‘I absolutely had to rest after that!’ Your most gripping episodes of TV ever
Spooks – I Spy Apocalypse from 2003
The episode begins with the MI5 agents locked down during a training exercise concerning a fictional terrorist event, overseen by two Home Office officials. As things progress, it seems an actual attack has occurred with a chemical weapon released. The anxiety increases as messages indicate a disaster happening externally, and intensifies as the superior shows signs of exposure, and the two Home Office officials attempt to leave, forcing Matthew Macfadyen’s character to decide between shooting them or allowing them to leave and potentially infecting the secure MI5 headquarters. As this is Spooks, his decision is predictable.
Threads (1984)
Threads had minimal funding but one of the most frightening programmes I have ever watched because of the stark reality and dismal official figures. Watched it about a month ago after seeing the first airing; I often attended the bar in Sheffield from the programme that highlighted the truth and the casual, straightforward government details that aired. Continuing to be utterly horrifying after three and a half decades.
Severance – The We We Are (2022)
The season one finale of Severance has to be right up there as a tense chapter. I spent the entire episode literally perched nervously, exerting with Dylan to maintain his grip on the controls that kept the Innies on overtime, while shouting to the Innies to disclose their facts. The final climactic moment – “she is living!” – was like an eruption.
Industry – White Mischief from 2024
Installment five in Industry’s third series made my pulse quicken. I needed to stop and stand and depart the area multiple times owing to the vast degree of the wanton self-destruction I observed. Rishi Ramdani faces serious trouble in his job and domestic life – buried in financial obligations to loan sharks owing to his uncontrollable gaming, assuming hazardous chances on a wager involving sterling that might cost his firm millions. Inevitably, he starts a gaming binge, uses copious drugs and alcohol and alternates between success and failure, is brutally attacked. Each instance you believe the situation cannot deteriorate further, it does. Redemption seems possible by the episode’s conclusion yet he wastes the chance, leading to terrible outcomes in the concluding part of the season. Absolutely had to relax following that!
Peep Show – Holiday (2007)
Peep Show is not inherently a tense series. But the episode Holiday contains such levels of cringe that it’ll have you standing up for the full show, permeated with worry. The situation intensifies once Jeremy and Mark find themselves needing to deceive regarding the dog they unintentionally hit 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 second season finale of The West Wing. The installment begins with the consequences of the demise (in a car crash) of the president’s private assistant and escalates to a高潮 involving a Haitian emergency, and the effects of the withheld information about the president’s MS condition, along with affirmation of his plan to run for another term. Superb programming. Unsurpassed.
The 2018 Bodyguard premiere episode
The start of the British program Bodyguard, with the protagonist on a train alongside his juvenile boy, is for me one of the most intense episodes ever. He spots a Muslim woman entering the restroom and knows something is off. The bomb squad is alerted, get on the train, and attempt to convince the woman to remove her explosive vest. Suspense rises to a practically unendurable point, until, indeed, the vest is disarmed.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Body from 2001
Buffy enters her house to discover her mother has died of natural causes, which is the most unusual type of death in this mystical program. The show features no musical score, a gloomy atmosphere, and we witness the episode via the perspective of Buffy’s shock of discovering 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 watched it when it originally aired, 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? “Think about the small elements.” Yet the atmosphere is strangely foreboding. Almost Twin Peaks levels of terror. The family sit in a restaurant. Meadow finds a parking spot. Tony gloomily informs Carmela difficulties are arising with an additional associate collaborating with the authorities. Meadow parks. Unfamiliar individuals come into the diner. Stare at Tony(?) Meadow is parking. Tony selects a song on the jukebox. Meadow parks her car. The door chimes, a person comes in. It cannot be Meadow, she is still parking. Tony glances upward. Don’t stop. It stops. My spirit fell roughly 20 minutes after.
The Walking Dead – The Last Day on Earth from 2016
I stayed up to watch this episode 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 (ended on a cliffhanger). The first-person perspective of the victim and the muted audio – ugh! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season
