🔗 Share this article

Spooks – I Spy Apocalypse (2003)

The episode begins with the intelligence unit locked down during a training exercise relating to a hypothetical terrorist attack, supervised by two Home Office agents. As events unfold, it seems an actual attack has occurred with a chemical weapon released. The anxiety increases as messages indicate a crisis unfolding beyond their walls, and intensifies when the leader seems contaminated, with the two officials trying to exit, pushing the protagonist portrayed by Matthew Macfadyen to opt for either shooting them or permitting their exit and risking contaminating the sealed MI5 offices. As this is Spooks, his decision is predictable.

Threads (1984)

Threads had minimal funding yet among the scariest shows I have ever watched owing to its grim authenticity and grim official statistics. Watched it about a month ago after seeing the first airing; I used to visit the pub in Sheffield shown in the series that highlighted the truth and the glib matter-of-fact official information that were transmitted. Remaining completely frightening 35 years later.

Severance – The We We Are (2022)

The first season finale of Severance deserves a top spot among intense episodes. I spent the entire episode literally perched nervously, pushing alongside Dylan to hold the switches that kept the Innies on overtime, while screaming at the Innies to reveal their realities. The final climactic moment – “she is living!” – felt like an explosion.

Industry – White Mischief (2024)

The fifth episode of Industry’s third season had my heart racing. I had to pause and get up and exit the space repeatedly because of the sheer scale of the deliberate ruin I was witnessing. Rishi Ramdani is in deep shit in his job and domestic life – overwhelmed by debt to illegal creditors due to his addictive betting, engaging in dangerous ventures with a bet on sterling that might cost his firm millions. Naturally, he embarks on a betting frenzy, consumes excessive substances and alcohol and experiences wins and losses, gets beaten to a pulp. Every time you think things cannot decline more, it worsens. Redemption seems possible as the installment closes yet he wastes the chance, with horrifying consequences in the season finale. Definitely needed a lie-down after that!

The 2007 Peep Show episode Holiday

Peep Show is not inherently a tense series. Yet the installment Holiday includes such amounts of embarrassment that it will make you rise throughout the entire episode, permeated with worry. The situation intensifies once Jeremy and Mark find themselves needing to deceive regarding the dog they by chance collide with and subsequent attempts to dispose of it. You subsequently use the rest of the installment wondering if it might be more awful than cremation, and it turns out to be!

The 2001 The West Wing episode The Two Cathedrals

Nothing I have seen has been as tense compared to my initial viewing the concluding episode of The West Wing’s second season. The show opens with the fallout of the demise (in a car crash) of the president’s confidential aide and builds to a peak with a crisis in Haiti, and the fallout from the non-disclosure of the president’s MS diagnosis, coupled with verification of his aim to pursue re-election. Excellent TV. Unequaled.

Bodyguard – episode one from 2018

The start of the British program Bodyguard, with the hero aboard a train accompanied by his small son, is for me one of the most intense episodes ever. He spots a Muslim woman entering the restroom and senses something is wrong. The explosive disposal specialists are summoned, get on the train, and endeavor to coax the woman to take off her suicide vest. Tension escalates to a practically unendurable point, until, finally, the vest is neutralized.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Body from 2001

Buffy arrives at her residence to discover her mother has died from natural reasons, which is the rarest form of demise in this mystical program. The episode has no background music, a gloomy atmosphere, and we see the episode through the experience of Buffy’s shock of discovering her mother.

The 2007 The Sopranos finale Made in America

The final scene of the final episode of the program was incredibly anxious. And if you viewed it when it first premiered, you – initially – were uncertain of the reason. Tony’s adversaries, actual and perceived, were all overcome. Surely this has the feel of the season one ending? “Remember the little things.” However, the vibe is oddly threatening. Nearly Twin Peaks-like fear. The clan sits in an eatery. Meadow parks. Tony gloomily informs Carmela there’s trouble afoot with another member of his team collaborating with the authorities. Meadow parks the vehicle. Unfamiliar individuals come into the diner. Gaze at Tony(?) Meadow continues to park. Tony selects a song on the jukebox. Meadow finds a spot. The door chimes, a person comes in. It cannot be Meadow, she is still parking. Tony looks up. Don’t stop. It stops. My heart sank around 20 minutes subsequently.

The 2016 The Walking Dead episode The Last Day on Earth

I remained awake to view this installment at 2am. It was incredibly tense after the establishment of antagonist Negan locating the survivors, cruelly taunting his victims then not knowing who he killed (finished with an unresolved situation). The point-of-view shot from the victim and the subdued noises – argh! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season