Sapphire & Steel

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Television series
Original title Sapphire and Steel
Country of production United Kingdom
original language English
Year (s) 1979-1982
Production
company		 Associated Television (ATV)
length 25 minutes
Episodes 34 in 4 seasons
genre Science fiction , mystery
idea Peter J. Hammond
production Shaun O'Riordan
music Cyril Ornadel
camera Mike Whitcutt
First broadcast July 10, 1979 (UK) on ITV
occupation

Sapphire & Steel is a British science fiction - television series , the 1979 to 1982 of ITV was sent. The series also ran on Dutch television, RAI in Italy and Finland. The two main characters were portrayed by Joanna Lumley and David McCallum . Since 2004 the series has continued as a radio play, with David Warner speaking as Steel and Susannah Harker as Sapphire . The television series consists of a total of six so-called assignments , each comprising four to eight episodes, and is now available on DVD.

action

Two interdimensional beings named Sapphire (sapphire) and Steel (steel) are sent out by higher authorities, whose identities are never revealed, to correct disturbances in the passage of time. They appear in human form and fulfill their assignments on earth today. Both are referred to as operatives (agents), whose names may be related to the chemical elements. Besides them there are other agents called Silver , Lead , Copper or Gold . Silver is more of a technical specialist than an agent who is only used for specific tasks.

Time is explained as a kind of corridor, in which weak points sometimes appear that can be penetrated by different beings. In such cases people have the impression of supernatural phenomena up to ghostly apparitions.

Sapphire usually appears as a woman in a blue dress, while Steel usually wears a gray suit. Both are of extraterrestrial origin, but this is hardly illuminated. In The Creature's Revenge, Steel replies to a question from Sapphire about his childhood with "My origins are very positive, indescribable maybe, but positive". Both can sometimes leave their human form or teleport and are endowed with other supernatural powers, such as the ability to communicate telepathically. Sapphire can perform analyzes on humans as well as any object, showing their molecular composition and their history. A special ability of Sapphire is the "setting back" the time by up to 24 hours. Steel, on the other hand, possesses extraordinary physical strength and can cool itself down to absolute zero in order to freeze and thus eliminate ghostly beings that disturb time.

1. Assignment: Escape Through a Crack in Time (escape through a crack in time)

In a very old, isolated house, the parents put their youngest daughter Helen to bed while her brother Robert does homework on the first floor. The parents are singing the nursery rhyme "Ring a Ring o 'Roses" with Helen when Robert notices that all the clocks in the house have suddenly stopped. Robert runs upstairs to find his distraught sister alone. Both parents have disappeared. Shortly afterwards, Sapphire and Steel appear instead of the police officers who had been informed by Robert. Both notice that the house has become a weak point in time due to its age of over 250 years. The ancient nursery rhyme apparently triggered a break in time through which beings who had existed from the beginning and until the end of time could invade. Sapphire reads the nursery rhyme again with the children and can thereby bring about the “ghost apparition” again. She and Steel know the room needs to be sealed and all the nursery rhyme books destroyed to contain the break in time. Nevertheless, the beings appearing as surfaces of light begin to move around the house and threaten both the children and the two agents. Finally, the agent Lead comes to the rescue, with whom Sapphire and Steel already worked on the mysterious ship Mary Celeste . The spirits take the form of the missing parents in order to manipulate Rob and Helen.

2. Assignment: The Railway Station (Train Station)

In an abandoned train station, a single elderly man, the amateur ghost hunter George Tully, has been conducting nightly examinations for several weeks. Sapphire and Steel are sent there by their clients because a significant malfunction has occurred in the normal course of time. You notice something unusual: Although it is already in the cold season, warm summer air is blowing on the platform and the rotten flower boxes are suddenly blooming. But these appearances are short-lived. Sapphire and Steel make the acquaintance of Tully, who only sees them as a competitor, although he reports to them about the observation of ghostly apparitions. A spirit which he had previously observed, resurfaces: Corporal Sam Pearce from the First World War . The two interdimensional agents search the derelict station building until Steel comes into contact with a ghost pilot from WWII and is forced to witness his own crash. Tully now realizes that Sapphire and Steel seem to be very knowledgeable about the spirit world, even though Steel treats him rather condescendingly. Sapphire and Steel have a much broader knowledge than the very religious Tully of "spirits", which they describe as a kind of echo or reverberation of the energy of living beings. All three fail to communicate better with the ghost of Pearce, who apparently died eleven minutes after the end of the First World War. Another apparition almost suffocates Tully and Sapphire in a ghostly, sunken submarine. Although Sapphire and Steel don't think too much of Tully's abilities, they start a séance with him , especially since Sapphire is apparently an experienced medium . In fact, the spirit of the mistress of Pearce, his former teacher, soon speaks through Sapphire and illuminates the background. The appearance of a dark, nebulous being interrupts the séance, leaving Sapphire unconscious. The being feeds on the negative emotions of the unhappy deceased, of which more and more appear in the train station and to whom it has promised an unrealizable salvation. Soon after, Steel sees Sapphire on the platform, who as a spirit cannot return to her body. Steel is drawn into appearances of fighting by Pearce, while the dark being allows Tully to flee, but he has to leave behind the helpless Sapphire and Steel. The two wake up 12 days in the future on the sunny train station without ghosts or the dark energy being and meet Tully again. Steel urges Sapphire to get in touch with the dark being. Sapphire is taken over by the entity who eventually accepts Steel's risky deal. For the delivery of a source of extremely negative emotions, the three twelve days are transported back in time. During the transport, at Steel's request, Sapphire changes the exit point in the past in order to implement his plan, which aims to free the deceived spirit beings, which, however, requires a very high price.

3. Assignment: The Creature's Revenge (The Revenge of the Creature)

Sapphire and Steel are commissioned to examine a high-rise apartment building, on the roof of which they discover an impenetrable, invisible object. Sapphire senses that there are three people inside. They are the couple Rothwyn and Eldred who were sent back in time with their baby from the 35th century for experimental purposes. Strange things happen in the time capsule: Rothwyn prevents an unknown force from suffocating her baby, while Steel is attacked from the capsule at the same time. Rothwyn also sees Sapphire briefly, but Eldred thinks this is hallucinations. Further problems emerge when future communication with the scientists and two more time capsules are cut off. The malfunctioning energy source of the time capsule transforms the baby into an adult. The people of the future have fixed time itself as a source of energy in a time machine . Sapphire disappears when trying to communicate with the awareness of the time source. Soon afterwards, the time agent Silver appears, who is looking for a way into the capsule with Steel. Meanwhile, the transformed baby in the form of a young man, controlled by the source of time, destroys various objects with the mere touch of a hand. Finally, Silver finds an access to the capsule, which is also connected to the other time capsule that Sapphire ended up in. Sapphire, Steel and Silver get into the main capsule, where they see the destruction of the objects as a result of turning back time. The couple from the future was probably also destroyed in this way. Soon Silver disappears too, and the same fate threatens Sapphire and Steel. However, the young man resists the control of the time source, whereupon Steel can force him to undo the time disturbance. So Silver, the baby, Rothwyn and Eldred reappear. Eldred, in particular, is unwilling to accept the reports from the time agents. His mind only changed after a video recording of the family in the other time capsule saw suicide as a last resort before the Time Source attacks. It also turns out that the time source is controlled by an artificially created creature. In the 35th century, there were no more natural beings apart from humans, only creatures whose DNA was manipulated at will. This creature is now rebelling against its creators, breaking out and threatening humanity through its power over time. Disturbed by hallucinations, Sapphire and Steel have to prevent the creature from escaping the time capsule.

4. Assignment: The Man Without a Face (The Man Without a Face)

The landlord and a landlady have disappeared in an apartment building. Sapphire and Steel are supposed to investigate there and meet a few strangely colorless children. There is an old general store on the first floor that the two agents rummage through. The new landlord appears in the stairwell, a man without a face, but whom every observer perceives differently. Sapphire and Steel question a young woman who knew the disappeared and finally come across a photo lab of the old landlord. They find out that the man without a face can be found in many photographs and has the power to bring two-dimensional images into our three-dimensional world and vice versa. By manipulating time, Sapphire can force an encounter with the faceless man who, however, uses the children from old photographs as a distraction. After talking to the man, who appears with two different faces, the agents find out that the missing residents exist as images in an old photograph. It is not possible to save the two because the faceless man destroys the photo. Steel tries to fight him, but he catches the two time agents in the two-dimensional trap from which it is extremely difficult to escape.

5. Assignment: Doctor McDee Must Die (Doctor Mcdee Must Die)

The richly rich Lord Mullrine is celebrating the 50th anniversary of Mullrine International's founding in his country house and has arranged everything to look like it did back then. The only exception is a secure access for Mullrine to his modern office. The invited guests dress as they did around 1930 , as do Sapphire and Steel, who appear as James and Virginia Cavendish. At first, the atmosphere is cheerful, in contrast to the reserved Steel, Sapphire enthusiastically participates in board games. Gradually, however, small conflicts between individual party guests come to light. The first shock is the appearance of Mullrine's business partner, George McDee, who was believed to be dead, and who barricades himself in his old laboratory. Now the past and the present become blurred in a strange way. During a game of hide and seek, a young woman is found dead with a knife in her back. It soon emerges that on the eve of the company's founding, Doctor McDee would have triggered a human disaster with his research if he had not been killed in a laboratory fire. There follows a shooting in the dining room, in which more guests are killed, apparently gradually as they get older. The killing continues like an Agatha Christie crime novel, but Sapphire and Steel realize that this is just a diversionary maneuver. Sapphire cannot prevent a takeover by an alien power that almost forces them to kill themselves and Steel. In the end, there's only one guest left who wasn't there on the night of McDee's death. Steel plans to break into Mullrine's office to find out the truth about the events of June 21, 1930. To this day the mysterious power has put everything back to change history in such a way that humanity is destroyed. Sapphire and Steel now have to wait for the moment when Doctor McDee can and must die.

6. Assignment: The Trap (The case)

At an abandoned gas station, Sapphire and Steel arrive late at night, where, strangely, Silver is waiting for them. Contrary to the usual procedure for their orders, this one arrived before the two of them. In addition, it is not clear to the three time agents what to investigate at all. Two guests in the café could be the key to the puzzle, especially since the couple claims they were from 1948 . Time stands still, continues for 20 minutes and jumps back again. The image of an old man in the back room of the gas station can provide little illuminating information. Sapphire and Steel's investigations are on the spot. A strange, at the same time foolish and threatening-looking tambourine player from the 1950s appears. Sapphire now suspects that there is more than just a harmless break in time behind the situation. Three more men appear who are obviously working against the time agents and obey similar powers as the clients of Sapphire and Steel. The time agents once turned down an offer from these powers to cooperate and are now under attack. Sapphire and Steel see through the conspiracy and fight back with all their might, but it is too late to escape. The trap snaps shut and both are trapped in the café rooms that are now their prison, drifting through space and time.

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