Flashpoint (1.2)

Friday, July 18th @ 10 PM CBS "Flashpoint" - Season 1, Episode #2 - "First in Line"

A desperate father turns a policeman's gun on a surgical team, demanding a heart transplant for his dying daughter.

Manatee: The Strategic Response Unit did not disappoint again this week (for the most part). I love how the episode opens into the action and then backs up. Though I'm sure there is a more creative way of telling the story, I enjoy the lack of a slow or boring teaser / set up. Show me the good stuff in the first 30 seconds. Again this week, the story was very emotional, and the performances were great. You really get a sense of what each character is going through. If you didn't feel for the father (Jack Swanson played by Henry Czerny) then you don't have a heart. The show deals with very intense situations in a very delicate and thoughtful way. The story makes you look inside - what would you do if you were in this position? Would you just say ok and go home with your dying kid? How hard would you fight? How unfair can life be? These are questions that, hopefully, you don't have to deal with now and never will. But it's a real test of character to think about yourself in these shoes and to answer honestly.

The fact that the drama revolves around this ensemble cast is also working for it. On a show like In Plain Sight, for example, each week's procedural story reflects Mary's personal issues, ie: her father's gambling issues, her love life, and so on. Here, with so many team members to choose from each week, we can relate personally to a different character. This week it was Elliot, ie: Sgt. Gregory Parker (Enrico Colantoni). His performance was excellent proving that just because you are a master hostage negotiator doesn't mean you lack feeling (though he did break the rule of not getting personal). The show is more believable with various characters to engage with each week.

My only concern with the episode was the ending where the patient (spoiler alert!) agreed to give the little girl (Phoebe Swanson played by Jordan Todosey) the heart at literally the last second. By giving up the heart in the last moments of the show it negates all the action preceding it. Why didn't he just give up the organ to the little girl in the first place? Wouldn't he want to keep the peace and the jeopardy that someone innocent in the hospital could die? Or was he just too selfish until he had an hour to think about it? Why not speak up sooner? There are two ways this would have worked better:

1- The little girl died while the team was still negotiating with the father. Tragic ending, I know, but at least the last 40 minutes of action aren't eliminated by one single sentence (which we don't even hear).

or 2- Keep the same ending but show the patient struggling with this negotiation as you do the other characters. If you were an older man, and people were arguing with guns over a heart for you or a young girl, what would you say? Maybe he should have struggled with the decision first, been a cocky bastard and wanted the heart. But then as he sees the little girl and the father's struggle maybe he starts to melt, maybe he tried to intervene but was not able to. It would have been more dramatic to see some struggle instead of an 11th hour decision to let the girl have her heart.

Aside from that small flaw, I still think the episode overall is some decently entertaining summer programming. How do you think this show compares to the short lived series Stand Off on Fox? That was also about hostage negotiators but seemed less dramatic and emotional, and more about stuff blowing up. I'll admit I was not much of an avid viewer of the show, so leave us your comments if you want to chime in.