Flashpoint is a Canadian crime drama television series created by Mark Ellis and Stephanie Morgenstern. The series debuted on July 11, 2008, on CTV. In the United States, the series originally aired on CBS; it also aired on Ion Television. The series starred Hugh Dillon, Amy Jo Johnson, David Paetkau, Sergio Di Zio, and Enrico Colantoni. The show focuses on a fictional elite tactical unit, the Strategic Response Unit (SRU), within a Canadian metropolitan police force (styled on the Toronto Police Emergency Task Force). The SRU are tasked to resolve extreme situations that regular officers are not trained to handle, including hostage-taking, bomb threats, and heavily armed criminals. Although the team is seldom seen doing so, they do sometimes discuss the "day job" of serving high-risk arrest warrants. Equipped with high-tech tools and a cache of weapons and explosives, members use negotiation tactics and intuition to try to avoid the use of deadly force, which they exert only as a last resort. The initiation of a given situation is often determined by a split-second decision, hence the show's title. On January 25, 2011, it was announced that Ion Television had acquired all rights to the show held by CBS, including the option to continue production. On May 1, 2012, the producers announced that the fifth season would be the last of the series. The series finale aired on December 13, 2012. Plot Flashpoint follows the lives of several officers working for an elite police tactical unit known as the Strategic Response Unit (SRU), which is called in by regular police to resolve situations beyond their control. Cast The majority of the cast of Flashpoint are Canadians, including Enrico Colantoni, David Paetkau, Hugh Dillon, Sergio Di Zio, Michael Cram, Mark Taylor, and Ruth Marshall. Amy Jo Johnson is the only American. Johnson said she had no problems with the physical demands of the show despite being pregnant with her first child with her fiancé Oliver Giner during initial production of Flashpoint. Ruth Marshall left the series after Season 1 and Mark Taylor left after the tenth episode of the second season after his character, Lou, died. During Amy Jo Johnson's maternity leave (during which her character was hospitalized with a gunshot wound), she was temporarily replaced by Jessica Steen, who played Donna Sabine. Steen left the main cast in the sixth episode of the second season, when Johnson's character returned full-time,