Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 3

 "And then there were nine..."

And, with the third episide, things get even better. I'm loving the conscious Agatha Chrustie spoofing here- an isolated country house, suspiciously cut off from the outside world; yet another cliffhanger ending with a murder (Tony), intrigue as Sapphire reads suspicious behaviour in Tony's recent past, and Steel soing his very best Poirot impression in the most Agatha Christie setting possible- and in 1930, the time of peak Christie.

And yet the weirdness ramps up too. The collective amnesia seems to deepen, and it seems the house is on a ley line- and on the Summer Solstice too. And yet, as Sapphire explores, there seems to be something about the late George McDee at the root of it. He was working on a vaccine when he died (very topical), and he died just before unleashing a deadly virus or bacteria (the script has it both ways!) which would have destroyed humanity. This may be scientific nonsense, and in 2021 is comes across as more anti-vaxxer than was probably intended, but this is fascinating. I'm enormouly impressed with the writing here.

There's even an unusually fancy camera shot here, as we are drawn back through a linear tableau of all the "suspects". This serial becomes more and more impressive.