'Blue Bloods' Star Donnie Wahlberg Scores 'Very Scary People' Season 2 Renewal

Blue Bloods is not the only show starring Donnie Wahlberg. The New Kids on the Block member also [...]

By Daniel S. Levine

Blue Bloods is not the only show starring Donnie Wahlberg. The New Kids on the Block member also hosts the HLN docuseries Very Scary People, which was picked up for a second season on Monday.

The renewal came with only one episode left of the first season, reports Broadcasting & Cable. The series debuted on March 17 with an episode on John Wayne Gacy, the serial killer who terrorized Cook County, Illinois during the 1970s. Other subjects in the first season included Charles Manson, Rev. Jim Jones and the NorCal Rapist. Each episode runs two hours.

According to HLN, a network part of the CNN family, Very Scary People will become the network's highest-rated original series in total viewers and in the 18-49 demographic.

"The access to archival footage is just amazing. What we are able to do is really take you back to these places," Wahlberg said in a statement when the show was announced in March, reports Variety. "You get fully immersed, and that really helps tell the story of these people and helps you to understand how they could be doing what they were doing."

"The CNN archives are so vast, and so is HLN's," executive producer Nancy Duffy, who is also the HLN vice president of program development, said. "We are going back and utilizing all of this great material."

Wahlberg said the access to real clips "gives it a quality and credibility and truth that most of these shows just aren't able to do."

The actor added that the show also dives deep into the "why" to explain how someone could commit the crimes they did.

"I don't think an audience can really rationalize why someone would do the things that these people do. The only way to understand it is to get closer to it. You get closer by watching a show like this," Wahlberg said. "We are not trying to glorify what these people did. We are trying to help the viewer understand it."

Wahlberg later celebrated the news, sharing it on Twitter. "Another year of scares," he wrote.

The actor also stars on Blue Bloods as Detective Danny Reagan, the eldest son of Tom Selleck's Commissioner Frank Reagan. The show was picked up for a 10th season last week and will be back on CBS in Fall 2019.

"Blue Bloods has been a top-10 drama and Friday's top-rated show every year it's been on the air," Kelly Kahl, the president of CBS Entertainment, said in a statement on Friday. "On a night that many have claimed is quiet for broadcast television, its quality writing, superb acting and familial warmth have attracted an average of over 13 million passionate viewers each week for nine years. We are delighted that Tom will return and that the show will continue to be a vital component of the CBS schedule next season."

Blue Bloods airs Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on CBS.

Photo credit: CBS

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