‘I definitely needed a lie-down after that!’ Your most nerve-wracking television episodes ever
The 2003 Spooks episode I Spy Apocalypse
The episode begins with the Spooks team locked down while undergoing a drill relating to a hypothetical terrorist attack, overseen by two Home Office officials. As events unfold, it becomes clear a real incident has taken place and a chemical agent deployed. The anxiety increases as messages indicate a disaster happening externally, and gets worse as the superior shows signs of exposure, and the government agents endeavor to depart, compelling the character played by Matthew Macfadyen to choose between firing at them or letting them go and potentially infecting the secure MI5 headquarters. Given it’s Spooks, his decision is predictable.
The 1984 production Threads
The production was inexpensive but arguably the most terrifying series I have viewed owing to its grim authenticity and grim official statistics. Watched it about a month ago following the initial broadcast; I frequently went to the Sheffield pub from the programme which emphasised the reality and the glib matter-of-fact official information that aired. Continuing to be utterly horrifying after three and a half decades.
Severance – The We We Are (2022)
The concluding episode of Severance’s debut season deserves a top spot among intense episodes. I spent the entire episode quite literally on the edge of my seat, exerting with Dylan to keep his hands on the levers that allowed the Innies to remain active, while shouting to the Innies to disclose their facts. The final climactic moment – “she’s alive!” – was like an eruption.
The 2024 Industry episode White Mischief
Episode five of the third series of Industry made my pulse quicken. I had to pause and get up and exit the space repeatedly owing to the vast degree of the deliberate ruin I observed. Rishi Ramdani faces serious trouble at work and home – buried in financial obligations to illegal creditors owing to his uncontrollable gaming, taking such risks on a wager involving sterling which could lose his company millions. Inevitably, he starts a gaming binge, does tons of drugs and drink and wins, loses, wins, is brutally attacked. Each instance you believe it can’t get any worse, it worsens. There’s hope of redemption as the installment closes but he squanders the opportunity, leading to terrible outcomes in the season finale. Certainly required a rest afterward!
The 2007 Peep Show episode Holiday
The series Peep Show isn’t typically anxiety-inducing. Yet the installment Holiday features such degrees of awkwardness that it’ll have you standing up for the full show, filled with nervousness. The tension escalates when Jeremy and Mark realize 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 doubting if it can actually be more terrible than burning, and it can be!
The 2001 The West Wing episode The Two Cathedrals
Nothing I’ve watched has been more intense as when I first saw the concluding episode of The West Wing’s second season. The show opens with the fallout of the demise (in a car crash) of the president’s confidential aide and builds to a peak with a crisis in Haiti, and the repercussions of the secrecy about the president’s MS condition, coupled with verification of his aim to pursue re-election. Wonderful television. Unsurpassed.
Bodyguard – episode one (2018)
The opening of the British series Bodyguard, with the hero aboard a train with his young son, is personally a top tense installment. He spots a Muslim woman heading to the toilet and knows something is off. The bomb diffuser experts are called, enter the train, and attempt to convince the woman to remove her explosive vest. Anxiety builds to a practically unendurable point, until, indeed, the vest is disarmed.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Body (2001)
Buffy arrives at her residence to discover her mother has died due to natural factors, 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 Sopranos – Made in America (2007)
The ultimate sequence of the series finale of the series was extremely nerve-wracking. And if you watched it when it originally aired, you – initially – were uncertain of the reason. Tony’s enemies, real and imagined, were all overcome. Doesn’t this resemble the season one conclusion? “Recall the minor details.” However, the vibe is oddly threatening. Nearly Twin Peaks-like fear. The clan sits in an eatery. Meadow parks. Tony gloomily informs Carmela there’s trouble afoot with another member of his team working with the government. Meadow secures a parking space. Strange people enter the restaurant. Look at Tony(?) Meadow is parking. Tony puts a record on the jukebox. Meadow finds a spot. The door chimes, a person comes in. Can’t be Meadow, she’s still parking. Tony looks up. Don’t stop. It halts. My heart sank roughly 20 minutes after.
The Walking Dead – The Last Day on Earth (2016)
I stayed up to watch this episode in the early morning. It was incredibly tense following the introduction of villain Negan finding the group, cruelly taunting his victims and then leaving the victim unknown (finished with an unresolved situation). The point-of-view shot from the victim and the subdued noises – oh no! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season
