Summer 2008

Flashpoint: Authentic SWAT Team Drama

by Philip Moscovitch

On August 25, 2004, during the morning rush hour, Sugstan Anthony Brookes held a gun to the head of a terrified 20-year-old woman outside Toronto’s Union Station. With thousands of people in the area, police tried negotiating with an agitated Brookes. But after negotiations failed–and after Brookes had pointed his gun at both police and his hostage–an Emergency Task Force sniper was called into action. At 8:50 a.m., he killed Brookes with a single shot.

That same morning, at home, Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern watched the events unfold on their TV. The married pair–who have a history of working together as both actors and writers–were preparing to meet with their agent and discuss a project they would be pitching at the Toronto International Film Festival. But all the way to the meeting their minds were on that morning's incident. More specifically, on the sniper.

“We were driving to this meeting and thinking, what’s the rest of the day going to be like for the guy who took that shot?” Ellis says. “We're used to seeing SWAT teams all over television and film. Usually it’s in the context of a story about a hostage, or a negotiator, or a bad guy–and at some point towards the end of the story, the SWAT team goes in, does their job, and gets a pat on the back. But we wondered what it's like to be that guy. It’s nine in the morning, and you've been asked to be a public executioner.” 

“And in particular in such a public venue,” adds Morgenstern. “I mean, you cannot imagine a more public venue than having to take someone’s life in front of Union Station with several hundred people watching.”

So Morgenstern and Ellis pitched their agent an MOW on a day in the life of a police sniper. The project wound up part of CTV’s Writer Only Development Program. Eventually, it morphed into a one-hour series pilot called Sniper–and from there into Flashpoint. Set in Toronto, and starring Enrico Colantoni (Veronica Mars) and Hugh Dillon (Durham County), the 13 x 1 hour series is an ensemble piece featuring eight members of the city's fictional Strategic Response Unit (SRU)–which is modeled closely on Toronto’s Emergency Task Force.

Flashpoint is created by Ellis and Morgenstern (who also get credit as producers and writers). It will air in Canada on CTV and on CBS south of the border–making Flashpoint the first Canadian drama series since Due South to appear in prime-time on a major US broadcaster. CBS is premiering the series in July. At press time, CTV had not committed to a schedule, but Ellis says his understanding is that the network plans to simulcast.

Tactical brilliance and emotional intelligence

Empathy and compassion may not be the first words that come to mind when you think about a SWAT team. And yet they come up repeatedly in conversation with Flashpoint’s writers. The SRU members aren’t just out to pull the trigger. Instead, their focus is on saving people. The bad guys are complex characters, brought to an emotional tipping point–a flashpoint–and the cops (and viewers) strive to understand it.

“The flagpole idea behind our show is that it’s about a team that is tactically brilliant but also emotionally intelligent,” Ellis says. “We really wanted to explore what is unique about this group of policemen and women. It’s their insight into human behaviour, and the empathy they’re able to bring to the plate in trying to save people. The flashpoint is really the point of ignition in the subjects’ lives that our team is trying to understand.

“If they can understand it, there’s a way they can try to save them. It doesn’t mean that every day our team reaches out to everyone on an emotional level and there are hugs all around. They have to deal with tactical solutions as well. But for our cops the ultimate goal is not to use lethal force but to save people, and understanding that flashpoint is a central premise of the show.”

Take a few stories from the premiere season: a distraught father draws a gun in a hospital’s cardiac unit, when he discovers his daughter is not getting the heart transplant that will save her life; in response to gang bullying, a teenage girl is driven to a desperate act at a mall; a high-stakes drug bust goes badly and an innocent person is caught in the middle.

In each case, Flashpoint’s officers need to negotiate a careful course. Co-executive producer and head writer Tassie Cameron says, “they have to make plans to kill someone while at the same time trying to save them. I thought there was something really interesting bout that concept... These guys have to have the patience of saints and also the tactical sensibilities of snipers.”

For the complete article, please see Canadian Screenwriter Magazine