| 63 |
Chicago Sun-Times Misha Davenport
Though the characters on this show, premiering Friday on CBS, are relatable and watchable, the slow pace might prove to be too much of a cultural divide for an American audience used to the quick cuts and immediate resolve seen on American cop shows. |
| 60 |
Los Angeles Times Robert Lloyd
It has an appealing modesty that survives its bouts of aesthetic overexcitement--the occasionally lurching camera, hammering soundtrack, the sentimental pop song laid over the last couple of minutes as the principals silently end a long, hard day. |
| 60 |
New York Daily News David Hinckley
It's more nuanced than the average cop drama, and for that reason, more intriguing. |
| 50 |
New York Post Linda Stasi
The best part of this show is the acting, which is generally excellent - particularly that of Hugh Dillon as Ed Lane, the conscience-riddled sharpshooter. Too bad the writing isn't as on-target as Lane's high-powered automatic. |
| 50 |
The New York Times Ginia Bellafante
Flashpoint lingers when it ought to speed up. It is a show about crisis that refuses to make you anxious. |
| 50 |
Variety Brian Lowry
It's understandable why CBS would take its own low-risk shot with "Flashpoint" as summer filler. Yet as viewing experiences go, the series itself possesses so little flash, finally, that it's difficult to see the point. |
| 50 |
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen
It's not terrible, not great, just sort of so-so. |
| 50 |
Miami Herald Glenn Garvin
If you can ignore stuff like the impossibly clean subways and the fact that the cops call one another ''constable'' with straight faces, Flashpoint is actually rather formulaic. |
| 50 |
PopMatters Cynthia Fuchs
Flashpoint works through the distress and damage it lays out here, it gets points for beginning with the difficulty, not with the triumph. Now, if it can just figure a way beyond the scary perp clichés. |
| 50 |
Newsday Verne Gay
The first half is tautly produced, before there's a dramatic--and dramatically dull--downshift that'll get you ready for beddy-bye. |
| 50 |
Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert
It goes through the motions quite competently and respectably. But it is nonetheless merely re-creating crime-series moves we've all seen many times before, with only the faintest afterimage of originality. |
| 50 |
Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron
To be sure, Flashpoint is a perfectly competent police procedural right down to its convincing weaponry and tactics. However, based on the pilot, it isn't particularly fresh or inventive. |
| 50 |
Newark Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall
The Flashpoint pilot is competent, but very retro (there's an extended sequence of the team driving to a crisis point with their sirens blaring, the sort of thing that went out 15 years ago) and fairly dull. |
| 42 |
Entertainment Weekly Adam Markovitz
It's nice to have fresh scripted material on the summer TV menu, but after an hour of dull wisecracks and predictable plotting, reheated "Law & Order" leftovers start looking pretty tasty. [11 Jul 2008, p.66]] |
| 40 |
Washington Post
If it had something truly new or provocative to say about such matters, the essential redundancy of Flashpoint could be overlooked--but it doesn't, and so it can't. These good guys are too good for their own good. And ours. |
