"Assignment Four" of the UK series
Sapphire and Steel a production of ATV, a regional franchise of ITV. ITV had made several attempts at getting in on the sort of action the BBC had with their
Doctor Who and this was perhaps the most successful of these. The title characters, played by Joanna Lumley and David MacCallum were mysterious trans-dimensional agents with strange powers assigned by an unknown authority to correct anomalies in Time that have allowed mysterious and malevolent forces to break into the present, material world.
Both were possessed of powers, Steel (MacCallum) had super-strength, telekinesis and could drain thermal energy all the way down to Absolute Zero, Sapphire (Lumley) could rewind time temporarily in a localized area, divine the history of objects and people just by touching them and possessed some control over human minds and was the somewhat more emphatic of the two, Steel being very blunt and utilitarian. Also, their primary assignments were to put a stop to any funny Time business, and sometimes they'd have to go through some trial and error to figure out the nature of the threat and sometimes there was collateral damage to bystanders and people caught up in the mysterious phenomena. Not much being explained actually adds to the atmosphere, and unlike other sci-fi ish series at the time the makers never tried to do any special effects they couldn't afford. True this meant the effects were somewhat limited, Sapphire's eyes glowing blue, etc. and you had scenes where S&S stare down a menace by, well, staring it down but it adds to the feel of the series better than mankey 70s Brit TV SFX involving zap rays or goofy rubber monsters would.
"Assignment Four" was a shorter storyline that played out over four episodes - Sapphire and Steel investigate a small apartment building where the landlord and another tenant have disapppeared and strange sepia-toned urchin children are roaming about - some old duffer's seemingly harmless experiments with trick photography have unleashed an entity that crept into the very first photograph ever created and was caught in all photographs ever taken and it's a bit cheesed off now. A hapless young tenant, Ruth, is trapped in the building and caught up in the proceedings; Steel's bluntness and Sapphire's chilly politeness aren't helping her anxiety much either.
Each and every photo is mine. They all belong to me. Trees and towns and villages, all made of paper. And paper burns.[...]Paper burns. Nothing lasts. Only me.
