Sapphire and Steel

''Sapphire & Steel'' is a British television supernatural sci-fi/fantasy series starring David McCallum as Steel and Joanna Lumley as Sapphire. Produced by ATV, it ran from 1979 to 1982 on the ITV network. The series was created by Peter J. Hammond who conceived the programme under the working title ''The Time Menders'', after a stay in an allegedly haunted castle. Hammond also wrote all the stories except for the fifth, which was co-written by Don Houghton and Anthony Read.

From 2005 to 2008, ''Sapphire & Steel'' returned in a series of audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions, starring David Warner and Susannah Harker as the titular Steel and Sapphire.

Series overview

Premise

The opening credits include the narration that "All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic 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." In the sixth and final assignment, Lead was replaced with Mercury in the opening credits.

The programme centres on a pair of interdimensional operatives, the eponymous Sapphire and Steel. Very little is revealed about their purposes or backgrounds in the course of the series but they appear to be engaged in guarding the continuing flow of time. They are two of multiple elements that assume human form and are sent to investigate strange events; others include Lead (Val Pringle), who takes the aspect of a jovial, friendly giant, and Silver (David Collings), a technician who can melt metals in his hands.

In the series, it is explained that Time is like a progressing corridor that surrounds everything, but there are weak spots where Time – implied to be a malignant force – can break into the present and take things. There are also creatures from the beginnings and ends of time that roam the corridor looking for the same weak spots to break through.

These breaks are most often triggered by the presence of something old in a modern situation, for example a traditional nursery rhyme, an old photograph, or a house decorated with antiques. Holding onto something of the past opposes progress and allows 'Time' to break into the present – the more old things present, the easier it is for this to occur (such as is seen in episode 1 where the two century old house is full of clocks and other antiques in which a traditional nursery rhyme has been read hundreds of times as a bedtime story). When this breaking-in of 'Time' occurs, Investigators will be sent to assess the situation and then, if intervention is warranted, Operators are assigned to deal with the problem by a mysterious unseen authority, to be assisted by Specialists if necessary.

Each adventure usually starts with Sapphire and Steel simply showing up, seemingly out of nowhere, although sometimes they are already present when the story begins. They will then investigate and mingle with various humans, although it is nearly always the location the humans are in which is of the most interest: an old house which dates back to the 18th century, an abandoned railway station, a modern-day motorway petrol station, and so on. The stories are generally quite cryptic, raising more questions than answers, and have an eerie air to them, being as much ghost stories as they are science fiction. The ambiguous nature of the programme extends to its main characters. While Sapphire is portrayed as more affable and "human" than the no-nonsense, grim Steel, it is clear that their prime concern is to deal with the break in Time, sometimes over the safety of the humans caught in the incidents they investigate. The general tone of the series is however forward-looking; that old things are dangerous, and that the past should be left behind or an evil force will be able to enter through those old things. In this situation, progress and newness are portrayed as the protecting force against 'Time'.

Characters

It is heavily implied that Sapphire and Steel are not human, given their abilities and manner. Steel, for example, often has gaps in his knowledge of human culture and even Sapphire's grace is tempered with a cool detachment from the humans they interact with. In Adventure 5, Steel confirms that they were alien, "in the extraterrestrial sense." The two also refer to being involved in the mystery of the ''Mary Celeste'', and in one case state they will be waiting for a ship to surface in seventy-five years. This could mean they are either exceptionally long-lived or some kind of time travel is involved. P. J. Hammond confirmed the former hypothesis in a 1993 interview.

Sapphire and Steel, who are Operators, are occasionally assisted by other beings, including Lead and Silver. Silver is stated in Adventure 6 as being a Specialist rather than an Operator. There are 127 operatives in total, including 12 transuranic elements, which cannot be assigned where life exists. Although they are described as elements, many of the code names are non-elements, such as Sapphire, Steel, and Jet, although these could be pseudonyms for aesthetics or discretion. Sapphire also has a flirtatious relationship with Silver, contributing to an air of underlying sexual tension on the occasions that Silver is called upon to assist the duo. The relationship between Steel and Sapphire similarly exhibits occasional tension, as evidenced in Adventure 2 when Steel admits feeling love for Sapphire and, at one point, even kissing her on the cheek. In Adventure 1, Lead mentioned that Jet sent Steel her love and that Silver was having relationship troubles with Copper "again".

Among Sapphire's abilities is the power to manipulate time in small ways as well as determine the age or historical details of an object by touching it ( psychometry). This latter ability is referred in Adventure 2 as "spot analysis". Her most prominent ability is to "take back time," literally rewinding it in a localised area to see or replay the past. She states in Adventure 1 that she cannot take time back twenty-four hours; in the last episode of the same adventure, at Steel's request she takes time back "half a day". In Adventure 2, she is able to "hold time for a day", when another (in this case, the creature seen as the darkness) takes time back over multiple days. Whether this is an improvement in abilities or a different skill entirely is not made clear. She also exhibits an ability to obtain information about people – their ages and backgrounds as well as psychological insights into their personality – just by being close to them. Sometimes it appears that she does not discover this information herself but is receiving the information telepathically from some external source. In Adventure 2, it is stated that the age at which a living person will die is not estimated but recorded, that it is a historical fact. Nothing else is revealed in the television series as to the extent or nature of any such records, or to what extent Sapphire uses them in relation to information obtained directly. She can also manipulate people's emotions, and project illusions. When she uses her powers, her irises will usually glow blue or, under some circumstances, turquoise.

Steel, on the other hand, can freeze himself to absolute zero which gives him the ability to destroy 'ghosts', which are in actuality remnants of Time. He apparently possesses immense strength (in Adventure 3 he ties knots in lift cables to prevent the lift from being used) and a degree of invulnerability. He also exhibits telekinetic abilities, being able to paralyse people with a look, weld metal with his bare hands or undo deadbolts with a gesture.

Both Sapphire and Steel (as well as all Operatives) also appear to be able to teleport a great distance.

The operatives can also communicate telepathically with each other, and in Adventure 5, Sapphire grants this ability to a human being, whom she dubs "Brass" for the duration. Sapphire removes this ability at the end of the story. It is also suggested in Adventure 5 that other powers can be granted. It is hinted, in the debate that ensues between Sapphire and Steel after Sapphire gives Brass his abilities, that different powers are classed at different levels, with telepathy being considered one of the most basic.

It is not made clear in the series as to what boundaries exist on the skills of operatives. In Adventure 2, Steel cannot perform "spot analysis", as it is not his field, but in Adventure 4, Sapphire and Steel together are specifically able to replicate Silver's ability to transmutate by remembering what he did.

Other operatives that appear also have special powers. Silver (played by David Collings), a Specialist who is designated as a Technician, is good with electronics and gadgets, is able to transform one small object into another, and is even able to replicate small objects out of nothing. He can also create long-lasting visual images of objects too large to replicate, although the exact parameters for such images are never revealed. Lead (played by Val Pringle), on the other hand, possesses superhuman strength and can act as needed insulation for Steel when he freezes himself to extreme temperatures.

Production and transmission

The programme ran for four years and 34 episodes, each lasting about 25 minutes and generally included a précis of the preceding episode. The first and second stories were shown in the summer of 1979, the second story's transmission interrupted by industrial action at the ITV network which led to a repeat of the story in 1979. The third and fourth stories were transmitted in January 1981, and the fifth in August 1981 with a sixth story "in the can" for future transmission. The audience figures were unusually high for a science fiction series with the first episode, gaining 11.8 million viewers and finishing as the fourth most watched programme of the week across all channels. This continued with a further seven episodes of the first year appearing in the top 20. Three more episodes in 1981 and one in 1982 also entered the top 20 ratings.''Television's Greatest Hits'', Network Books, Paul Gambaccini and Rod Taylor, 1993.

By this time, production costs were increasing. The programme had been allocated a minuscule production budget, which led to the use of simple staging and minimal special effects, ultimately contributing to the uneasy atmosphere of the show. The high profile and limited availability of the principal actors, Lumley and McCallum, meant that shooting was somewhat sporadic, and the programme's producers ATV were in the process of being reorganised into the new Central Independent Television; all factors which led to the series' demise. Central felt that viewers might mistake the new programmes for repeats of old ones, and broadcast the final, four-part story in late August 1982 to very little fanfare. Despite this, the first episode gained a high rating and finished in the top 20 most-watched programmes of the week. The show has never been repeated on UK terrestrial television, but some episodes were shown on the satellite and cable station Bravo in the mid-1990s. The programme has also been made available for free online by ShoutFactoryTV.com.

The UK digital channel Forces TV acquired the series, showing two episodes each weekday evening from 1 June 2020. The complete series was added to BritBox in August, 2020.

Television stories

: ''For more information see List of Sapphire & Steel serials''
None of the stories had on-screen titles, or any official titles assigned by the writers. The Region 1 Complete Series DVD release gives the titles "Escape Through a Crack in Time", "The Railway Station", "The Creature's Revenge", "The Man Without a Face", "Dr. McDee Must Die" and "The Trap", respectively. These titles have often been cited as having been created by science fiction magazine ''Time Screen''. Further reading reveals that in the booklet for the series, written by Tim Worthington, and included with the most recent DVD box set, on page 7 there is this quote regarding titles from creator P. J. Hammond "I never gave titles to the stories. Neither did the production department. I think certain fanbases may have made up their own titles in order to discuss and analyse various stories." The various British home video releases title the stories as "Adventure" or "Assignment" I through VI.

The booklet also says, on the same page, "some sources have claimed that these were taken from the original scripts, whereas others dismiss them as an invention on the part of a science fiction fanzine, although the editor of the fanzine in question denies that they were ever used within its pages" and furthermore that "the show's distributors have never knowingly used them."

The final television story ends on a cliffhanger. Apparently resentful of Sapphire and Steel's independence, a higher authority sends entities known as Transient Beings (similar to the operatives but until now trapped in the past), set a trap for them in a motorway café. The serial concludes with Silver dispatched to an unknown fate – and Sapphire and Steel being trapped in the café, floating through space, apparently for eternity. The cliffhanger has never been resolved, although Hammond has stated that vague plans existed for further adventures. This was also stated by Joanna Lumley in her autobiography, who remembered that they were told that this was merely an end-of-series cliffhanger, and that Sapphire and Steel would be freed at the start of the next series. However, in an interview with ''Doctor Who Magazine'' (#329, cover date: 30 April 2003), David Collings recalled that although another series was planned, Joanna Lumley and David McCallum both decided that they'd had enough and didn't wish to do any more.

Merchandise

One novelisation of the series was released. The first story of the series was released by Star Books in 1979 and was written by Peter J. Hammond.

A two-page coloured ''Sapphire & Steel'' picture strip, written by Angus Allan and drawn by Arthur Ranson, appeared in the ''Look-In

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