🔗 Share this article

Spooks – I Spy Apocalypse from 2003

The episode begins with the intelligence unit confined during a training exercise concerning a fictional terrorist event, overseen by two Home Office officials. As events unfold, it appears that there really has been an attack with a chemical weapon released. The anxiety increases as messages indicate a crisis unfolding beyond their walls, and gets worse as the superior shows signs of exposure, and the government agents endeavor to depart, forcing Matthew Macfadyen’s character to decide between shooting them or letting them go and risking contaminating the sealed MI5 offices. Given it’s Spooks, it is unsurprising which one he chooses.

Threads (1984)

Threads was low budget but arguably the most terrifying series I’ve ever seen due to its harsh realism and grim official statistics. Watched it about a month ago following the initial broadcast; I frequently went to the Sheffield pub shown in the series that highlighted the truth and the casual, straightforward government details that aired. Still absolutely terrifying decades on.

Severance – The We We Are (2022)

The concluding episode of Severance’s debut season has to be right up there as a tense chapter. I spent the entire episode literally perched nervously, pushing alongside Dylan to hold the switches that allowed the Innies to remain active, while screaming at the Innies to disclose their facts. The ultimate peak – “she survives!” – was like an eruption.

Industry – White Mischief (2024)

Installment five in Industry’s third series had my heart racing. I needed to stop and stand and exit the space repeatedly because of the sheer scale of the wanton self-destruction I was witnessing. Rishi Ramdani is in deep shit at work and home – buried in financial obligations to illegal creditors because of his compulsive gambling, taking such risks on a wager involving sterling which could lose his company millions. Inevitably, he starts a gaming binge, consumes excessive substances and alcohol and wins, loses, wins, is brutally attacked. Whenever you assume things cannot decline more, it deteriorates. There’s hope of redemption by the episode’s conclusion yet he wastes the chance, with horrifying consequences in the season finale. Definitely needed a lie-down after that!

Peep Show – Holiday (2007)

The series Peep Show isn’t typically anxiety-inducing. However, the Holiday episode includes such amounts of embarrassment that it can cause you to stand throughout the entire episode, permeated with worry. The situation intensifies when Jeremy and Mark realize being compelled to falsify about the canine they by chance collide with and subsequent attempts to dispose of it. You subsequently use the rest of the installment questioning whether it truly can be worse than incineration, and it turns out to be!

The 2001 The West Wing episode The Two Cathedrals

No other viewing has been as gripping compared to my initial viewing the concluding episode of The West Wing’s second season. The episode starts with the aftermath of the death (in a traffic accident) of the president’s personal secretary and builds to a peak involving a Haitian emergency, and the fallout from the non-disclosure of the president’s MS diagnosis, coupled with verification of his aim to seek re-election. Excellent TV. Never bettered.

The 2018 Bodyguard premiere episode

The beginning of the UK show Bodyguard, with the hero aboard a train with his young son, is personally a top tense installment. He spots a Muslim woman heading to the toilet and realizes something is amiss. The bomb squad is alerted, get on the train, and try to persuade the woman to take off her suicide vest. Tension escalates to an almost unbearable degree, until yes, the vest is diffused.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Body from 2001

Buffy comes into her home to realize her mom has deceased from natural reasons, which is the least common kind of passing in this supernatural show. The episode has no background music, a somber mood, and we see the episode through the experience of Buffy’s astonishment upon finding her mother.

The 2007 The Sopranos finale Made in America

The final scene of the final episode of the show was pants-wettingly tense. And for those who saw it during its initial broadcast, you – at the start – didn’t understand the cause. Tony’s foes, genuine and fictional, had all been defeated. This seems similar to the first season’s finale, right? “Recall the minor details.” But the mood is bizarrely ominous. Almost Twin Peaks levels of terror. The family sit in a restaurant. Meadow finds a parking spot. Tony sadly tells Carmela there’s trouble afoot with yet another of his crew collaborating with the authorities. Meadow parks. Strange people enter the restaurant. Stare at Tony(?) Meadow continues to park. Tony plays a track on the music machine. Meadow parks. The door chimes, a person comes in. Can’t be Meadow, she’s still parking. Tony looks up. Keep going. It ceases. My heart dropped from my mouth about 20 minutes later.

The Walking Dead – The Last Day on Earth from 2016

I kept late hours to see this show during the night. It was so intense after the establishment of antagonist Negan discovering the characters, cruelly taunting his victims and then leaving the victim unknown (concluded with a suspenseful moment). The point-of-view shot from the victim and the muted audio – oh no! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season