Flashpoint: Scorpio [Series Premiere]
By fred | July 14, 2008
(S01E01) So that was on Friday, but I’m running a little late I guess. Also, I have to admit I wasn’t that excited about this new show, because it’s yet another cop-drama on CBS, and because the few promos I had seen didn’t really raised my hopes for this to be actually different, or good, or anything for that matter.
But I had to eventually catch up, and now it’s done. Flashpoint, which debuted with strong ratings, though it didn’t really had any competition, is quite different from the get-go, because it’s not happening in the US, but in Toronto, Canada. It revolves around the Strategic Response Unit (SRU), and was actually inspired by Toronto’s real-life Emergency Task Force.
In fact, the main plot for this episode actually comes straight out of the headlines, as something similar really happened in Toronto. But just because it’s inspired by a true story doesn’t mean it will be a good one, or that it will result in a good show.
From the start, though, there was something different. Something that simply isn’t like, I don’t know, your usual American TV show, cop show, or CBS show, or a little bit of it all. Maybe it was the light of Toronto, where the show is actually shot, who knows. Either way, it had something unique, and it was also very well done. And that’s a feeling that actually never really left, all the way through the entire episode it was obvious that this was very well done.
It seems they also decided to give the show a good dose of realism, for instance going over – after using his weapon and killing a man – cops have to go deal with actual consequences and investigations. It’s not that they have to be dirty, or that something went wrong, it’s simply that a gun was fired and a man was shot dead, and there is a need to ensure everything was done in accordance to the law. I’m pretty sure every cop has to go through the same kind of thing whenever he fires his gun, killing/wounding anyone or not, but you don’t usually see that on TV.
Of course, it can easily be boring and pointless, and once in a while it can work and it’s a good thing to include it. Whether it was that, the family life or how Ed had to deal with having just killed someone, and – something others might not really realize – having been that close to killing the man’s son, who run towards his armed father and got there right in time – one millisecond later he was probably the one lying on the floor a bullet in his head.
So that was the good part of the episode, now the bad part :I said it had something unique to it, and yet it also felt like so many other cop-show out there. I was this close to falling asleep while watching it, not because it’s badly done, but because it was about as predictable as it can possibly be. Of course, it’s a pilot episode and that’s how it usually goes, and I do really hope the next episodes will get us something quite different, but the way this whole thing played into Ed’s family life, the introduction of the new guy – whom you could recognize as the new guy from the moment he walked out of that plane, and by then you also knew he’d show up unannounced, be thought for something else, before proper introductions are done.
Even during the scenes with the lawyers, after the shooting, you knew where this was heading and what would happen. Hell, if you’re not new to watching cop shows, you probably knew the wife would call and how their exchange would go long before she even picked up the phone.Take this episode’s plot, yes it was from an actual story that really happened. But that doesn’t make it any less of a common situation for such shows, and maybe – just maybe – they should have started with something different, to really set it apart from other shows.
In other words, it was a good episode and I think there’s potential for this show to grow into something, but only time will tell.
So as far as I’m concerned, even though my Fridays at 10.00 now belong to USA’s Psych, I’ll be back next week to see how Flashpoint is evolving.
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Flashpoint
Man…I’m not sure what to think. A veteran sharpshooter goes all weepy after doing what he’s paid to do. A lot of people in the street and no one seems to care. I see it as pure dreck and doubt I’ll watch another episode.