Stories
Episodes varied in length from 50 to 120 minutes.
The original broadcast of episode one of the "Brotherly Love" story was an hour long (so 70 minutes with commercials) and shown on the Sunday before the regular Monday slot for the series. Further broadcasts of this episode, including VHS and DVD release, were edited down to the conventional 50 minute size.
| Series- Story |
Title | Writer | Episodes | Original Airdate(s) (UK) |
Synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-1 | "The Mad Woman in the Attic" | Jimmy McGovern | 2 | 27 September 1993 4 October 1993 |
A young woman is brutally murdered on a train, the victim of a serial killer. The prime suspect is an amnesiac man, who cannot confess to the crime if he cannot remember committing it unless Fitz can crack him. |
| 1-2 | "To Say I Love You" | Jimmy McGovern | 3 | 11 October 1993 18 October 1993 25 October 1993 |
While his own marriage is falling apart, Fitz goes up against a young couple who would literally kill for their love, leading to an equally literally explosive climax. |
| 1-3 | "One Day A Lemming Will Fly" | Jimmy McGovern | 2 | 1 November 1993 8 November 1993 |
The disappearance and death of a 13-year-old boy inflames the local community as a teacher becomes the prime suspect. But Fitz begins to have doubts about the teacher's guilt and attempts to convince Billborough that the truth is more important than a mere result that seems to fit. |
| 2-1 | "To Be A Somebody" | Jimmy McGovern | 3 | 10 October 1994 17 October 1994 24 October 1994 |
A Pakistani shopkeeper is killed and a skinhead seen leaving the premises. The police are at first convinced that it is a racist killing until a white, English psychologist helping out with the case and DCI Billborough are murdered by the same man. Fitz, while facing his own problems with his family and a hurt Penhaligon, is brought in to investigate, convinced that the killer is not a mere racist hood but actually an ordinary citizen gone horribly wrong. See also: Hillsborough disaster. |
| 2-2 | "The Big Crunch" | Ted Whitehead | 3 | 31 October 1994 7 November 1994 14 November 1994 |
A young girl missing for several days is discovered naked, covered in strange symbols and quoting the Bible. The trail leads to a fringe Christian sect and its charismatic leader. |
| 2-3 | "Men Should Weep" | Jimmy McGovern | 3 | 21 November 1994 28 November 1994 5 December 1994 |
The case of a serial rapist who wears a mask, yet tries to develop a relationship with his victims strikes at the heart of Fitz's personal and professional life when Penhaligon is raped and the rapist, apparently acting on Fitz's advice, starts to kill as well. Meanwhile, Penhaligon begins to discover a connection between her rapist and Jimmy Beck. |
| 3-1 | "Brotherly Love" | Jimmy McGovern | 3 | 22 October 1995 23 October 1995 29 October 1995 |
The brutal murder and violation of a prostitute quickly leads to an arrest, but while the suspect is in custody, an identical murder happens. At the same time, the death of Fitz's mother reunites him with his brother Danny, and Jimmy Beck, under long time stress from Bilborough's death, finally reaches his breaking point, leading to a devastating climax. |
| 3-2 | "Best Boys" | Paul Abbott | 2 | 6 November 1995 13 November 1995 |
When the older Stuart Grady meets the teenage Bill Nash, the instant attraction between the two leads to murderous consequences. Meanwhile, the birth of Fitz's new son is not the solution to his marital strife that he expected, and Judith begins to seek solace with Danny. |
| 3-3 | "True Romance" | Paul Abbott | 2 | 20 November 1995 27 November 1995 |
Fitz is the target of a secret admirer who is willing to kill — and keep killing — to get his attention, understanding and love, even if it means targeting Fitz's loved ones. |
| Special episode | "White Ghost" | Paul Abbott | 1 | 28 October 1996 | While in Hong Kong on a lecture tour, Fitz is asked by the local police to help investigate the murder of a Chinese businessman. |
| Special episode | "Nine Eleven" | Jimmy McGovern | 1 | 1 October 2006 | Fitz returns to Manchester for his daughter's wedding, but is soon involved in another murder investigation when an American comedian is killed, apparently without motive. |
Read more about this topic: Cracker (UK TV series)
Famous quotes containing the word stories:
“Fairy tales are loved by the child not because the imagery he finds in them conforms to what goes on within him, but because—despite all the angry, anxious thoughts in his mind to which the fairy tale gives body and specific content—these stories always result in a happy outcome, which the child cannot imagine on his own.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories. Listening for them is something more acute than listening to them. I suppose it’s an early form of participation in what goes on. Listening children know stories are there. When their elders sit and begin, children are just waiting and hoping for one to come out, like a mouse from its hole.”
—Eudora Welty (b. 1909)
“Castaway, your time is a flat sea that doesn’t stop,
with no new land to make for and no new stories to swap.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)