Sometimes I wonder why we bother watching television.

Last night's Mysterious Creatures, on ITV, was a case in point. Billed as a 'tale of family tragedy', it was more a tale of sheer, relentless, unremitting woe for 90 minutes. Had a bad day, have you? Want to settle down in front of the box, do you? Well here. Have this, and see what these people had to suffer. You ungrateful shite.

It's a true story, just to tip you off the bridge of despair and into oblivion, of how two parents try (and fail) to deal with their daughter's many and varied addictions. Ostensibly these include spending money on shoes and cuddly toys, but they are more demonstrably seen to include throwing violent wobblers in the middle of packed high streets, and escorting parents to failed suicide bids.

My stepmum, bless her, stuck with the whole hour and a half of this. I don't know how she did it. I only properly caught the last half an hour and, by the end of it, I'd have gladly gunned down every character to have appeared in it.

But tonight I pop into the living room and what do I find - more woe! This time it's Tripping Over on Five, described as a "series in which five young travellers meet in Bangkok where a tragic incident changes the direction of their lives."

There's that tragedy bit again, as if our daily lives didn't have enough for us to be working on emotionally and psychologically. I saw five minutes, during which a man was told he had a disease which would have rendered him infertile since the day he was born. Given he has a son in his 20s, this clearly presents a dilemma. Unable to watch the numbingly inevitable agony with which this would play out, I left.

It doesn't all have to be like that, you know. Last night, when I could have been watching the first hour of Mysterious Creatures, I retired elsewhere and watched the hour-long Royle Family special. What a treat. If that hour of television doesn't win every award for which it is nominated, I will be violently sick with anger.

It is six years since the Royles were last on our televisions (no, really! I couldn't believe it either), and this episode shows us where they're up to. Then, as Nana becomes increasingly ill, we're given some incredibly moving and real insights into the human beings behind the comedy figures Royle Family fans love.

For example, the show starts with a row - as ever- between Jim and Nana. But as things change and her condition slowly worsens, we see beautiful scenes of Jim helping her up the stairs, all the while making her laugh by being silly, proving himself the true gentleman when the situation demands. And all this set to hauntingly dainty, carefree music reminiscent of radio gems from the 30s and 40s.

As the end draws near, we see each of the many characters from the show finding their way to the hospital from the walks of life they have each carved out - wearing the clothes specific to their profession, each approaching this most worrying of situations in their own little ways. There are so many wonderful fine touches to every scene that I can't possible document them. It's as though I'm watching myself in all these people. How fascinating to watch the writers of the show thrust their characters into a serious, emotionally charged situation, and let the actors thrive in developing that side to roles they've already had five years to develop. Brilliant television.

The one scene which will live in my memory always is portrayed through the eyes of Nana as she lies in her hospital bed. It is not made clear whether she can actually see, or whether she is asleep and we simply view the scene from her sleeping position.

Jim Royle walks into the shot. The camera then holds for 10 to 15 seconds as Jim, utterly overcome by grief and trying with all his convulsive might to fight away floods of uncontrollable tears, stands over the bed. Those are some of the most powerful seconds of television I have ever seen, and at that point I started crying too - I didn't stop until the credits.

I didn't cry because I was depressed. I didn't cry because somebody had thrown tragedy after tragedy, each removed from my own experience and a little far fetched, at my television set. I cried because the writers took an event all of us have to face sooner or later - death. They showed us how some of our favourite characters, people we identify with, people we see laugh and joke all the time, dealt with death. And when Jim Royle started crying, they showed us it was okay to be a human being. Even for Jim.

Nana died quietly at the hospital in the full knowledge it was coming. No addictions, no screaming, no violence, no concocted tragedy, no gratuitous exploitation of emoton. Nana's was the simplest of deaths, portrayed in the simplest of ways, and it made me feel better about myself. That's a reason to watch television.