I just found out that Flashpoint, a television program about the Strategic Response Unit of a police force, has been renewed for another season.Nice to see excellence is appreciated.
Inspired by Toronto's Emergency Task Force, the show is about a hand-picked team of elite police officers. It airs on CTV and CBS.
Here are the main things I like about this show. It is created and produced in Canada -- and unlike many other cop shows that have been filmed here in Canada, the direction doesn't try to hide that it is set in Toronto.
I also love the fact that the show isn't all about how the police are perfect bad guys going after the scum of society. In this show, the villains aren't necessarily villains -- they are wonderfully three dimensional people with backgrounds, desires, wishes, hopes, dreams and frustration. And the SRU doesn't treat them as "perps" but rather as fellow humans in a situation that needs to be resolved with the least amount of casualties as possible, including the life of the person causing the situation.
One of the best illustrations of this is that the cops don't refer their quarry as "perps" but rather as "subjects" -- it's a fanastically humanizing factor that allows them to properly connect and talk with the person who is caught in a situation that is often as terrifying for the "subject" as it is for the "victims"
Kudos to all the people behind Flashpoint - and kudos to the networks for recognizing it's worth staying on the air another season
2 comments:
intelligent writing surviving on TV...how novel!
You mean it's not like CSI where they have all the answers for everything? Who'd a thunk it. ;-)
My friend is a cop in NY City and approached the "subjects" the same way. He is 6'7", so he doesn't have to say very much to get his point across. He said that when you come on strong, it shows disrespect and that just pisses people off, which just makes a bad situation worse.
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