Writer: P.J.Hammond

Transmitted: Tuesday, 24th July, 1979 at 7.00pm

What Happens?

Sapphire catches the page of the nursery rhyme book and manages to burn it, so the wind drops. Steel suggests the force is "advancing down the stairs" and more patches of light emerge. Rob is isolated from the others, and suddenly a man with the appearance of his Father is before him. He tries to tempt Rob down to the cellar; then he touches Rob and they are both seemingly transported to a different time period in the house.

Yes, that's it in 30 minutes of drama.

Rob holds the hand of a ghost...

What Do We Find Out?

Lead's much-vaunted power is finally seen in this episode - yet despite the hype he seems to be little more than a trumped up strong man. Time seems able to transfer a human into a slightly later (or 'parallel') time period such that they are walking about the same physical location, but are now invisible and intangiable to people in the same location before they were transported. This can only happen when they are physically touched. Sapphire can detect when beings are moving about after they have been transported in such a way.

It all looks very impressive, but what does he actually DO?

Creepy Moments

Time disguised as Rob's Dad is pretty damn creepy. Even if it is creepy in quite a slow way.

Mystery Dissolved

As already touched upon, Lead takes ages preparing to gain access to the study (as if he's gearing up to do something special) then all he does is smash the door down. Why doesn't Sapphire contact Steel when Rob goes missing to ask if he is with him? And the cliffhanger is rubbish.

The Bottom Line

This is the sort of episode I should have been dreading had I thought for two seconds before embarking on this guide - hardly anything happens, and it's all very slow indeed. Scenes linger on for far longer than they should, and the cliff-hanger is a simple non-event. It makes you wonder if this story was a five parter with slightly too much material, so they tried unsuccessfully to stretch it out to an additional episode. Next!