More September 2009 Flashbits!

This Week’s Upcoming Episode Will Be A Shocker!

Flashpoint has undergone some episode scheduling changes once again. It's likely that the episodes being aired in Canada are going to be aired out of order (but the reason will be made clear to us soon, we read). Back in July, the episode Coming To You Live was supposed to air. And this one was about the SRU trying to prevent a Radio DJ from killing a politician on the air. To our surprise, some days ago, another episode was announced for this Friday - One Wrong Move. And this one is probably going to keep everyone in Canada on the edge of their seats. One of our readers posted this same video on Facebook (linking to YouTube so everyone can watch) of the current commercial being aired on CTV as we speak for the new episode. CTV has also posted one online here. In a press release, CTV posted this about the episode:

FLASHPOINT returns with its most emotional and unforgettable episode ever as the SRU is pushed to the breaking point and desperately work to save the life of one of their own. After answering a bomb call in the downtown core the team soon discovers it’s just the first in a wave of bombings by a mysterious eco-terrorist organization. Ed (Hugh Dillon), Sam (David Paetkau) and Wordy (Michael Cram) must hunt down the terrorists, while bomb defusing experts Spike (Sergio Di Zio) and Lou (Mark Taylor) must defuse two bombs simultaneously.

The only cast members we can confirm at this time are Richard Willis, who plays the character Sheldon Kominski, and Toronto actor Drew Finnie makes another of a few appearances on the show. CTV's Forums are all abuzz with who the unfortunate member of the team might be, and if it is who we think it is, we'll be left wondering where the series is going to go.

On a side note, I am definitely going to change the format of the episode summaries (yes, I will attempt to use paragraphs). If I have a laptop (which I am hoping one of my broken ones will return to me from the shop soon), then it will be up hours after the episode airs. If not, then I'm stuck doing it on this PC, and that won't happen until CTV puts the episode up online. We will hide the full summaries after the post jumps, so those of you who don't want to be spoiled, won't be :). We're excited and only 5 days away from a premiere! Keep an eye out on our ratings table too - this will be updated as soon as we have the figures in!


Simon Vaughan Starts New Company!

Well, it seems one person that left the fledgling Alchemy TV has started their own venture. Simon Vaughn, co-founder and partner at Alchemy, left the company last year, and just recently announced that he is starting his own company, Lookout Point. The company will producers secure funding for their projects via pre-sales, co-production and bank and equity financing. Since this is a solo project, Simon will serve as an Executive Producer on future productions, but will not serve as a distributor. He spoke of his philosophy, "I want to sit on the same side of the desk as the producer and have the flexibility to get involved with the best projects and help make them happen. It is important to have maximum mobility, so I can work with networks, studios or production companies without treading on the toes of their own in-house distribution entities. Being less of a competitor and more of a partner is very liberating and gives me access to a wider range of the best projects." Vaughn plans to focus on series and movies. Simon isn't quite done with Alchemy just yet, as he is nominated this month for an Emmy for his work on their production, Coco Chanel (Outstanding Made for Television Movie). Alchemy continues to be a key production partner of Flashpoint.

Flashpoint’s Second Season Premieres in Italy!

We wonder if Spike cozied up to Babycakes and watched! Flashpoint continues its conquest of the world, and the second season of the show began in Italy on September 8th on AXN. The first season of the show reruns in syndication on RaiTre (Rai3) and so far the ratings have been good on both channels. On September 10th, approximately 1,224,00 people watched Scorpio and the show held a 5.23% share. Mark Ellis reports that 1.3 million people caught the premiere on AXN! Fans can catch watch Flashpoint in this Autumn 2009 promo video from AXN! Viva la Flashpoint!

And Now, a Short Word From Moon Chase:

The fans are really putting up a fight to bring back Sailor Moon, and we want to thank the readers of this blog who weren't afraid to check out a little more about Flashpoint's very big connection to an iconic cartoon, and in turn participated in our surveys. We have received over 1000 surveys from fans over Phase 1 and 3 of Operation Moonrise - which is a really big number none of us ever expected to reach! We'll be finishing up the release survey a week from today, so if you want to get involved this is your very last chance!

Alchemy TV Woes, Dose.ca Fixes A Howling Error, and Flashpoint Guest Stars Appear in New Productions!

Alchemy TV Loses 3 Key Staff Members

It's been a rough year for one of Flashpoint's key production partners. Alchemy TV is based in Los Angeles, and distributes Flashpoint internationally. Recently, the London office of the company (specifically for Reality TV) was wound down, and its managing director Mike Beale, stepped down from the company due to an internal dispute. Michael Oesterlin, who served as the President of Worldwide Distribution, also left. And just a few days ago, Alchemy CEO Carrie Stein left her post and the company. She commented that this was because "Alchemy's brass weren't ready to grow the company as quickly as she wanted". Like many companies in this time, it was not a financially great year for the company either. Simon Vaughn, a co-founder and partner at Alchemy, is now left to take the company into the future. We really hope that Alchemy doesn't drop Flashpoint - the show is a success in many countries around the world and it would be a terrible loss!

Once Again, the Media Gets it All Wrong...

In an article which signaled our Flashpoint radar yesterday, we spotted a potentially howling error. In an interview with actress Tonya Lee Williams about another Canadian show The Border, the interviewer told her that CBS had announced Flashpoint had been canceled. We didn't hear about this, and it was news to us (as it was to many of our followers on Twitter, and series Story Editor, Adam Barken). We contacted the editors of both the Vancouver Sun and Dose.ca asking them for their source of this "announcement". This morning we heard back from Jennifer McDonnell of Canwest Digital Media, and she thanked us for the note and said she'd look into it. This afternoon, we found that the article had changed from "Yes, but CBS just announced they'd be cancelling Flashpoint last week." to "Yes, but CBS just announced that Flashpoint isn't on their fall schedule." The interview just doesn't have the same flow with the change. Normally we'd expect to see an Editor's note or something either before or after the article admitting this error. Readers, you can all breathe because once again, people are reporting Flashpoint is canceled just because it isn't on CBS's Fall schedule. New episodes begin on CTV Tuesday, September 25th! Our pictures below are screens of the article.


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Two Guest Stars on Flashpoint in New Productions!

☄K.C. Collins, who played Derek Medeiros in the episode "Exit Wounds" has the leading role in the upcoming movie Sons 2 the Grave. The movie is the first cinematic effort from rap label Death Row Records, and K.C. plays a young basketball phenom who returns to an inner-city ghetto after two bullets stop his dream of a career in the NBA. Death Row CEO Lara Lavi had this to say about the movie: "This film embodies what we're trying to do with Death Row, to tell human stories that don't always have happy endings, and that allow us to learn from violence and disenfranchised lives, but not glorify it." Sounds like it's going to have a sad ending?! We might catch this one! Death Row also plans to use music to score the film from its extensive back catalog including unreleased tracks from Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. The film begins production in Toronto this October and is slated to hit theaters in 2010.

☄ Dewshane Williams, who played Adam in the episode "Aisle 13", has a supporting role in the MTV/CTV co-production, Turn the Beat Around. This made for TV movie is a dance film that centers around a dancer who is determined to follow her dreams in Los Angeles, and continues to work hard for that one break! Production is now underway for this film in Toronto and Hamilton. The film has some other big names behind it, such as choreographer Tre Armstrong, who was also the choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance Canada, and music supervisor Evan Bogart, who is known for writing some of the radio's biggest hits, such as Sean Kingston's Take You There, Beyoncé Knowles' Halo, and Hilary Duff's Reach Out.

Congrats to these two and good luck on these productions!

Flashbits from August 2009!

Badgers and Doves, here come your Flashpoint tidbits for the month of August! P.S. Badgers and Doves is our new, Mark Ellis-approved, fan nickname. What do you all think?

Flashpoint Premieres in France and South Africa!

Flashpoint continues to conquer the world with two big premieres this month on two different continents. On August 6th, the show premiered in France on Canal+ and the first three episodes were shown that night in French! On August 20th, the show premiered for the first time in South Africa on Hallmark Channel(and was earlier named a pick of the week)! There are a couple interesting news articles coming out of France. One outlines reasons for the show's pickup, and remarks that while American dramas never cease to seduce both broadcasters and viewers, they are quite expensive for foreign countries to broadcast. Many similar kinds of shows have also either ended or been canceled. Many broadcasters choose to look to Canada for similar shows, because they are cheaper to produce. Since the Writer's Strike of 2007, ideas that were coming out of the US weren't as innovative as Flashpoint. The second reason the show was picked up was production quality. Even U.S. networks which were not warm to foreign imports, picked up Flashpoint because the Canadian standards were on par with Hollywood standards, and the format didn't stray too far away from similar US shows. The second article was just a short intro to the series and the first three episodes being broadcast on premiere night. 3 episodes back to back is overkill - two would have been just right! We're still waiting to hear on a premiere in an Asian country!

CBSC Deems Promo Not Violent

We're sure most Canadians have seen a Canadian Broadcast Standards Council commercial on TV at some point in their life. Usually when we see these commercials, it's because the watchdog NGO found something offensive on the network and the network needs to remind it's viewers that they strive to keep what they air within standards. A promotion for the episode Backwards Day disturbed the children of one very angry parent, and was aired during an NFL Football game, to the point where the commercial had to be censored by the parent. The CBSC recently announced its decision on how violent this promo was, and decided that it was not as violent as it seemed, and it was not in breach of broadcast standards. CTV just got a warning that promos for the show should air in a more appropriate timeslot. At least we don't have to see those CBSC spots during Flashpoint!

Flashpoint On Air in the Air?!

Mark Ellis informed his Twitter followers yesterday on the way to their much-needed family vacation in Florida that there are 5 episodes of Flashpoint available on Air Canada (writer Adam Barken later joked that he should watch it wearing full Flashpoint crew gear). Flashpoint Fan gcookie60 also shared that there were 6 episodes available on her flight! So for those of you who want something a little better to watch than their current movie selection, and you are flying on a longer Air Canada flight, why not make it a little more pleasant with the SRU?

Quickie Appearances in a Flash!

☄ Writer Tassie Cameron was listed by the Globe and Mail as one of Canada's Hottest Women Not On TV because she is "the girl who writes like a guy". Also featured are other writers on Flashpoint, Tracey Forbes (Planets Aligned, Attention Shoppers), and Esta Spalding who served as a consultant for the first season and wrote Backwards Day and Never Kissed a Girl. No mention of Stephanie Morgenstern?!

☄ Alchemy TV's co-founder and partner Simon Vaughan is set to be the keynote speaker at Strategic Partners, a very prestigious Canadian international co-production market in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This event will take place on September 19th. Alchemy TV is one of Flashpoint's key production partners, and is also the international distributor of the show.

☄ The_Nange pointed us to her pictures of a feature article with Enrico Colantoni (Page 1, Page 2)! He was interviewed in Autotrader's Newcar Magazine as part of their Stars in Cars section. He talks about his cars (past and current), how he drives, what his dream car is (you might be surprised!) , and who he'd like to have a car ride with. Thanks for sharing this with us, The_Nange!

☄ CBS just announced an official press release with the cover and details of the U.S. release of Season 1 (on standard DVD format), which was also posted on TVShowsonDVD. Confirmed extras include A commentary by director David Frazee on the first episode, Scorpio, and two featurettes: Flashpoint: Behind The Scenes - Season 1 and The Human Cost of Heroism.