Saddest TV Moments

[foxyepicurean]

The very first scene I ever saw of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was when Buffy came home and found Joyce dead on the couch. I didn't even know anything about the characters, but I was close to tears. (And I'm not much of a crier.) I started following the show after that.

Another moment that stands out was on General Hospital when little BJ is horribly injured in a bus crash. Her mother is off messing around with her lover, and her father, Tony, has to decide to take his little girl off life support. Then he donates BJ's heart to her dying cousin Maxie. I know it sounds far-fetched summaried like that, but those scenes were heartbreaking. I don't expect that level of emotional resonance in a soap, so it caught me completely off guard.

I agree, that telegram on M*A*S*H* was wrenching.

[scarlettewitch]

Oh AmyLuna, ER makes me cry a lot. My favourite two sad moments from it are when Mark's dad dies, and he's trying to pay off his dad's bills or something, and he just breaks down sobbing.

Also, when Mark dies. I love the "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" rendition that was in that episode.

[Deleted]

Huge WORD, foxy epicurean, on the GH tearjerker. That was so sad, and so well done, I sobbed until I couldn't breathe. Then after the heart transplant, Tony (BJ's dr. dad) went and listened to BJ's heart in Maxie's body. And when Felicia (Maxey's mom/BJ's aunt) found out the who the heart came from she just fell on the floor with shock and grief. Tears are falling on my keyboard right now just remembering it!

[BinkyBetsy]

---David Letterman's tribute to Warren Zevon.

---Also Letterman's first post-9/11 episode. "Will that make any sense? Will that make any FUCKING SENSE?!"

---Bart and Lisa facing off in a junior hockey game on The Simpsons. Bart's going to take the penalty shot and Lisa is supposed to block it. One side of the arena is chanting, "Kill, Bart! Kill, Bart!" The other is chanting "Kill Bart! Kill Bart!" Fade away to Bart and Lisa remembering Kodak moments. Bart tosses his stick, Lisa her mask, and they meet in the center of the rink. "Great game, sis." "Great game, Bart."

---Darlene reading her poem on an early episode of Roseanne. "To whom it concerns, I just turned thirteen/Too short to be quarterback, too plain to be queen."

---Mike and Gloria leaving for California on All in the Family. "I know I always acted like I hated you...but I love you." And Archie called him "Mike" instead of "Meathead" for the first and only time.

---The last scene of the last episode of Upstairs Downstairs. Everyone has left the house except Rose. She lingers in the dining room, hearing dialogue from earlier episodes, until Mr. 'Udson's words start reverberating. Then she leaves through the front door, which staff normally didn't use. (In the first episode, Sarah almost didn't get hired simply because she went to the front door.) Outside, Rose tightens her collar, and her stiff upper lip, and heads off down the street.

[Smilla]

Oh AmyLuna, ER makes me cry a lot. My favourite two sad moments from it are when Mark's dad dies, and he's trying to pay off his dad's bills or something, and he just breaks down sobbing.

I found myself totally crying the other night while watching the episode a couple of eps prior to this one in the ER rerun cycle, "The Fastest Year." When Mark takes his dad out for a boat ride in Lake Michigan, because his father, a Navy man, misses the ocean, and his father tells him: "Good boy, good boy...thank you, Mark, for brigning me to the water." Hello to the pain, right there.

[ang]

I watched the ER episode with Ray Liotta dying in real time...
Gut wrenching...even my 4 year old cried. (I know he shouldnt have watched it, but he kept sneaking out of his room).

And SO many Buffy moments, Im a huge Buffy fan. (My 4 year olds name is Xander Harris - no, Im not kidding).

But my number 1 tear jerker on Buffy is still the end of Becoming, after Buffy kills Angel, then the rest of the gang gathers at school, looks around for Buffy, and wander off to classes....and Buffy is standing off campus, turns, and leaves...and goes past the 'You are now leaving Sunnydale' sign on a bus.

I can just put on Sarah McLachlan's Full of Grace and reduce myself to a snivelling wreck.

[Smilla]

But my number 1 tear jerker on Buffy is still the end of Becoming, after Buffy kills Angel, then the rest of the gang gathers at school, looks around for Buffy, and wander off to classes....and Buffy is standing off campus, turns, and leaves...and goes past the 'You are now leaving Sunnydale' sign on a bus.

Oh, Lord, Ang, that moment is horrible. HORRIBLE.

[Deleted]

But my number 1 tear jerker on Buffy is still the end of Becoming, after Buffy kills Angel, then the rest of the gang gathers at school, looks around for Buffy, and wander off to classes....and Buffy is standing off campus, turns, and leaves...and goes past the 'You are now leaving Sunnydale' sign on a bus.

God, yes. And all of "The Body". And the end of "The Gift". And in "Innocence", when Angel shows up at his apartment and is so vicious to her, the day after they've slept together for the first time.

Although I think the only one that really made me actually cry (I don't cry much in movies or tv shows)was on Angel, in "I Will Remember You", when Angel has just told Buffy that she's going to forget everything that's happened between them. They've just had this blissful day or two and he's taking the whole fucking thing away from her again, after so much trauma, and she's clinging to him, crying and whispering, "I'll never forget, I'll never forget, I'll never forget." I was just in floods of tears after that one.

[caroma]

In HOMICIDE, there were so many moments:

Pembleton's salute, in full dress blues, to the casket in 'Crosetti'.

Giardello's sudden death in the movie, with the announcement by Brodie in the bar and then Gee's spirit joining Felton and Crosetti in the station house, with Adena Watson merrily skipping by him.

Robin William's tourist character in 'Bop Gun' finally breaking down when he sees the slip his wife had dropped in the hotel room the night after she's been murdered, and his children hearing him and silently hugging each other. Kay hearing the confession of the hapless boy killer and walking out of the jail, with the camera focused on the gun on her hip.

Crosetti putting the earphones on himself and another set on his blinded, comatose ex-partner, Chris, in 'Son of a Gun', and settling back and holding his friend's hand as they listen to Miles Davis.

The biker funeral in 'Cradle to Grave', as the wife and daughter of the victim flee into Witness Protection and Meldrick drops into the grave the picture of the vic's daughter, so her father won't be alone down there.

Kay lost in thought as Munch rambles on about the futility of love in 'The Rocket's Dead Glare'.

Bayliss distractedly trying to clean up the cereal dropped by Adena Watson's mother when they've told her they've found her body in 'Ghost of a Chance' as the mother clutches her surviving daughter and wails in grief.

Megan Russert recounting how her husband's death ruined Christmas for her forever.

The two mothers chatting in 'Every Mother's Son', and then one of them screaming "That's your son?!" when she realizes that the other one is the mother of her boy's murderer. And the stone-faced kid saying a flat goodbye to his mother in court, and Pembleton's conversation with the guilty boy in the jail.

Pembleton returning to the station house after his stroke, stumbling up the long staircase to the Cowboy Junkies' "This Man, This Street, This Life". This street minds its business / like a jailer minds his jail...

The Araber, probable child-killer, walking out of the station house at the end of 'Three Men and Adena', cleared by law but not by the truth.

Michael Michelle, Callie Thorne, and <shudder> Jon Seda walking INTO the station house instead of Bolander, Howard, and Felton in the sixth season opener.

And the absolute, gold-medal winner...

The moment in 'A Doll's Eyes' when the brain-dead child, killed by a stray bullet fired by some mook in a mall, is disconnected from life support as his mother talks calmly to him about how much she loves him and then, as the heart monitor goes into its flatline tone, emits one long wail as she and his father cradle the boy in their arms...

[Smilla]

Oh man, Coroma, that last one does take the gold. Sniff.