Review Sapphire and Steel (1979)

Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10

sapphire_steel_0.jpg


Sapphire & Steel is a British television science-fiction 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 and Steel returned in a series of audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions, starring David Warnerand Susannah Harker as the titular Steel and Sapphire.


Cast & credits
Regular cast:

  • Series Created by P.J. Hammond
  • Producer: Shaun O'Riordan
  • Executive Producer: David Reid
  • Designers: Stanley Mills (Serials 1-4 & 6), Su Chases (Serial 5)
  • Music: Cyril Ornadel
  • Title Sequence: Ivor Weir
Thoughts and memories of the show.........


 
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Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
Looking back at it now, I think that this show was either profoundly brilliant - or wilfully obscure....

Or somewhere in between! :emoji_alien:
 
michaellevenson

michaellevenson

Moderator
Staff member
I have this series on DVD and it's an enjoyable watch, but the problem is that it's too vague.
Everything is lightly sketched, not enough detail about who exactly are Sapphire and Steel, its difficult to really care what happens. Having said that McCallum and Lumley are superb and it is entertaining.
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
I love the show, but am forced to agree that it is wilfully obscure a lot of the time.

I think the creator left things deliberately vague on the assumption that it would capture people's imaginations and he left loads of blank and strange bits that the viewers would fill in themselves.

Which is fair enough.

But it gets a little crazy. :emoji_alien:
 
Doctor Omega

Doctor Omega

Member: Rank 10
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'We are deranged. We are psychopaths, sociopaths, up the garden path,' said Tanith. 'We are mad, and you are trapped with us.'

The TARDIS is imprisoned in a house called Shadowfell, where a man is ready to commence the next phase of an experiment that will remake the world.
Click to expand...
A stranger dressed in grey watches from a hillside, searching for the sinister powers growing within the house. A killer appears from the surrounding forest, determined to carry out her deadly instructions. In the cellar, something lingers, observing and influencing events, waiting to take on flesh and emerge. And trapped in alien darkness, the last survivor of a doomed race mourns for the lost planet Earth.
Click to expand...

Yeah, stick SAPPHIRE AND STEEL into your book without paying P.J.Hammond any royalties! :emoji_alien:
 
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