‘I truly required a break after that!’ Your most nerve-wracking episodes of TV ever

Spooks – I Spy Apocalypse from 2003

The show kicks off with the Spooks team locked down as part of a simulation relating to a hypothetical terrorist attack, overseen by two Home Office officials. As the situation develops, it appears that there really has been an attack and a chemical agent deployed. The anxiety increases as reports reveal a disaster happening externally, and escalates as the boss appears to be infected, and the two Home Office officials attempt to leave, compelling the character played by Matthew Macfadyen to opt for either shooting them or letting them go and risking contaminating the sealed MI5 offices. This being Spooks, his decision is predictable.

The 1984 production Threads

Threads had minimal funding but one of the most frightening programmes I have viewed because of the stark reality and dismal official figures. Viewed it recently after seeing the first airing; I often attended the bar in Sheffield featured in the show which emphasised the reality and the casual, straightforward government details that were transmitted. Remaining completely frightening decades on.

Severance – The We We Are (2022)

The concluding episode of Severance’s debut season deserves a top spot as a tense chapter. I spent the entire episode quite literally on the edge of my seat, pushing alongside Dylan to maintain his grip on the controls that kept the Innies on overtime, while shouting to the Innies to get their truths out there. The concluding高潮 – “she is living!” – was like an eruption.

Industry – White Mischief from 2024

The fifth episode of Industry’s third season made my pulse quicken. I needed to stop and stand and leave the room several times because of the sheer scale of the deliberate ruin I saw. Rishi Ramdani faces serious trouble professionally and personally – up to his eyeballs in debt from unscrupulous lenders because of his compulsive gambling, assuming hazardous chances with a bet on sterling which may result in huge losses for his employer. Naturally, he embarks on a betting frenzy, uses copious drugs and alcohol and alternates between success and failure, gets beaten to a pulp. Whenever you assume it can’t get any worse, it does. There’s hope of redemption by the episode’s conclusion but he misses the opening, leading to terrible outcomes in the concluding part of the season. Definitely needed a lie-down after that!

Peep Show – Holiday (2007)

Peep Show is not inherently a tense series. Yet the installment Holiday includes such amounts of embarrassment that it will make you rise the whole episode, riddled with anxiety. The situation intensifies when Jeremy and Mark realize needing to deceive regarding the dog they unintentionally hit and later efforts to get rid of it. You subsequently use the rest of the installment questioning whether it truly can be worse than incineration, and it is possible!

The West Wing – The Two Cathedrals (2001)

Nothing I’ve watched has been more intense as when I first saw the concluding episode of The West Wing’s second season. The episode starts with the aftermath 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 repercussions of the secrecy about the president’s MS condition, with confirmation of his intention to run for another term. Excellent TV. Unequaled.

Bodyguard – episode one from 2018

The beginning of the UK show Bodyguard, featuring the main character on a train accompanied by his small son, is for me one of the most intense episodes ever. He notices a Muslim female entering the restroom and realizes something is amiss. The bomb squad is alerted, enter the train, and attempt to convince the woman to remove her explosive vest. Suspense rises to an almost unbearable degree, until, finally, the vest is neutralized.

The 2001 Buffy episode The Body

Buffy comes into her home to discover her mother has died from natural reasons, which is the rarest form of demise in this paranormal series. The episode has no background music, a somber mood, and we see the episode through the experience of Buffy’s dismay upon uncovering her mother.

The Sopranos – Made in America from 2007

The final scene of the final episode of the program was incredibly anxious. And if you viewed it when it first premiered, you – at the start – didn’t understand the cause. Tony’s adversaries, actual and perceived, had all been defeated. Surely this has the feel of the season one ending? “Remember the little things.” Yet the atmosphere is strangely foreboding. Nearly Twin Peaks-like fear. The family sit in a restaurant. Meadow parks. Tony sadly tells Carmela there’s trouble afoot with yet another of his crew cooperating with the officials. Meadow secures a parking space. Unfamiliar individuals come into the diner. Look at Tony(?) Meadow parks. Tony plays a track on the music machine. Meadow finds a spot. The door chimes, a person comes in. It cannot be Meadow, she is still parking. Tony looks up. Keep going. It stops. My heart dropped from my mouth roughly 20 minutes after.

The 2016 The Walking Dead episode The Last Day on Earth

I stayed up to watch this episode during the night. It was incredibly tense after the establishment of antagonist Negan locating the survivors, cruelly taunting his victims then not knowing who he killed (concluded with a suspenseful moment). The victim’s POV shot and the subdued noises – oh no! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season