Sapphire and Steel
 All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling
each dimension.
Trans-uranic heavy elements may not be used where
there is life.
Medium atomic weights are available - Gold, Lead,
Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver, and Steel.
Sapphire and Steel have been assigned
These
words, spoken from an unknown dimension, introduced each episode
of possibly the strangest of British fantasy series', Sapphire
and Steel, a show low in action (and budget!) but high in
menace, which premised that the ever-present fourth dimension
could rip through the fabric of time and erupt into our world at
any moment with terrifying consequences.
Series creator P J Hammond intended Sapphire and Steel
to be unlike any other sci-fi series. Certainly the dangers that
called enigmatic agents Sapphire and Steel into action were very
different from the usual parade of dinosaurs and foil-covered
androids.
The eponymous inter-dimensional trouble-shooters, who would
appear magically at the first sign of a rupture in time, were
played by David McCallum (Man From UNCLE, Colditz, Invisible
Man) and Joanna Lumley (The New Avengers, Absolutely
Fabulous).
McCallum's Steel was like his element; tough, unemotional,
dressed all in grey and the possessor of enormous strength and a
highly analytical mind. Sapphire in contrast was cool and gentle
with super-sensory powers, dressed all in blue and providing the
feminine to complement Steel's masculine.
The characters would consult each other in sotto voce
conversations on the problems facing them, sometimes summoning the
strength of the hulking Lead (a stereotype black male) or the
technical skills of the engaging agent Silver to help them.
The hypnotic, atmospheric series, with its elusive terrors,
related six stories about its agents explorations of the dark side
of time and its attendant perils.
Among them were Adventure One where nursery rhymes
triggered the eruption of time into an isolated farmhouse stealing
the parents of two young children; Adventure Two, in which
a long-disused railway station was haunted by the ghosts of past
wars trapped eternally in their moments of death; and Adventure
Four in which photographs taken long ago unleashed a
malevolent Shape into our world
A second series was never made, not because of lack of audience
appreciation, but largely because production company ATV lost its
franchise to Central.
P J Hammond, who had previously scripted episodes of Ace of
Wands and Z Cars, also wrote the scripts for the
series, with the exception of Adventure Five - a variation
on Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians - which was written
by Dr Who writers Anthony Read and Don Houghton.
|
