Starring
David McCallumJoanna LumleyDavid CollingsGerald JamesTom KellyDavid Woodcock
Written by
Peter Hammond
Ratings per Episode
Votes per Episode
Sapphire & Steel Episode Ratings Heatmap
| Avg | E1 | E2 | E3 | E4 | E5 | E6 | E7 | E8 | E9 | E10 | E11 | E12 | E13 | E14 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S1 | 7.6 | 7.2 | 7.2 | 7.3 | 7.2 | 7.1 | 7.5 | 8.0 | 7.8 | 7.9 | 7.8 | 7.8 | 7.8 | 7.8 | 8.1 | |
| S2 | 7.4 | 7.3 | 7.1 | 7.2 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.1 | 7.7 | 7.7 | 7.6 | 7.9 | |||||
| S3 | 7.4 | 7.7 | 7.3 | 7.2 | 7.2 | 7.4 | 7.5 | |||||||||
| S4 | 8.2 | 8.1 | 7.8 | 8.1 | 8.6 |
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About
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.
"All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension."
All Seasons
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Assignment I: Escape Through a Crack in Time1979
7.62K146h 12m
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.
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Assignment II: The Railway Station1979
7.4807104h 13m
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.
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Assignment III: The Creature's Revenge1981
7.443262h 32m
Rothwyn and Eldred, a couple living in a modern apartment with a baby, are from the 35th Century, the apartment is their time capsule, which is situated and cloaked on the roof of a present-day tower block; in a test to live as 20th century humans. But trouble starts when the couple discover that they can neither contact their controllers in the future nor two other similar time capsules in the present day. The biomechanical system that runs the capsule has an agenda of its own, one of vengeance.
This time, Sapphire and Steel have help in the form of Silver, an inter-dimensional operator.
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Assignment IV: The Man Without a Face1981
8.229941h 41m
Phantom children with sepia-toned skin play in the back yard of an aging apartment building and its adjoining antiques shop which is currently closed. Both the landlord Mr Williamson and a tenant named Ruth have mysteriously disappeared.
A man without a face in cahoots with the children, appears on the stairs. An evil presence has emerged from a photograph; something which has appeared in every photograph ever taken anywhere in the world, and is powerful enough to turn Sapphire and Steel into literal two-dimensional photographs of themselves.
Full Cast & Crew
Cast
David McCallum Steel
Joanna Lumley Sapphire
David Collings Silver
Gerald James Tully
Tom Kelly Pearce, Soldier
David Woodcock 1st Submariner, 1st voice
David Cann Pilot, 2nd voice
Steven O'Shea Robert Jardine
Patience Collier Emma Mullrine
Tamasin Bridge Helen Jardine
Crew
Peter Hammond
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