🔗 Share this article

The 2003 Spooks episode I Spy Apocalypse

This installment starts with the MI5 agents restricted during a training exercise about a potential terror incident, overseen by two Home Office officials. As things progress, it appears that there really has been an attack and a chemical weapon has been unleashed. The suspense builds as messages indicate a catastrophe taking place outside, and escalates as the boss appears to be infected, and the two Home Office officials attempt to leave, compelling the character played by Matthew Macfadyen to decide between shooting them or allowing them to leave and potentially infecting the secure MI5 headquarters. Given it’s Spooks, it is unsurprising which one he chooses.

The 1984 production Threads

Threads had minimal funding but arguably the most terrifying series I’ve ever seen because of the stark reality and dismal official figures. Viewed it recently having watched the original; I often attended the bar in Sheffield featured in the show that highlighted the truth and the offhand factual official statements that aired. Continuing to be utterly horrifying decades on.

Severance – The We We Are (2022)

The season one finale of Severance deserves a top spot in terms of gripping installments. I remained for the whole show quite literally on the edge of my seat, pushing alongside Dylan to hold the switches that sustained the Innies’ extended time, while shouting to the Innies to get their truths out there. The final climactic moment – “she is living!” – resembled a outburst.

The 2024 Industry episode White Mischief

Installment five in Industry’s third series caused my heart to pound. I was compelled to halt and rise and depart the area multiple times owing to the vast degree of the reckless self-harm I was witnessing. Rishi Ramdani is in deep shit professionally and personally – buried in financial obligations from unscrupulous lenders because of his compulsive gambling, assuming hazardous chances with a bet on sterling which could lose his company millions. Inevitably, he starts a gaming binge, uses copious drugs and alcohol and alternates between success and failure, gets beaten to a pulp. Whenever you assume things cannot decline more, it does. There’s hope of redemption at the end of the episode but he misses the opening, with horrifying consequences in the concluding part of the season. Certainly required a rest afterward!

Peep Show – Holiday (2007)

The series Peep Show isn’t typically anxiety-inducing. However, the Holiday episode includes such amounts of embarrassment that it’ll have you standing up throughout the entire episode, filled with nervousness. It all ramps up once Jeremy and Mark find themselves having to lie about the dog they accidentally run over and following tries to eliminate it. You then spend the rest of the episode questioning whether it truly can be worse than incineration, and it turns out to be!

The West Wing – The Two Cathedrals (2001)

Nothing I’ve watched has been more intense compared to my initial viewing the concluding episode of The West Wing’s second season. The installment begins with the consequences of the passing (in a road incident) of the president’s private assistant and reaches a crescendo involving a Haitian emergency, and the effects of the withheld information regarding the president’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis, coupled with verification of his aim to pursue re-election. Excellent TV. Never bettered.

The 2018 Bodyguard premiere episode

The beginning of the UK show Bodyguard, featuring the main character on a train alongside his juvenile boy, is for me one of the most intense episodes ever. He observes a woman in Islamic attire entering the restroom and realizes something is amiss. The bomb squad is alerted, board the train, and endeavor to coax the woman to discard her bomb jacket. Tension escalates to an almost unbearable degree, until, finally, the vest is neutralized.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Body (2001)

Buffy arrives at her residence to discover her mother has died of natural causes, which is the rarest form of demise in this paranormal series. The episode has no background music, a sullen tone, and we witness the episode via the perspective of Buffy’s dismay upon uncovering her mother.

The Sopranos – Made in America (2007)

The ultimate sequence of the series finale of the show was pants-wettingly tense. And if you watched it when it originally aired, you – at first – weren’t sure why. Tony’s adversaries, actual and perceived, were all overcome. Surely this has the feel of the season one ending? “Remember the little things.” But the mood is bizarrely ominous. Almost Twin Peaks levels of terror. The family sit in a restaurant. Meadow stops the car. Tony gloomily informs Carmela there’s trouble afoot with yet another of his crew collaborating with the authorities. Meadow parks. Odd persons arrive at the eatery. Look at Tony(?) Meadow continues to park. Tony selects a song on the jukebox. Meadow parks. The bell rings, someone enters the restaurant. It cannot be Meadow, she is still parking. Tony looks up. Keep going. It stops. 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 during the night. It was incredibly tense after the establishment of antagonist Negan locating the survivors, mercilessly mocking his targets and then keeping the death a mystery (finished with an unresolved situation). The victim’s POV shot and the subdued noises – argh! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season