🔗 Share this article

Spooks – I Spy Apocalypse from 2003

The show kicks off with the MI5 agents locked down during a training exercise relating to a hypothetical terrorist attack, supervised by two Home Office agents. As the situation develops, it appears that there really has been an attack and a chemical agent deployed. The suspense builds as incoming communications show a disaster happening externally, and escalates as the superior shows signs of exposure, with the two officials trying to exit, compelling the character played by Matthew Macfadyen to choose between firing at them or permitting their exit and risking contaminating the sealed MI5 offices. As this is Spooks, his decision is predictable.

Threads (1984)

Threads was low budget but arguably the most terrifying series I’ve ever seen because of the stark reality and grim official statistics. Viewed it recently after seeing the first airing; I used to visit the pub in Sheffield shown in the series which emphasised the reality and the casual, straightforward government details that aired. Remaining completely frightening 35 years later.

Severance – The We We Are from 2022

The first season finale of Severance has to be right up there as a tense chapter. I remained for the whole show literally perched nervously, pushing alongside Dylan to hold the switches that sustained the Innies’ extended time, while shouting to the Innies to disclose their facts. The concluding高潮 – “she is living!” – was like an eruption.

Industry – White Mischief (2024)

The fifth episode of Industry’s third season caused my heart to pound. I needed to stop and stand and exit the space repeatedly due to the immense extent of the deliberate ruin I observed. Rishi Ramdani is in major difficulty professionally and personally – overwhelmed by debt to loan sharks owing to his uncontrollable gaming, engaging in dangerous ventures on a wager involving sterling that might cost his firm millions. So of course, he goes on a gambling spree, does tons of drugs and drink and alternates between success and failure, is brutally attacked. Whenever you assume it can’t get any worse, it worsens. Redemption seems possible by the episode’s conclusion but he misses the opening, resulting in dreadful effects during the season’s final episode. Absolutely had to relax following that!

Peep Show – Holiday from 2007

Peep Show is not inherently a tense series. But the episode Holiday includes such amounts of embarrassment that it can cause you to stand the whole episode, riddled with anxiety. The situation intensifies once Jeremy and Mark find themselves having to lie about the dog they by chance collide with and later efforts to get rid of it. You subsequently use the rest of the installment wondering if it might be more awful than cremation, and it can be!

The 2001 The West Wing episode The Two Cathedrals

Nothing I have seen has been as tense as when I first saw 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 personal secretary and reaches a crescendo with a crisis in Haiti, and the effects of the withheld information of the president’s MS diagnosis, along with affirmation of his plan to run for another term. Excellent TV. Never bettered.

Bodyguard – episode one from 2018

The beginning of the UK show Bodyguard, featuring the main character on a train alongside his juvenile boy, is personally a top tense installment. He observes a woman in Islamic attire heading to the toilet and realizes something is amiss. The bomb diffuser experts are called, board the train, and try to persuade the woman to discard her bomb jacket. Suspense rises to a practically unendurable point, until, indeed, the vest is disarmed.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Body from 2001

Buffy comes into her home to discover her mother has died due to natural factors, which is the rarest form of demise in this paranormal series. The show features no musical score, 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 ultimate sequence of the series finale of the show was pants-wettingly tense. 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? “Remember the little things.” Yet the atmosphere is strangely foreboding. Almost Twin Peaks levels of terror. The family sit in a restaurant. Meadow finds a parking spot. Tony sorrowfully notifies Carmela there’s trouble afoot with an additional associate cooperating with the officials. Meadow parks the vehicle. Unfamiliar individuals come into the diner. Gaze at Tony(?) Meadow is parking. Tony selects a song on the jukebox. Meadow parks. The door chimes, a person comes in. Can’t be Meadow, she’s still parking. Tony glances upward. Keep going. It stops. My heart dropped from my mouth roughly 20 minutes after.

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

I remained awake to view this installment during the night. It was so intense following the introduction of villain Negan discovering the characters, cruelly taunting his victims then not knowing who he killed (ended on a cliffhanger). The victim’s POV shot and the muted audio – argh! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season