Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 6- The Trap, Part 3

 "I mean,the future could have been a lot of fun. Provided the price of a pint hasn't changed."

This is an unusual third episode, essentially consisting of shoving an extra character into the mix and seeing what happens. Johnny Jack seems at the start to be the Big Bad, but he's just some kind of creepy cockney carnival performer with a dodgy attitude to women and a creepy rhyme, an exemplar of the fact that childlike things can be scary. Johnny Jack, "and all the children on his back" gives us some weirdness and menace, but rather less mystery than intended.

He's from 1957, a different time period again, although everyone seems to be from within the last sixty years or so. and there's a third, bearded, figure. 

But things only get more intriguing towards the end, as the woman from 1948 wants to talk... and it seems everyone is like Sapphire and Steel, with similar powers somehow. This is a trap, and it's a random yet ending to an episode that really seems to go off at right angles. Who is this "higher power"?

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 6- The Trap, Part 2

 "We happen to be running away, that's all."

The second episode of the final story, like the first, consists of further intrigue and revelation along with tension rather than action as such- and this is no bad thing. I continue to be gripped, and P.J. Hammond's problems with pacing are not so far in evidence here.

So we begin with a little relatively tame intrigue as it's confirmed that our curiously taciturn couple from 1948 are adulterers running away from their respective spouses. They're defensive, despite the fact that adultery is no crime and "They can't hang you for it". More intriguing is Silver's statement that, if they were both to drive off in a straight line, they would simply return to where they started.

Then things move up a gear as Sapphire, Steel and Silver questin why they are there with so little briefing. And why was Silver, a technician, sent early to "watch"? Could it be some sort of trap. Even more curiously, they again see the old man from last episode. Except this time he's not a ghost- they are. In 1925. Ooh.

And we end with the clock moving on ten minuts, mysterious footsteps, Steel seeming to disappear- and a myserious, shadowy, behatted tramp...

This is good stuff.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 6- The Trap, Part 1

 "I suppose it's how the future would feel..."

It's back to P.J. Hammond for the final four parter of Sapphire & Steel, and this time it's yet another highly intriguing conceptual first episode. Yes, once again it's about weirdness with time, but it feels fresh. The setting- a petrol station in 1981- is nicely different, even if it is all rather obviously in studio. It's well shot, too, with a nice tracking shot at the start, and Silver is back along with all he brings to the dynamic between Sapphire and a jealous Steel.

But the concept is nicely nuanced and original. A couple from 1948 are displaced in time to 1981, and 1948, with its ration books and newspaper headlines such as "OPERA NATIONALISED", was only as long ago as 1988 was to us, which feels weird before you reflect that the filing caninets, smoking paraphernalia and cash registers are obviously closer to the 1940s than the 2020s.

It's not just the fact that the couple are displaced, though- they are secretive, and may be running off together from their respective spouses.Time is rerunning the same few seconds as heard in traffic noise and the radio. There was a mysterious old man in 1948. There's a feeling of fear and violence. And it's allways 8.54pm, but the clocks are working... until time jumps forward a few minutes at the end.

It's an intriguing start. Let's hope this final serial, hopefully not overlong at four episodes, lives up to it.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Four- The Man without a Face, Part 4

 "A few cheap tricks to impress the ladies!"

"Well, at least he bothered to impress them..."

And so the serial ends; there are a few fantastical leaps of logic, but the concept makes this appropriate, and it's a satisfactory conclusion. The faceless baddie even gets a final monologue intended to scare us, P.J. Hammond-style, as the evil spirit is trapped in a container until the day it is released. It's episodes like this that remind you that Sapphire & Steel is really horror fairytale fantasy with scientific trappings. It's about exorcists and evil spirits.

The stuff about how Williamson's trickery summoning the spitit makes little sense, but it doesn't have to. It works, odd though it is in 2021 to see such a focus on analogue photography. The whole episode drips with atmosphere and dread, yet there's time for a heartbreaking couple of lines from Liz where she realises her lot in life will never improve. 

This is the best conclusion so far, and easily the best serial. Let's hope the high standards continue.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Four- The Man without a Face, Part 3

 "Perhaps you could tell them that. When you join them..."

This third episode may echo earlier stories, very much indicating that P.J. Hammond is a writer who ery much likes his favourite tropes. The old-fashioned rhymes made to feel creepy. The prospect of being trapped in an image. Yet it all feels fresh, and this episode adds a lot of tension in advance of the conclusion.

A surprising amount happens here. The faceless man has a civil but creepily threatening parley with Sapphire and Steel, toying with them as a cat toys with a spider. We learn that Liz's old landlord, as well as her friend Ruth, have been trapped in a photograph from the 1890s. And Liz finally gets to understand the true nature of those creepy children. We learn a bit more, if nothing concrete, about what is going on. And it'sll rather nostalgic to see scares that reflect the anxieties of pre-digital technology.

This is superb, and the cliffhanger- the faceless man sets fire to a photo with two people trapped in it, one of them conscious- is uniquely horrifying.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Four- The Man without a Face, Part 2

 "It's like a cupboard that's been shut for two hundred years..."

Second episodes, by their very nature, are unlikely to be as crammed with awesome ideas as first episodes. It is to be expected. Yet the amount of creativity here is impressive. The faceless man is able to make a face appear where needed. And, of course, we begin to understand the nature of the phenomenon after Sapphire turns back time a bit: "I can only borrow time", she says. "I can't keep it."

Brilliantly, the suggesrion is that something got into the very first photograph in the 1820s and is somewhere within every photograph- either partly seen or completely hidden. This is an ingenious and very P.J. Hammond concept.

What isn't very P.J. Hammond at all is a character like Liz, very demotic, earthy and normal and a nice contrast in a very conceptual series like this. 

So far this is holding my attention and enthralling me, and we are already halfway through.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Four- The Man without a Face, Part 1

 "Would you like to play with these children? Shall I bring them?"

Wow. I've criticised Sapphire & Steel in the past for its glacial and plodding pace, which goes way beyond the generally slower pace of television drama circa 1980 into some very poor sttucturing. Yet the ideas have always been awesome to the point of genius, and it's clear that the programme could have been great if P.J. Hammond as the ideas man had had an experienced writer as a collaborator- a Gerry Davis to his Kit Pedler, if you will. 

That said, it must be said that this episode can't be faulted on pace, although perhaps first episodes generally don't, precisely because of their place in the narrative. I know that Hammond, like Steven Moffat, has his favoured tropes- and both Assignment One and, indeed, Hammond-penned episodes of Torchwood have shown his fascination woth individuals within images coming to life. Yet the opening teaser of Edwardian(?) children stealing other children from old photograths to play with is eerily effective, however much the nursery rhyme treads old ground.

The cool stuff then keeps coming thick and fast. An old pawn shop is full of memories, which Steel calls "triggers". Time breaking through again. A distinction between "specialists" and "operatives" like Steel (and implicitly Sapphire, with "specialists" being the likes of Silver?) and some amusingly banal-sounding workplace whingeing.

And then, suddenly, we get a real person, a young woman, who speaks of ghosts, a missing friend and a mysterious new landlord. And then we see- he's the pied piper for all these kids. And his face is just blank.

This is amazing. More please. And please, please, please stay this good.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 7

 "My faith has taken a knock..."

Well, that's certainly a change of direction, and a welcome one. In some senses this feels, in spite of being a penultimate episode, that it's the first part of a two-parter at the end of the wider serial.

It takes a few minutes for Sapphire and Steel to work out that they've been moved forward twelve days in time, but these are a quality few minutes as our two protagonists work through what has happened and why.We, and they, are getting used to the status quo; the Darkness and the ghosts appear to  be gone, although Tully mentions that several new ones arrive.

And Tully is at the centre here- such a well-rounded and realistic character. He's come to experence real spitits, something he's yearned for all his life- and he's bloody terrified. The very thing that has given his life meaning proves to be something he cannot handle, and this lonely man will have to find something else to occupy his remaining years. He's a decent man, if comewhat small "c" conservative, and doesn't deserve such a devastating experience. This experience may have ruined his chances of happiness.

And yet all is not over, as Syeel wishes to make a deal with the Darkness. This serial is getting good again.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 6

"We shouldn't be here on this particular assignment."

The upsurge in quality continues this episode, as we get some excellent character moments with all three of our main characters. This is there from the start as a curiously subdued and even contrite Steel is almost polite to Tully.

Sapphire is still in a coma, psychically "lost" after the impromptu end to the seance, yet apparently also on the paltform as a ghost with the others. This leads to two parallel scenes- Tully talks to the comatose Sapphire about himself, his life and, poignantly, his wish to reach an old age we know he will never reach, having less than five years to live. Steel has a curioussly awkward talk with Sapphire, whom he admits he "loves", with their usual mutual ease and affection curiously absent as she tries to persuade him the ghosts are harmless. It doesn't work, of course, but this is a rare and fascinating character moment.

We also learn more of the airman, desparate to find any mission other than the one he has as his last one before leave. I'm sure we will see more of him, but we end with the best cliffhanger yet- Steel wounded, on barbed wire, waiting to be shelled...

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 5

 "I don't want to talk to you!"

At last- an episode with lots of exposition and lots of answers.

The episode may consist mostly of the seance continuing (Joanna Lumley is outstanding, spending most of the episode as Edwardian village schoolteacher Eeanor), but we learn so very much. The soldier was Sam Pearce. He was in a relationship with his old teacher, twelve years his senior. He was a sweet boy, who loved nature... and he was killed eleven minutes after the armistice on 11th November 1918. That's his grievance; it's not just that he was killed in a war, but the deep unfairness of being killed after the war was over.

There's more, of course. There are hints about the "Darkness. Steel continues to alienate everyone by being such a rude git, and seems to struggle without Sapphire being there to handle the diplomacy. And we see the airman being sent out on his final mission, presumably to be elaborated on later.

I enjoyed this episode. It's amazing what a difference it makes when stuff actually happens. There's a good story here, it's just padded out over a ridiculous number of episodes.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two- The Railway Station, Part 1

 "You see, it happens to be more than just a ghost..."

This episode is, in some ways, very different. This is only the second Assignment, of course: we're still exploring what this delightfully weird series is about and what it can do. This time we've already met Sapphire and Steel and so we don't need such a blatant audience identification figure like Rob: instead we get George Tully, a ghost hunter in late middle age, and said ghost haunting a disused railway platform which presumably fell victim to the dreaded Dr Beeching and his snip, snip, snip.

It's an eerie setting, all the way through. There's a little dry humour in Steel's rudeness towards Tully, needing to be smoothed over by the more diplomatic Sapphire, and a fair bit of subtle amusement on Sapphire's part on her partner's lack of social graces. This is a nice little character touch.

But there's a lot of intrigue too. What is this thing that appears to be a ghost? In our brief glimpses it appears to be a first world war soldier, and when Sapphire's clothes briefly change she starts to look Edwardian. And the late October night seems to smell like summer- the mof 1914? And , at the end, we have a sudden ghostly feelng of hate and resentment. I'm intrigued. This is a solid start.