🔗 Share this article ‘I absolutely had to rest after that!’ Your most nerve-wracking TV episodes of all time Spooks – I Spy Apocalypse (2003) The show kicks off with the Spooks team confined while undergoing a drill about a potential terror incident, monitored by two government representatives. As events unfold, it becomes clear a real incident has taken place with a chemical weapon released. The anxiety increases as messages indicate a crisis unfolding beyond their walls, and gets worse when the leader seems contaminated, and the two Home Office officials attempt to leave, pushing the protagonist portrayed by Matthew Macfadyen to choose between firing at them or letting them go and potentially infecting the secure MI5 headquarters. As this is Spooks, the outcome is expected. Threads (1984) Threads had minimal funding but arguably the most terrifying series I’ve ever seen owing to its grim authenticity and dismal official figures. Saw it not long ago following the initial broadcast; I used to visit the pub in Sheffield shown in the series which underscored the actuality and the glib matter-of-fact official information that aired. Continuing to be utterly horrifying decades on. The 2022 Severance episode The We We Are The first season finale of Severance deserves a top spot as a tense chapter. I was throughout the episode literally perched nervously, straining every sinew with Dylan to keep his hands on the levers that allowed the Innies to remain active, while yelling at the Innies to get their truths out there. The concluding高潮 – “she survives!” – felt like an explosion. Industry – White Mischief (2024) The fifth episode of Industry’s third season had my heart racing. I needed to stop and stand and depart the area multiple times owing to the vast degree of the wanton self-destruction I saw. Rishi Ramdani faces serious trouble in his job and domestic life – up to his eyeballs in debt to loan sharks due to his addictive betting, engaging in dangerous ventures on a wager involving sterling that might cost his firm millions. Naturally, he embarks on a betting frenzy, consumes excessive substances and alcohol and alternates between success and failure, is brutally attacked. Whenever you assume the situation cannot deteriorate further, it does. Redemption seems possible as the installment closes but he misses the opening, with horrifying consequences in the season finale. Definitely needed a lie-down after that! Peep Show – Holiday from 2007 Peep Show is not inherently a tense series. Yet the installment Holiday includes such amounts of embarrassment that it will make you rise throughout the entire 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 then occupy the remainder of the episode doubting if it can actually be more terrible than burning, and it can be! The West Wing – The Two Cathedrals from 2001 Nothing I’ve watched has been more intense as when I first saw the second season finale of The West Wing. The show opens with the fallout of the death (in a traffic accident) of the president’s personal secretary and escalates to a高潮 with a situation in Haiti, and the effects of the withheld information of the president’s MS diagnosis, with confirmation of his intention to seek re-election. Excellent TV. Unsurpassed. The 2018 Bodyguard premiere episode The beginning of the UK show Bodyguard, with the hero aboard a train with his young son, ranks among the most gripping episodes I’ve seen. He spots a Muslim woman entering the restroom and realizes something is amiss. The explosive disposal specialists are summoned, enter the train, and attempt to convince the woman to discard her bomb jacket. Anxiety builds to a practically unendurable point, until, finally, the vest is neutralized. Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Body (2001) Buffy arrives at her residence to realize her mom has deceased of natural causes, which is the rarest form of demise in this supernatural show. The installment lacks any soundtrack, a somber mood, 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 show was pants-wettingly tense. And if you watched it when it originally aired, you – initially – were uncertain of the reason. Tony’s adversaries, actual and perceived, were all overcome. This seems similar to the first season’s finale, right? “Remember the little things.” But the mood is bizarrely ominous. Almost Twin Peaks levels of terror. The clan sits in an eatery. Meadow parks. Tony gloomily informs Carmela problems are brewing with another member of his team collaborating with the authorities. Meadow secures a parking space. Unfamiliar individuals come into the diner. Stare at Tony(?) Meadow continues to park. Tony puts a record on the jukebox. Meadow parks. The door chimes, a person comes in. Can’t be Meadow, she’s still parking. Tony raises his gaze. Don’t stop. It halts. My heart dropped from my mouth roughly 20 minutes after. The Walking Dead – The Last Day on Earth (2016) I stayed up to watch this episode during the night. It was incredibly tense after the establishment of antagonist Negan finding the group, savagely teasing his prey then not knowing who he killed (ended on a cliffhanger). The victim’s POV shot and the muffled sounds – oh no! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season