In a mortal standoff, if Sinatra wants to survive she must prove to Agent Collins that his wife, Terri, is still alive.

Every now and again a TV series does something extraordinary. Breaking Bad is remembered for the legendary Ozymandias episode. Fans of The Last of Us usually agree that the third installment, Long, Long Time, was something very special indeed. I’ve certainly been enjoying Paradise – even if you could argue that in essence it’s just Silo with showers and lightbulbs. It’s been a well-crafted, better than average post-apocalyptic genre thriller, which was fine by me…

…until I sat down to watch its penultimate episode, The Day.

Xavier has a gun pointed at Sinatra’s head, and as she argues for her life, they relive the cataclysmic events of the day they entered the bunker. I’ve lost count of the number of global apocalypses I’ve seen committed to screens large and small. To be honest, while they are often entertaining, they are mostly ridiculous, implausible and/or unconvincingly rendered, which is, in the end, what makes apocalyptic drama so reassuring.

Not so with The Day. Eschewing SFX (except for a minimum of essential shots) the action stays largely confined to the White House. Rather than dodgy CGI of tourist landmarks being decimated, the episode focuses on messy and chillingly plausible human dynamics. Perhaps it’s a sign of the scary times we live in, but there are moments of realisation and betrayal that I found viscerally stomach churning.

These are moments feel less fictional than imminent.

And that’s all I want to say about it.

Verdict: The Day is a perfect hour of edge of the seat genre TV. 10/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com