Flashpoint, CTV's drama about a big city police SWAT team, is a hit with viewers both here and in the United States. But the series is more than just an action-packed cop drama.

It was inspired by the work of an actual SWAT team -- Toronto's Emergency Task Force -- and that dose of reality sets it apart.

"We emphasize both sides of their training," says Stephanie Morgenstern, one of the show's creators. "We emphasize the emotional sensitivity that they have to be highly adept at, as well as the lethal skills."

That means no pile of dead bodies at the end of each episode, but more often, a bomb defused, or a hostage rescued without anyone being injured.

And when someone is killed by a member of the fictional Emergency Response Unit on Flashpoint, there are consequences: psychological demons that stay with the characters long after the incident is over.

Mark Ellis, who writes most of the episodes with Stephanie Morgenster, says anyone who joins a SWAT team will "become more or less a public executioner."

"And that's a tremendous weight to carry. What is the human cost in being this kind of police officer in a very lethal situation?" he asks.

Ellis and Morgenstern got the idea for the series after watching a hostage-taking unfold outside Toronto's Union Station in 2004.

In that incident, after trying to kill his estranged wife in an underground mall, a man with a gun grabbed a woman and threatened to shoot her in front of hundreds of horrified commuters. The Emergency Task Force was called in, but couldn't persuade the man to drop his weapon. After he became increasingly agitated, aiming his gun wildly at police and his hostage, he was shot dead by an ETF sniper.

"The idea that something so brutal could happen in a place that we walk past every day shook us up," says Morgenstern. "What are the consequences of this? Something has ended, but something else is also just beginning today."

And so, Flashpoint was born.

"The work's so powerful," says Hugh Dillon, the actor who plays Ed Lane, the lead sniper in the fictional team. "It's what we wanted to do as actors."

Also in the cast is Enrico Colantoni as Team Sergeant Greg Parker. He feels that the training he and his fellow actors received from former ETF members added realism to their work.

"It was great for us because we got to see what it was like and it gave us something to run with," he says.

The actors also know that even though they try to make the series as realistic as possible, the ultimate critics are the officers in the real Emergency Task Force.

David Paetkau, who plays Sam Braddock in the series, says the last thing he wants is police officers who do the real job every day telling him he's doing it all wrong.

"If there's anyone that I'm nervous in their response to the show, it's those guys."

So what does the real ETF think of its fictional cousin? W-FIVE went down to the unit's headquarters in Toronto to find out.

"It's an honour that they picked our unit," says Const. Peter Morris. "I mean, they could have picked any SWAT team anywhere in North America and made a hit show out of it."

"I think that you have to take things with a certain grain of salt," adds Const. Elliot Hill. "You do have to accept that it's entertainment. And it can't be entirely true to life or it wouldn't be a very entertaining show."

That mix of entertainment and reality has resulted in high expectations for the real ETF from people who have watched the show.

"You're forever getting the dumb 'Flashpoint' questions," says Morris. "Do you guys have this? Can you look through the wall? Crazy stuff."

Those expectations have even begun to filter through the rest of the police force.

"We're showing up for things and detectives are assuming that we have the capabilities that are on TV," says Morris. "And whether we do or we don't isn't really open to discussion. But it can lead to ambiguity even amongst guys in our field of work."

In the end, the focus of Flashpoint isn't the technology, the sharp uniforms, or the action and guns. It's a look at how the human distress that police officers view every day affects those officer over time.

"There's no doubt there've been guys here that have had issues," says Const. Morris.

"I think that happens anywhere. But for TV, I think they overdramatize it. That's good for TV."

Flashpoint is now the most successful Canadian series in more than a decade, with millions of viewers uning in every week, both in Canada and the U.S. And if entertainment can also carry a serious message, it makes the series worthwhile for its creators.

"What we do is just TV," says Mark Ellis. "What these guys do is much harder. It's real life.

"At the end of the day if we can change the perception of the public that is walking down the street, so that when they walk past an officer they think of him a little bit differently. Then we'll have done our job."