Sapphire & Steel
| Sapphire & Steel | |
|---|---|
| Created by | Peter J. Hammond |
| Starring |
Joanna Lumley David McCallum |
| Composer(s) | Cyril Ornadel |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 34 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Running time | 25 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | ITV |
| Original release | 10 July 1979 – 31 August 1982 |
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.
From 2005 to 2008, Sapphire and Steel returned in a series of audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions, starring David Warner and Susannah Harker as the titular Steel and Sapphire.
On the 8th of July 2015, Neil Cross announced that he was writing a follow-up to the show. In the press release, Cross stated that a British broadcaster was 'extremely keen' to finance the reboot. The writer went on to describe the follow-up as "where the enemy is time itself. There’s ghost stories and monster stories and time is the villain." Cross describes the new series as a 'Science Fiction/Horror' mix rather than the traditional 1970s Sapphire & Steel, which was defined as 'Science Fiction/Fantasy'.
The programme centres on a pair of interdimensional operatives, the titular Sapphire and Steel. Very little is revealed about their purposes or backgrounds in the course of the series but they appear to be engaged in guarding the continuing flow of time. They are two of several 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.
In the series, it is explained that Time is like a progressing corridor that surrounds everything, but there are weak spots where Time – implied to be a malignant force – can break into the present and take things. There are also creatures from the beginnings and ends of time that roam the corridor looking for the same weak spots to break through.
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