ORBzine TV Review - "Sliders (1995)" March 2002
[Season 1 !Season 2 !Season 3 !Season 4 !Season 5 ]
Season 1
[Season 1, Episode 1]
Pilot, Part 1
Shown
Reviewed 13th May 2001 [Sunday]
San Francisco, the mid 1990s. Twentysomething physics student Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) tries to build an anti-gravity device in his parents' basement. Unfortunately he builds a device that can open portals to parallel universes.
Mallory is visited by his double from another universe, who manages to alienate his best buddy-cum-luurve interest Wade Wells ( Sabrina Lloyd ) and arrogant Professor Maximilian Arturo (John Rhys Davies - Raiders Of The Lost Ark ). To placate them, Mallory demonstrates his invention to them ...
Like all American TV shows there has to be a token African American. Luckily Rembrandt Crying Man Brown (Cleavant Derricks) is driving past Mallory's house, and accidentally gets sucked into the vortex.
The four Sliders end up in a universe where the Ice Age continued to the present day, and San Francisco bay is uninhabited and frozen over. Mallory's double warned him that the sliding device (called the timer for reasons that will become apparent) could only be safely used at certain times. The timer counts down to zero, which indicates the slide window. But the Sliders have a choice - wait until the timer hits zero, and probably freeze to death - or else Slide home, and take their chances ...
[Season 1, Episode 2]
Pilot, Part 2
Shown
Reviewed 20th May 2001 [Sunday]
Mallory chooses to take the risk of the timer malfunctioning, and uses it to get the Sliders back home. But just after Rembrandt heads off to sing the Star Spangled Banner at a sports event, Arturo (John Rhys Davies - Raiders Of The Lost Ark ) and Mallory discover that there is a huge statue of Lenin in the park. Yes, they are in a reality where the USSR won the Korean War - and ultimately the Cold War itself!
Our heroes end up hunted by the American Communist Government. This can be read as a satire on the War on Drugs and the post-Oklahoma Feds. Our heroes meet up with the Resistance, and the timer gets repaired. The leader, Wilkins (Roger R Cross - First Wave ) is the lover of his world's version of Wade. His sidekicks are both recurring actors from Stargate SG-1 , so this is blatantly filmed in Canada.
As always with American TV shows there is a climactic shootout. This seems very shoehorned in, and the show tends to shy away from violence in future episodes. The main characters are trained in science, not action, and prefer to think their way out of trouble. What really stands out about the shootout is that one of the characters, presumably intended as a homage to Vasquez and her LMG in Aliens (1986) , has a LMG on what seems to be a steadicam mount. Strangely it even has an anti-aircraft sight on it!
Like Quantum Leap , the Sliders must jump into a new situation at the end of every episode, in the hope that the next slide will be the slide home. Mallory will know when he is home: in the real universe, the gate to his house will squeak.
Sliders [Season 1, Episode 3]
Fever
Shown
Reviewed 27th May 2001 [Sunday]
The team travel from a party-world to a plague-world. There are a lot of medical precautions that may have seemed comically excessive in 1995, but seem quite reasonable in the CoVid era of 2021.
The plague world's Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) is patient zero, and the Sliders' Quinn gets ratted out by one of the Lone Gunmen ! Wade the babe is infected, and Arturo (John Rhys Davies - Raiders Of The Lost Ark ) saves the day.
On this world, modern medicine was never discovered. Without penicillin, the plague runs rampant. Presumably this plague is bacterial rather than viral.
Rembrandt meets the same Russian cabbie again, and that is not all that is familiar. The ending seems cloned from the Pilot episode.
Sliders [Season 1, Episode 4]
Last Days
Shown 5 Apr 95
The Sliders arrive on a world where California is about to be hit by a major asteroid. This will be an extinction level event, like in Armageddon (1998) which came out a few years after this episode. The slide window is not for seventy hours, which will be after the the impact destroys all life on Earth.
Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) takes Wade Wells ( Sabrina Lloyd ) to his family home, where his double had a lab in the basement. The bad news is, there is not The good news is that the double was building a time machine, in the hope of visiting the dinosaurs. Quinn tries to repurpose this, so they can gain extra hours and escape the impact.
Professor Maximilian Arturo (John Rhys Davies - Raiders Of The Lost Ark ) teams up with one of his PhD students, in the hope of creating a scientific breakthrough. Normally, as in the previous episode, his top student would be Quinn Mallory. This time it is Mr Beemish, his least favourite student. Well, this is a nice change. Beemish is the only one smart enough to realise that when the atom bomb tests failed in 1944 the mechanism was flawed, not the concept. This means that Beemish and Arturo must work together to build a nuclear bomb. We also see the temptation that Arturo would face to become a supervillain ... not to keep the bomb for himself, but to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
Rembrandt Crying Man Brown (Cleavant Derricks) goes to party like it's no tomorrow. He starts Seeking a friend for the end of the world and ends up befriending lonely rich woman Jennifer Hetrick .
Sliders [Season 1, Episode 5]
The Prince of Wails
Shown 12 Apr 95
The Sliders were on Asteroid-collision world in the previous episode. Now they start off in Flood world, where San Francisco is hundreds of feet underwater and the Sliders must cling to the top of the Transamerica pyramid to avoid being eaten by a poorly-created CGI shark.
They slide into a world where the American Revolution was won by the good guys instead of the slave-owners. As a result, Socialist revolutions worldwide never happened - therefore France and Russia would still be monarchies. Wade mocks the British Royal Family as being fodder for the tabloids, which is ridiculous when we consider that the then-President was soon to be impeached for a sexual dalliance in the Oval office.
In the pilot episode, Professor Maximilian Arturo (John Rhys Davies - Raiders Of The Lost Ark ) discovered his double was the commissar-in-chief of California. Now he is the Royal Governor General. Always a leader of men, regardless of circumstances! In the pilot episode, Gary Jones ( Stargate SG-1 ) was one of the freedom fighters - now he is Governor Arturo's henchman!
The Sliders choose to involve themselves in local politics, specifically Governor Arturo behaving like the Sheriff of Nottingham. Although Wade is meant to be Quinn's love interest, she is somewhat distracted by the Prince. This is the first of many distractions.
Sliders [Season 1, Episode 6]
Summer of Love
Shown 19 Apr 95
This episode starts on Earth Prime, where Conrad Bemish is confronted by the FBI. They know that Quinn opened a bridge to another world, and they even know that Rembrandt got sucked in by accident.
The Sliders arrive in an evacuated San Francisco that is about to be hit by a swarm of deadly genetically-engineered giant Spider-Wasps. The timer is overheating so they slide out in two pairs, and get split up. Can they get together again in time to make the next slide?
Rembrandt and Wade end up with some hippies who think they are prophets. Wade stays and hangs out with Barry Pepper ( Battlefield Earth ), while Rembrandt looks up his alternate self. It turns out that this world's Remmy quit music, joined the army, and is currently missing presumed dead. The good news is that the widow is a girl that Remmy Prime had a crush on in school, so he fits right into his duplicate's life.
Quinn and Arturo are not so lucky. The President, Oliver North, is a right-wing authoritarian who got elected in a chain of events that started when the USA lost the Battle of the Coral Sea in 1942. The local version of Conrad Bemish is leader of the Young Republicans, and he supports the American occupation of Australia.
The final scene, along with the presence of Bemish, indicates that this episode was originally intended as the fifth episode. For some reason the running order was changed.
Sliders [Season 1, Episode 7]
Eggheads
Shown 26 Apr 95
The Sliders arrive on a world where scientists get the acclaim usually afforded to athletes and musicians. Arturo and Mallory are instantly recognised. Their slide has been made public, and the locals think that these Sliders are their own explorers returned.
This world's Arturo is head of his Department, where he hangs out with Professor Myman (William B. Davis - X-Files ). He even managed to marry the same woman that Arturo Prime married, although the Prime version of her died of a brain aneurysm at the age of 27. Unfortunately, the local Arturo decided to cheat on his perfect wife.
Quinn Mallory is the star athlete of a special game. Unfortunately he is heavily involved with a bookie or loan shark who wants him to rig the game.
Sliders [Season 1, Episode 8]
The Weaker Sex
Shown 3 May 95
The Sliders land on a world where women are dominant. Centuries ago the men stepped down from positions of power, although for some reason things seem to have turned out the same. The good news is that Clinton is still President. The bad news is that gender equality is worse than it was on Earth Prime in the 1970s. As with the Hippies episode, this is a lot like Quantum Leap insofar as it deals with issues from the Baby Boomer era.
It will be six weeks until the next slide window. Wade gets a job working for the Mayor, who is preparing for a reelection campaign. The men are only offered low-level typing jobs, regardless of education or experience. Rembrandt tries busking for spare change, and gets picked up by a rich female business executive.
Arturo gets selected by the local Mens Association as their candidate in the Mayoral election. He is actually a plausible candidate. Unfortunately it turns out he has to deliberately throw the election. His chosen strategy is to burst into tears, thus signifying weakness and rendering himself unelectable. But will this backfire by making him seem sensitive?
Sliders [Season 1, Episode 9]
The King is Back
Shown 10 May 95
The Sliders arrive on a world where everyone laughs at them. Arturo advises the others Gentlemen, check your flies. Luckily it turns out that on this world, Rembrandt Brown became more popular than Elvis Presley. In fact, Rembrandt is the one referred to as The King!
Unfortunately a rival, Maurice Fish, bears a grudge. Rembrandt ends up kidnapped, facing a horrible end. Just to complicate things, it turns out that the local version of Rembrandt (Clinton Derricks-Carroll) faked his death ... and now decides to come out of retirement.
Sliders [Season 1, Episode 10]
Luck of the Draw
Shown 17 May 95
The Sliders arrive on a paradise world. It turns out that there are only Five hundred million people, a tenth of the population of Earth Prime, and only a hundred thousand of them are in San Francisco. Arturo surmises that, without the threat of overpopulation, there is less pressure on resources. Of course, none of this is actually true.
It turns out that the society of the entire world is based on the teachings of Reverend Thomas Malthus, an English economist in the Nineteenth Century who theorised that mankind was condemned to eternal poverty because the population constantly increased at a faster rate than the food supply. This has been pretty thoroughly disproven, and clearly held no water even in his own time.
Arturo and Rembrandt go fly-fishing together. Nice to see supporting characters get so well fleshed out. The insipid romance between Quinn and Wade, which is intended to be the basis of the show, seems to be a distraction.
The good news is, Wade Wells wins the lottery. She even gets a companion, Ryan (Nicholas Lea - X-Files ), which makes Quinn jealous. Rembrandt hooks up with another female lottery-winner.
Quinn realises that this is all too good to be true. That said, he is also jealous and insecure. Arturo came to the same conclusion at the very start, but he does not work out the details until it is too late.
This ends on a cliffhanger, with one of the regular cast in life-threatening jeopardy.
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 1]
Into The Mystic
Shown
Reviewed First week May 2000
This is clearly the start of Season Two. Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) sees his own tombstone, which says he died in 1996 - and of course, the team still includes Professor Arturo (John Rhys Davies - Raiders Of The Lost Ark ).
This episode was written by the series' creator, Mr Tracey Torme. It starts by tying up the cliffhanger from the previous Season. It turns out that Ryan (Nicholas Krychek Lea - X-Files ) is a surgeon, so he saves Quinn's life. Then Wade chooses to slide with Quinn rather than stay with Ryan, so he is written out with a quick piece of dialogue.
The Sliders arrive on a world where Magic is real. Quinn gets a check-up from a villainous witch-doctor (Christopher Neame - Babylon 5 ), and when they cannot pay the medical expenses he demands Quinn's brain in compensation. A bounty hunter comes after them.
The Sliders' only chance is the mysterious Sorceror, who runs a massive business conglomerate. It turns out that the Sorceror can slide between worlds. He is the only one who can repair their timer and send them home.
Their final jump is to a world where OJ Simpson ( Naked Gun ) is on trial for double murder, and the Los Angeles Raiders have moved to the city of Oakland. They have less than a minute to decide if they will stay or slide. Has Quinn's mother finally oiled her squeaky gate?
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 2]
Love Gods
Shown
Reviewed Second week May 2000
The Sliders land on a normal-looking world. Wade notices that its culture is female-centric, and suggests that women might finally have broken the glass ceiling. Of course, this completely ignores the battle-of-the-sexes election in S1. Then they get mobbed, and Rembrandt assumes he is the King of Rock and Roll yet again. However, this world is not a repeat of either of those worlds.
A virus has killed most of the men in the world - the male Sliders are hunted as breeders. America's only rival as a superpower is Australia, which was so isolated that eleven hundred men survived the plague!
The Sliders tend to visit less-advanced worlds, and this is actually no exception. Arturo comments on the fact that the repopulation system is very basic. There is no in-vitro fertilization, or any other scientific methodology.
Wade bumps into a woman named Debra ( Ona Grauer ), who gives her exposition on the repopulation system. She ends up going to the Australian consulate for help. For some reason the woman in charge there has a strange accent, like what an American thinks an Irish person sounds like. Presumably this is what a Canadian thinks an Aussie sounds like.
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 3]
Gillian of the Spirits
Shown
Reviewed Third week May 2000
The team land in a world where electronic technology is banned, and there is nothing more advanced than 1950s-style analogue tech. The slide timer is broken, and they have no way to repair it.
As with last episode, Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) is separated from the rest. But while last time the separation was physical, this time he is trapped on the Astral plane. Only a psychic girl named Gillian can see him - but she is afraid people will think she is crazy if she talks to a ghost.
The Sliders have visited quite a few lower-tech Earths. This world's Quinn Mallory died in a Polio epidemic, which puts this place on a level with the plague world from Sliders [Season 1, Episode 3] Fever.
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 4]
The Good, the Bad and the Wealthy
Shown 22 Mar 96
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 5]
El Sid
Shown
Reviewed Fourth week May 2000
The episode starts in a Dystopia, a post-Apocalyptic San Francisco where Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) attacks a thug guy for having a lovers' quarrel with his thug girlfriend. The sliders leap out - with the two thugs in tow.
They find themselves in a Utopia - but it turns out to be the Utopian version of Escape from New York with San Francisco standing in for the Big Apple. And being California, the big Quake is just around the corner.
The tough-girl becomes the cliched victim in this sexist crap, which implies that females are less than equals to males. She indulges in a consentual sexual relationship with a man that she is physically attracted to because of his macho demeanor - she is in no way a victim, and for the script to interpret her as such is a complete cop-out.
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 6]
Time Again and World
Shown 5 Apr 96
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 7]
In Dino Veritas
Shown
Reviewed Fifth week May 2000
The Sliders start in a world without lies - everyone wears a lie-detector collar that gives an electric shock if you tell an untruth. There is a problem with this, of course - as Machiavelli said, In the Kingdom of the Blind, the one-eyed man is King. In other words, anyone good enough to fool a lie-detector (clinical psychopaths, for example) has an unbelievable advantage over the entire society.
Anyway, wearing their collars they slide into a huge forest and Wade accidentally crushes a massive egg. Yes, this is the dinosaur episode! Arturo (John Rhys Davies - Raiders Of The Lost Ark ) trips, strains his ankle and loses the timer. Jerry O'Connell goes back for it and goes missing-presumed eaten. This has happened in every episode so far - there seems to be a pattern here. O'Connell's character is the only one who ends up in peril.
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 8]
Post-Traumatic Slide Syndrome
Shown
Reviewed First Week, June 2000
The Sliders arrive back at Mallory's front gate 18 months after they left - and this time the gate creaks. They instantly assume they are home ...
Dr Maximillian Arturo (John Rhys Davies - Raiders Of The Lost Ark ) publicly claims sole credit for discovering Sliding. Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) is put out by this, but is more concerned about tiny discrepancies in the world that indicate they are in the wrong timeline. Rembrandt and the girl are more concerned with their careers and the vast sums of money they are making.
The resolution is quite ambiguous, and may have deliberately left the door open for Davies to return to the show after he finally left it.
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 9]
Obsession
Shown 24 May 96
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 10]
Greatfellas
Shown 31 May 96
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 11]
The Young And the Restless
Shown
Reviewed First Week August 2000
The team arrive on a new world, and discover that on this world:
Arturo (John Rhys Davies - Raiders Of The Lost Ark ) and Rembrandt decide to tour the city, and discover that the elderly folks - about anyone old enough to have teenage children, really - are an underclass. They are put on trial, and the Judge is Gordon Michael Wolvett ( Andromeda ).
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 12]
Invasion
Shown
Reviewed Second Week August 2000
The Sliders arrive in a new world and find it deserted. The world has been invaded by a race of nonhuman ape-men called Kromaggs. After numerous blatant hints - the Kromaggs travelled from another world that was also Earth, they use tech identical to the slide timer - the characters realise that the Kromaggs are Sliders too!
If this is a reference to cro-magnon man, who supposedly wiped out the Neanderthals, then someone should have told the writers something that was blatantly obvious to the writers of Prey; Cro-magnons were the ANCESTORS of modern humans!!!
Sliders [Season 2, Episode 13]
As Time Goes By
Shown
Reviewed Third Week August 2000
Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) meets his long-lost love.
Season 3
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 1]
Rules of the Game
Shown 20 Sep 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 2]
Double Cross
Shown 27 Sep 96
Arturo's double is dead - possibly murdered. Mallory's double is a woman. Rembrandt has a groupie/stalker.
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 3]
Electric Twister Acid Test
Shown 4 Oct 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 4]
The Guardian
Shown 11 Oct 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 5]
The Dream Masters
Shown 18 Oct 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 6]
Desert Storm
Shown 1 Nov 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 7]
Dragon Slide
Shown 8 Nov 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 8]
The Fire Within
Shown 15 Nov 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 9]
The Prince of Slides
Shown 22 Nov 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 10]
Dead Man Sliding
Shown 29 Nov 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 11]
State of the A.R.T.
Shown 6 Dec 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 12]
Season's Greedings
Shown 20 Dec 96
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 13]
Murder Most Foul
Shown 3 Jan 97
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 14]
Slide Like an Egyptian
Shown 17 Jan 97
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 15]
Paradise Lost
Shown 31 Jan 97
The Sliders arrive at a remote village. They investigate mysterious disappearances, and mingle with the creepy locals.
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 16]
The Exodus (1)
Shown 21 Feb 97
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 17]
The Exodus (2)
Shown 28 Feb 97
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 18]
Sole Survivors
Shown 7 Mar 97
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 19]
The Breeder
Shown 14 Mar 97
The Sliders arrive on a world with Compulsory Organ Donation. They have Logan's Run chips.
Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) gets infected with heat-loving mind-controlling parasite/symbiote.
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 20]
The Last of Eden
Shown 28 Mar 97
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 21]
The Other Slide of Darkness
Shown 11 Apr 97
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 22]
Slither
Shown 25 Apr 97
The sliders arrive in a California swamp, where an Albino snake is magical. Both babes are in skimpy shorts.
Cueball meets a femme fatale.
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 23]
Dinoslide
Shown 2 May 97
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 24]
Stoker
Shown 9 May 97
Sliders [Season 3, Episode 25]
This Slide of Paradise
Shown 16 May 97
The sliders are chasing Col Rickman (who has been infected by a Beastman virus). Again, both babes are in skimpy shorts.
The guest-stars are Michael York (who was once in a Dr Moreau movie) and Melinda Clarke.
Rickman "shoulda looked" ...
Sliders [S3]
Reviewed January 1999
The show has progressed into its third season. Colonel Roger Daltrey ( Highlander: The Series ) killed Arturo, then got chased by the Sliders for the next few episodes (during which Daltrey was replaced by that guy from She-wolf of London ) before finally dying from terminal stupidity. He should have looked before he leapt.
Arturo's death happened because John Rhys Davies felt the scripts were degenerating, and he wanted out. His position has been filled by Kari Wuhrer (known to fans as Woo-Woo), whose job appears to be providing babe factor by being a few inches taller than the other girl, Wade. These days they BOTH walk around in skimpy t-shirts and shorts.
Sliders [Season 4, Episode 1]
Genesis
Shown 8 Jun 98
Sliders [Season 4, Episode 2]
Prophets and Loss
Shown 8 Jun 98
A Portal Cult rules earth, promoting creation science.
The rationalist (resistance) leader is Connor Trinneer ( Star Trek: Enterprise ). His accent changes between Redneck and English.
Sliders [Season 4, Episode 3]
Common Ground
Shown 15 Jun 98
Sliders [Season 4, Episode 4]
Virtual Slide
Shown 22 Jun 98
Sliders [Season 4, Episode 5]
World Killer
Shown 29 Jun 98
[Season 4, Episode 6]
Oh Brother, Where Are Thou?
Shown
Reviewed 14th January 2002 [Monday]
Mallory meets his long-lost brother, Colin - played by the brother of the actor who plays Mallory! Adrienne Barbeau guest-stars.
The title is not a reference to the Coen Brothers film, which was made several years after the TV episode. Actually they are both titled in homage to the film Sullivan's Travels.
[Season 4, Episode 7]
Just Say Yes
Shown
Reviewed 15th January 2002 [Tuesday]
The Sliders arrive in a new world and bump into a cop (J. August Richards - Angel ) who shoots them with his mood-altering tranquiliser gun. Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) does a handstand (in a miniskirt), then has a bad reaction and has to be hospitalised. The doctor reports them to the DEA - the Drug Empowerment Agency. Yes, in this world Narcotics are not banned, they are compulsory!
Not only is this a nice parody of the War on Drugs, it also highlights the legalized drug dependency prevalent in modern society. Using marijuana is illegal, but drugs like valium are prescribed. There are also parallels to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, where everyone controls their moods through implanted devices.
The episode explores the results of such a society. Everyone is in such a state of pharmaceutical bliss that the whole world can be maintained in a suburban perfection! The only problem is, everyone is so happy they never achieve anything. A bit like the Federation in Star Trek!
That world's Mallory is a pseudo-hippie, the opposite of Timothy Leary. Turn off, tune out, drop in!
[Season 4, Episode 8]
The Alternateville Horror
Shown
Reviewed 16th January 2002 [Wednesday]
The Sliders end up on acid-rain world. They find shelter in a hotel, and stay the night there. However, it is haunted ...
Colin is an interesting character. He is very intelligent, but comes from a relatively primitive society.
We also get to see alternate versions of the Sliders themselves. For some reason the alternates have exactly the same line-up as our Sliders - Wade and Arturo are nowhere in sight!
[Season 4, Episode 9]
Slidecage
Shown
Reviewed 18th January 2002 [Friday]
The Sliders find themselves trapped on a space station, a trap meant to capture anyone who tries to slide into a particular world. It was meant to catch Kromaggs, but it also caught human refugees. Caught in a battle between the two races, Rembrandt is captured by the Kromaggs. The Mallorys are caught by the humans, who eject Woo-Woo through an airlock.
[Season 4, Episode 10]
Asylum
Shown
Reviewed 17th January 2002 [Thursday]
The Sliders arrive on a world damaged by a war against the Kromaggs. Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) is hospitalised, and spends most of the episode put of sight. Small wonder, because Jerry O'Connell is the Director!
Rembrandt falls for Quinn's doctor, an African-American babe. Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) gets a love interest too, a British guy. However, he has a secret mission.
The writers cannot seem to tell the difference between MI5, MI6, the British Army and Police Special Branch. Also, they assume that Margaret Thatcher would consider making an alliance with an enemy of Reagan's America!
[Season 4, Episode 11]
California Reich
Shown
Reviewed 21st January 2002 [Monday]
The Sliders land in a world where California's Governor is a fascist. He has a Brownshirt organisation called the Stompers who round up non-Caucasians for deportation. Rembrandt is imprisoned, and when he brutally bludgeons a guard with a metal bar he is surprised to receive a kicking!
The other Sliders head to the Chandler Hotel, a chance to re-use sets from previous episodes. This time the lady owner's son is a 20-year-old Stomper.
The episode shows a society where only Caucasians are accepted as Americans, while all other races are treated as inferior. How ironic, when one considers how Americans regard non-American citizens. The moral of the story comes when the racial lines are blurred, because American citizens have interracial genealogies.
[Season 4, Episode 12]
The Dying Fields
Shown
The Sliders are hunted by Kromaggs and human-kromagg hybrids. Mallory's brother is captured.
[Season 4, Episode 13]
Lipschitz Live
Shown
Reviewed 23rd January 2002 [Wednesday]
The Sliders jump into a world, but are separated before landing. Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) and Rembrandt find Colin, or so they think. He does not recognise them, but they are too stupid to realise it is the local Colin!
The real Colin is snatched by his stepfather (Tim Thomerson Trancers ), whose surname for some reason is Mallory. Stepdaddy wants Colin to get married - the wedding is part of a Corporate merger.
The world is run by Media Corporations, and the only TV show that anyone watches (well, EVERYONE watches) is a tabloid talk-show named Lipschitz Live. However, the two biggest Media Corps, Colin's and his wife's, don't own that show. So how the hell can the Corporations run?
Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) himself appears on the talk-show, confessing that he is a traveller from a parallel universe. The others have to get there within minutes while the timer counts down.
[Season 4, Episode 14]
Mother And Child
Shown
Reviewed 24th January 2002 [Thursday]
The Sliders arrive on a barren world. They find a young woman and her baby. The woman escaped from a Kromagg breeding camp, where she met Wade. They are chased by Kromaggs in a HummVee [!], but manage to get to the woman's homeworld.
The homeworld has a secret defence similar to the Red Dust in V . The child, being half-Kromagg, is doomed. Fortunately the girl's father is a scientist who helped make the virus. Also, the child's Kromagg father turns up and tries to get the antidote. But can he be trusted?
[Season 4, Episode 15]
Net Worth
Shown
Reviewed 22nd January 2002 [Tuesday]
The Sliders land up in a world of haves and have-nots. They explain themselves with the familiar refrain We're from Canada.
Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) and Rembrandt end up among the On-Liners, a group of rich cyber-geeks with Internet implants.
Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) and Colin find themselves with the Off-Liners, who are banned from even lurking on the Net.
There are elements of the Romeo & Juliet cliche, and the Sliders end up in a wasteland being hunted by a streetgang ...
[Season 4, Episode 16]
Slide By Wire
Shown
Reviewed 25th January 2002 [Friday]
The Sliders jump out of a USMC base parallel to Maggie's. However, the Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) who jumps with them is from that base - not their Maggie!
They land in a world where fear of nuclear war has meant that all technology is banned on pain of death. As luck would have it, the new Maggie has neural implants!
Meanwhile, Maggie the Slider is a USMC pilot again. She bunks down in a unisex dorm, where everyone sleeps fully-clothed. Her husband is still alive, but they are estranged. Her boss, the eevil Colonel Burke ( Meg Foster ), realises that something is wrong.
Yes, while on one world everyone thinks tech is evil ... on the other, it really IS evil!
[Season 4, Episode 17]
Data World
Shown
Reviewed 28th January 2002 [Monday]
The Sliders land in a lifeless world peopled by zombies.
The Sliders head to the Chandler Hotel, a chance to re-use sets from previous episodes. This time the owner is Mr Chandler himself (Roy Dotrice - Beauty And The Beast ), who traps the visitors within his hotel. He can control reality ...
Jerry O'Connell directs, and Woo-Woo makes for great T&A in her hotel dress. When Chandler sets a barbarian warrior on the Sliders, Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) - the US Marine! - cowers in fear. Luckily Colin (the naive farm-boy) somehow knows Kung Fu, and Maggie has a bikini-wrestle with an athletic female gymnast!
[Season 4, Episode 18]
Way Out West
Shown
Reviewed 31st January 2002 [Thursday]
The Sliders end up in a world where technology is stuck in the 1880s. They are attacked by bandits, and Colin gets seperated from the rest. Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) reluctantly agrees to become a bar-room singer. but takes to it like the T&A she is!
The story consists of the usual Western cliches - black-hatted gunmen, evil land barons, widowed ranchers and so on. It is no more original than the Western episode of Battlestar Galactica , made twenty years previously. The bandits' leader, Mr K, turns out to be an old enemy of the Sliders. He frames them for murder, and the locals start building a gallows ...
[Season 4, Episode 19]
My Brother's Keeper
Shown
Reviewed 29th January 2002 [Tuesday]
Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) sees his double get blinded in an accident. Quinn is mistaken for the double's donor-clone and taken to be used for spare parts. But while the world is so corrupt it grows spare-part clones, the Chandler hotel is left as a refuge for the crippled poor.
[Season 4, Episode 20]
The Chasm
Shown
Reviewed 30th January 2002 [Wednesday]
The Sliders arrive in a Pleasantville type world of suburban perfection. However, there is a price for happiness: occasionally one of the citizens is overwhelmed with the neuroses of the entire town. They then throw themselves into a bottomless pit called The Chasm.
Of course, the Sliders get affected. First Rembrandt becomes the next victim, then Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ). And it seems that it is Quinn's neuroses in particular which are driving them insane.
[Season 4, Episode 21]
Roads Taken
Shown
Reviewed 1st February 2002 [Friday]
The Sliders arrive on a world where America is in economic chaos and California is in a state of civil war. Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) and Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) fall mysteriously ill, so Rembrandt gets help frm the UN peace-keepers.
It turns out that Quinn and Maggie were affected by a bad Slide. They have been split, part-existing in a bubble universe where ... Quinn and Maggie get married and have a child! However, their fractured selves must be reunited or they will die of old age.
This was directed by Jerry O'Connell. The older Quinn Mallory is played by George Gaynes (Police Academy).
[Season 4, Episode 22]
Revelations
Shown
Reviewed 4th February 2002 [Monday]
The Sliders end up on a really boring planet. Rembrandt discovers a book written by SF writer Isaac Clarke (Jerry Hardin - X-Files ) which describes inter-dimensional travel and the war with the Kromaggs. The Sliders track down him and his daughter ( Kristanna Lokken ). Clarke has the co-ordinates of his homeworld, and since Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell - Scream 2 ) has a Sliding device they can now travel home ...
[Season 5, Episode 1]
The Unstuck Man
Shown
Reviewed 5th February 2002 [Tuesday]
A female scientist ( Tembi Locke ) and her mentor Dr Oberon Geiger (Peter Jurasik - Babylon 5 ) perform a trans-dimensional experiment on a man. At exactly the same time, the Sliders leap. Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) and Rembrandt make it out alive, but the two shadowy figures behind them (supposedly Quinn and Colin) are replaced by a Geiger's test subject - who claims to be Quinn!
After more than four years, the only one of the original team still on the show is Rembrandt the Token Black Guy! Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) from Season 2 is still around, but Quinn Mallory has become a composite. This is a crummy excuse to keep the character's name but to use a new actor, who is not the original actor or the first replacement (who was also the original actor's brother!).
New this Season is a fourth team member, and African-American woman called Diana Davis (played by Tembi Locke ).
[Season 5, Episode 2]
Applied Physics
Shown
Reviewed 6th February 2002 [Wednesday]
The Sliders land on a world that they do not have to save. It is nice and peaceful, and the drama concerns the group members. Specifically, we see the two new Sliders adapting to their new situation.
Mallory, amalgamated with the original series' Quinn Mallory, has a series of flashbacks and references to previous episodes.
Over-achieving scientist Diana ( Tembi Locke ) bumps into her double - a single mother with a low-pay job. She looks for a shoulder to cry on, and picks her evil mentor Dr Oberon Geiger (Peter Jurasik - Babylon 5 ). Things go predictably wrong and turn the double from a loving mother into a power-crazed career-woman.
[Season 5, Episode 3]
Strangers And Comrades
Shown
Reviewed 8th September 2001 [Saturday]
The sliders find themselves in a World War One type landscape. The humans, commanded by Jerry Doyle ( Babylon 5 ), have US uniforms and weaponry like M-16s and LAW rockets. The Kromaggs have energy weapons and an APC.
We can certainly see where the Producers put their money. The location and battle sequence are quite decent. Also, the script is better than one might expect. We get re-acquainted with the series' goal (to free Rembrandt's Earth from the Kromaggs) and also the episode's goal. You see, this time the Sliders are not on Earth. Therefore, they cannot slide out ...
[Season 5, Episode 4]
The Great Work
Shown
Reviewed 7th February 2002 [Thursday]
The Sliders end up on a remote island where the only post-apocalyptic civilisation is a monastery. They join up as temporary monks, and get set to work. Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ), who is injured, gets tended to by Rob Youngblood ( Space Precinct ).
The Sliders realise that something is afoot in the monastery. A band of seaborne raiders known as the Volsangs are wreaking havok on the West Coast of the USA. The raiders, led by Marshall Bell ( Total Recall ) pay the monastery a visit.
[Season 5, Episode 5]
New Gods For Old
Shown
Reviewed 15th September 2001 [Saturday]
Reviewed 8th February 2002 [Friday]
Mallory is shot in the back with an energy blast, just before leaping. They land in a lo-tech world which is trying to recover from a terrible war. The local doctor (Stephen Macht - Graveyard Shift ) tells them that there is no technology left that can heal Mallory.
Mallory goes to the local flower-power cult, who have the power to cure any injury. However, there is a price ...
[Season 5, Episode 6]
Please Press One
Shown
Reviewed 1st September 2001 [Saturday]
Reviewed 11th February 2002 [Monday]
This episode the Sliders enter a world where everyone is assigned a number. The ruling Corporation, Data Universal, has Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) incarcerated. She is taken to her execution by a Mouse Robot ... ooh, scaaaary. NOT!
Luckily, the rest of the team bump into an ex-employee of D.U., and he helps them free their friend in time to jump. Damn, this reviewer remembers the days when this show was watchable. To some people it is a great shame that this series has never been shown on UK TV beyond Season 2 ... After watching this, perhaps it is for the best.
[Season 5, Episode 7]
A Current Affair
Shown
Reviewed 12th February 2002 [Tuesday]
The Sliders arrive on a world obsessed with tabloid journalism. Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) is enlisted to pretend she is having an affair with the President of the USA, in order to draw attention away from the fact that the USA is preparing to use illegal chemical warfare against Switzerland. Naturally the US Government is eager to cover up their true intentions, so they try to kill Maggie so she cannot leak the truth.
The other Sliders team up with that world's only responsible journalist.
[Season 5, Episode 8]
Java Jive
Shown
Reviewed 13th February 2002 [Wednesday]
The Sliders arrive on a world where coffee is illegal. They get jobs in a Speakeasy - Rembrandt is the singer (of course), the girls serve drinks and Mallory is the bartender.
The speakeasy's owner (a beautiful African-American woman) is being leaned on by an African-American gangster. Worse, Rembrandt's double is a cop - who may be corrupt and in league with the gangsters!
[Season 5, Episode 9]
The Return of Maggie Beckett
Shown
Reviewed 29th September 2001 [Saturday]
Reviewed 14th February 2002 [Thursday]
The sliders arrive on a world where Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) became an astronaut and was lost on the way back from Mars. This is reminiscent of the movie Capricorn One , which is exactly the kind of conspiracy theory that does not exist in this world.
This alternate world actually has a nice backstory. Jochen Peiper was successful in the Ardennes, December 1944. Eisenhower never became a war hero, and thus never got elected president. The new administration admitted the truth about Roswell, and Earth (specifically the USA) have much higher technology. Also, the governmental openness means that there is no cynicism or paranoia about conspiracy theories.
There is a secret organisation that aims to uncover conspiracies, but does so by fabricating the evidence.
This episode allows us to see character development of Maggie. We learn about her background, and see her conflict with her father. This is a bit cliched, but rather well done. As episodes of the show go, this is one of the better ones.
[Season 5, Episode 10]
Easy Slider
Shown
Reviewed 6th October 2001 [Saturday]
Reviewed 15th February 2002 [Friday]
The sliders arrive on a world reminiscent of the Doug McClure film Firebird 2015 - the internal combustion engine has been outlawed, and is now only used by outlaw biker gangs. As in Waterworld the bikers are called smokers. Of note, the government is called the AQMD (though we are never given a translation of these initials).
It is quite unbelievable that the USA could ban cars, and Mallory agrees. He falls for a babe who is keen to break all the rules ...
[Season 5, Episode 11]
Requiem
Shown
Reviewed 18th February 2002 [Monday]
Rembrandt hears voices in his head - specifically the voice of his co-Slider Wade. He discovers that Wade is being held in a Kromagg camp. He and the new Sliders try to rescue her.
The camp is run by a Kromagg female named Kesh ( Julie Caitlin Brown ). She is using Wade and other human prisoners as components in a Sliding device, to get around the Slidecage and enable an invasion of Kromagg Prime.
This would seem to be a great opportunity to add Wade to the cast again. However, the original actress appears only in flashback clips from previous episodes. Sliders must be the only show to kill off so many regular cast members!
[Season 5, Episode 12]
Map Of The Mind
Shown
Reviewed 22nd September 2001 [Saturday]
Reviewed 19th February 2002 [Tuesday]
The Sliders arrive on a world where creative thought is outlawed, and creative people have their brains neurally re-mapped. Diana ( Tembi Locke ) gets captured and held in an Asylum. Mallory passes himself off as a member of staff.
Rembrandt and Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) explore the outside world, the Corporate States of America where the Creativity Curtailment Police destroy anything that could be considered art.
Ms Locke's portrayal of re-mapped Diana is marvellous. Unfortunately the episode is brought down by the unoriginality of the freedom versus oppression storyline, which at one point degenerates into the predictable One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest homage.
[Season 5, Episode 13]
A Thousand Deaths
Shown
Reviewed 20th October 2001 [Saturday]
Reviewed 20th February 2002 [Wednesday]
The team rescue Diana ( Tembi Locke ) from some burger-bar clowns, then leap to a new world. However, she is catatonic from claustrophobia.
They find themselves on Entertainment World, where they have some well-deserved R&R in Star Trek Holodecks. The babes head off to the Roman spa for a jacuzzi. Rembrandt is a cop in a 1970s cop-buddy scenario, partnered with a nerdy white guy and driving the Starsky & Hutch car. Mallory is a Confederate soldier in the American Civil War.
The girls disappear, and the guys work out that something is wrong. Luckily they bump into a technician, played by one of the Players.
The moral of the story appears to be war is bad or some such. The villain justifies himself by saying we're all warriors, underneath. This is certainly borne out by the fact that three of the Sliders choose combat-orientated fantasies. Hypocrites!
[Season 5, Episode 14]
Heavy Metal
Shown
Reviewed 13th October 2001 [Saturday]
Reviewed 21st February 2002 [Thursday]
The Sliders find themselves in the waters of the Pacific, and get rescued by a heavily-armed passenger ship en route to Hawaii. However, they are outside their sliding radius (within 400 miles of San Francisco). There is a good scientific principle behind this universe: the people have no aluminium, so there are no aircraft more advanced than those in the 1930s. Sea trade is all-important ...
Luckily they get the chance to team up with a gang of pirates, and thus the opportunity to get back to their sliding radius. Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) starts to fall for the pirate leader, who has a private war going with corrupt Coastguard boss Redfield (Marshall Teague). They get together, and the morning after we see clean silk sheets and her make-up is un-smudged. Unfortunately, evil Redfield is a crack-shot with his pistol while the pirates are useless even with rifles.
[Season 5, Episode 15]
To Catch A Slider
Shown
Reviewed 27th October 2001 [Saturday]
Reviewed 22nd February 2002 [Friday]
The Sliders shack up in a five-star hotel. The timer is broken, and to repair it they have to obtain a US$81,000 gem. Diana ( Tembi Locke ) goes on a date.
[Season 5, Episode 16]
Dust
Shown
Dr Bob Kelso (Scrubs) is an archaeologist on a dig. He disturbs spirits in the ruins of Frisco in the desert (four hundred years in the future).
The reasoning given is pro-idolatry, anti-science.
[Season 5, Episode 17]
Eye of the Storm
Shown
The world is being destroyed. Not to worry - Prof Geiger is now Corporeal again.
[Season 5, Episode 18]
The Seer
Shown
Reviewed 10th November 2001 [Saturday]
Diana ( Tembi Locke ) seems to have found the way home. Rembrandt knows he will have to help liberate his world from the Kromaggs, and Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ) offers to help him. Strange, since the time Quinn took her there she almost suffocated because of the planet's atmosphere.
They slide straight into the middle of a Rally, surrounded by hundreds of Sliders fans. A psychic called The Seer (Roy Dotrice - Beauty & The Beast ) has watched them through Interdimensional Time And Space. Along with his daughter ( Jennifer Hetrick ) he told his world about them - and after the Kromaggs invaded, he was taken very seriously indeed. There is even a cheesy shoot'em up TV show called The Sliders!
The Seer tells the Sliders that they will face certain death on their next slide. He wants them to stay on his world, but since he is running a Scientology-like religion based around them he may be lying for his own gain. Certainly, someone wants to stop them from sliding - first with a forcefield and then by destroying the timer.