SAPPHIRE & STEEL 6 DISC BOX SET - HARD TO FIND!

[View full size]

Details

Description

"Sapphire and Steel have been assigned."
The final frame of the title sequence.
Format Science fiction, drama
Created by Peter J. Hammond
Starring Joanna Lumley, David McCallum
Country of origin United Kingdom
No. of episodes 34 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time 25 mins
Broadcast
Original channel ITV
Original run 10 July 1979 – 31 August 1982
Sapphire & Steel is a British television science-fiction fantasy series starring David McCallum as Steel and Joanna Lumley as Sapphire. Produced by ATV, it ran from 1979 to 1982 on the ITV network. The series was created by Peter J. Hammond who conceived the programme under the working title The Time Menders,[1] after a stay in a haunted castle. Hammond also wrote all the stories except for the fifth, which was co-written by Don Houghton and Anthony Read.
In 2004, Sapphire and Steel returned in a series of audio dramas starring David Warner and Susannah Harker.
Contents [hide]
1 Overview
2 Series format
3 The operatives
4 Television stories
5 Look-In magazine comic strips
6 Audio plays
7 Transmission
8 References
9 External links
[edit]Overview

Joanna Lumley and David McCallum as Sapphire and Steel (from Adventure 3).
The programme centres on a pair of interdimensional operatives, the eponymous Sapphire and Steel. Very little is revealed about their purposes or backgrounds in the course of the series but they appear to be engaged in guarding the order, if not the integrity, of Time. They are two of several elements that assume human form and are sent to investigate strange events; others include Lead (Val Pringle) who takes the aspect of a jovial, friendly giant, or Silver, a technician who can melt metals in his hands.
In the series, it is explained that Time is like a corridor that surrounds everything, but there are weak spots where Time – implied to be a potentially malignant force – can break into the present and take things. There are also creatures from the beginnings and ends of time that roam the corridor looking for the same weak spots to break through.
These breaks are most often triggered by the presence of an anachronism, for example a nursery rhyme, a doctored photograph that mixes period and contemporary elements, or a house decorated to replicate a 1930s setting. Investigators will assess the situation and then, if intervention is warranted, Operators are assigned to deal with the problem by a mysterious unseen authority, to be assisted by Specialists if necessary.
The stories are generally quite cryptic, raising more questions than answers, and have an eerie air to them, being as much ghost stories as they are science fiction. The programme had been allocated a minuscule production budget, which led to the use of simple (but very effective) staging and minimal special effects, ultimately contributing to the uneasy atmosphere of the show. The ambiguous nature of the programme extends to its main characters. While Sapphire is portrayed as more affable and "human" than the no-nonsense, grim Steel, it is clear that their prime concern is to deal with the break in Time, sometimes over the safety of the humans caught in the incidents they investigate.
[edit]Series format

Sapphire & Steel novelisation of the first adventure
Each adventure usually starts with Sapphire and Steel simply showing up, seemingly out of nowhere, although sometimes they are already present when the story begins. They will then investigate and mingle with various humans, although it is nearly always the location the humans are in which is of the most interest: an old house which dates back to the 18th century, an abandoned railway station, a modern-day motorway petrol station, and so on.
Although the series lasted over a period of four years, only six serials consisting of a total of 34 episodes were made, each episode lasting approximately 25 minutes and generally including a reprised précis of the preceding episode. The first and second stories were shown in the summer of 1979, the second story's transmission interrupted by industrial action at the ITV network which led to a repeat of the story in 1979. The third and fourth stories were transmitted in January 1981, and the fifth in August 1981 with a sixth story "in the can" for future transmission.
By this time, production costs were increasing. The high profile and limited availability of the principal actors, Lumley and McCallum, meant that shooting was somewhat sporadic, and the programme's producers ATV were in the process of being reorganized into the new Central Independent Television; all factors which led to the series' demise. Central felt that viewers might mistake the new programmes for repeats of old ones, and broadcast the final, four-part story in late August 1982 to very little fanfare. The show has never been repeated on UK terrestrial television, but some episodes were shown on the satellite and cable station Bravo in the mid-1990s.
A new UK DVD release of the complete series, featuring a new documentary and commentaries, was released on 5 November 2007.[2]
[edit]The operatives

It is heavily implied that Sapphire and Steel are not human, given their abilities and manner. Steel, for example, often has gaps in his knowledge of human culture and even Sapphire's grace is tempered with a cool detachment from the humans they interact with. In Adventure 5, Steel confirms that they were alien, "in the extraterrestrial sense," but what this qualification means is not clear. The two also refer to being involved in the mystery of the Mary Celeste, and in one case state they will be waiting for a ship to surface in seventy-five years. This could mean they are either exceptionally long-lived or some kind of time travel is involved. P.J. Hammond confirmed the former hypothesis in a 1993 interview.[3]
Sapphire and Steel, who are Operators, are occasionally assisted by other beings, including Lead and Silver. Silver is stated in Adventure 6 as being a Specialist rather than an Operator. There are 127 operatives in total, including 12 transuranic elements, which cannot be assigned where life exists. Although they are described as elements, many of the code names are non-elements, such as Sapphire, Steel and Jet, although these could be pseudonyms for aesthetics or discretion. Sapphire also has a flirtatious relationship with Silver, contributing to an air of underlying sexual tension on the occasions that Silver is called upon to assist the duo. The relationship between Steel and Sapphire similarly exhibited occasional tension, as evidenced in Adventure 2 when Steel admits feeling love for Sapphire and, at one point, even kissing her on the cheek; their relationship could, at times, be compared with that of the later Fox Mulder/Dana Scully relationship in The X-Files, with Sapphire -- much like Scully -- often questioning and arguing against Steel's methods and motives (again, using Assignment 2, particularly its resolution, as a key example).
Among Sapphire's abilities is the power to manipulate time in small ways as well as divine the age or historical details of an object by touching it (Psychometry). This latter ability is referred in Adventure 2 as "spot analysis". Her most prominent ability is to "take back time," literally rewinding it in a localised area to see or replay the past. She states in Adventure 1 that she cannot take time back twenty-four hours; in the last episode of the same adventure, at Steel's request she takes time back "half a day". In Adventure 2, she is able to "hold time for a day", when another (in this case, the creature seen as the darkness) takes time back over multiple days. Whether this is an improvement in abilities or a different skill entirely is not made clear. She also exhibits an ability to obtain information about people — their ages and backgrounds as well as psychological insights into their personality — just by being close to them. Sometimes it appears that she does not discover this information herself but is receiving the information telepathically from some external source. In Adventure 2, it is stated that the age at which a living person will die is not estimated but recorded, that it is a historical fact. Nothing else is revealed in the television series as to the extent or nature of any such records, or to what extent Sapphire uses them in relation to information obtained directly. She can also manipulate people's emotions, and project illusions. When she uses her powers, her irises will usually glow blue or, under some circumstances, turquoise.
Steel, on the other hand, can freeze himself to absolute zero which gives him the ability to destroy "ghosts", which are in actuality remnants of Time. He apparently possesses immense strength (in Adventure 3 he ties knots in elevator cables to prevent the elevator from being used) and a degree of invulnerability. He also exhibits telekinetic abilities, being able to paralyse people with a look, weld metal with his bare hands or undo deadbolts with a gesture.
The operatives can also communicate telepathically with each other, and in Adventure 5, Sapphire grants this ability to a human being, whom she dubs "Brass" for the duration. Sapphire removes this ability at the end of the story. It is also suggested in Adventure 5 that other powers can be granted. It is hinted in the debate that ensues between Sapphire and Steel after Sapphire gives Brass his abilities that different powers are classed at different levels, with telepathy being considered one of the most basic.
It is not made clear in the series as to what boundaries exist on the skills of operatives. In Adventure 2, Steel cannot perform "spot analysis", as it is not his field, but in Adventure 4, Sapphire and Steel together are specifically able to replicate Silver's ability to transmutate by remembering what he did.
Other operatives that appear also have special powers. Silver (played by David Collings), a Specialist who is designated as a Technician, is good with electronics and gadgets, is able to transform one small object into another, and is even able to replicate small objects out of nothing. He can also create long-lasting visual images of objects too large to replicate, although the exact parameters for such images are never revealed. Lead (played by Val Pringle), on the other hand, possesses superhuman strength and can act as needed insulation for Steel when he freezes himself to extreme temperatures. Fan fiction has expanded the roll of named operatives to over one hundred, covering almost every element, several allotropes, most gems and semi-precious stones and several compounds.
[edit]Television stories