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.

Flashbits from July 2009!

Flashpoint has had a couple bits in the news in recent days!

New Episodes' Delay a Relief For Producers

Hot on the heels of CBS's sudden announcement that new episodes of Flashpoint were not going to air last week, we uncovered a few comments from Producer Bill Mustos on Playback Magazine. And they suggest that this delay is not necessarily a bad thing! Bill says:

"We've been able to slow down post-production, which is a bit of a relief to us because we've been on a very fast schedule"

Which we can understand - the show began shooting this year in January and is scheduled to continue until August. Mustos also said that CTV has ordered 13 episodes for a third season, and depending on CBS's return this may be extended to 18. He also noted that there is a lot of confusion in keeping track of Flashpoint's episodes since Season 2 in North America began with four episodes held back from the first season! This is one of the first acknowledgments we've heard from anyone involved with the show about this confusion! He also confirmed that the show is coming back to CBS as a midseason replacement. CTV has still not confirmed when the remaining Season 2 episodes will be broadcast.

New Interview With Flashpoint Creators:

Stephanie Morgenstern and Mark Ellis were featured guests at last month's Banff Worldwide Television Festival, and one lucky, blogging, screenwriter, got to interview them through email, and sit in on their sessions! Alex Epstein, best known for his work on Canadian hits 15/Love, Bon Cop, Bad Cop, and Naked Josh posted a compilation of notes from their Master Class session, and questions which the two answered via e-mail. This is well worth the read for you budding screenwriters, and behind-the-scenes aficionados. There are also a few comments included from Christina Davis, Senior Vice President for Drama Series Development at CBS. There's a lot of detail about their inspiration for turning this into a series from a proposed movie-of-the-week, and bonus detail about a cop they met during the development of the series.

Tassie Cameron Moves on to Motherhood, and Copper

Tassie Cameron was not a star of Flashpoint, but she was the spark that led the writing table from the beginning until just recently. Last month, she flew to Los Angeles with her writing partner Ilana Frank to pitch a new cop show to network execs called Copper. This one's about rookie cops fresh out of the academy making their ways through their careers. ABC picked up 13 episodes, and this happened shortly after the series was greenlit by Canwest Global. As we speak, the show is being shot, as Tassie is expecting her first child! The cast includes Canadian favorites such as Missy Peregrym, and Greg Smith. Eric Johnson of Smallville and Melanie Nicholls King of Law and Order are also joining the cast! Congrats to Tassie - we will miss seeing your words on Flashpoint, but we wish you the best of luck on your new show and a happy, healthy and safe journey into motherhood!

New Enrico Colantoni Interview with German Newspaper!

The German portal dedicated to American Entertainment, Serienjunkies, just posted a phone interview with Enrico Colantoni promoting the series, which is about to make its debut on German TV network RTL2. Für eine deutsche Übersetzung, klicken Sie bitte hier. He talks about the show and it's Canadian identity, how it has opened the door for other Canadian shows on American networks, and his character. One of the coolest parts in the interview is on the second page where he suggests that the show's peaceful nature of negotiation is something that fits into the current US political zeitgeist. We also have to wonder if President Obama watches the show! The interviewer Christian Junklewitz also suggests that he sing a song for the show, but Enrico laughs away from it. And, Enrico talks about another role which is a little too hot for this blog. We still think a musical episode would make for great filler just once!

Hugh Dillon Working Double Duty!

When not working as a sniper and leader on Flashpoint, Hugh Dillon plays a detective on Durham County. There have been a few articles lately talking about Hugh's involvement with both series. He is also due to release his debut solo album later this fall through Warner Music Canada! We wonder if his song from the show, Lost at Sea will be included. The album will be called "Works Well With Others" and he describes it as "a little more Leonard Cohen and a little less Lemmy from Motorhead." Hugh's success on both sides of the border continues to grow in new directions!

Flashpoint Ratings News!

Before we hit the ratings, we'll link you to an interesting article we found - One of Flashpoint's writers, Tassie Cameron is pitching a new cop series to US networks entitled Copper. The article goes on to say what a pioneer Flashpoint was for Canadian television across the border, since the economic crisis is pushing US networks to pursue alternative productions.

Canada's ratings for the episode "The Fortress" (which was the week before last Friday), scored 1.367 million viewers, and was the 14th most watched show in the country that week! US Ratings for the episode which aired just a few days ago, "Clean Hands", scored 9.44 million viewers, and earned a score of 1.9/6 for the adults 18-49 demographic. This 1.9 score sent off alarm bells with some critics, saying that the show probably won't survive, but it's been teetering between 1.9 and 2.0 the last few weeks. And it is still winning it's timeslot, despite only retaining 85% of the viewers from the preceding show, The Ghost Whisperer. Some other outlets are reporting bigger figures. Dollhouse rose in viewers to 4.42 million, with a score of 1.5/5 in the demographic. However if the previews are to be trusted, next week's episode will be a real kicker, and may be the spark that attracts more viewers. Flashpoint is on a hiatus for the next two weeks , and maybe if we are lucky we can catch up on some summaries - I'll at least be lost without Flashpoint for this time!

BIG BIG Flashpoint Roundup!

☃ ☾ Hey Lunarians! ☽ Expect updates to be sporadic for the next couple weeks, it's getting very busy behind the scenes! But we just had to update you all on Stephanie Morgenstern ♀ (Sailor Venus #1) ♀ and Mark Ellis' Flashpoint! Tangentially, I have discovered new ASCII codes and am having way too much fun with them tonight... you may want to increase your browser's text size to see full detail! ☃

BREAKING NEWS: Flashpoint Returns Much Earlier Than We Expected!

Many industry insiders since we wrote our last article had predicted that Flashpoint would return sometime in February occupying the slot once held by the now canceled The Ex-List (of which the latter we predicted not too long ago). Today, CBS announced that it would return on January 9th, on Fridays at 9 P.M. in that timeslot that we had predicted! Venusians will just have to wait until a little after Christmas to catch the new episodes. As of this writing, CTV has not announced an airdate, however we would not be surprised if a press release from CTV ended up in our inbox tomorrow morning. We predict that they will air it at the same time (yay for "Reverse Simulcast"!) We here behind the scenes have managed to see the unaired episodes and we loved them so much that we are going to tune in when they air on television - and we encourage all our readers to do the same and to please support the show just the same as you did this past Summer and Fall! We really love these next episodes - and we'll tease you a little bit. Ed Lane grips with balancing his work, old ghosts, and family life, OMG THERE ARE BOMBS COMING AND YOU GET TO SEE SPIKE WORK, and umm... Sam and Jules. Not saying any more about those two! Tune in to find out more! A VA will appear on the show in one of these episodes - Robert Bockstael (Prince Diamond from the R-Season). Stephanie also makes a brief appearance as well. We look forward to seeing more of these stories come to life, and hopefully more VAs appearing on the show! We've got our fingers crossed in the hopes that Terri Hawkes (Sailor Moon #2) might appear somewhere on the show.

A Spoiler and a Flashbit!

We ran across a couple items in the news in the past week!

☀ Series Writer and Co-executive Producer Tassie Cameron remarked at a recent conference, "Basically, they asked us to make 13 pilots." This explains why the cops on the show didn't have many arcs that carried on from episode to episode. There was a short bit with Greg Parker and his son, the last few episodes get heavy dealing with Ed Lane and his family, and Sam and Jules get a little more involved towards the end of the season. It seems that this season , there is going to be a lot more with the characters and their continuity beyond the length they had in the first season. We learned of a casting call for a female actress! The role of Donna Hewson calls for a character who "is a 'triple A' Alpha female -- strong, outspoken, funny, compelling, complicated." "In her first episode, we see this tornado of a woman blowing past most of her male competition -- nailing every physical, shooting and combat test, impressing Ed and the rest of the team in an intense recruitment drive." She will appear in the first 4-6 episodes of the season, and we are guessing this is to accommodate Amy Jo Johnson's maternity leave (and we haven't heard if she has had the baby yet, Power Ranger fans). We're excited to see where this goes this coming February! Again, we will not post our new episodessummaries until they air on North American televisions.

☀ And one of the most completely random articles we caught on our radar has to do with the supplier of the training and the non-lethal weapons used on the set! Lamperd Less Lethal, a company specializing in less-lethal weaponry announced a few days ago that they once again had an agreement providing training and less lethal weapons to Flashpoint Season 2! Jim Bremner is serving as a consultant on the show, and he has posted a few pics behind the scenes of Flashpoint along with some testimonials from the cast!