Surface is an all right show, but it is masterful when it comes to black moments. Last week and this, the doctor lady and Louisiana boy were in a submersible to study the new life forms, and the cable snapped, leaving the adrift, before the cable dropped below them, dragging them into an abyss. For two shows we were left wondering how they could possibly get out of this predicament, and I truly didn’t think they would.

It led me thinking to some good black moments in movies.

My absolute favorite is a Hugh Grant movie Extreme Measures, where he’s a doctor, and Gene Hackman is a doctor trying out a dangerous drug on paralyzed people (okay, I don’t remember the plot exactly) but Hugh Grant was trying to stop him. Except Hugh Grant finds himself paralyzed and you have to wonder – is he going to be so against the testing now?

There’s Two Towers, where they’re at Helm’s Deep, and all appears lost until Gandalf comes riding over the ridge.

Serenity. Holy cow, what a black moment. Once you-know-who was you-know-what, you believed any of them could be next. And you’d already seen what the Operator could do with that little grab.

Lost (I know, not a movie) but when Sawyer is shot and Walt is taken – and we were left all summer to wonder how they’d get out of it!

X-Men (the first one) where Rogue is dead despite Wolverine’s every effort to save her. Turns out she’s only mostly dead, like Wesley in Princess Bride.

Alias – Who WAS Michael, anyway???

What are your favorite black moments?