Sapphire And Steel - Assignments 4-6 [DVD] [1979]

At a time when Dr Who was degenerating into pantomime farce, this series is a darker, more eerie twist on the time travel theme.

The duo are agents of a vaguely defined authority who are called to intervene in situations where 'time breaks through.' Time is here a malevolent force, seeking to undo life and creation bound within its laws.

In the first episode a literally faceless character uses photographs to move around and imprison people in the photographic world. There they share the fate of whatever happens to the photo', and in one chilling scene, the 'man who wasn't there'disposes of characters trapped in a photo by setting it alight. This is a chilling, nightmarish moment, typical of the jolts the series can deliver. The atmospheric location (junk shop in this case) is also typical of the series.

The second assignment concerns the machinations of time in taking advantage of a 1930's period dress party to turn the clock back and change history so a terrible plague, averted in real time, occurs. This assignment is adveresely affected by 'padding' (the string of 'whodunnit' murders seem almost superfluous) being 6 instead of 4 episodes in length, but still builds to an effective denoument.

The third assignment brings the series to an abrupt close, with an ending that pulls the rug out from under you, and haunted this reviewer during a sleepless night. It leaves you wishing the writers rescued the pair for a further series, but alas...

The pairing of Mcallum and Lumley is inspired. An understated, effective, fire and ice performance.
Having seen these tales, Ive ordered the first lot. Recommended.

So I took home my pack of twenty 25min episodes (three assignments of six, eight and six episodes respectively and sat down to watch. Have they managed to get audio 5.1 out of this? er.. no! Not even bog-standard stereo! This offering is strictly MONO! Ahem! But no, not as bad as it might appear as the audio recording quality was as good as radio 4 on a clear day, with rich deep tones. The picture processing is a bit soft but clearly digitised for optimum quality.

The creepy atmosphere is definately still there and the episodes are still riviting. And the story lines seemed to stand the dating of those twenty-odd years without too much effort especially considering the tiny cast used in shooting. My only criticism is that Carlton have decided to issue the lot as separate episodes, each with its title and end sequence (coupled with the same title sequence as introduction to each of the three disks' menus) which, when you recall that the first opening 2 minutes of each episode is a review of the previous episode's closing sequence, you find yourself doing an awful lot of fast-forwarding to continue the story. I, personally would have preferred each assignment presented in it's entirity.

But did I enjoy? YES! Definitely! Maybe it will prove to be purley nostalgic for those of us who can recall the first airing of the series, but if you like broody sci-fi, and are not looking for something which is too scientifically and technically correct, then this old-timer still has a lot to offer the newcomer. There's a kind of pre-dated X-Files about it and we're never quite sure of how much we trust the characters but this only adds to the intigue.

I have already dropped a few hint for Christmas about the second boxed set and have suitably booked holiday time to spend a few late nights saturated with assignments 4-6!

The stories, all based around the theft of time, are well written and despite being firmly in the realm of fantasy are all quite logical and don't lose the viewer. The pace may not be as attention grabbing as modern drama, but on the whole this is much better than 95% of the viewing we get today.

For those old enough to remember the series when it was on TV I would recommend it highly, nostalga, nostalga. For those younger I would only recommend it if you really do enjoy a story rather than an experience that leaves nothing to the imagination.