Beyond the Roundels

24 icons made for fandom10in30's TV Tropes Challenge, all for Sapphire & Steel. I had fun with the tropes, so there are 12 extra icons (plus 2 alternates). (They were all taken from S&S's page at TV Tropes).

Teaser:



( You're supposed to lose sometimes// I wondered why I wasn't having any fun )

This morning, I woke to find an excellent new Sapphire & Steel fic in the Past Imperfect collection, and then had cause to mention the series to a flister. This must mean today's thing I love is going to have to be Sapphire and Steel.

And since there's been no easily available fandom primer anyway since eponymous_rose tragically locked down their journal and with it the best ever S&S intro, I may as well go full on manifesto here. Because Sapphire & Steel is a very odd series that is not going to be to everyone's taste, but it is truly amazing and original and worth trying if you have any interest in TV SF and a reasonable amount of patience for old time TV.

(I used/adapted some text and pics from an old manifesto for het_reccers on LJ, which is why they have a Photobucket logo on. Sorry about that.)


“There is a corridor. And the corridor is time. It surrounds all things and it passes through all things. You cannot enter into time, but sometimes time can enter into the present… break in and take things. Take people…" (Sapphire, Assignment 1)

S&S starred Joanna Lumley and David McCallum and ran from 1979-1982 (on ITV, aka The Other Channel, not the BBC), and while there are only 34x 25min episodes, broken down into six serials, known as "Assignments," it's been highly influential in much SF that's been made since. It was created by PJ Hammond, who'd written for Ace of Wands (UK 1970s fantasy children's series) and would later write two episodes for Torchwood, but is still most famous for Sapphire & Steel. It has the slow pace and low budget values of much British TV of the time - but takes the clever approach of turning both into virtues in a way that can still unsettle modern viewers.



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.

The first rule of S&S is mystery. We don't know who or what Sapphire and Steel are. We know that they're not human, that they have strange powers (including telepathy) and that they are sent by a higher authority to intervene on our behalf against Time, which in the S&S universe is a malevolent force using any means it can to break free and wreak havoc. And by any means, we here mean paintings, photographs, clocks, pillows, motorway service stations, flowers and nursery rhymes. Everything is a potential "trigger" or threat.

PJ Hammond has said in interviews that he has no idea what Sapphire and Steel are, or where they came from. “It’s part of the mystery, not to know… Not knowing has never bothered me.” And: “I don’t think that Sapphire & Steel were ever human in the basic sense. … I think they come closer to representing the spirit and the soul.”

The Guiness Book of TV once summed it up by saying something like "There are many ways to hold a TV audience. Complete lack of explanation is not supposed to be one of them..." And yet, with S&S, it works. And, as you can tell, I love it.

So, basically, that's it. You can already go read the fanfic or run off to YouTube/place you obtain DVDs to watch it. Congratulations!

The main caveat (apart from "it's old TV, it is very static and often beige") is that it originally started as a children's show, and the trappings of that are still apparent in "Assignment 1" so be patient with the two child guest stars etc., as it will only get better from here. (I could advise you to start elsewhere, but you'd miss Lead and the only kind of explanation of the series we ever get, so it's best to give it a go and only skip it if you really can't be doing with the child actors.)

( More pics and much continued lack of explanation and some flailing and fic recs under the cut )

Title: The Cat, the Mouse and the Wardrobe
Author: lost_spook
Rating: All ages
Word Count: 1929
Characters/Pairings: Sapphire, Silver, Lead
Notes/Warnings: Pre-series, 1760s.
Summary: Completing an assignment is far more complicated when you’ve been forced to change shape.

For trope_bingo Transformations square and 100 Element Prompts #4 sapphire & silver & lead - Crackfic & Physical transformation. (I should probably apologise for turning Silver into a mouse again, but if you’re going to turn Lead, Sapphire and Silver into different domestic animals, how else is that going to go?)

( The Cat, the Mouse, and the Wardrobe )

It's a side-effect of obsessing about Sapphire & Steel.

I made this post a while two months ago, partly for me, partly to share, but then again, it does feel weird going on about "my" Elements and mental casting sometimes seems a bit odd too. However, I have this post, I did cast actors (it's such a visual show; it seemed a logical step if I was going to make up Elements, and there was no chance I wasn't) and swordznsorcery asked me about it the other day. So here it is. If people are going to be patient enough to read the resulting 100 Element Prompt fics, I might as well share the pictures, after all. (Also with links to the relevant Wiki pages, mainly for my own convenience.)

( Medium atomic weights are available )

44 x Sapphire & Steel icons and 53 x Press Gang icons. The S&S icons seem to have been growing slowly on my PC since this time last year, so are a bit of an odd mix. The Press Gang icons were made in the summer, I think and about 20 or so were posted to fan_flashworks for challenges.

Teaser:



Contents: Please note the Press Gang set includes an icon of a clown holding a gun. (There are 12 from S3 "The Last Word").

( I'm not responsible for everything, I just make it look that way )


The usual rules apply: want, take, credit, no hotlinking. For texture credits etc., see my profile.

Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there: