Place of Stuff

For the uninitiated, Sapphire and Steel was a short lived UK television series which ran from July 1979 to July 1982.  There were only 6 seasons of the series in total and it is a great cult classic.  For an overview of the shows and the ideas around them, please see the first post in this series.

By design, the seasons and the episodes were not named.  They are known as “The Assignments” and run, naturally, from one through to 6.  The first of these was originally to be a chldren’s show and this can be seen by the fact that the supporting characters throughout the first set of episode are mostly children.

The story begins in a remote house.  The parents are reading nursery rhymes to their young daughter, Helen.  Downstairs, their son Rob is doing his homework.  The clocks in the house stop ticking and the parents disappear.  The children are alone in the house, after verifying that their parents have vanished, they call the local policeman.  Shortly afterwards, Sapphire and Steel arrive at the door.
Continue reading ‘Assignment One’ »

All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic, heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel. Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.

These words opened every episode of the series.  Sapphire and Steel aired on, what was then, the third channel on UK television.  At the time there were only 3: BBC1, BBC2 and ITV.  Channel 4 was still a few years off and ITV was the newcomer to the UKTV scene.

Continue reading ‘Sapphire and Steel - UK TV Series’ »