🔗 Share this article

Spooks – I Spy Apocalypse from 2003

The episode begins with the Spooks team confined while undergoing a drill relating to a hypothetical terrorist attack, supervised by two Home Office agents. As events unfold, it appears that there really has been an attack with a chemical weapon released. The suspense builds as messages indicate a disaster happening externally, and intensifies when the leader seems contaminated, with the two officials trying to exit, compelling the character played by Matthew Macfadyen to decide between shooting them or letting them go and endangering the sterile MI5 environment. Given it’s Spooks, the outcome is expected.

Threads from 1984

Threads had minimal funding but one of the most frightening programmes I’ve ever seen owing to its grim authenticity and dismal official figures. Viewed it recently following the initial broadcast; I used to visit the pub in Sheffield featured in the show which underscored the actuality and the casual, straightforward government details that were transmitted. Remaining completely frightening after three and a half decades.

Severance – The We We Are from 2022

The concluding episode of Severance’s debut season has to be right up there among intense episodes. I spent the entire episode quite literally on the edge of my seat, pushing alongside Dylan to hold the switches that allowed the Innies to remain active, while yelling at the Innies to get their truths out there. The ultimate peak – “she’s alive!” – was like an eruption.

Industry – White Mischief (2024)

The fifth episode of Industry’s third season had my heart racing. I was compelled to halt and rise and exit the space repeatedly due to the immense extent of the deliberate ruin I was witnessing. Rishi Ramdani faces serious trouble at work and home – buried in financial obligations to loan sharks because of his compulsive gambling, engaging in dangerous ventures with a gamble on the pound that might cost his firm millions. Naturally, he embarks on a betting frenzy, does tons of drugs and drink and experiences wins and losses, is severely assaulted. Whenever you assume the situation cannot deteriorate further, it deteriorates. There is a chance for salvation at the end of the episode but he misses the opening, leading to terrible outcomes in the concluding part of the season. Definitely needed a lie-down after that!

Peep Show – Holiday (2007)

Peep Show is not inherently a tense series. However, the Holiday episode includes such amounts of embarrassment that it’ll have you standing up throughout the entire episode, riddled with anxiety. The situation intensifies as Jeremy and Mark discover needing to deceive regarding the dog they by chance collide with and subsequent attempts to dispose of it. You then spend the rest of the episode doubting if it can actually be more terrible than burning, and it is possible!

The 2001 The West Wing episode The Two Cathedrals

Nothing I have seen has been as tense as when I first saw the second season finale of The West Wing. The installment begins with the consequences of the passing (in a road incident) of the president’s private assistant and builds to a peak involving a Haitian emergency, and the effects of the withheld information of the president’s MS diagnosis, coupled with verification of his aim to seek re-election. Superb programming. Unequaled.

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 observes a woman in Islamic attire heading to the toilet and knows something is off. The explosive disposal specialists are summoned, enter the train, and endeavor to coax the woman to discard her bomb jacket. Anxiety builds to a nearly intolerable level, until, indeed, the vest is disarmed.

The 2001 Buffy episode The Body

Buffy arrives at her residence to discover her mother has died due to natural factors, which is the least common kind of passing in this supernatural show. The show features no musical score, a sullen tone, and we witness the episode via the perspective of Buffy’s astonishment upon finding her mother.

The 2007 The Sopranos finale Made in America

The ultimate sequence of the series finale of the program was incredibly anxious. And if you viewed it when it first premiered, you – at first – weren’t sure why. Tony’s adversaries, actual and perceived, were all vanquished. Surely this has the feel of the season one ending? “Recall the minor details.” But the mood is bizarrely ominous. Nearly Twin Peaks-like fear. The family sit in a restaurant. Meadow stops the car. Tony sorrowfully notifies Carmela difficulties are arising with yet another of his crew working with the government. Meadow parks. Unfamiliar individuals come into the diner. Gaze at Tony(?) Meadow parks. Tony puts a record on the jukebox. Meadow parks her car. The bell rings, someone enters the restaurant. It cannot be Meadow, she is still parking. Tony looks up. Don’t stop. It halts. My heart dropped from my mouth roughly 20 minutes after.

The Walking Dead – The Last Day on Earth from 2016

I remained awake to view this installment in the early morning. It was incredibly tense after the establishment of antagonist Negan finding the group, cruelly taunting his victims then not knowing who he killed (finished with an unresolved situation). The first-person perspective of the victim and the subdued noises – ugh! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season