Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 6- The Trap, Part 4

 "This place is nowhere. And it's forever."

Well, it's fair to say I wasn't expecting that. A magnificent ending to Sapphire & Steel, and a properly weird and, er, final finale from a televisual age when such things were not routinely done. The whole set-up is indeed a trap, and we end with Sapphire and Steel trapped in a 1940s cafe, for all eternity, with nothing outside but endless space. Wow.

It matters not that there are so many questions unanswered- the background of the "Transient Beings", and the true nature of the woman from 1948- this episode is about mood and weirdness. As ever with Sapphire & Steel, the point is ro reveal just enough to tantalise but not enough to penetrate the sense of mystery and unknowability. Ths episode achieves that magnificently.

It also achieves the shocking effect it intended, with the twists and turns for once occurring quickly, and with a truly outstanding bit of villainy from Edward de Souza.

The series ends memorably, in a way that will stay with me. Alas, the series wasn't of this quality throughout, with P.J Hammond's magnificently weird ideas not matched always by his plotting or pacing. But I shall miss Sapphire & Steel.

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 5- The Dinner Party, Part 6

 "Would you have me be the man who destroyed the human race?"

A fitting ending, then, to probably the finest serial so far- and yes, the only one not to have been written by P.J. Hammond. Where Hammond is full of ideas but not necessarily great with plotting or pacing, this serial may not be full of original ideas beyond letting the ravages of Time loose on the events of an Agatha Christie novel, but the execution of the plot is confident and assured.

In the end this final episode hinges on the question of who originally murdered George, as we see suspect after suspect almost kill George, only to turn out to be misdirection. It's amusing, but not so much as to be silly or to undermine plausibility, as much as one can use the word with a story like this. The same goes for the amusement value in George desperately trying to work on his breakthrough while his two women fight over him.

One cannot really defend the portrayal of Emma as a dim and gullible man-obsessed female who resents men and their work which distracts them from shagging here: it's certainly sexist, much as there are also undertones of her being a spoilr aristocrat. But 1981, let alone 1930, was a different age.

This is a satsfying finale, setting time back on track via Sapphire's well-established powers and concluding all the plot threads elegantly. It's a joy to see that being done for once in Sapphire & Steel.

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

 "Are those cultures...?"

It's rare for a fifth episode of a six parter to be interesting in its own right, or for it to introduce or develop new ideas: usually it's all just about moving the pieces on the board into position for the finale. Not this time.

We break the pattern a bit as Annabelle (the youngest remaining guest) is killed halfway through, while Felix- the last guest standing to have been born after 1930- dies at the end. Everyone believes by now that this is 1930. There's a rather clever scene juxtaposing a game of bridge with some telepathic exposition as Steel telepthically discusses things with Felix, now brough into the confidence of our titular couple.

Yet what makes this superb is not only the masterly progression of the plot but the concepts. George opens and walked through a door that is locked for everyone else, but not him. The guests quockly forget the deaths. There was a fire in which George was killed, as reported in the press- yet the physical evidence shows there wasn't.  We begin to see what the bacterial culture does to people as Felix's face is horribly dissolved.

This is a superb episode within a superb serial, easily the finest so far. I'm excited for the finale.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 4

 "You can't depend on servants at all these days..."

We get another fascinating episode in which the murder mystery plot is developed- Emma may, in 1930, have been having an affair with George, while Howard was blackmailing George, who had been embezzling from the company. And the structure is maintained with the ciffhanger being another death- in this case Howard, who hasd earlier come under suspicion, as seems to happen to the next to die.

Yet things are, of course, working on another level. Sapphire casts doubt on whether the dead are truly deceased. The secretary, in another room (and another time period) sees text on her screen about a fire at the house. And whatever presence is there almost makes Sapphire stab herself- and shoot Steel.

This is brilliant stuff. Yet it also finds time for little things like Steel not knowing which way to pass the port, or the difference between cynical womanising and love. And then there's the playing with murder mystery tropes, and the sly digs at the idle rich of the early twentieth century. This is quietly brilliant.

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.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 2

 "I think his Lordship's taking this joke a bit too far, Greville, don't you think?"

In a departure from Sapphire & Steel tradition, an intriguing episode shows promise in developing a seemingly lacklustre first one. Suddenly I'm hooked, despite very little happening other than the appearance of two more guests. I'm not even bothered by the fact that the announcement of a game of sardines makes it perfecty obvious that poor Veronica is going to be killed while hidden. This seems to be getting good.

And I can't really say why; I think it's just that this episode succeeds more in leveraging the increasing confusion between 1980 and 1930, with everyone's memories getting increasingly foggy- until the sudden appearance of a very alive George McDee shocks everyone. It's an effectve scene.

Interestingly, too, and despite my not spotting it last episode, this story is written by someone other than P.J. Hammond- Anthony Reed and an uncredited Don Houghton, both well known to us Doctor Who fans. Suddenly, this serial has become rather interesting.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment 5- The Dinner Party, Part 1

 "Why did it choose this house?"

The penultimate assignment begins: there's only so much left of Sapphire & Steel. On first glance this story appears to be some sort of metaphor on the dangers of excessive nostagia and the dangers of dwelling overly on the past. This is an interesting observation to make while discussing a forty year old television programme from a time, shockingly, when 1930 was fifty years ago and very much in living memory.

So far we have a dinner party held by self-important tycoon Lord Mullrine, who seems determined ti make everything as much like 1930 as possible. Yet it seems time is taking the hint and, in places, making this literal. There are a couple of nice and subtle illustrations of this, with the radio and the green door, but so far these light hints are all we're getting, as we spend the first episode getting to know the various guests. The posh dinner setting, the country house and the sort of 1930 setting feels a bit like an Aldous Huxley novel.

It's certainly an intriguing start, but thus far there are few truly new ideas. We shall see.

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 Three- The Creature's Revenge, Part 6

 "We have no use for them..."

So that's it. Only in this final episode are the threads finally drawn together, with Rothwyn and Eldred finally interacting with Sapphire, Steel and Silver... and it's all over quickly. It's an anti-climax. And it turns out thos is all the result of cruel experiments on animals. I'm all for political subtext but this is bit crudely blatant didacticism.

There's a bit of fun with the fact time has been reversed and the unfortunateness of the last episode has been erased, and a bit of fun with how rude Steel is to the future couple versus Sapphire being at her most aloof and Silver blatantly flirting with Rothwyn. There's also horror, with that horrible brief glimpse of the doll baby, and the revelation that both other future households- children included- died by suicide in order to protect others. Brr.

Yet the conclusion is quick, anticlimctic, overly didactic and leaves us with a six parter which is oddly paced and, while it has some good ideas, just doesn't draw them together well enough to hang together by the time we reach the conclusion.

I shall plough on, but I'm not too impressed with Sapphire & Steel right now.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Three- The Creature's Revenge, Part 5

 "I have impeccable origins."

This episode is no less full of padding- in essence it consists of Sapphire, with Steel, faffing around as they wonder what tricks in their armoury they can use to bring back Silver, who is their only ticket out of the capsule. This time, though, it's entertaining padding.

Partly it's that the ideas get some development- the mysterious creature behind all this seems close to omnipotent, and can prevent Sapphire reversing time a few minutes as she usually does. This sequence subtly allows our protagonists to review the story so far including the bits with Rothwyn and Eldred that they were not previously privy to. We also have an odd description of the creepy, nameless grown baby as the "Changeling" complete with a description of the folklore around the concept, which seems to have no bearing whatsoever.

It's weird but cool, too, to hear that Silver has been taken back to the "beginning". That's the thing about Sapphire & Steel; it doesn't half drag on a bit, but the concepts are frequently awesome. And we end on a high, even if again there's no real cliffhanger, as our protagonists finally meet a rather composed Rothwyn and a hilariously freaking out Eldred. It's nice how they used the baby as a loophole.

Let's hope the finale is good...

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Three- The Creature's Revenge, Part 4

 "There are no others..."

Here we have... a rather uneventful episode. There's some fascinatingy touchy-feely stuff between Sapphire and Silver hinting at a present or former romantic relationship, much to Steel's jealous annoyance. There's a bit of a revelation that Silver is "just a technician" whose forte is transportation and machines. Aside from this there's just a lot of vague exploration to fill the time in which our now reunited proagonists learn various things about the capsule(s) that the viewer already knows or has probably inferred.

The former baby is creepy though. And there's a fascinating debate about whether it's a baby or just a machine. But that's literally it.

At least we get a cliffhanger next time. But can some stuff actually happen next time, please?

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Three- The Creature's Revenge, Part 3

 "They wouldn't have gone back without us, would they?"

There's  not really anything like plausible deniability to the charge that this episode is blatant padding. Sapphire and Silver seem about to get entry to the capsule at the very end- fully halfway through the story as a whole. And the neat-total absence of Sapphire, after last episode's arresting cliffhanger, feels as though it may be influenced by non-diegetic factors.

Obviously, Sapphire being absent, we get to meet Steel, a charismatic, mysterious and rather camp individual. He and Sapphire flirt outrageously, amusingly causing annoyance to a jealous Steel, but he also supplies some exposition, confirming to Steel that the members of the other two expeditions from the future are dead.

The main event is, of course, where Rothwyn recognises the rather creepy young man walking towards her as "the Child", in a rathef effectively creepy scene. This is the suff of nightmares as the "Child" reaches out to Rothwyn, only for a terrifying voice to insist he use the other hand.. and something happens. Brr.

This one scene od pretty much worth the padding. But the padding really is outrageous.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Three- The Creature's Revenge, Part 2

 "We might just lose this one."

This, unexpectedly, turns out to be a superb episode, fizzling with big ideas, and utterly gripping. Despite the fact that Sapphire and Steel are still not inside the capsule by the end of the episode there's plenty to stimulate the viewer.

It's interestng to ponder what a daring piece of television this is from a modern perspective: absolutely none of the four key characters are at all fit to be audience identification figures, none of them hailing from anything close to twentieth century Earth. All of them, too, are somewhat alienating personalities. Sapphire is at her most otherwordly here; Rothwyn is positively scary; Eldred is entitled arrogance personified; and Steel is... well, Steel. That wouldn't get past the script editors these days. Plus it's most odd to see something so cool and conceptual being directed so flatly with multiple cameras.

And yet it's riveting television, and it's riveting television because of the ideas. Steel's reaction at the start shows how much we should fear these alienating "invaders" and the ineffable power of time itself. The pillow is also a swan. Rothwyn is suddenly much weirder. There's some glowing thing in the wall- possibly the "crystal" of time that bought the couple back fifteen hundred years... and the baby grows to adulthood within mere minutes.

After all this weirdness we turn to a fairly normal ending, as Steel again urges Sapphire to poke a stick at the threat and see what happens- and it isn't good, as Sapphire promptly vanishes while talking of eternal pain. Lovely.

This is bloody good, and utterly of its time.

Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Three- The Creature's Revenge, Part 1

 "The attack has started!"

It's the second season and the third Assignment- and you can certainly tell that it's the very early '80s with that charmingly period baby monitor, the suddenly very different cut of Steel's suit (Sapphire is very... strikingly dressed) and of the pastel shades in which all the walls are painted.

It's also an intriguing premise- a couple with a baby from fifteen centuries in the future have been living in the twentieth century for twenty-seven days as some kind of experiment, although it's amusing to note that, future or not, it's still the female of the two, Rothwyn, who is in charge of all the domestic stuff while Eldred seems to spend his time having lie-ins and mansplaining.

All is not well, though- they've lst contact with their own time, and some kind of mind-affecting polergeit thingy is in there that does worrying things with pillows. Sapphire and Steel are kept separate from them in order to make this a predictably exploratory first episode, which works reasonably well as we realise the couple live in an invisible and apparently impregnable apartment on the roof. We can also get a bit of useful exposition about how meddling with time (unless it's them doing it!) is bad and wrong.

It's an intriguing premise and holds my attention. For a moment, though, it looks as though the poltergeist thing is about to smother the baby, which seems a rather disturbing thing to show. But the pillow then moves to attack Steel which is, er, fine...