Sapphire and Steel - The Complete Series

Rating:
Summary: Spooky, sci-fi fun!
Review: Having seen this show while I was living in England in the late 1970's, I was pleasantly surprised to see the release of this series for the U.S. market as I don't believe it was ever broadcast here in the States. For the uninitiated, Sapphire & Steel is about the adventures of two intergalactic "special agents", if you will, who manifest themselves in human form when among us. Their assignments deal with threats to space and time and their struggles with assorted paranormal entities. It's a bizzare concept that works surprisingly well given the limited budget and f/x technology of the time. Given the low production values, what makes this show come alive, like most British television, is the writing and acting. David and Joanna do a fabulous job and make their characters their own. Watching the show is like watching a stage play as all but one episode takes place inside the studio. The atmosphere the show generates is downright creepy and makes it a lot of fun to watch. Conclusions to each assignment are often ambiguous, unsettling and not always a happy ending, for supporting characters as well for the heroes themselves. The boxed set is really nice and contains the entire series of six "assignments". (The series was originally broadcast as a serial, with each "assignment" consisting of a given number of episodes.) Each disc contains a complete assignment. The extras are a little light, but there are some comentaries by the show's creator and writer as well as some promotional material. Picture quality is fair, but this is due to the fact that the show was shot on 1970's era video and not due to any flaw on the dvd itself. The sound is unremarkable for the same reason, plain ol' 1970's mono! Overall, I was quite pleased with set and the audio/video limitations did not distract from my enjoyment.

Rating:
Summary: Intriguing, low-key, and fascintating!
Review: My husband had seen episodes of this series at a science fiction convention, and described it to me. Until that time, I had been unaware of it. When I mentioned it was coming available on DVD (seems it skipped VHS completely), his reaction was simple: Let's get it!

I have admired the work of both Ms. Lumley and Mr. McCallum; I enjoy Dr. Who; and the idea of paranormal beings as leads fascinated me. I have enjoyed these stories, although they do take more than one viewing to fully appreciate. Do not look for the banter of "Man from UNCLE" or the subtle sexual innuendos of "The Avengers." Sapphire and Steel are not human, and seem above most of that sort of thing. They team up to set right temporal wrongs - quite effectively. No high-tech special effects, no high-speed action sequences. The series was studio-bound, low-budget, and totally BBC. Writing and acting carry the shows, which some will undoubtedly find more "thought provoking" than desired.

Only six "assignments" were made, and the final one makes it clear there will be no more. Each assignment has within it several chapters (usually six), in (for lack of a better word) serialized style. One drawback to the DVDs: there is no way to "dovetail" viewing each disk. Opening credits, brief recaps, and end credits do get in the way. Oh well.

This short-lived series represents a genre that wasn't seen again for a while. (I am not a fan of "The XFiles," but I am told there are some similarities.) Considered rare (indeed, impossible to find for years), this set of the entire series is well worth having!

Rating:
Summary: More than a mere 'precursor of the X-Files'!
Review: Nice to see this show finally get released by mainstream channels. (current fans will have found the set elsewhere...)

If you're a fan of The X-Files, you'll LOVE Sapphire And Steel. Especially if you prefer intellectual horror above quantitive gore, guts, and circus acts. Made between 1978 and 1982, this low-budget BBC series used inventive plotlines, a strong atmosphere, and strongly written and acted characters to sell it self. And it packs a whollop. Indeed, some of the stories are so complex that they could be benefitted from a second viewing. (pity VCRs didn't exist when this show was first aired!)

I personally recommend Story 2 ("The Railway Station") for first viewing. It's got the series' premise down pat and despite a lengthy 8 episodes, remains taut and gripping all the way through so the padding to fill out the timeslot isn't noticed. The story puts a new dimension on ghosts and their influence, and episode 8 has some excellent make-up and a grizzly resolution.

Story 4, "The Man Without a Face" is another fan favorite. The malignancy in this story puts photography in a different light. Either by imprisoning people in photographs or taking them out, this story is inventive - and suitably horrific. The final episode isn't as strong as it could have been, but the rest of the story more than makes up for it.

Story 6, with a working title of "The Petrol Station" features a new type of enemy for Sapphire and Steel. This one doesn't use horror in the way the other stories had, but it is highly enjoyable and also keeps one's interest. It's also the series' finale and, as many BBC Sci-fi series' go, this one isn't particularly pleasant.

Story 1, "Escape through A Crack in Time", while having a very good introductory episode, ultimately falls apart halfway through and the denouement rather misses the point of its preceeding episodes. Revolving around children's' fairy tales, this one tries to give a deeper meaning to the tales. As it is an introductory story, you'll note some differences that were not in subsequent stories. As story 2 is so perfect, P J Hammond was quick to correct the errors he'd made. It's still worth a watch, if for episode 1 alone. As with stories 3 and 5, this one is 6 episodes long and contains some padding.

Story 5, "Dr McDee Must Die", was not written by P J Hammond, who wrote the other stories. It feels more like a Doctor Who story. It's got its moments, but is overall mediocre.

Story 3, "The Creature's Revenge", is the one and only turkey. Indeed, it's a turkey complete with beaks and claws. Watch it for the sake of completeness and the introduction to Silver, who is seen again in story 6 of course. But what little plot exists is padded out so extensively that re-watchings are mandatory. and, unfortunately, this story is so dull and uninvolving that re-watching is simply impossible to do. The plot, as far as I can make it out to be, revolves around some human science teams traveling back in time a couple thousand years to experience how their ancestors lived in 1980. There's a creature that kills on contact for some reason, the pair taking the role of a 1980 couple (despite being ~25 years different in age) are being tormented by visions of wild animals or food animals, and their futuristic but disguised pod is basically an old apartment building (both outside AND inside, sigh...) with a cheap mod and 1979-looking aluminium kitchen table set as a visual effect for the inside of another pod. Episode 1 is actually reasonably good and its cliffhanger is marvelous, but it totally fails after that.

There were some audio commentary extras that were interesting, but not spectacular.

The menu system looks nice, but a "Play all" button would have been nice.

The packaging for the region 1 (US) version is vastly superior to any of the other region releases available. It's uniform and has a proper feel.

The audio transfer is reasonably well, no argument here.

The video transfer is quite good, though it's clear that only a mundane amount of video restoration was used; the prints could have benefitted from a full restoration/embellishment process to eliminate the problems that the source tapes have (the only real problems are with the cameras and recording equipment of the time. Skin tones look great and there's little artifacting to be found.) But that would be very expensive, the show is British therefore the British owners would do the actual restoration work, and this is a niche show. Besides, I've seen far, far worse.)

There is a rumor that the discs will not play the video at proper frame rate on some players. The discs will play, but the video has a film-like motion to it. As this series was shot on video tape, this effect isn't normal. But even with this effect (it happens on my set-top player but not my computer's DVD-ROM drive), I don't find the effect jarring. In fact, I think it HELPS many of the stories because it feels like a film transfer. (only videophiles will care about the difference, but I thought I'd say it anyway. :-) )

A&E released this set. So it's no surprise that this set is as solid as it is. Definitely a buy for fans. Easily worth a renting for newbies and ultimately worth the buy.

Rating:
Summary: Innovative and Intriguing
Review: This review pertains to the original transmitted telly series:

One of the cleverest series yet - moody, introspective, fantastic and mysterious: all on a minimal budget. Think "Doctor Who" for adults. With a smaller budget.

Lumeley & McCallum are the best team of temporal investigators since Tom Baker & Lalla Ward.

Some of the adventures are better than others, but all are thought provoking and well acted.

KMFrye

Rating:
Summary: Lord of Order, Lady of Chaos - Balance
Review: To any who are overly used to the impressive advances in special effects in the past couple of decades and unaccustomed to engaging their imagination, S&S will undoubtedly be a let down.

Engaged, or merely utilised, by an unnamed power Sapphire and Steel deal with sinister attacks toward the denizens of this timeframe from forces past, future or those simply inimical to humanity. Understated, poorly financed, yet wonderfully executed this science fiction `murder'-mystery series is particularly thematic and, yes, British.

Those who enjoy Blakes' 7 or Doctor Who are likely to have the patience to allow the mostly unexplained tapestry of this series to unfold metre by sometimes painful metre. It may, perhaps, have more meaning to those of us who sneaked off to the TV as pre-teens and took it in as a thrilling weekly escape when gore was never an allowable factor, or, then again, it may have more of an effect because of that ease of bloodshed now.

A more recent creation that draws upon similar precepts is Neil Gaiman's Coraline. There are things in the dark that you have never seen because light has chased them away; there are things in shadows that become stronger with time.

As I walked upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish, he'd go away

It's worth a watch, at the very least.

Rating:
Summary: At Last!
Review: Took a long time to find, but was worth it. Now it's going to be released to the general distribution.

"Play All" would have been helpful, as would being able to play the episodes as a single continuous story without episode breaks or cliffhanger recaps.

The mid-episode breaks of the later seasons have been removed with a simple fade-out/fade-in. Very nice, with no real loss of story, plot, or information.

Menu system is nice, but there aren't really any special features, and those few bonuses that are there aren't that special.