If you’re in need of a good cry, may I refer you to Long Lost Family. And don’t go thinking you’re too big or clever to succumb to this sentiment.

The ITV Bafta-winner (series two is on Wednesdays at 9pm) follows a simple formula.

Take people desperately seeking a sibling, parent or child who was ripped away years ago in the most heart-rending circumstances imaginable. Add Davina McCall and Nicky Campbell – a man so earnest he could probably have charmed an apology out of the Krays.

Employ jiggery-pokery detective work behind the scenes but, crucially, do not give this airtime (take note, Who Do You Think You Are). Keep your eyes on the money shot: people brimful of pain, expectation and hope finally... [cue dramatic pause that makes Dermot’s look short]... reunited with their loved ones.

Last Wednesday’s episode excelled itself. Brenda (everyone is called by their first names in LLF, which lends an intimacy, as if you’re in an AA meeting) met the baby – Joanne – she had been forced to abandon. It was almost impossible not to blub as the pair – both now spookily living in their adopted homeland South Africa – started chatting as if they’d never been apart, rather than having endured more than three decades since Brenda gave up the baby she’d nursed for six weeks in a home for unmarried mothers. Also, larger-than-life Maureen got to hug her hero, big brother Michael who was banished by the Stockton-on-Tees family after telling his mother he was gay 40 years ago.

What really hits you watching this show is how frequently people seem to have inflicted fairytale baddie levels of cruelty upon their own flesh and blood.

But the magic of television erases all the blame and hurt in scenes that whip you up a cocktail of emotion. If just one episode of Long Lost Family were a Mike Leigh film, it would be criticised as a bit over the top but this is real life, slapping you in the face with endings happier than any scriptwriter could have dreamt up.

Meanwhile, over on BBC Three on Thursday (now iPlayer), we were served more personal stories in Make Me A Muslim.

Sharing a name – bizarrely – with a Channel Four predecessor of the same ilk, this one-off programme follows five young, British, female converts to Islam. And, at the beginning, presenter Shanna Bukhari is about as Muslim as a pork scratching.

The model and former GB Miss Universe contestant likes a drink and a laugh, paying tribute to the Western freedoms that let her live as she likes, as a modern Muslim of Pakistani descent. Shanna has been subject to the sort of sickening online abuse (“you will burn in hell alongside your father”, “you won’t look so pretty when you’ve had your head cut off with a rusty penknife,” she tearfully reads) that only cowards hide behind.

It is jarring, then, to see Shanna being fervently “Halalified” by one of the converts she interviews. After being admonished for not donning a headscarf during filming, Alana sets about taking off Shanna’s highs heels. Alana, who comes from a traveller family and lives in Glasgow’s East End, is an interesting subject and, like the other four girls, offers warm and honest explanations about her change of faith.

This is a BBC Three documentary aimed firmly at the young’uns, though, so we get more “I miss Parma ham and Christmas soooo much” than we do whys and wherefores.

Except for from Saffiyah, a likeable Bridgend convert whose parents are befuddled but sympathetic to their daughter’s change of heart, even if that does mean her “covering up her lovely curly hair”.

But, unfortunately, Shanna decides not to delve deeper but instead returns to Alana to pray with. Shanna’s welcome to make her own choices, but this lets the viewer down when they had faith she would offer answers.

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