PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Blue Bloods is a cop show with a twist.

Instead of just sirens blaring and shots fired, It is a show about a family whose blood bleeds blue.

Tom Selleck plays the lead role of Frank Reagan, the police commissioner of New York City.

“It’s a rather unsentimental family, but it is how this tough family deals with not only the problems of their job but the things that come home with them,” Selleck said.

And they come home to share those problems at the dinner table.

Len Cariou, who plays tom Selleck’s father, says it is that dinner table scene that connects with viewers.

“I think it is something that they can relate to and the uniqueness of our show, I believe, is that we get to know the people that are in it on a more intimate level than most episodic things, certainly than most cop shows,” Cariou said.

But the actors never forget they are playing the roles of policemen and prosecutors and that it can be a dangerous job.

“They do a difficult job every day,” Blue Bloods actor Will Estes said. “I like wearing the bullet proof vest”

“And you feel it and it’s hot and it’s uncomfortable and that’s sort of what I like about it, and when I see a police officer, of course, there’s the gun and there’s the badge but the other thing I notice is the vest. I mean they wouldn’t wear it if they didn’t need it and I think it tells an interesting part of the story.”

Estes plays one of Tom Selleck’s sons in the drama.

Another interesting part of the story is how Selleck is not only the leader of thousands of police officers, he also leads his family, much like the father figure role he plays in real life.

“Homer Simpson is an idiot,” Selleck said. “And I stopped reading the bad news bears, not the bad news bears, the Berenstein Bears to my daughter because the dad was an idiot.”

“So, I’m playing the patriarch of a family. I think Frank is sometimes an idiot and sometimes makes mistakes but part of what he tries to be is a good dad,” he said.

The third season of Blue Bloods starts Friday at 10 p.m. on KDKA.

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