Cop shows populate the TV sked like roaches run amok. Sure, Hill Street Blues was a potent narrative force once upon a time, but aside from anomalies like The Wire, the primary thing separating most modern police procedurals is their geographic locale. Well, add Toronto to that atlas thanks to Flashpoint, a CTV series that, for the first time since Due South in 1994, will simulcast on an American network. (Thank you, writer’s strike.)

Though our streetcars are visible in the background, Toronto isn’t photographically fetishized like, say, Miami or Vegas are in the CSIs — a CN Tower shot races past rather than letting the camera linger on our most famous landmark. Since Toronto isn’t mentioned much — the cops are “Metropolitan Police” — some viewers may not realize the setting is north of the 49th.
Flashpoint revolves around the Strategic Response Unit — inspired by Toronto’s real-life Emergency Task Force — an elite squad that aims to defuse dangerous situations rather than charge in guns a-blazing. They don’t always succeed.

Midway through the pilot, we witness a uniquely Canadian perspective when a cop kills a hostage-taker with a sniper shot to the head. An American show would have stretched the tension to the last commercial and then delighted in the catharsis of killing a bad guy. In Flashpoint, the death prompts horror, with the rest of the ep exploring the aftermath. The tone is only bungled when an internal investigator is portrayed as a meddling bureaucrat along the lines of that EPA agent in Ghostbusters — as if we shouldn’t be holding police fully accountable for every fatal altercation.

That misstep is compensated for with some dynamite casting. Flashpoint is anchored by Toronto-born Enrico Colantoni, best known as Veronica Mars’ private-eye pop. For those who only know him as a fashion photog on Just Shoot Me!, Colantoni will be a revelation. (VM fans, however, may be disappointed by Flashpoint’s comparative lack of storytelling ambition.) The other leads are the ever-watchable Hard Core Logo star and erstwhile Headstones frontman Hugh Dillon, fresh off proving his acting bona fides as a homicide detective on Durham County, as well as the former Pink Power Ranger (Amy Jo Johnston) and Whistler’s dead snowboarder (David Paetkau) — though the latter two aren’t charismatic enough to get excited about yet.

Flashpoint should benefit from the reality-soaked summer season despite its Friday-night death-slot, but to truly stand out in a police lineup, the makers would be wise to take better advantage of their host city. After all, Toronto is the world’s most multicultural metropolis: by heightening T-dot’s presence, the global village vibe could be as intriguing, if not more so, than cop-TV’s renowned American municipalities.
FLASHPOINT DEBUTS JULY 11, 10PM on CTV/CBS.

Ed the Sock gets the boot
When Citytv hit the airwaves in the ’70s, it revolutionized broadcasting with its urban aesthetic, local focus and ramshackle vibe. This was maintained after it was sold to CHUM and even following the ouster of founder Moses Znaimer in 2003. Yet Ted Rogers may have finally quashed the revolution with his company’s acquisition of Citytv.

As detailed in Scrolling Eye last issue and at eyeweekly.com, Rogers fired consumer advocate Peter Silverman after 19 years. Then they shuttered the station’s Speaker’s Corner landmark.
Last week Rogers busted up Ed and Red’s Night Party, putting the insult-comic sock puppet — which, ironically, Steve Kerzner originally debuted on Rogers cable-access —?in the drawer after 16 years.

One understands a new owner’s need to renovate. But by slashing the station’s signature shows without announcing any replacements (outside of its upcoming US-acquired schedule) Citytv is looking more suburban by the second.