Flashpoint
CTV | ION Television | Release Date: July 11, 2008
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
50
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 15 Critic Reviews
Positive:
1
Mixed:
14
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
63
Chicago Sun-TimesMisha Davenport
Season 1 Review: Though the characters on this show, premiering Friday on CBS, are relatable and watchable, the slow pace might prove to be too much of a cultural divide for an American audience used to the quick cuts and immediate resolve seen on American cop shows. Read full review
60
Los Angeles TimesRobert Lloyd
Season 1 Review: It has an appealing modesty that survives its bouts of aesthetic overexcitement--the occasionally lurching camera, hammering soundtrack, the sentimental pop song laid over the last couple of minutes as the principals silently end a long, hard day. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsDavid Hinckley
Season 1 Review: It's more nuanced than the average cop drama, and for that reason, more intriguing. Read full review
50
The Hollywood ReporterBarry Garron
Season 1 Review: To be sure, Flashpoint is a perfectly competent police procedural right down to its convincing weaponry and tactics. However, based on the pilot, it isn't particularly fresh or inventive. Read full review
50
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: It's not terrible, not great, just sort of so-so. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: If you can ignore stuff like the impossibly clean subways and the fact that the cops call one another ''constable'' with straight faces, Flashpoint is actually rather formulaic. Read full review
50
PopMattersCynthia Fuchs
Season 1 Review: Flashpoint works through the distress and damage it lays out here, it gets points for beginning with the difficulty, not with the triumph. Now, if it can just figure a way beyond the scary perp clichés. Read full review
50
NewsdayVerne Gay
Season 1 Review: The first half is tautly produced, before there's a dramatic--and dramatically dull--downshift that'll get you ready for beddy-bye. Read full review
50
Boston GlobeMatthew Gilbert
Season 1 Review: It goes through the motions quite competently and respectably. But it is nonetheless merely re-creating crime-series moves we've all seen many times before, with only the faintest afterimage of originality. Read full review
50
New York PostLinda Stasi
Season 1 Review: The best part of this show is the acting, which is generally excellent - particularly that of Hugh Dillon as Ed Lane, the conscience-riddled sharpshooter. Too bad the writing isn't as on-target as Lane's high-powered automatic. Read full review
50
The New York TimesGinia Bellafante
Season 1 Review: Flashpoint lingers when it ought to speed up. It is a show about crisis that refuses to make you anxious. Read full review
50
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: It's understandable why CBS would take its own low-risk shot with "Flashpoint" as summer filler. Yet as viewing experiences go, the series itself possesses so little flash, finally, that it's difficult to see the point. Read full review
50
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: The Flashpoint pilot is competent, but very retro (there's an extended sequence of the team driving to a crisis point with their sirens blaring, the sort of thing that went out 15 years ago) and fairly dull. Read full review
42
Entertainment WeeklyAdam Markovitz
Season 1 Review: It's nice to have fresh scripted material on the summer TV menu, but after an hour of dull wisecracks and predictable plotting, reheated "Law & Order" leftovers start looking pretty tasty. [11 Jul 2008, p.66]]
40
Washington Post
Season 1 Review: If it had something truly new or provocative to say about such matters, the essential redundancy of Flashpoint could be overlooked--but it doesn't, and so it can't. These good guys are too good for their own good. And ours. Read full review
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