Flashpoint: a flashback
A look back at the high-powered Canadian drama series (images and captions repurposed from previous stories)
DRAMA Flashpoint CTV, CBS, 8 p.m. Back for a fourth season tonight with all-new episodes, Canada's favourite cop show returns with a nailbiter. At the same time that Strategic Response Unit member Ed Lane is being rushed to the hospital after being shot by a drug dealer's gunman, Ed's wife is experiencing difficulties in delivering their baby. Acting veteran Victor Garber reprises his role of Dr. Toth, a psychologist determined to disband the SRU's Team One.
DRAMA Flashpoint Bravo!, 11 p.m. It’s testament to good writing that episodes in this homegrown crime drama stand up to repeated viewing. In this second-season outing, Sergeant Gregory Parker (Enrico Colantoni) and the Strategic Response Unit race to a Toronto supermarket where it appears an attempted robbery of the store by two teenage boys has suddenly become a hostage situation. As with most episodes of this show, it’s a nailbiter.
The Toronto-based cop show Flashpoint should win for best dramatic series, though odds are it will lose to the bleak but popular Durham County. ?Ben Mark Holzberg/CBS
DRAMA Flashpoint CTV, CBS, 8 p.m. Meet the new cop on the block. Tonight’s new episode introduces the new recruit Rafik “Raf” Rousseau, played by Cle Bennett. The new guy receives a baptism by fire as the Strategic Response Unit responds to three calls—involving a wife-wielding mother, a suicidal father and a delusional gunman--on a chaotic Valentine’s Day. Welcome to the force, kid.
DRAMA Flashpoint CTV, 10 p.m. Buckle up for the fifth and final season of Canada’s best-ever cop show. Launched in 2008 and broadcast across the border on CBS and the Ion cable network, Flashpoint raised the bar for Canadian TV drama, and the show’s influence is evident in subsequent homegrown crime dramas (we’re looking at you, Rookie Blue). In tonight’s season-opener, lead sniper Ed Lane (Hugh Dillon) and Team One are scouring the city in search of an armed and dangerous man named James (Ty Olson) who is tracking down his terrified ex-wife (Lisa Houle). When the team finally corners James on a hotel rooftop, Ed is forced to take a shot that could change his life forever. Watch this show while you can.Jan Thijs
DRAMA Flashpoint CTV, 10 p.m. Also in its sendoff season, Flashpoint continues to crank out powerful tales of police heroism, one hour at a time. In tonight’s new outing, an intelligent young man (Sebastian Piggott) blessed with an eidetic memory is abducted by a criminal and forced to participate in a break-in at a high-tech research facility. Once inside, he’s forced to memorize the design of a new smart gun. The abductee’s only chance at coming out alive wrests with sniper Ed Lane and the Strategic Response Unit–but how can they defend themselves against a weapon they’ve never seen before?
DRAMA Flashpoint (CTV, 10 p.m.) Arrividerci, Flashpoint. The most successful, and probably the best, crime drama in Canadian TV history wraps tonight after five seasons and 75 episodes. One of very few homegrown shows to become a hit in both Canada and the U.S. (the first two seasons aired on CBS before moving to the ION cable channel), Flashpoint kept viewers engaged with white-knuckle stories of heroic cops dealing with life-threatening situations; each episode really was like its own little movie. In tonight’s second half of the two-part closer, Strategic Response Unit leader Parker (Enrico Colantoni) and his team deal with a mad bomber who has planted bombs all over the city. And judging from the advance clips, at least one SRU member will not walk away from this crisis.