Sapphire & Steel
The series was created by Peter J. Hammond who conceived the programme under the working title The Time Menders,[1] after a stay in an allegedly haunted castle.
From 2005 to 2008, Sapphire & Steel returned in a series of audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions, starring Susannah Harker and David Warner as the main characters.
Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver and Steel.
They are two of a number of 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, and Silver (David Collings), a technician who can melt metals in his hands.
Among Sapphire's abilities is the power to manipulate time in small ways as well as determine the age or historical details of an object by touching it (psychometry).
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.
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.
The audience figures were unusually high for a science fantasy series with the first episode, gaining 11.8 million viewers and finishing as the fourth most watched programme of the week across all channels.
The programme had been allocated a minuscule production budget, which led to the use of simple staging and minimal special effects, ultimately contributing to the uneasy atmosphere of the show.
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 reorganised 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 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.
The serial concludes with Silver dispatched to an unknown fate – and Sapphire and Steel being trapped in the café, floating through space, apparently for eternity.
This was also stated by Joanna Lumley in her autobiography,[6] who remembered that they were told that this was merely an end-of-series cliffhanger, and that Sapphire and Steel would be freed at the start of the next series.
A two-page coloured Sapphire & Steel picture strip, written by Angus Allan and drawn by Arthur Ranson, appeared in the Look-In magazine.
It would appear that Ranson used photographs of Joanna Lumley and David McCallum from the first television adventure for reference, as Sapphire and Steel are almost always depicted wearing the outfits from this story.
However, the picture strip version of Lead – though depicted as a powerfully built black man – was not based upon Val Pringle who played the part on television; it can only be assumed that Ranson had very little in the way of photographic reference material in this case.
[8] In the US, A&E Home Entertainment, under license from Carlton International Media Limited, released the entire series on Region 1 DVD on 28 December 2004 and Shout!
[9] In late May 2004, Big Finish Productions announced that it had secured the rights to produce a new series of Sapphire & Steel audio adventures for release on CD.
He is portrayed as impatient and inexperienced when dealing with both humans and the various manifestations of Time, even more detached and clinical in many ways than Steel, almost as if he is still in training.
The character of Ruby (played by Lisa Bowerman) appears in the second series story Water Like a Stone, reappearing in Cruel Immortality and Second Sight.
It was originally said by Big Finish that the new stories would be set before the climactic final story of the television series, but the released plays are actually set after assignment 6, and at the start of The Passenger, the characters comment that it has been a long time since they last worked together and, in Cruel Immortality, imply that they were freed in some unspecified way by Silver.
The following story, Second Sight sees the characters 'reborn' once more - this time in the guise of two young Australians, played by Blair McDonough and Anna Skellern.
At the end of Second Sight, however, Ruby was able to release the previous incarnations of Sapphire and Steel from their trap - with David Warner and Susannah Harker reprising their roles for the rest of the series.
The audio dramas featured some notable guest stars - including Hugo Myatt, Muriel Pavlow, Daphne Oxenford, Lucy Gaskell, Colin Baker, Sarah Douglas, Sam Kelly, David Horovitch, Mark Gatiss and Louise Jameson.
[11] In July 2015, Luther creator Neil Cross announced to Variety that he was working on a new series of Sapphire & Steel.
[12] The following year, ITV Studios-owned independent Big Talk Productions confirmed that it was remaking Sapphire & Steel, with Cross attached to the project,[13] and writer Ed Hime indicating that he was part of the team.
[14] However, in a December 2017 interview with Deadline Hollywood, Cross said that the project had been cancelled, mainly due to the limited popularity of the original show.
