Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Cast: David Warner, Susannah Harker, Kim Hartman, Lena Rae, Stuart Piper, Emma Kilbey, Joseph Lidster.

When the question is posed by a force or instrument of evil or dangerous intent, “Would you sacrifice yourself to save your family?, for the majority of us we would perhaps not hesitate to answer in the positive, that we gladly give our lives if it meant that those we love around us were to survive.

This exchange though must be given freely, must be arrived at with clear conscious, and with all uncertainty wiped clean, for if Time is to be appeased, if Time is kept under control, then a sacrifice is only as potent an influence on the outcome as the will of the person undertaking the ultimate sense of martyrdom it requires.

Big Finish’s sense of duty to the preservation and continuation of Britain’s best loved science fiction serials, and beyond the genre into other areas of interest, was always arguably going to bring them to the realm of the mysterious time agents known as Sapphire and Steel. For their second offering and with a script that borders on devilish by Joseph Lidster, the series brings home the reasoning of time, and as with the television serial, it shows that the understanding of Time as a force of nature, a beast with an unrelenting appetite, is one that cannot always be reconciled with a happy ending.

Daisy Chain pulls no punches with its resolution, the happy scenes of a family reunited due to the eldest son’s return from University is tempered, the sense of loss heightened, and whilst every family has its secrets, the deep unhappiness captured by Time and a box is one that all family’s dread, the one element in which the thread of family is found to frayed and unsecure.

Joseph Lidster plays with the idea of heartbreak superbly well in this story, and with Kim Hartman capturing the emotion of the distraught mother, Gabrielle, and Lena Rae as her young daughter who is the pivotal cog in Time’s plan portraying the unravelling of reason with accurate incisiveness, Daisy Chain is a chilling story of how skeletons in the cupboard often come fully formed when released from their prison.

Not everything in life deserves a happy ending, but if the sacrifice is worth it then Time and humanity is satisfied, for now.

Ian D. Hall