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The heroes wear black and gunmetal grey in the high-stakes world of Flashpoint (Friday Dec. 9, CBS and CTV at 9 p.m.). Fashion options are limited when your work ensemble includes a flak jacket, utility belt and sniper rifle.

Back from a limited but extremely successful test run last season, Flashpoint follows the life-and-death rescue missions of the Strategic Response Unit, an elite tactical group modelled after Toronto's own Emergency Task Force.

The tense pilot of Flashpoint – in which the SRU deals with a man who shoots his wife and then takes another woman hostage – was inspired by a real-life incident at Toronto's Union Station in 1994. Subsequent episodes in the series dramatized similarly harrowing life-and-death scenarios, with each situation capably resolved by the SRU team.

And viewers took notice. On either side of the border, Flashpoint was a great big hit, averaging more than a million viewers in Canada and more than eight million in the U.S. Through most of its 13-episode run, Flashpoint was the most-watched show on Friday night. The show's breakout appeal surprised many people, but not Enrico Colantoni, who plays SRU head negotiator Sergeant Greg Parker.

“The good guys are back, and they are committed,” says the Toronto-born actor, best known for his years on the sitcom Just Shoot Me and as the doting dad on Veronica Mars. “These are good guys who really care. They really do. The show embraces an idealistic notion that has been missing from TV for a while. It feels even more poignant now that things are so unstable.”

Colantoni shares star stature on Flashpoint with Kingston native and ex-Headstones front man Hugh Dillon, who plays the intense lead sniper Ed Lane; the remainder of the SRU unit is assumed by a good-looking support cast of relative unknowns.

The role of the straight-shooter cop Parker – he sends the troops into each situation with “Let's keep the peace” – is a touch more personal for Colantoni, whose older brother spent more than 30 years on the Toronto police force. “He's my inspiration, and my toughest critic,” Colantoni says. “He's living in Italy now, so I send him the DVDs. He wants to see more of the cop element and less of the sentimental stuff.”

The most expensive series ever produced in this country – with each episode in the $1.5-million budget range – Flashpoint is filmed entirely in Toronto, a fact made immediately apparent in repeated scenes of the CN Tower and other landmarks along the city waterfront. While never referred to directly, Toronto is a full character in the series (although the references to Rosedale and North York are likely to befuddle some U.S. viewers), with equal screen time devoted to the reaction of normal people caught in peril in each episode.

“This is not a flat-out action series,” Colantoni insists. “There's a little action to satisfy that taste bud, but the emotion of each situation is the real star. It strikes a chord with people watching, because we're not dealing with professional bad guys. You don't see professional criminals holding a hostage. We're dealing with real people put in very dangerous situations.”

The first new episode serves as a case in point: Revered Canadian actor Colm Feore guest-stars as David Graham, a charming billionaire industrialist in town to give away $5-million at a conference held at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel.

Despite blanketing security, Graham's beloved wife, Catherine (Wendy Crewson), is abducted by Chilean extremists seeking to punish her spouse; in a chilling scene, the kidnap victim is fitted with a “necklace bomb,” which her captors claim will be detonated unless her husband publicly apologizes for past transgressions.

The subsequent SRU response and race to locate the detonator delivers a visual style more akin with feature-film values than most television series. “I always go back to the fact that we shoot on 35-millimetre film, which lends a richness to the show. It gives us a higher-quality, big-budget feel,” Colantoni says.

All things in perspective, however. From personal experience, Colantoni knows that a weekly series is more a job than an adventure and he brings his own solid Canadian work ethic to Flashpoint, which recently began filming its next slate of 18 episodes.

“All TV is junk food,” he says with chuckle, “but in a way, that's what makes this show so rewarding. We're working against time, on location and with crazy hours, but somehow we're able to achieve something unique that really connects with viewers. That doesn't happen often in this business.”