Sapphire and Steel: Favourite Moment Assignment Four
Continuing with my Sapphire and Steel picspams, today I will be doing my favourite scene from Assignment Four.
This the one in which S&S and Liz talk to the photo of Ruth. It's my favourite for a variety of reasons:
1) It's beautiful and sad, and the end of the scene is quite heartbreaking
2) We see Steel at work, and I just love the sight of DMC in a shirt surrounded by equipment.
A honourable mention to the scene at the beginning of the Assignment with S&S looking around the Shop the first time, and we learn a tiny bit more about the nature of their jobs. Also, nice tie in with Assignment #3 and mention of Silver.
Assignment One| Assignment Two| Assignment Three
I have a confession to make. Assignment Four was actually my favourite story until I rewatched Assignment Two again after getting the DVDs. Four is the shortest of the six stories, with only four episodes, but all those episodes are so tightly plotted it never feels slow, unlike the other stories (with possible exception of #2). The basis of the story is a creature that is in every photo, and has escaped into the real world. It is able to put people into photos and take them out again. A creature that has such great power that in the end, S&S were utterly helpless against the force and required the assistance of the "innocent" to trap it. If I had one qualm about the story, it was the innocent, Liz, who chattering and general attitude grated on my nerves, though not so much as the "innocents" of the previous Assignment. I am also a little "hmmmmm" about the resolution of the problem. Trapping the force in ice for 75 years doesn't seem like a very permanent solution, and not a very long time in the grand scheme of things. Would S&S have time every 75 years to go and find the force a new home? But them, if we compare it with the way they'd resolved Assignment #2 and #3, this resolution isn't actually too bad. The force is actually been removed rather than just cast of as another problem for someone else to worry about (Although Liz might not agree with me here).
Steel is such a bear in this assignment. Constantly snapping at Sapphire and our innocent, Liz (although I think some of the latter was justified). He is forever finding fault with Sapphire and sometimes when she wasn't able to do things, he berated her quite severely. I think it was carry over from the last assignment, and Silver. Jealous? Definitely, methinks.
The scene for me begins when Sapphire and Steel bring a photo to Liz and ask her if there was anything familiar about it. By then, Liz was quite ready to wash her hands of S&S and it took a lot of effort to persuade her to even look at the photo, and she only barely glanced at it before replying in the negative. Then S&S ask her about her room mate Ruth. It irritates me how Liz keeps on saying "no one's proven that's she's disappeared." I mean, geez girl. If she was your best friend and she left without 1) telling you and 2) taking any of her stuff, OBVIOUSLY she's disappeared. Evidently Liz lacks brains as well as hair. Anyway, S&S asks Liz if she can see Ruth in the photo. Liz peers at it skeptically.
Steel and Liz are in the darkroom. Liz complains that image is too small so Steel gives her a magnifying glass. Liz says the face is familiar but refuses to say definitely that it is her friend. Steel, pretty peeved at her by now, maintains it is Ruth and tells her to look at another person in the photo. It is Williamson, her previous landlord, and this time you can see the lights (finally!) switching on in her brain. She realizes that it definitely is him, which means the previous figure was Ruth. However, she desperately tries to find one last logical answer to what her eyes are telling her: "anyone can play tricks with photos." Steel just rolls his eyes and asks Liz what the point was. But he doesn't pay much attention to her answer. He is already dying to be rid of her to get on with his "work" and calls out to Sapphire to save him in a frustrated tone. Hehe I love it!
Sapphire arrives to take Liz away. She tries to explain that the creature is not able to take people from photos, but also to put people into them, like Ruth and Mr Williamson. They go on a tour of the building, and Liz goes blabbing on about this topic and that. It is EXTREMELY irritating. They arrive in the yard and Liz starts spouting stuff about the children. Sapphire just utters monosyllables and short answers in response. She tells Liz that the children aren't real, just ghosts. Liz doesn't believe her. But then the children reappear and for the first time Liz notices the faded colouring of their skin and clothes - like a dusty sepia photograph. Despite Sapphire's warnings, she carelessly approaches them, towards a little body who was pushed out to the front by the head girl, as sacrifice. The little boy starts to cry and Liz hugs him, only for him to disintegrate into paper, much to Liz's shock. "Now do you believe me?" asks Sapphire.
Meanwhile we catch lovely glimpses of Steel hard at work in the darkroom, blowing up the section of the original photo with Ruth in it, and then developing it. David McCallum looks wonderful in a shirt... he looks wonderful in everything. He finishes and calls Sapphire and Liz. However, the man without a face hears this as well.
They set the photo up and ready for Sapphire to communicate with Ruth. This scene is beautiful and I particularly like the background music used here. It seems very fitting somehow, and complements the action taking place nicely. When we first hear Ruth's voice, Liz jumps up in excitement only to be hushed by Steel who places a hand on her shoulder. Gradually we hear Ruth's voice becoming stronger and more aware. She says a rhyme and Sapphire asks her why she remembered that one in particular.
Ruth: Cuz I remember a lot of things these days. Like... like it's... like daydreaming. Oh no, I know why I remember that, it was the man. The man on the stair. That's weird. That seems like the last memory I've ever had. There's been nothing to remember since.
Wow! I don't know how it is possible to have no memory, it's disturbing to even think about what it must feel like. All three look extremely disturbed and Liz looked as if she was on the point of tears. Is it wrong for me to hope that she was overcome with guilt at having denied the fact that her best friend had just "disappeared?
Then Sapphire asks her if she can see anything or sense anything. Ruth replies: "Not really, no. Only my thoughts. The things I remember. It's... well, it's a bit like being asleep. Like having an operation. When I was a kid I had an operation. It's a bit like that. Dreams and real things, they all sort of get mixed up in my head."
I believe even Steel, who professes not to feel any sympathy for humans, was not a little saddened by what happened to the girl. And I believe they all know that they can't help Ruth get out of the photo, so she is basically consigned to her living death for ever. Living death. That's a good term to describe it I think. She isn't technically alive, but she has "memories".)
Ruth is suddenly worried. "Am I going to be alright?" she keeps on asking. Sapphire reassures her that she will be fine, but both Ruth and Liz don't seem to believe it, and neither does the audience, considering what happened the last time Sapphire made that promise. Sapphire continues to ask questions about Willianson's experiments.
Suddenly there is a gust of wind and a loud crash. The original photo falls to the floor and as Steel rushes towards it, it lifts into the air and disappears, only to reappear in the hands of the creature. Ruth's voice is a shriek of alarm. Both Sapphire and Steel rush into the landing where they stop, stunned and a little scared, at the sight before them.
The creature, with the face of an old man, holds a burning photo in his hands with an evil grin on his face. Ruth's agonized death scream as the photo disintegrates reminded me so much of Tully's scream in #2. Her image in the blow up photo also disappears. Sapphire tries to stop him but he turns her into a photo. Steel is rather scathing towards her, snarling that "this is the second time that you've failed."
Which is kind of harsh, but I think by this time both Sapphire and Steel are under a lot of pressure. They've realised that the force they're dealing with this time is not to be trifled with, and that getting rid of it won't be all that easy. Hence, Steel is much more snappish than usual.
As for the scene itself, well it's just one of those scenes that stick in one's mind after watching, because of the horror element of it. We cannot image what it must feel like, to be alive but yet not alive, stuck in a photo with only your memories, your past to keep you present and no sense of time or of the present. And if that wasn't bad enough, being burnt "alive". It's horrifying, and it's emotional, and it's powerful.
As I was going up the stairs
I meet a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today.
I wish, I wish he'd stay away.