James Rose looks in on the vintage Look-in comic strip assignments of cult TV favourites Sapphire & Steel...

The genre-blending supernatural sci-fi fantasy Sapphire & Steel first appeared on British television screens in 1979. Produced by ATV, the series was conceived and for the most part scripted by Peter J. Hammond, an experienced TV writer of shows such as Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars, The Sweeney, The Gentle Touch and later The Bill, Wycliffe and Midsomer Murders. Broadcast at the end of the 1970s, the programme was an anomaly in that the series took time as a concept and presented it as having an evil dimension: the titular heroes, played by Joanna Lumley and David McCallum, are Interdimensional Operatives who are, it slowly emerges throughout the episodes, charged with ensuring the flow of time. This is all alluded to in the opening narration of each episode:

“All irregularities will be handled by the forces controlling each dimension. Transuranic heavy elements may not be used where there is life. Medium atomic weights are available: Gold, Lead, Copper, Jet, Diamond, Radium, Sapphire, Silver, and Steel. Sapphire and Steel have been assigned.”

While suggesting that the “irregularities” will be investigated by Sapphire & Steel, it also insinuates that these characters are Elements, adding a further conceptual layer to the programme. Each of the six series was defined as an assignment and would feature Sapphire & Steel, taking human form and seemingly appearing from out of nowhere, attempting to discover the anomaly in time and fix it. Sapphire is a touch-telepath capable of psychometry, who also possesses the unusual ability to take back time twelve hours. The coldblooded (and calculating) Steel can reduce his body’s core temperature to absolute zero, is incredibly strong, and possesses the ability to open any lock on any door.

When trying to explain their presence to the human characters involved,Sapphire & Steel suggest that time is a dangerous force that can break through weak spots in itself and into the present. These weak spots are often caused by the presence of an anachronistic object, such as an antiquated photograph, a clock or even a nursery rhyme. All have the potential to cause the “irregularities” Sapphire & Steel must fix.

Compounding this are strange creatures from the very beginning and very end of time who roam the corridors, looking for these weak spots to also break through into the present day. Despite the seemingly abstract nature of the programme’s concept, Sapphire and Steel enjoyed great audience success, gaining 11.8million viewers for the first broadcast. The series ran for four years on British television (1979 - 1982) and there were six, multi-part stories overall. It also enjoyed great popularity in comic book form in the children’s weekly magazine, Look-in.

ACTION-PACKED READ

Running from early 1971 onwards, Lookin was of course the British version of the TV Times for children. It featured a broad mix of contemporary pop culture, with celebrity interviews, features and fact files, pull-out pin-ups, crosswords and competitions. But what made Look-in stand out was the inclusion of numerous comic strips based on popular children’s television programmes. These strips were mainly UKfocussed, with productions such as Timeslip, Worzel Gummidge, On the Buses, Catweazle, Cannon and Ball, Robin of Sherwood, Dick Turpin and, of course, Sapphire & Steel, all appearing throughout the magazine’s publication. Alongside these were popular American productions such as Airwolf, The A-Team and Charlie’s Angels, as well as The Bionic Woman, Logan’s Run and Street Hawk. Despite this diversity of content and television productions, the comic strips were all unified by one common element; each strip lasted only two pages, making each ‘episode’ a quick but action-packed read.