- Network: CTV , ION Television
- Series Premiere Date: Jul 11, 2008
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Critic Reviews
- Critic score
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- By date
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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.
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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.
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It's more nuanced than the average cop drama, and for that reason, more intriguing.
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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.
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It's not terrible, not great, just sort of so-so.
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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.
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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.
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The first half is tautly produced, before there's a dramatic--and dramatically dull--downshift that'll get you ready for beddy-bye.
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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.
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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.
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Flashpoint lingers when it ought to speed up. It is a show about crisis that refuses to make you anxious.
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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.
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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.
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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]]
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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.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 51 out of 63
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Mixed: 3 out of 63
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Negative: 9 out of 63
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cyrust.Oct 19, 2009Very good, a very well done point of view of police.
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Feb 19, 2014
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snowcatSep 11, 2009