Back in July last year, we announced that the super-talented Tahar Rahim was set to lead the new BBC One/Netflix collaboration The Serpent, and today we’ve got the first look inside this intriguing show, with an impressive cast!

These all-new images give us a better understanding of the stylistics of the forthcoming crime-drama, showing us Rahim, alongside co-stars Jenna Coleman, Billy Howle and Ellie Bamber.  Whilst we don’t have an air date yet, the eight-part series, produced by Mammoth Screen, will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK, and on Netflix internationally. Fancy some official background of this true-to-life tale? Of course you do:

Inspired by real events, The Serpent tells the remarkable story of how Sobhraj (Rahim) was captured. As the chief suspect in unsolved murders of young Western travellers across India, Thailand and Nepal’s ‘Hippie Trail’ in 1975 and 1976, Sobhraj had repeatedly slipped from the grasp of authorities worldwide to become Interpol’s most wanted man, with arrest warrants on three different continents.

When Herman Knippenberg (Howle), a junior diplomat at the Dutch Embassy in Bangkok, unwittingly walked into Sobhraj’s intricate web of crime, he set off an extraordinary chain of events that saw Knippenberg seek to bring Sobhraj to justice for his terrible crimes.

Written by Richard Warlow and Toby Finlay, the series is directed by Tom Shankland and Hans Herbots, it also features Tim McInnerny, Alice Englert, Mathilde Warnier, Gregoire Isvarine, Sahajak Boonthanakit, Fabien Frankel, Chicha Amatayakul, Surasak Chaiyaat, Ruby Ashbourne-Serkis, Armand Rosbak, Ellie de Lange, Ilker Kaleli and screen newcomer Amesh Edireweera in key roles across the series.

The Serpent, filmed on location in Thailand, will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK, and on Netflix outside of the UK and Ireland.