Sapphire & Steel - Assignment Two [TV] (1979)
Directed by Shaun O'Riordan

Film Review

Sapphire and Steel's second assignment, first broadcast on ITV in the summer of 1979 and oft referred to by its unofficial title The Railway Station, marks the artistic and nightmarish highpoint for the entire series.  Running to eight episodes, it is the longest of the time-fixing duo's six television outings and, thanks to some superb direction, lighting, camerawork and set design, by far the creepiest.  In fact it is hard to recall a British television programme that is more weirdly unsettling than this.  Although it takes minimalist drama to extremes, with just four principal actors to carry the entire three and a half hour-long story, it is utterly compelling, even if the plot is virtually unfathomable and the nature of the threat facing our heroes nigh on impossible to pin down.

What begins as an eerie semblance of a classic ghost story soon becomes something far more sinister and frightening, with shades of The Blair Witch Project (1999) skulking in the background.  It's a massive progression from Sapphire and Steel's first story (which aired immediately before this one), with the series now clearly aimed at an intelligent adult audience. P.J. Hammond's script does tend to drift and fold back on itself with some inevitable repetition across the eight episodes but the abundance of truly scary concepts together with some terrifying imagery make it compulsive viewing.  Among the delights on offer are some of the most chilling scenes to be found in any British television series - Steel caught, apparently dead, in a barbed wire fence; Tully and Sapphire being asphyxiated in an empty corridor; and, most terrifying of all, Sapphire sent into a trance with her eyes turned a demonic black.  Definitely not one for the kiddies.

After the fun and games of Assignment One, David McCallum and Joanna Lumley are now well into their stride and genuinely do look as if they are beings from another dimension rather than overdressed child minders with special powers.  It's an effective combination, Steel's brusqueness and cold ruthlessness set against Sapphire's more empathic persona, which leads to some interesting interplay and conflict between the two characters.  Despite their special powers, it is clear right from the start that Sapphire and Steel are imperfect custodians of universal harmony and by episode four it appears that they are both well and truly out of their depth.  The troublesome human, George Tully, who first gets in their way becomes an invaluable member of their team, and someone Steel is all too willing to sacrifice for the greater good (an echo of the story's apparent anti-war subtext). 

As the likeable but subtly Pinter-esque Tully, Gerald James gives the story another interesting point of focus, and it is astonishing the degree to which his presence accentuates the alienness of McCallum and Lumley's characters. Tom Kelly has the most haunting presence, not just because he is playing the principal ghost, but because his WWI soldier becomes firmly established in our minds as a symbol of the injustice and cruelty of war.  Like all great pieces of art, Sapphire and Steel's second assignment seizes both the heart and the imagination and forces us to interpret it in whichever way we choose.  It is one of the most remarkable pieces of drama to have been made for British television.

Film Synopsis

Sapphire and Steel arrive at a disused English railway station which is completely deserted apart from the presence of one George Tully, a 50-something investigator into the paranormal.  Tully has been squatting in the railway station and its adjoining hotel for several weeks and in that time he has observed several bizarre phenomenon - flowers suddenly appearing in full bloom on the station platform at night, the sound of someone whistling and moving about unseen in the shadows.  Sapphire senses an overwhelming feeling of resentment and experiences an unaccountable change of season, from late autumn to mid-summer.  The ghostly presence that Tully has sensed then manifests itself as a young soldier from the First World War.  On one of Tully's tape recordings Steel hears the voices of men trapped aboard a sunken test submarine in 1938 and is then forced to experience for himself the death of a WWII air pilot.  Realising that the soldier is the key to the mystery, Steel coerces Tully into conducting a séance, with Sapphire acting as the medium.  If they can only uncover the soldier's identity they might stand a chance of understanding the nature of the threat facing them...