Crying Shame

Last night I watched an episode of 'New Tricks' on BBC1. I was feeling a little tired and emotional as, truth be told, I'd had a little too much to drink the night before, plus I was aching from my first ever yoga class. So I wanted something easy to watch, that wouldn't tax my brain too much, so I thought New Tricks would be ideal.

Unfortunately, I'd forgotten that it often makes me cry. Its James Bolam's character that does it mainly - with his mourning for his dead wife, talking to her shrine in the garden. To make matters worse, last night's episode was set in an old people's home. My gran has recently had to go to live in a home, as she needs constant care after a stroke, so it hit a bit of a raw nerve there. Suffice to say, by the end of the episode I was sobbing quietly to myself.

But this is not an isolated incident. I've cried at several detective programmes. Although detective shows are about death, they very rarely focus on grief or sadness - the solving of the crime is the focus, so I realise I'm not supposed to cry, but I have. Here are a few other incidents:

Homicide: Life on the Streets - 'The City that Bleeds'
The episode where three of the cops are shot had me in tears. It was by far the best episode of this series that I've yet to see which is saying something as it is always very good. What was particularly moving was the way the other cops reacted to the shootings. Somehow I don't think my workplace would be affected in such a way, but then working in the arts doesn't really have that sort of risk.


The Remorseful Day – the final episode of Morse
I knew he was going to die, I cried most of the way through in anticipation and was inconsolable when he collapsed. It was his loneliness that got to me. It reminded me of when our family dog, Rebel, went & lay in the snow to die.

Various episodes of Monk
I know it is supposed to be a light-hearted series, but sometimes the stuff about his grief for his wife just gets to me and I’ll have a discrete cry. I think there may have been tears in the episode when he wanted to adopt the little boy too. The episodes with his brother, Ambrose, also tug at the old heart strings, despite the ridiculousness of his character.

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
I'm pretty sure this has made me cry on several occasions but the one that stands out most was the episode '911' in Season 7 where a little girl rings Olivia claiming she has been kidnapped and there is a race against time to find her.