🔗 Share this article

Spooks – I Spy Apocalypse (2003)

This installment starts with the MI5 agents restricted during a training exercise about a potential terror incident, supervised by two Home Office agents. As the situation develops, it seems an actual attack has occurred and a chemical agent deployed. The tension ratchets up as reports reveal a crisis unfolding beyond their walls, and intensifies as the superior shows signs of exposure, with the two officials trying to exit, compelling the character played by Matthew Macfadyen to opt for either shooting them or allowing them to leave and risking contaminating the sealed MI5 offices. As this is Spooks, the outcome is expected.

The 1984 production Threads

The production was inexpensive but arguably the most terrifying series I have ever watched because of the stark reality and grim official statistics. Viewed it recently having watched the original; I frequently went to the Sheffield pub featured in the show which underscored the actuality and the glib matter-of-fact official information which was broadcast. Continuing to be utterly horrifying 35 years later.

Severance – The We We Are from 2022

The first season finale of Severance ranks highly among intense episodes. I remained for the whole show quite literally on the edge of my seat, straining every sinew with Dylan to keep his hands on the levers that kept the Innies on overtime, while yelling at the Innies to reveal their realities. The final climactic moment – “she’s alive!” – felt like an explosion.

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 exit the space repeatedly due to the immense extent of the deliberate ruin I observed. Rishi Ramdani is in deep shit in his job and domestic life – up to his eyeballs in debt to loan sharks because of his compulsive gambling, taking such risks on a wager involving sterling which could lose his company millions. So of course, he goes on a gambling spree, uses copious drugs and alcohol and alternates between success and failure, is brutally attacked. Whenever you assume things cannot decline more, it deteriorates. Redemption seems possible as the installment closes yet he wastes the chance, resulting in dreadful effects in the concluding part of the season. 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 can cause you to stand throughout the entire episode, filled with nervousness. The tension escalates when Jeremy and Mark realize being compelled to falsify about the canine they by chance collide with and following tries to eliminate it. You then occupy the remainder of the episode wondering if it might be more awful than cremation, and it turns out to be!

The West Wing – The Two Cathedrals (2001)

No other viewing has been as gripping than the first time I watched the season two finale to The West Wing. The show opens with the fallout of the passing (in a road incident) of the president’s private assistant and builds to a peak with a situation in Haiti, and the fallout from the non-disclosure about the president’s MS condition, along with affirmation of his plan to seek re-election. Excellent TV. Unsurpassed.

Bodyguard – episode one (2018)

The beginning of the UK show Bodyguard, featuring the main character on a train alongside his juvenile boy, ranks among the most gripping episodes I’ve seen. He spots a Muslim woman going into the loo and knows something is off. The bomb diffuser experts are called, board the train, and attempt to convince the woman to take off her suicide vest. Suspense rises to a practically unendurable point, until, indeed, the vest is disarmed.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Body from 2001

Buffy arrives at her residence to discover her mother has died of natural causes, which is the least common kind of passing in this supernatural show. The episode has no background music, a sullen tone, and we see the episode through the experience of Buffy’s shock of discovering her mother.

The Sopranos – Made in America (2007)

The final scene of the final episode of the program was incredibly anxious. And for those who saw it during its initial broadcast, you – initially – were uncertain of the reason. Tony’s enemies, real and imagined, had all been defeated. This seems similar to the first season’s finale, right? “Recall the minor details.” However, the vibe is oddly threatening. Nearly Twin Peaks-like fear. The family sit in a restaurant. Meadow stops the car. Tony sorrowfully notifies Carmela problems are brewing with an additional associate cooperating with the officials. Meadow secures a parking space. Odd persons arrive at the eatery. Stare at Tony(?) Meadow parks. Tony puts a record on the jukebox. Meadow parks her car. The bell rings, someone enters the restaurant. It isn’t Meadow, she remains parking. Tony looks up. Continue. It stops. My heart sank around 20 minutes subsequently.

The Walking Dead – The Last Day on Earth (2016)

I stayed up to watch this episode in the early morning. It was so intense following the introduction of villain Negan discovering the characters, savagely teasing his prey and then keeping the death a mystery (finished with an unresolved situation). The victim’s POV shot and the muted audio – argh! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season