New Drama. Old Sins. Dangerous Chemistry.
This autumn, the past refuses to stay buried.
TV Times, August 1979
New 12-Part Drama Series – Fridays, 9.00pm – Thames Television
They swore they’d never work together again. Now London’s only hope is that they do.
The year is 1979. Britain is running out of faith, fuel, and patience - but something older and deeper than politics is stirring in the capital’s shadows. Demons, forgotten gods, curses are bleeding through the cracks into the modern world. And Special Branch’s most secret unit needs a pair of unlikely investigators to hold back the dark.
Rupert “Ripper” Giles (Anthony Head) is an Oxford-educated scholar who’s spent the last five years trying to bury his past. Ethan Rayne (Robin Sachs) is a charming trickster who’s never stopped running from it. They were once the closest of friends - and more - with a shared history marked by forbidden magic, terrible mistakes, and a bond that neither man can sever.
Thrown together into the capital’s most dangerous occult cases, Giles and Rayne need to navigate a London that’s alive with conspiracies and creatures - and their own unfinished business. A combustible partnership: intellect and impulse, discipline and chaos.
Whether it’s the cobbled backstreets of Soho or the marble corridors of Whitehall, Ripper & Rayne blends the grit of 1970s police thrillers with the glamor of British folk horror. Each week brings a new mystery - a haunted record, a vengeful spirit. But the real story is the fraught, electric connection between two men caught between saving each other, or destroying everything.