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azdak at 09:41am on 28/03/2008 under sapphire and steel
azdak at 09:41am on 28/03/2008 under sapphire and steelYet more Sapphire and Steel, for interested parties
When I first rewatched Sapphire and Steel on youtube I found myself getting annoyed with what I thought of as "delaying tactics", moments when it looks as if something exciting is going to happen, and then it doesn't, and all that's been achieved is a slowing down of the main plot. But with the children I'm watching it the way it's supposed to be watched, an episode at a time, and I've realised something that should have been blindingly obvious - those aren't delaying tactics, they're perfectly placed cliffhangers. If you watch the 25 minute chunk, it builds to a thrilling climax and then breaks off, you go away gnawing your fingernails at the tenseness of it all, and come back the next day to watch the cliffhanger get quickly resolved so the story can progress. It works perfectly - the 24 hours of nail-chewing give the cliffhanger a weight and significance it can't sustain if the viewer immediately rushes on to the resolution, and after all that worrying, it's a relief when the resolution comes quickly. In fact, my youngest was so creeped out by the cliffhanger at the end of episode one (when Helen goes back into her room alone and starts reciting Ring-a-ring-a-roses) that she said she didn't want to watch tonight, and got all stroppy about other, selfish people disturbing her by watching telly when she was trying to go to sleep. As soon as we got past the cliffhanger, she uncurled and started watching with us - I think she was just plain scared and didn't want to admit it.
This is the third time I've seen Assignment 1 (the first time being God knows how many years ago, when it was first broadcast) and the more I watch, the more impressed I am with the writing. I'm a deeply rational person, the head-over-heart sort, who always wants a logical explanation for everything, and I couldn't write a story like this one to save my life. But Hammond has the most amazing grasp of a kind of instinctual, magical logic - nothing of what happens makes sense on any kind of rational basis, but it makes heart-stoppingly good sense at the level of ancient intuitions about the universe being a hostile place and the need to appease barely-understood gods. When Steel helps to close up the wall by giving Time Helen's teddy, there's no reason why that should work, and yet it doesn't seem stupid or forced or even handwavy. It feels right, and natural - of course sacrificing the doll will make a temporarily acceptable substitute for the child. Why should nursery rhymes give Time power? I don't know, but I have absolutely no trouble believing, in the most visceral way, that they're repositories of ancient evil, folk memories of terrible events that can be tapped into. Normally I can't stand dream sequences because they're just a succession of bizarre non-sequiturs, they don't hang together in any meaningful way, but S&S gets dream logic absolutely right - it's not rational, but it's all inter-connected, and it all makes sense, because the story reaches right down into our deepest, most instinctual fears and primeval ways of dealing with them. Child dying of a strange sickness? Call in a shaman, maybe he can help in ways you can't begin to fathom. Crops dying for lack of rain? Try a special dance. Nameless evil walking the forest, snatching those who enter it? Try asking the gods to give your best warrior special powers and then send him in. And maybe a magical rhyme will help him defend himself.
There's this sense of making it up as they go along in everything Sapphire and Steel do. This is partly because they really are - for all their experience and their skills and their status as professionals, they've never had to tackle a problem quite like this. They've fought Time when it's broken through before, but this time it's different, this time Time is learning. They don't know what will work, in their struggle against the hostile forces, any more than we do.
And I love how alien they are, how they shift in and out of focus, sometimes self-evidently Rob's only hope, and sometimes completely untrustworthy. There's a wonderful shot, when Rob is about to let the policeman in, of the two of them standing side by side on the stairs, completely motionless, like bats hanging in a cave. Watching. And you know they aren't going to let it happen, that Rob has no chance against them. All he (and we) can do is hope that they really are on our side.
When I first rewatched Sapphire and Steel on youtube I found myself getting annoyed with what I thought of as "delaying tactics", moments when it looks as if something exciting is going to happen, and then it doesn't, and all that's been achieved is a slowing down of the main plot. But with the children I'm watching it the way it's supposed to be watched, an episode at a time, and I've realised something that should have been blindingly obvious - those aren't delaying tactics, they're perfectly placed cliffhangers. If you watch the 25 minute chunk, it builds to a thrilling climax and then breaks off, you go away gnawing your fingernails at the tenseness of it all, and come back the next day to watch the cliffhanger get quickly resolved so the story can progress. It works perfectly - the 24 hours of nail-chewing give the cliffhanger a weight and significance it can't sustain if the viewer immediately rushes on to the resolution, and after all that worrying, it's a relief when the resolution comes quickly. In fact, my youngest was so creeped out by the cliffhanger at the end of episode one (when Helen goes back into her room alone and starts reciting Ring-a-ring-a-roses) that she said she didn't want to watch tonight, and got all stroppy about other, selfish people disturbing her by watching telly when she was trying to go to sleep. As soon as we got past the cliffhanger, she uncurled and started watching with us - I think she was just plain scared and didn't want to admit it.
This is the third time I've seen Assignment 1 (the first time being God knows how many years ago, when it was first broadcast) and the more I watch, the more impressed I am with the writing. I'm a deeply rational person, the head-over-heart sort, who always wants a logical explanation for everything, and I couldn't write a story like this one to save my life. But Hammond has the most amazing grasp of a kind of instinctual, magical logic - nothing of what happens makes sense on any kind of rational basis, but it makes heart-stoppingly good sense at the level of ancient intuitions about the universe being a hostile place and the need to appease barely-understood gods. When Steel helps to close up the wall by giving Time Helen's teddy, there's no reason why that should work, and yet it doesn't seem stupid or forced or even handwavy. It feels right, and natural - of course sacrificing the doll will make a temporarily acceptable substitute for the child. Why should nursery rhymes give Time power? I don't know, but I have absolutely no trouble believing, in the most visceral way, that they're repositories of ancient evil, folk memories of terrible events that can be tapped into. Normally I can't stand dream sequences because they're just a succession of bizarre non-sequiturs, they don't hang together in any meaningful way, but S&S gets dream logic absolutely right - it's not rational, but it's all inter-connected, and it all makes sense, because the story reaches right down into our deepest, most instinctual fears and primeval ways of dealing with them. Child dying of a strange sickness? Call in a shaman, maybe he can help in ways you can't begin to fathom. Crops dying for lack of rain? Try a special dance. Nameless evil walking the forest, snatching those who enter it? Try asking the gods to give your best warrior special powers and then send him in. And maybe a magical rhyme will help him defend himself.
There's this sense of making it up as they go along in everything Sapphire and Steel do. This is partly because they really are - for all their experience and their skills and their status as professionals, they've never had to tackle a problem quite like this. They've fought Time when it's broken through before, but this time it's different, this time Time is learning. They don't know what will work, in their struggle against the hostile forces, any more than we do.
And I love how alien they are, how they shift in and out of focus, sometimes self-evidently Rob's only hope, and sometimes completely untrustworthy. There's a wonderful shot, when Rob is about to let the policeman in, of the two of them standing side by side on the stairs, completely motionless, like bats hanging in a cave. Watching. And you know they aren't going to let it happen, that Rob has no chance against them. All he (and we) can do is hope that they really are on our side.