Ranald Graham (Writer)

The Professionals

The lives of Bodie and Doyle, top agents for Britain's CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5), and their controller, George Cowley. The mandate of CI5 was to fight terrorism and similar high-profile crimes. Cowley, a hard ex-MI5 operative, hand-picked each of his men. Bodie is a cynical ex-SAS paratrooper and mercenary whose nature ran to controlled violence, while his partner, Doyle, comes to CI5 from the regular police force, and is more of an open minded liberal. Their relationship is often contentious, but they are the top men in their field, and the ones to whom Cowley always assigned to the toughest cases.

Release Date1977-12-30

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count5

Vote Count44

The Sweeney

Jack Regan, an unethical officer of the Flying Squad, uses unorthodox methods to pursue criminals with the help of his partner, George Carter.

Release Date1975-01-02

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count6

Vote Count25

Dempsey and Makepeace

Dempsey and Makepeace is a British television crime drama made by London Weekend Television for ITV, created and produced by Ranald Graham. The leading roles were played by Michael Brandon and Glynis Barber, who later married each other on 18 November 1989. The series combined elements of previous series such as the mis-matching of British and American crime-fighters from different classes as seen in The Persuaders! and the action of The Professionals.

Release Date1985-01-11

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Episode Count7

Vote Count27

Shanks

Malcolm Shanks is a sad and lonely man, deaf, mute and living with his cruel sister and her husband, who delight in making him miserable. His only pleasure, it seems, is in making and controlling puppets. Thanks to his skill, he is offered a job as a lab assistant to Dr. Walker, who is working on ways to re-animate dead bodies by inserting electrodes at key nerve points and manipulating the bodies as if they were on strings. When the professor suddenly dies one night, Shanks gets the idea to apply their experimental results to a human body, and then to start exacting some revenge.

Release Date1974-10-09

DepartmentWriting

JobScreenplay

Vote Count20

Sweeney!

When one of Regan's snouts complains that his girlfriend's recent suicide was murder, the flying squad detective feels compelled to investigate. He uncovers a conspiracy that reaches the heart of the government, and finds himself fitted up, suspended and under the scrutiny of Special Branch.

Release Date1977-01-14

DepartmentWriting

JobScreenplay

Vote Count24

Hammer House of Horror

Anthology series, in which each self-contained episode featured a different kind of horror. These varied from witches, werewolves, ghosts, devil worship and voodoo, but also included non-supernatural horror themes such as cannibalism, confinement and serial killers.

Release Date1980-09-13

DepartmentWriting

JobScreenplay

Episode Count1

Vote Count71

Strange New World

In the near future, a group of scientists living in a space ship wake up from a hibernation state and come back to an apocalyptic Earth.

Release Date1975-07-13

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Vote Count12

Yellowthread Street

Yellowthread Street is a 1990 ITV police procedural developed by Ranald Graham. Adapted from the novels by William Leonard Marshall, the thirteen episode series revolves around the Triad-busting cases of a group of Royal Hong Kong Police Force detectives, based in the colony’s Yellowthread precinct. Despite being a critical and ratings hit, Yellowthread Street never caught on, perhaps the result of the exotic setting and expensive production (it was shot on 35mm). It also seemed caught between two eras: conceived in the 1980s and produced at the turn of that decade, its philosophy and look seemed a little dated compared to other modern shows of the genre (i.e. The Bill).

Release Date1990-01-13

DepartmentProduction

JobProducer

Episode Count13

Vote Count1

The Two Faces of Evil

A family on holiday stop to pick up a mysterious hitch-hiker. Originally an episode of British horror anthology TV series, Hammer House of Horror, that later received a feature release in the United States.

Release Date1980-11-29

DepartmentWriting

JobWriter

Vote Count6