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Pretty much out of the blue, the parents (Felicity Harrison, John Golightly) of young Robert (Steven O'Shea) and Helen (Tamasin Bridge) disappear into thin air while singing a nursery rhyme for Helen. Robert does the right thing to call the police, but instead two interdimensional operatives tasked with fixing ripples in time show up, Sapphire (Joanna Lumley) and Steel (David Callum). It seems the nursery rhyme has opened some time portal for some entity to escape, but Sapphire and Steel can close the portal for now and try to make up a plan to get the kids' parents back, but unfortunately three fragments of the entity have already escaped into our world, and somehow one manages to capture Sapphire and send her to the past where she's almost executed before Steel freezes things to get her back. Enter Lead (Val Pringle), strongman with a heart of gold and one of Sapphire and Steel's associates, who offers his assistance. And Sapphire and Steel can use all the assistance they can get because these fragments of the entities are cunning, and eventually they take the form of Robert and Helen's dad and somehow lure him back into the 18th century - which is where they make a mistake, as once there they're somehow lured into a brick in the foundation of the house which Steel freezes and Lead then crashes. Then Sapphire turns time back half a day and everything for the kids and their parents goes back to normal.

There are two ways to watch this: Taken on its own terms, this doesn't make a lot of sense, as whatever is happening is just explained away by esoteric gobbledegook which allows the makers to get away with pretty much anything, the budget and thus production values are too low for the story's high concept, and the occasional very atmospheric scene - like when the young girl walks the house like in trance reciting a nursery rhyme to lure out the entity's fragments - is outdone by repeated outbursts of camp.

On the other hand, this is also an interesting piece of esoteric science fiction with eccentric and not necessarily likeable lead characters that puts an original spin on essentially a horror premise for a primarily young audience - primed for exactly this sort of TV entertainment by classic Doctor Who of course -, and seen from a nostalgic vantage point, this is actually pretty good fun to watch.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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