I’ve been mildly intrigued by this series since I read a review of the finale in a Doctor Who magazine some 20 years ago. Those who’ve seen it, if I’m a fan of the old Doctor Who but not rabidly so, prefer the new Doctor Who to the old and am ambivalent about Torchwood, does this lead you to believe that it would be worth my time and cash to get the series on DVD?
It’s definitely…interesting. Dated, but interesting. I dig out the DVDs and watch an episode every few months. If you demand linear thinking and clarity in your watching material, skip these completely!
If you liked the old Doctor Who, there’s a fair chance you’ll appreciate Sapphire and Steel - it had some interesting and thought-provoking stories, but was a bit sort of campy and will certainly seem low-budget and low-fi by today’s standards, still, if you can get past that, I reckon it could be worth your while.
There are loads of clips of it on Youtube, if you want to get a feel for it.
I was a fan of the show back in the day. i have an extensive collection of TV show box sets. This isn’t one of them. I don’t think it has aged at all well and you might find the slow pacing and the 60’s UK production values very hard to take.
Actually, I just took a look at a couple of clips. It’s better than I remembered.
I’ve seen a couple of the series and my thought is that it crams one hour of plot into three hours of air time.
It must have looked odd, even psychedelic back in the day, but you can tell that they did six episodes on the budget of two. One set, one costume, few actors, plenty of supposedly dramatic pauses, and endless philosophizing.
Today I find it deadly. Try it as a curiosity, but I’d see if I could find a cheap way to test it first before spending money on a DVD.
I just want to drop that I grew up in the next village to Gerald James, the actor who played George Tully in S&S, and he was my unofficial sponsor when I was an aspiring young actor.
He gave me free coaching and advice, took me and a friend to London to see a play he was in, and took us backstage, where we got to meet Vanessa Redgrave, Timothy Dalton, and Sylvester McCoy (who bought me a pint of Guinness).
And I now see from IMDB that he died last year, aged 89. He was a charming and very kind man, who was ‘discovered’ in already senior years, when he was appearing in an amateur dramatic production.
Goodbye Gerald, and thanks for everything. I hope you enjoy his performance!
I vaguely remember seeing an episode or two of this 25 years while I was visiting my grandmother. It struck me so fascinating I still remembered it had David McCallum in it before I checked out the Wikipedia article. I would have liked to have seen more of it then; I might still check it out now. I’d say it’s worth a look, depending on the price.
Last time I checked, it wasn’t available on DVD this end of the pacific (sniff)
I’d love to try it on my kid as she’s a huge Dr Who fan and I think she’d get a kick out of it.
I loved it. Two of my all time favourite actors and some really interesting storylines. It was repeated a few years ago and, bearing in mind that it’s aged, it was still pretty entertaining. My kid was only four at the time and she wasn’t old enough for it then.
I thought the recent Dr Who weeping angels story was similar in concept to the photograph man.
Give it a go if you can pick it up cheap. I’m not sure it would be worth a hefty investment if you’re unsure.
God I hope that’s not a euphemism.
I felt that Sapphire and Steel was more reminiscent of children’s Sci-Fi dramas such as Chocky and The Tripods, than Doctor Who. It also called to mind Tales of the Unexpected. Doctor Who was cosy Saturday TV that you’d watch with your family, whereas S&S, Chocky etc. you’d watch after school on your own.
What region is AUS/NZ?
Amazon lists it new for Region 1 for $85, used starting at $15, and lists a few used sets for R2 starting at $25 (US I assume). $85 is a lot to invest for me sight unseen but I might look at some of the used sets at reduced prices. I can always resell it and recoup at least part of my outlay.
I have the series on DVD – it came out in NZ a couple of years or so ago – and I think it’s actually aged rather well. Or rather, it’s remained fairly timeless, with the possible exception of one storyline (the visitors from the future), which was fairly dreadful to begin with.
S&S was always pretty low-key, with not a lot in the way of visual effects and the like. It’s the characters and the mystery (such as, for example, the never-answered mystery of just who, or what, the lead characters are) that make it.
And there are parts of it that still creep me out, a good thirty years after I first saw them.
All right. Based on everyone’s input, I’ve ordered the set from a reseller at a vastly reduced price (about 22 bucks instead of the $85 new price).
I have a few images burnt into my brain of the show, not the stories as such just memories of things that freaked me out when watching after coming home from school.
The guy without a face following some children through time.
The organism that was made up of every living thing that lived in a room on the roof of a building that also had a fully grown man who was actually a baby 
The WWI ghost that was in a railway station and whistled “It’s a long way to Tipperary”.
I don’t know if I want to see it again as I’m sure now it would be somewhat farcical to my adult mind but as a kid it fascinated and scared me all at once. Also I was just starting to notice females so Joanna Lumley was very interesting to me.
Sapphire and Steel have been assigned! Ah the memories.
Totally missed that! Hasn’t come up on TradeMe when I’ve looked.
Mind you I think there are 568641 things I need to buy before getting a DVD set that my kid *might *enjoy.
There are also new audio adventures, with different actors, out on cd issued by Big Finish.
I’ve not heard them so I don’t know how good they might be…