🔗 Share this article ‘I absolutely had to rest after that!’ The most nerve-wracking TV episodes ever Spooks – I Spy Apocalypse from 2003 This installment starts with the Spooks team confined during a training exercise about a potential terror incident, supervised by two Home Office agents. As things progress, it becomes clear a real incident has taken place and a chemical agent deployed. The anxiety increases as incoming communications show a crisis unfolding beyond their walls, and gets worse as the boss appears to be infected, and the two Home Office officials attempt to leave, pushing the protagonist portrayed by Matthew Macfadyen to decide between shooting them or permitting their exit and endangering the sterile MI5 environment. This being Spooks, his decision is predictable. The 1984 production Threads The production was inexpensive but one of the most frightening programmes I’ve ever seen due to its harsh realism and bleak government data. Viewed it recently having watched the original; I frequently went to the Sheffield pub shown in the series which emphasised the reality and the casual, straightforward government details that were transmitted. Still absolutely terrifying 35 years later. The 2022 Severance episode The We We Are The concluding episode of Severance’s debut season has to be right up there in terms of gripping installments. I spent the entire episode quite literally on the edge of my seat, pushing alongside Dylan to keep his hands on the levers that kept the Innies on overtime, while shouting to the Innies to disclose their facts. The concluding高潮 – “she survives!” – was like an eruption. Industry – White Mischief from 2024 Episode five of the third series of Industry had my heart racing. I had to pause and get up and exit the space repeatedly due to the immense extent of the wanton self-destruction I observed. Rishi Ramdani is in major difficulty at work and home – overwhelmed by debt to illegal creditors due to his addictive betting, assuming hazardous chances with a gamble on the pound that might cost his firm millions. Inevitably, he starts a gaming binge, uses copious drugs and alcohol and alternates between success and failure, is severely assaulted. Each instance you believe it can’t get any worse, it does. There is a chance for salvation at the end of the episode but he misses the opening, resulting in dreadful effects in the concluding part of the season. Definitely needed a lie-down after that! Peep Show – Holiday (2007) Peep Show itself isn’t necessarily a stressful show. Yet the installment Holiday features such degrees of awkwardness that it’ll have you standing up for the full show, permeated with worry. The tension escalates once Jeremy and Mark find themselves being compelled to falsify about the canine they accidentally run over and later efforts to get rid of it. You then spend the rest of the episode wondering if it might be more awful than cremation, and it can be! The West Wing – The Two Cathedrals (2001) Nothing I’ve watched has been more intense than the first time I watched the concluding episode of The West Wing’s second season. The installment begins with the consequences of the death (in a traffic accident) of the president’s private assistant and builds to a peak with a crisis in Haiti, and the repercussions of the secrecy about the president’s MS condition, with confirmation of his intention to pursue re-election. Superb programming. Never bettered. The 2018 Bodyguard premiere episode The start of the British program Bodyguard, featuring the main character on a train accompanied by his small son, ranks among the most gripping episodes I’ve seen. He notices a Muslim female heading to the toilet and realizes something is amiss. The bomb diffuser experts are called, enter the train, and attempt to convince the woman to remove her explosive vest. Anxiety builds to an almost unbearable degree, until, finally, the vest is neutralized. Buffy the Vampire Slayer – The Body (2001) Buffy comes into her home to realize her mom has deceased of natural causes, which is the least common kind of passing in this paranormal series. The episode has no background music, a sullen tone, and we witness the episode via the perspective of Buffy’s astonishment upon finding her mother. The Sopranos – Made in America (2007) The final scene of the final episode of the series was extremely nerve-wracking. And if you viewed it when it first premiered, you – at the start – didn’t understand the cause. Tony’s enemies, real and imagined, were all vanquished. Doesn’t this resemble the season one conclusion? “Recall the minor details.” Yet the atmosphere is strangely foreboding. Approaching Twin Peaks-esque horror. The clan sits in an eatery. Meadow parks. Tony sorrowfully notifies Carmela problems are brewing with an additional associate collaborating with the authorities. Meadow parks. Odd persons arrive at the eatery. Gaze at Tony(?) Meadow parks. Tony puts a record on the jukebox. Meadow finds a spot. The door chimes, a person comes in. It cannot be Meadow, she is still parking. Tony glances upward. Continue. It halts. 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 in the early morning. It was so intense after the buildup of bad guy Negan discovering the characters, cruelly taunting his victims and then keeping the death a mystery (ended on a cliffhanger). The victim’s POV shot and the subdued noises – ugh! {We then had to wait for season seven|We then needed to await season