6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best show on television - really!, April 25, 2009
This review is from: Flashpoint Season 1 (Amazon Instant Video)
Flashpoint is an undiscovered gem, hidden away behind a overused genre. If the phrases "SWAT team," "hostage negotiators," "Canadian television," and "police drama" don't exactly grab your interest, please do yourself the favor of at least reading this review and perhaps watching a couple of episodes. You might be glad you did.
The premise on its own is not terribly new: A fictional SWAT/hostage negotiation team takes on kidnappings, suicide attempts, bank robberies, and the like. What IS new is the approach. The writing of this show is steeped in the humanity, compassion, and psychological realism markedly absent from current TV.
The team members are deeply decent human beings who love their jobs and their team-mates, but Flashpoint does a superb job illustrating the real-life issues such as PTSD, stress, and guilt that come with such work.
Markedly absent is the fictional conceit that events don't have consequences. When team leader and sniper Ed Lane shoots a hostage-taker in the series premier, not only do they show his emotional reaction immediately after the shooting, they follow him through suspension, investigation, and debriefing by a psychologist. The consequences of the shooting continue to appear through the series; Ed experiences flashbacks, is sued, and in season two the hostage-taker's son even tries to kill him.
Flashpoint does not stop at portraying the team in a compassionate and realistic light; the subjects of their calls are rarely black-and-white "bad guys." Psychologically disturbed individuals are portrayed as layered individuals with reasons for their behavior. Sometimes these reasons are morally justifiable, sometimes not. Sometimes we sympathize with them, sometimes we want them dead sooner rather than later - but we are almost always given insight as to how and why they reached their "Flashpoint."
Anyone who has experienced traumatic events or PTSD in their own life or helped friends and family cope with traumas should watch this show. It is deeply validating and provides excellent models of how to cope and how not to, as well as being sensitively and realistically written.
Flashpoint is a cop show with real people and ethical, caring human beings in difficult situations. As one friend of mine put it, "It's the anti-24." If you're tired of television where the writers can't think of any better way to create drama than to set up a crisis and then torture their way out of it, try Flashpoint.
This is the (ironically, Canadian-produced) television show that jaded, wounded America needs right now.
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