FLASHPOINT

My favorite television series by far is the Canadian drama series Flashpoint about a police unit called the Strategic Response Unit in, I presume, Toronto because of a space needle. Here in the Sandhills area of North Carolina, the program is on Ion Television (channel 9 on Time-Warner cable) for two hours (10:00 PM to midnight in two unrelated segments) and is just concluding its 4th season. The Unit follows some criminal scene such as an abduction, threat to kill someone with a knife or gun, drug dealers, etc. The best part comes in the last 5 or 10 min. in which a Unit member (usually the leader, a sergeant) tries to talk the miscreant(s) out of the kidnapping or murder, etc., , i.e. get the miscreant(s) to reach their "flashpoint," sometimes with success and sometimes not

By and large the series is well written though it may have some inconsistencies. One that I remember had a kidnapper driving and followed closely by three police cars. After the break for a commercial, the kidnapper somehow had shaken off the police cars, and they didn't know where he went. How this could happen is a mystery. There are two older members of the Unit, perhaps in their 40s that have a special tie to each other, and four other main characters that are quite a bit younger, perhaps a couple even in their 20s. The 5th season is scheduled to be the last. You can buy the series on DVD (http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Flashpoint+episodes&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#q=Flashpoint+episodes&hl=en&client=safari&rls=en&prmd=imvns&source=univ&tbm=shop&tbo=u&sa=X&ei=OoGuT46uHMm5tgex9IDwCA&ved=0CIUBEK0E&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.,cf.osb&fp=fbcc669694f377a0&biw=975&bih=647)

) or watch some episodes free online (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/flashpoint/).

I record the show in case I should fall asleep before the end.

Note about Sunday, May 13: Ion Television had a Flashpoint marathon Sunday night. I'm not sure when it started, but I watched four shows from 8:00 PM to midnight (was still recording another) when I went to bed. I hadn't seen the first three before, but I had seen the fourth. I presume they were all reruns.

Note on Monday, May 14: The shows went on until 3:00 AM on Monday and we watched them later in the day.