Sapphire & Steel

Sapphire & Steel was a British television science-fiction series starring David McCallum as Steel and Joanna Lumley as Sapphire. Produced by ITC Entertainment and broadcast on ATV, it ran from 1979 to 1982 and was primarily ATV's answer to the BBC's Doctor Who. The series was created by by P. J. Hammond, who conceived the programme after a stay in a haunted castle. Hammond also wrote all the stories except for the fifth one, which was co-written by Don Houghton and Anthony Read.

Background

The programme centred on a pair of interdimensional operatives, the titular Sapphire and Steel. Very little was revealed about their purposes or backgrounds in the course of the series but they appeared to be engaged in guarding the order, if not the integrity of Time. In the series, it was explained that Time is like a corridor that surrounds everything, but there are weak spots where Time — implied to be a potentially malignant force — could break into the present and take things. There were also creatures from the beginnings and ends of time that roamed the corridor looking for the same weak spots to break through.

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These breaks were most often triggered by the presence of an anachronism, for example a nursery rhyme, a doctored photograph that mixed period and contemporary elements, or a house decorated to replicate a 1930s setting. Investigators would assess the situation and then, if intervention was warranted, Operators were assigned to deal with the problem by a mysterious unseen authority, to be assisted by Specialists if necessary.

Related Topics:
Anachronism - Nursery rhyme - Photograph - 1930

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The stories were generally quite cryptic, raising more questions than answers, and had an eerie air to them. The programme had been allocated a miniscule 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 extended to its main characters. While Sapphire was portrayed as more affable and "human" than the no-nonsense, grim Steel, it was clear that their prime concern was to deal with the break in Time, sometimes over the safety of the humans caught in the incidents they investigated.

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It was heavily implied that Sapphire and Steel were not human, given their abilities and manner. Steel, for example, often had gaps in his knowledge of human culture and even Sapphire's grace was tempered with a cool detachment from the humans they interacted with. In Adventure 5, Steel confirmed that they were alien, "in the extraterrestrial sense," but what this qualification means is not clear. The two also referred to being involved in the mystery of the Mary Celeste, and in one case stated they would be waiting for a ship to surface in seventy-five years. This could mean they were either exceptionally long-lived or some kind of time travel was involved.

Related Topics:
Extraterrestrial - Mary Celeste - Time travel

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Sapphire and Steel, who were Operators, were occasionally assisted by other operatives, including Lead and Silver. There were 127 operatives in total, including 12 transuranic elements, which could not be assigned where life existed. Although they were described as elements, the code names included non-elements like Jet, with whom Steel had been involved in the past. Sapphire, in turn, had a flirtatious relationship with Silver, contributing to an air of underlying sexual tension on the occasions that Silver was called upon to assist the duo.

Related Topics:
Transuranic elements - Elements

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Among Sapphire's abilities was the power to manipulate time in small ways as well as divine the age or historical details of an object by touching it. Her most prominent ability was to "take back time," literally rewinding it in a localised area to see or replay the past. She also exhibited an ability to obtain information about people just by being close to them - their ages and backgrounds as well as psychological insights into their personality. Sometimes it appeared that she did not discover this information herself but was receiving the information telepathically from some external source. She could also manipulate people's emotions, and project illusions. When she used her powers, her eyes would usually glow blue.

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Steel, on the other hand, could freeze himself to absolute zero which gave him the ability to destroy "ghosts", which were in actuality remnants of Time. He apparently possessed immense strength (in Adventure 3 he tied knots in elevator cables to prevent the elevator from being used) and a degree of invulnerability. He exhibited telekinetic abilities, being able to paralyse people with a look, weld metal with his bare hands or undo deadbolts with a gesture.

Related Topics:
Absolute zero - Ghost - Elevator - Telekinetic

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Other operatives that appeared also had special powers. Silver (played by David Collings), a Specialist who was specified as a Technician, was good with electronics and gadgets, even being able to create small objects out of nothing. Lead (played by Val Pringle), on the other hand, possessed superhuman strength and could act as needed insulation for Steel when he froze himself to extreme temperatures. The operatives could also communicate telepathically with each other, and in Adventure 5 Sapphire granted this ability to a human being, whom she dubbed "Brass" for the duration. 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.

Related Topics:
David Collings - Val Pringle - Fan fiction - Allotropes

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Each adventure would start with Sapphire and Steel simply showing up, seemingly out of nowhere, although often they were already present when the story started. Usually, they would investigate and mingle with various humans, although it was nearly always the location the humans were in which was of the most interest — an old house which dated back to the 18th century, an abandoned railway station, a 1940s-era motorway café, and so on.

Related Topics:
18th century - Railway station - 1940

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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. 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.

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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.

Related Topics:
Central Independent Television - Bravo

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The final story ended on a cliffhanger. Apparently resentful of the operatives' independence, a higher authority sent entities similar to the operatives but from the past, known as Transient Beings, who set a trap for them in the aforementioned café. The serial concluded with Sapphire and Steel being trapped in the café, floating through space, seemingly for all eternity. The cliffhanger has never been resolved, although Hammond has said that a seventh adventure had been planned, so presumably Sapphire and Steel could have escaped.

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