Sapphire & Steel (TV Series) Assignment One: Part 1 (1979) User Reviews

Assignment One: Part 1

[Prismark10 · 8/10 · 2 June 2020]

A young boy finds that clocks in his house have stopped. His parents reading nursery rhymes to his young sister have disappeared.

He calls for help and two mysterious strangers immediately arrive. Sapphire (Joanna Lumley) and Steel (David McCallum) are the only elements who can help him.

Something is exploiting weak links in the corridor of time. Something from the past is trying to break out.

As a kid I always found the series rather hard to fathom. No wonder, I never watched the first episode.

Sapphire and Steele do explain about time and weak links, hoping the boy (and the audience) would understand.

A mysterious and involving first episode. Lumley provides the glamour and maybe there is a hint of something more between these two.

Show opening episode gets the series off to a pretty-slow start...

[ronnybee2112 · 6/10 · 24 December 2022]

I had never once even heard of this tv show before I saw an add for it on the Amazon Prime android phone app. I love science fiction and mysteries. I liked David McCallum in the "Man from UNCLE" tv show. I'm not familiar with the other members of the cast,but I figured with David McCallum playing a major part,the show had definite potential and was surely worth checking-out.

Well,what do I think ?

To be honest,I really think I need to watch a few more episodes to be able to give a fair review of the show.

What I saw was a very slow-moving show with not much really happening. It is mostly dialog. It is filmed on a rather small set that consists of perhaps 2 or 3 locations throughout a house that is claimed to be relatively isolated on an island (or someplace like that).

The viewer is tasked with trying to follow an odd,'twilight zone' type of scenario that I found rather silly. (I know,shame on me🤡) The special-effects are laughably bad,to put it kindly.

I cannot give this first episode more than 6/10. (It may not even deserve that..) I will not simply write-off this whole,entire show,from just this one episode,tempting as it may be. I will try to watch at least a few more episodes and review them in the near future.

This series just may pick-up speed as it goes along,I am at-least optimistic-enough to watch a few-more episodes and see how things go moving forward.

Watch and see what You think,and please,let us all know !

Strong first episode.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 19 September 2022]

A boy and girl are desperate when their parents vanish from their home, asking for help, it arrives in the form of Operatives Sapphire and Steel, a pair of specially selected agents.

We learn that Steel is cold and aloof, a little hard edged, Sapphire is the softer of the two, with a more endearing nature.

I liked the way the premise of the show was introduced, no long winded introductions, or laboured build up scenes the pair are just introduced in an instant.

We're given the workings for the episode, and the show itself. It's good, it's nicely made, it's well acted.

I'm not sure how the plot would play out to a new audience, the idea of a strange man and woman arriving in the house, with only two young children at home, it's the stuff of nightmares.

There is something about the way Lumley delivers her lines, like poetry. She made for a good and interesting contest to McCallum.

An interesting, enjoyable start, 8/10.

An establishing 6-part 'assignment' for the cryptic elemental twosome, with a focus on the pseudo-supernatural

[jamesrupert2014 · 7/10 · 20 March 2022]

Two children discover that their parents have inexplicitly vanished, just one of a series of paranormal events that attract the attention of lovely Sapphire and gruff Steel, a pair of 'operators' tasked to "safeguard time, the past, the present, and the future" (quote from Assignment 3). This episode introduces the titular characters (played Joanna Lumley and David McCullum) and sets the general tone of the odd, cryptic, low-budget sci-fi/fantasy series. While ostensibly a 'ghost-story', the preternatural events are grounded in science (albeit fanciful) involving the nature of time. Lumley and McCullum are fun to watch as they play some kind of extemporal good cop-bad cop buddy-team and the cinematography and limited special effects serve to give the story a moody, claustrophobic vibe. A large, hungry, jocular Lead (Val Pringle), another of the elemental time-guardians, shows up as well. 'Sapphire and Steel' is a classic of non-expositional TV-fantasy, so anyone expecting to be told what is going on (and whether the story actually makes sense) will likely be disappointed. The series was reasonably popular when it came out but is definitely not to all tastes.