Canadian police drama Flashpoint is set to premiere on CBS on July 11, simultaneously with its opening on its parent network CTV, Canada’s largest privately owned English language broadcast network. It was picked up for U.S. broadcast during the writers’ strike.
Flashpoint stars Amy Jo Johnson (Felicity) and Enrico Colontoni (Veronica Mars, Just Shoot Me). It centers around the elite Canadian metropolitan police force called the Strategic Response Unit, patterned after Toronto’s SWAT-like Emergency Task Force. The unit is tasked to perform highly sensitive scenarios, such as hostage crises, gangs, bomb threats, and, on more than one occasion reportedly, talking down suicidal teens. As such, members of the highly-skilled technical team are also trained in negotiating, profiling, and getting inside the suspect or victims’ head to ultimately save lives.
Of course, Flashpoint doesn’t only deal with the SRU members on their job, the drama also involves their families. For instance, one of Gregory Parker’s (Colontani) snipers, Ed lane (Hugh Dillon) is shown in a flashback to the beginning of the day, when his wife Sophie (Janaya Stephens) is giving him a hard time for being too focused on his job. “The world is not gonna end,” she says, “if you and your friends miss a few pushups.”
Initial reactions to Flashpoint are varied. While some point out that most of its elements, such as the music, dialogue, plots, camera shots, are very formulaic for police dramas (“scary prep clichés,” as one reviewer called it), it is lauded for logically working out through the damage and distress it lays out. Additionally, the fact that “it begins with the difficulty, not with the triumph,” also scores for it some points.
-Glenn Diaz, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: Popcritics, Popmatters
(Image Courtesy of CTV)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
