Sapphire & Steel (TV Series) Assignment Three: Part 1 (1981) User Reviews

Assignment Three: Part 1

[Prismark10 · 6/10 · 16 August 2020]

There is a new look to Sapphire and a different wig. I think this is to herald a 1980s look.

This is shown in the introduction which suggests an early 1980s apartment living environment. It soon becomes clear that the couple living here with a baby are time travellers themselves conducting an experiment on living in the 20th century.

The woman is talking to a communication device, but there is a problem making contact with their controllers. Soon there are flying pillows and other strange things happening. It all looks a bit like 'Whistle and I'll Come to You.'

When Sapphire and Steel turn up in the building, they discover whatever they are investigating is up on the roof.

Assignment Three dispenses with the claustrophobic aspects of the first two stories. We have Sapphire and Steel on the outside which looks strange after the studio bound stories.

This was a less eerie and mysterious opening compared to the first two stories. There was certainly something odd about the acting style of the actress playing Rothwyn.

The cryptic atemporal agents' first 'pure' science-fiction assignment (6 parts)

[jamesrupert2014 · 8/10 · 22 March 2022]

Alerted to a chronological disturbance, Sapphire and Steel investigate Rothwyn and Eldred (Catherine Hall and David Gant), a couple of social researchers from 1500 years in the future (ie post 1980), who are experiencing inexplicable activities in their invisible, shielded flat. After a couple of assignments focusing on temporal discontinuities manifesting (to untrained eyes) as ghosts, the elemental investigators now have to deal with a more mundane problem: what aspect of 4th millennium technology is responsible for the strange manifestations and the communication breakdowns being experienced by the hapless future scientists. The story is generally entertaining and the resolution, although weakened by a misguided attempt to 'show' some kind of alien being, is clever (albeit a bit far-fetched). The researchers seem an odd pair, either due to limitations of the actors or due to subtle attempts to project their 'otherworldliness' but David Collins, who shows up as Silver, a technician sent to assist the titular pair of investigators is a fun addition to the story (especially his playing off against po-faced Steel). There is also a rapidly anabolising 'baby' (Russell Wooton), fresh from the 'uncanny valley', who adds a bit of extra creepiness to the middle of the story-arc. Unlike the previous stories, there is more 'human' interaction between Sapphire and Steel and the agents seem to be less omnipotent, and more at risk. An interesting, more expansive contrast to the moody, insular Assignment 2. Given Dame Joanna Lumley's history of activism, she must have relished the 'lesson' of the episode's climatic 'reveal'.