Sapphire and Steel

There are species of sloth faster than me. I really do learn incredibly slowly sometimes. Case in point: the Big Finish Sapphire and Steel audio plays.

These have been a largely hit-and-miss affair, with the distinct emphasis on ‘miss’. Yet I’ve kept on getting them and wasting my time with them. Doh! Still, once in a while, a good one turns up, so I’m not wholly insane.

Where I’m learning impaired is in forgetting to note who writes each story. In particular, if it’s producer Nigel Fairs, the Sapphire and Steel supremo at Big Finish, you can pretty much guarantee that the first part of the whole play is going to be absolute drek, with a second part that manages to make the misery you’ve experienced almost worthwhile.

Turns out that for this, the final play in the series, possibly ever, pretty much the whole of the second part is absolute drek as well. The final ten minutes or so? Now that’s where it gets really interesting.

Continue reading “Review: Sapphire and Steel – Wall of Darkness”

If you’ve spent enough time reviewing the Big Finish plays as I have, sooner or later you begin to ask yourself the question "What’s the point?" To put it bluntly, there’s more than a few that have been complete rubbish. There are entire ranges that are almost pure rubbish, such as the Eighth Doctor/Lucie Miller plays and the Sapphire and Steel range. So what’s the point in spending time listening to them and reviewing them if all you’re going to end up doing is variants on "Oh my God, why?" There are more constructive things to do with your life.

The answer is simple. As well as regularly turning up plays that can be described as not bad, sooner or later, you hit upon ones that can only be described as excellent. And then I get to tell you about them.

It’s been a long time coming, but it’s finally here: it’s the first excellent Big Finish Sapphire and Steel play, Zero. Except it’s Gold and Silver who have been assigned this time.

Continue reading “Review: Sapphire and Steel – Zero”

Big Finish producer Nigel Fairs and co painted themselves into something of a corner with their last Sapphire and Steel audio play. They really thought it was going to be the last one, since the sales figures had been somewhat lacking, so they essentially killed off Sapphire and Steel.

Trouble was, Big Finish supremo Jason Haigh-Ellery decided he wanted more episodes, commissioned a third series of stories and Fairs and co had to come up with a way out for our heroes. Several glasses of red wine later, they came up with the idea of recasting Sapphire and Steel.

So here’s Second Sight, answering a question no one had previously asked before and never really wanted an answer to either: what if Sapphire and Steel were played by young Australian soap stars?

Continue reading “Review: Sapphire and Steel – Second Sight”