Sapphire & Steel
“All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension.”
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, after a stay in an allegedly haunted castle. Hammond also wrote all the stories except for the fifth, which was co-written by Don Houghton and Anthony Read. None of the stories had onscreen titles, or any official titles assigned by the writers. The Region 1 Complete Series DVD release gives the titles "Escape Through a Crack in Time", "The Railway Station", "The Creature's Revenge", "The Man Without a Face", "Dr. McDee Must Die" and "The Trap", respectively. These titles have often been cited as having been created by science fiction magazine Time Screen.
Details
First Aired: 7/10/1979
Languages: English
Created by: Peter J. Hammond
Type: Scripted
Production
ITV1Where to watch · US
Seasons
Assignment I: Escape Through a Crack in Time
In an old house filled with old antiques, a nursery rhyme ("Ring a Ring o' Roses") read aloud causes a time fracture that takes away the parents of youngsters Rob and Helen. As Rob (Steven O'Shea), Helen's older brother, tries to call the police, two mysterious strangers calling themselves Sapphire and Steel arrive to fix the problem. Lead also arrives to provide assistance to Steel when the ghosts of the time corridor incapacitate him.
Assignment II: The Railway Station
In an abandoned railway station, parapsychologist George Tully conducts an investigation, as two operators, Sapphire and Steel arrive for an investigation of their own. A malevolent, growing force identifying itself as the Darkness is feeding on the resentment of the dead, using as a focus Private Sam Pearce, the apparition of a World War I soldier shot and killed eleven minutes after the armistice had been signed at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1918. The Darkness 'recruits' other resentful shades from the past who also died unfairly as a result of coming or completed wars. Sapphire and Steel must decide if the life of one living human is worth the price of the danger presented by the growing Darkness.
