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swordznsorcery) wrote2013-03-02 02:28 pm
swordznsorcery) wrote2013-03-02 02:28 pm
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Sapphire & Steel: Assignment Two
I forgot I hadn't posted this yet. Actually I forgot I hadn't written it yet, but I guess posting episode reviews in slow motion is kind of fitting in this case. So, yeah. "Assignment Two", then. Which I actually watched over the new year, which could make recapping it interesting. Fortunately it's my favourite bit of Sapphire & Steel, so I've watched it more than I have the rest. This will either help or it won't.
Sapphire & Steel is, of course, slow. Famously, luxuriously slow. Whereas most shows, especially nowadays, like to tell you things in as little time as possible, preferably whilst cutting back and forth like a demented seamstress, Sapphire & Steel likes to wander across your television screen in no hurry at all, letting the story tell itself (or not, whichever takes its fancy). "Assignment One" was six meandering, slow motion segments; and one of the things that I like most about "Assignment Two" is that the programme makers, when wondering how they could improve upon the first adventure, didn't think 'Let's speed it up!' Instead they clearly thought that the one thing better than taking three hours to tell a story, would be taking four hours to tell it instead. The other thing that I love about "Assignment Two" is that not a minute of those eight episodes is wasted. It may be slow, but slow is exactly the right speed. So here is "Assignment Two", in photo-story format. Provided I can remember, heading for two months on, exactly why I chose to take these particular screencaps. There will have been a reason for every one of them. It's just that I probably left those reasons behind, somewhere back in January.
Sorry.
In a dark, shadowy, disused railway station, there lurks a man and his awesome tape recorder. They're hunting ghosts. As everybody knows, the best way to hunt ghosts is to creep around in the dark, because ghosts are drama queens. It is an awesome tape recorder, though. I miss tech like that. Nowadays he'd probably use the voice recorder on his mobile phone, but that's just dull. Anyway. Bloke in a disused railway station (he's called Mr Tully).
Mr Tully and his candle. In Sapphire & Steel nobody puts a light on unless they absolutely have to. It's a rule. Here, Mr Tully has just encountered Steel on the stairs, in full evening dress, for no readily apparent reason. This sets the scene nicely for the rest of the adventure. We are in for eight episodes of (very well-dressed and extremely polite) stair-climbing and standing in shadows. That's pretty much the entire plot.
Stair-climbing, shadows and flowers. Here Sapphire discovers some unexpected flowers in previously empty pots beside the rail tracks.
They're evil, demonic flowers, that possess Sapphire, and turn her into a young woman seeing her young man off to war. You can tell they're evil, as it's suddenly daylight. Sapphire and Steel are allergic to that.
Told you ghosts are drama queens. This is Sam Pearce, the ghost of a young soldier. He was killed moments after the end of the First World War, and he's really, really pissed off about it. He leads a band of ghosts with similar grievances, and they've assembled at the railway station to wait for something. Since this is clearly the same something that Sapphire and Steel are here to fight, Pearce is less than delighted to meet them.
Eagle-eyed viewers may recognise him as Nova, the ill-fated wannabe member of Blake's original not-seven, in the ever-erroneously named Blake's 7. Nova was of course shaving-creamed to death in an access tunnel during the second episode. Poor guy. They could at least have let him live long enough to get a ride on the Liberator.
Sapphire and Steel are a little alarmed by the arrival of a ghost. It's not actually the ghost they're worried about as such, but the dark and menacing, unnamed power that he's working for. It's a different dark and menacing, unnamed power to last time. I suppose there must be quite a lot of them.
I honestly have no idea. Timotei commercial? It's definitely not a pop video, I'd have remembered that.
The evil and unnamed lurking-shadowy-monster-thing is completely unfair in its attacks. It presents Sapphire with ghost flowers, and gives her sporadic war widow angst, but it turns Steel into a World War II fighter pilot, and then sends him spiralling out of control. No fair, evil lurking shadow thing. Don't be sexist.
Fortunately, due to their shared mental link, Sapphire realises that something is up with Steel. She therefore proceeds to stand on a staircase for ten minutes, before walking up it very slowly. Rescuing people quickly is not good for the blood pressure. Turning the light on first, so that you can actually see what you're doing, would be downright reckless.
She gets there in time, though. Even if it does take her until the next episode.
The evil shadowy power is more evil than anyone realised. Turning the corridor into a sunken submarine, in which Sapphire, Steel and Mr Tully are doomed to suffocate, it also turns Steel's rather fetching tux into that.
Fortunately the shadowy power is not as strong as it thinks it is, and the Attack of the Evil Knitwear is mercifully shortlived. As an added benefit, we're even allowed to see what's going on for a little while. Well, sort of. It's slightly less dark, anyway.
The evil power at the heart of this adventure. Last time, the bad guy was a little patch of torchlight, and this time it's a shadow. I love how they shamelessly advertise their total lack of budget.
Steel spies on the assembled army of the reluctant dead. Sadly the reluctant dead are well aware that he's on their trail, and are none too happy about it. Neither's their evil shadow leader.
And this time it's World War One that jumps up to bite him.
The moody Sam Pearce amuses himself beside the dangly Steel. Who I have got to stop calling Steele. One is an inhuman adventurer in time and space, and the other is a bouncy Irish jewel thief. Just because they're both given to wearing tuxedos is no reason to keep confusing them.
Gloating merrily away, Pearce soon disappears, and leaves Steel to dangle in peace until next week.
United once again, Sapphire and Steel find themselves stranded twelve days ahead of time; and in a place that's suspiciously well lit, so clearly evil must be afoot. I'm glad they don't bother trying to hide the height difference between the two of them. Hollywood would always be wanting Steel stood on a box, or Sapphire in a hole or something, like poor RDJ and Gwyneth Paltrow in the Iron Man movies. Anyway, they set out to do battle, and restore the murky darkness that should by rights be obscuring their every move.
This involves Sapphire acting as a conduit for the evil shadow monster. Sapphire is not exactly filled with boundless enthusiasm for this project. Steel, however, is all about the urgency.
The way that they talked in "Assignment One" heavily suggested that time and space and all of existence might be at risk if they didn't win, so I suppose that's reason enough for Steel's determination. As Sapphire prepares to contact the evil shadow monster, Steel is busy turning his ruthlessness up to eleven.
Aware that something's afoot, the ghost army begin to get twitchy.
Whilst Sapphire is no longer Sapphire. The evil shadow monster discusses its plan with Steel. It feeds on resentment, and is planning to entertain itself with the grumpy ghost army, having assembled it by falsely promising to return them all to life. Steel is willing to offer it a deal. A much better source of resentment, in exchange for letting the ghosts go, and buggering off and leaving everybody in peace.
The monster says yes. Step one is for the gang to get sent back the twelve days that they got displaced for, which involves standing really awkwardly, so that everybody fits on the television screen. 16:9 has noticeable benefits where this sort of thing is concerned.
Sapphire gazes forlornly out at the world. Steel's plan to save history/the universe/the railway station/some other, undefined variable, is to let the shadow monster kill Mr Tully. He will then be dying several years earlier than he should have done, which will piss off Time to the extreme. The evil shadow monster can then feed off Time's mega-grump to its heart's content. Sapphire does not like this plan.
You know, everybody always comments on Steel's ruthlessness here, and yes, it is a splendidly cold-blooded plan. He does inquire as to whether Tully's cat will be looked after, though, should anything happen to Tully, so he's not entirely merciless. Or he cares about cats anyway, which makes everything better.
Mission accomplished. The shadow monster has been banished, the ghost army dispersed, and darkness has once again settled upon Britain. Sapphire plays with a flower, and mourns poor Mr Tully. Steel, on the other hand, is probably at the most cheerful we've ever seen him.
Celebrate while you can, Steel. I've seen what's coming up next, and it ain't pretty.
Sapphire & Steel is, of course, slow. Famously, luxuriously slow. Whereas most shows, especially nowadays, like to tell you things in as little time as possible, preferably whilst cutting back and forth like a demented seamstress, Sapphire & Steel likes to wander across your television screen in no hurry at all, letting the story tell itself (or not, whichever takes its fancy). "Assignment One" was six meandering, slow motion segments; and one of the things that I like most about "Assignment Two" is that the programme makers, when wondering how they could improve upon the first adventure, didn't think 'Let's speed it up!' Instead they clearly thought that the one thing better than taking three hours to tell a story, would be taking four hours to tell it instead. The other thing that I love about "Assignment Two" is that not a minute of those eight episodes is wasted. It may be slow, but slow is exactly the right speed. So here is "Assignment Two", in photo-story format. Provided I can remember, heading for two months on, exactly why I chose to take these particular screencaps. There will have been a reason for every one of them. It's just that I probably left those reasons behind, somewhere back in January.
Sorry.
In a dark, shadowy, disused railway station, there lurks a man and his awesome tape recorder. They're hunting ghosts. As everybody knows, the best way to hunt ghosts is to creep around in the dark, because ghosts are drama queens. It is an awesome tape recorder, though. I miss tech like that. Nowadays he'd probably use the voice recorder on his mobile phone, but that's just dull. Anyway. Bloke in a disused railway station (he's called Mr Tully).
Mr Tully and his candle. In Sapphire & Steel nobody puts a light on unless they absolutely have to. It's a rule. Here, Mr Tully has just encountered Steel on the stairs, in full evening dress, for no readily apparent reason. This sets the scene nicely for the rest of the adventure. We are in for eight episodes of (very well-dressed and extremely polite) stair-climbing and standing in shadows. That's pretty much the entire plot.
Stair-climbing, shadows and flowers. Here Sapphire discovers some unexpected flowers in previously empty pots beside the rail tracks.
They're evil, demonic flowers, that possess Sapphire, and turn her into a young woman seeing her young man off to war. You can tell they're evil, as it's suddenly daylight. Sapphire and Steel are allergic to that.
Told you ghosts are drama queens. This is Sam Pearce, the ghost of a young soldier. He was killed moments after the end of the First World War, and he's really, really pissed off about it. He leads a band of ghosts with similar grievances, and they've assembled at the railway station to wait for something. Since this is clearly the same something that Sapphire and Steel are here to fight, Pearce is less than delighted to meet them.
Eagle-eyed viewers may recognise him as Nova, the ill-fated wannabe member of Blake's original not-seven, in the ever-erroneously named Blake's 7. Nova was of course shaving-creamed to death in an access tunnel during the second episode. Poor guy. They could at least have let him live long enough to get a ride on the Liberator.
Sapphire and Steel are a little alarmed by the arrival of a ghost. It's not actually the ghost they're worried about as such, but the dark and menacing, unnamed power that he's working for. It's a different dark and menacing, unnamed power to last time. I suppose there must be quite a lot of them.
I honestly have no idea. Timotei commercial? It's definitely not a pop video, I'd have remembered that.
The evil and unnamed lurking-shadowy-monster-thing is completely unfair in its attacks. It presents Sapphire with ghost flowers, and gives her sporadic war widow angst, but it turns Steel into a World War II fighter pilot, and then sends him spiralling out of control. No fair, evil lurking shadow thing. Don't be sexist.
Fortunately, due to their shared mental link, Sapphire realises that something is up with Steel. She therefore proceeds to stand on a staircase for ten minutes, before walking up it very slowly. Rescuing people quickly is not good for the blood pressure. Turning the light on first, so that you can actually see what you're doing, would be downright reckless.
She gets there in time, though. Even if it does take her until the next episode.
The evil shadowy power is more evil than anyone realised. Turning the corridor into a sunken submarine, in which Sapphire, Steel and Mr Tully are doomed to suffocate, it also turns Steel's rather fetching tux into that.
Fortunately the shadowy power is not as strong as it thinks it is, and the Attack of the Evil Knitwear is mercifully shortlived. As an added benefit, we're even allowed to see what's going on for a little while. Well, sort of. It's slightly less dark, anyway.
The evil power at the heart of this adventure. Last time, the bad guy was a little patch of torchlight, and this time it's a shadow. I love how they shamelessly advertise their total lack of budget.
Steel spies on the assembled army of the reluctant dead. Sadly the reluctant dead are well aware that he's on their trail, and are none too happy about it. Neither's their evil shadow leader.
And this time it's World War One that jumps up to bite him.
The moody Sam Pearce amuses himself beside the dangly Steel. Who I have got to stop calling Steele. One is an inhuman adventurer in time and space, and the other is a bouncy Irish jewel thief. Just because they're both given to wearing tuxedos is no reason to keep confusing them.
Gloating merrily away, Pearce soon disappears, and leaves Steel to dangle in peace until next week.
United once again, Sapphire and Steel find themselves stranded twelve days ahead of time; and in a place that's suspiciously well lit, so clearly evil must be afoot. I'm glad they don't bother trying to hide the height difference between the two of them. Hollywood would always be wanting Steel stood on a box, or Sapphire in a hole or something, like poor RDJ and Gwyneth Paltrow in the Iron Man movies. Anyway, they set out to do battle, and restore the murky darkness that should by rights be obscuring their every move.
This involves Sapphire acting as a conduit for the evil shadow monster. Sapphire is not exactly filled with boundless enthusiasm for this project. Steel, however, is all about the urgency.
The way that they talked in "Assignment One" heavily suggested that time and space and all of existence might be at risk if they didn't win, so I suppose that's reason enough for Steel's determination. As Sapphire prepares to contact the evil shadow monster, Steel is busy turning his ruthlessness up to eleven.
Aware that something's afoot, the ghost army begin to get twitchy.
Whilst Sapphire is no longer Sapphire. The evil shadow monster discusses its plan with Steel. It feeds on resentment, and is planning to entertain itself with the grumpy ghost army, having assembled it by falsely promising to return them all to life. Steel is willing to offer it a deal. A much better source of resentment, in exchange for letting the ghosts go, and buggering off and leaving everybody in peace.
The monster says yes. Step one is for the gang to get sent back the twelve days that they got displaced for, which involves standing really awkwardly, so that everybody fits on the television screen. 16:9 has noticeable benefits where this sort of thing is concerned.
Sapphire gazes forlornly out at the world. Steel's plan to save history/the universe/the railway station/some other, undefined variable, is to let the shadow monster kill Mr Tully. He will then be dying several years earlier than he should have done, which will piss off Time to the extreme. The evil shadow monster can then feed off Time's mega-grump to its heart's content. Sapphire does not like this plan.
You know, everybody always comments on Steel's ruthlessness here, and yes, it is a splendidly cold-blooded plan. He does inquire as to whether Tully's cat will be looked after, though, should anything happen to Tully, so he's not entirely merciless. Or he cares about cats anyway, which makes everything better.
Mission accomplished. The shadow monster has been banished, the ghost army dispersed, and darkness has once again settled upon Britain. Sapphire plays with a flower, and mourns poor Mr Tully. Steel, on the other hand, is probably at the most cheerful we've ever seen him.
Celebrate while you can, Steel. I've seen what's coming up next, and it ain't pretty.