Sapphire And Steel - Assignments 1-3 [DVD] [1979]

On transmission the stories were not titled and the episodes not numbered. Even the "TV Times" could not tell you when a story was in its final episode. When the videos were released (and we found that the memory did not cheat on this series) the tapes used chronological numbers for the adventures. However, the name Adventure One is a bit of a misnomer. Sapphire and Steel had had a number of un-transmitted adventures before this which they referred to in this story. These references were given to establish that Time was evolving mentally to meet the challenge that it faced against Sapphire and Steel. Time was learning how they worked and evolving its tactics to defeat the duo.

I must have been nine when I first saw that story. After the first episode I was not allowed to watch the series in the living room because my parents did not like the supernatural overtones of the series. So I was sent upstairs to watch it alone on the black and white telly in my parents room. I loved the atmosphere of the episodes, built from the shadowy sets and eerie music. When watching I never put the light on, because I knew that with it off the atmosphere would be that bit more electrifying.

Nowadays, I can see why my parents found it too frightening for themselves but would let me watch it. Sapphire and Steel would often describe what was seen, rather than what was happening. This protected the young naïve viewer but implicitly telegraphed what was going on to the older viewer who would intellectually struggle to make sense of it. This telegraphing is what appeals to me about the programme nowadays. The programmes ideas have genuinely horrific qualities - it can take an object we think we know, and challenge this understanding by making the object seem malevolent. This idea then grows over the episodes, brooding on our imagination.

Perhaps it is just as well that my parents never saw Adventure Two. While its predecessor had child characters and nursery rhymes, its sequel had little that a worried parent would give the benefit of doubt to. A disused railway station had become a recruiting ground for the dead, and the companion-like character was a sad old ghost-hunter. While Time in story one was physically represented by lights, here it was a plague-like darkness spreading out from shadows; consuming everything. Worse still, the resolution to the story demonstrated just how clinical Steel could be. While there were never any cosy denunciations or big bang solutions to Sapphire and Steel stories, this one was the most chilling.

Adventure three had people from a future time coming back to the present to investigate what life was like in the 1980’s. Their invisible time capsule was furbished with products from that by-gone time. However, the by-products of dead animals were attacking these people with a mix of hallucinatory and physical attacks. It transpired that Time had let the mental energy of these animals exact revenge on a generation who had exploited their various species to extinction.

Perhaps the subject matters of such a series are too controversial for today’s television producers. In the six stories that formed Sapphire and Steel, children are the enemy in A4, eating meat will most certainly kill you in A3 (without the aid of BSE), while Steel, the hero, has a horrifyingly heartless method of resolving the crisis in A2. Innovative yes, but not safe, never stereo-typical, and always pitched higher than the average programmes intelligence threshold. What programmes made today, "innovative" or otherwise, can claim to be all those?

It seems strange to me that the BBC have never repeated this series, other than a couple of the episodes of the second series after it was curtailed initially due to legal problems or some such thing. Almost everyone I know remembers this as a classic, so I couldn't wait to get the dvd's when I found it was released. I wasn't disappointed at all & the only slight problem I have is that the acting can, at times, be a little over the top, but thanks to all these shows from the 70's being released on dvd recently I've noticed that was very much the thing during that period. And although it's a little off-putting, it doesn't really take anything away from this program. The atmosphere & storylines are too good to be put off by anything really.

This show really was streets ahead of it's time & even if it'd been written now it wouldn't be out of place alongside the current crop of sci-fi/supernatural shows.

A must have!