underneath. NEXT QUESTION → 05 Pick a drink. Pick the closest answer. ACoffee, from whatever is nearest. BSomething fancy with a garnish. CTea, with somebody who needs it. DWhisky, no ice, on my own. NEXT QUESTION → 06 Where do you do your best thinking? Pick the closest answer. AHalfway out of the door. BOut loud, in front of everybody. COver the garden fence. DIn the car at two in the morning. NEXT QUESTION → 07 What is your car like? Think about the one on your drive. AOld, battered, and still going. BSomething nobody expected. CSensible, and I would rather walk. DIt has seen some things. NEXT QUESTION → 08 What makes you good at reading people? Last one. This is the one that decides it. AI never stop asking questions. BI enjoy the performance of it. CPeople simply tell me things. DI expect everybody to lie. REVEAL MY DETECTIVE → The Case Is Assigned Your Detective Is…A great detective is really just a personality with a method attached, which is why we keep remaking the same four of them. Here is yours, what it says about you, and the case for them being the best in the business. ColumboYou let people think you are not a threat and then you simply never go away. Columbo is the only major detective show that tells you who did it in the first ten minutes, because the pleasure was never the puzzle, it was watching a rich man slowly realise he is in trouble. You are underestimated constantly, and you have stopped minding because it keeps working. The show invented the inverted detective format for television and nobody has bettered it since. Peter Falk won four Emmys for the part and played him across five decades. Your flaw is that one more question is rarely one more question. Benoit BlancYou are the most interesting person in the room and you know exactly how to use it. Rian Johnson built Blanc as a gentleman detective who is also an outsider everywhere he goes, which lets him be charming at people who would never otherwise talk to him. You read a room in seconds and you are not above performing a little to speed things up. Rian Johnson was nominated for the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Knives Out in 2020. Wake Up Dead Man arrived on Netflix in December, making three Blanc films in six years. Your risk is enjoying the performance so much that people stop taking the point seriously. Jessica FletcherEverybody tells you everything, and you have never once asked them to. Jessica Fletcher is a crime novelist from a small town in Maine who is so warm and so obviously trustworthy that suspects confess to her essentially as a social courtesy. You are the person friends call first, and you have a frankly alarming amount of information about everybody. Angela Lansbury was nominated for the Emmy twelve times for this role and never won once. The show ran twelve seasons, and Jamie Lee Curtis is now bringing the character back. Your flaw is that being told everything is only a gift if you know what to do with it. Philip MarloweYou expect to be lied to and you are almost never disappointed. Chandler wrote Marlowe as a man with a rigid private code in a city that has none, which is why he takes the case, solves it, gets nothing out of it and takes the next one. You are the most cynical person your friends know and the one they would call at four in the morning. Bogart played him in The Big Sleep in 1946 and the plot is famously impossible to follow, which matters not at all. Elliott Gould, Robert Mitchum and Liam Neeson have all taken the part, and every version says something about its decade. Your weakness is a code so strict that it mostly punishes the person holding it. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ As great as it is to see a multi-ethnic Jewish family celebrating Shabbat in a weekly broadcast television series, it's strange that the Reagans are constantly present for the dinners. The Reagans are Roman Catholics, and although they respect the Silvers' religious practices, they aren't Jewish themselves. In Blue Bloods, the Reagan family would occasionally invite guests to their Sunday dinners, but those were rare exceptions rather than the rule. Danny and Sean appear to join the Silvers for Shabbat dinner on a weekly basis. It’s great that the Reagans and Silvers have a close friendship and bond, but they haven't known each other too long. Since they aren't related, it doesn’t make sense that they join the Silvers for Shabbat dinner all the time. Shouldn't the Reagans set up their own Sunday dinners instead? It comes across as if the writers are attempting to forcibly mimic the weekly family dinner dynamic from Blue Bloods in Boston Blue, where it makes less sense. 'Boston Blue' Needs To Show More of the BPD Hierarchy One area that Boston Blue appears to be working on in Season 2 is establishing the hierarchy of the BPD and City Hall, a narrative structure that the series has struggled with before. Thus far, the series has introduced the BPD's chief, Lanigan (Ron Lea), who has appeared sparingly, but the commissioner has yet to appear. Beginning with its first season, Blue Bloods did a much better job of demonstrating the hierarchy of everyone's roles in the NYPD, including Frank Reagan's (Tom Selleck) relationship with the mayor’s office, Erin working in the District Attorney's office, Danny operating as a detective, and Jamie Reagan (Will Estes) as a patrolman. Across all these characters and subplots, the series presented a strong overview of the Reagans and their career dynamics; yet, in Boston Blue, it feels like we’re two seasons in and still playing catch-up. It derives from the series struggling as a continuation of Blue Bloods while trying to forge its own identity. Boston Blue shouldn't copy the weekly family dinners simply because the Blue Bloods made them famous. Although improvements have been made in Season 2, with storylines involving BPD’s superior officers, such as Chief Lanigan and Sean and Jonah's new sergeant, Betina Ryan (Sydney Ozerov-Meyer), it would improve the show to include additional storylines showcasing the command structure of the BPD, as well as Mae Silver's (Gloria Reuben) office and their relationship with Mayor Jim Shaw (Brian Goodman). How Marg Helgenberger’s Presence Can Help Improve ‘Blue Bloods’ Image via CBS Boston Blue sometimes appears at odds with its format, trying to balance the traditions and characters of Blue Bloods to lure in longtime fans of the original series, while still maintaining strong narrative focus on its new characters and family. It's simply not necessary for the Silvers and Reagans to be joined at the hip every week. Separate dinners would work fine, and maybe Sean and Danny could have their own Sunday dinners with Sean's girlfriend, Penny (Xochitl Gomez), at some point? Also, why not bring Penny to New York City to introduce her to the Reagans, or have the entire family visit Boston to set up a Sunday dinner with Sean, Penny, and Danny? Marg Helgenberger joining the show is a positive development because it helps flesh out Sarah Silver's character arc and her relationship with her mother, whom we've never seen before. As a multi-ethnic blended family, the Silver family presents a strong family dynamic that's unique to Blue Bloods, and the show should explore the family's distinctness more in future episodes. This will further reinforce Boston Blue's fresh new storylines, rather than trying to come across as Blue Bloods-lite or Blue Bloods: The Sequel.