I think we all know what it takes for a crime to make it on Crimewatch. By the very nature of Crimewatch, the crimes featured are among the most violent ever committed on our streets.
When we turn on and watch it, perhaps because we think we might be able to help, we know that the crimes being featured are awful. It goes without saying, and we should be able to fill in the gaps of the reconstructions.
If you're feeling a sense of de ja vu at this point, then you're right - I have picked up this point before. A while ago, they featured a rape which, I felt, pushed the concept of a reconstruction just too far. We saw too much.
And now, in a new year, with a new cast of presenters, including Kirsty Young, they've managed to push it even further. They've now added music. Honestly.
So when the man stabbed repeatedly after answering his front door sees himself in the mirror, we don't get his reaction - we also get the sound effects from a horror movie to match the look on his face.
And when they go into a graveyard on a 'here's how a case was solved' it's more of the same - creepy horror music accompanies it. And while we're on the point of the 'case solved' film, why include musing from an actor posing as the now locked-up killer? Are we supposed to expect that this posturing is also supposed to be based on fact?
My problem with Crimewatch is this: Far from being a programme meant to help solve crime, it is slowly turning into docudrama - and the sound effects take it a step further. IF the details of the crime are so clear in the first place, then the killer, attacker etc would already be caught.
But details are often still vague, hence the need for Crimewatch, and surely such graphic recreations which actually leave nothing to the imagination don't really serve a purpose. Other than to provide some sort of voyeuristic look into the world of criminals. To take a series of vague facts and create something so certain surely ends up being a degree misleading - and probably puts people off putting forward information because they think the police already have the facts.
Crimewatch needs to decide what it wants to be: a CCTV clips and crime shock show or a respectable public service programme presented in a way which, quite frankly, won't give us nightmares.
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