The Other Slide of Darkness

Not as bad as most of S3. We did get the revelation that Rembrandt really was aiming for Arturo when he came out of the vortex. For once, there aren't a thousand problems with the first few minutes before the title sequence. But did we really need a resident psychic? At least it was handled better than usual and there was some consistency with past episodes (Wade's familiarity with the occult). Surprisingly, Maggie doesn't start attacking Wade and putting her down when she expresses the Seer may be for real, and there is far less sniping at each other too. Even the reminders of past episodes are recapped better than usual (as when Wade speaks to the psychic) and we get some decent dialogue in addition to some follow-up on the parallel Quinn from S1. Even his motivation is explained pretty well. The writer seems to be thinking about what is going on, rather than simply cashing a pay cheque and it shows in a number of scenes, especially with Quinn talking to his parallel self. It's as if the writer was given a movie to rip off and actually made an attempt to do something worthwhile with it. Pity about the magic though.

As if we weren't expecting this, Rickman is the weak link of the whole plot with his goofy dialogue and bad acting.

• Neil Dickson does his best "Mr Burns" (from THE SIMPSONS) when Rickman learns of Quinn's capture: "Eeeegzellent."

• HEART OF DARKNESS/APOCALYPSE NOW are most obvious, right down to the line "This is the end" (also the name of a Doors song featured in the latter movie.)

• Has to go to Yodeling Zeke (Lucy's caretaker) with his silly hillybilly accent/mannerisms, crooked mouth and head, and inability to walk upright. However, it should be noted that he isn't even in the same galaxy as some of the other recipients of this award when it comes to bad performances.

  The only reason Rickman didn't get this is because he wasn't given enough material to perform horribly, so Zeke gets the award as a result of sheer volume more than overall putridity.

• The fog stops abruptly and doesn't mix with the surrounding atmosphere, as though it was a wall (like oil and water). However, this is not possible. The fog doesn't even appear to diffuse even partially into the air around it.

• "I'm going in after her." - Action Hero Quinn rears his head once again, showing his libidinous desire to follow Maggie even into an area that he can't even breathe in. At least Wade brings up why it is a bad idea to not draw a line somewhere.

• "I never was a team player." - As in THIS SLIDE OF PARADISE, we get our military pilot announcing her inability to be a team player. That must have been a big help on the battlefield.

• "He needs fresh brain cells to stay alive." - Wade is just a regurgitation machine this season. She gets to do at least part of a recap every episode.

• "He's going to keep on doing this until we STOP him," says Maggie, putting too much emphasis on the word "stop."

• "Let's hope he's up there, SUFFERING." Maggie again, doing the same thing she did in the previous quotation.

• "He told me to tell you . . . SOON." Guess.

• Rembrandt's lines about the sulphur binding with the oxygen are out of character, but not horribly so.

• The mystical speeches by psychic girl about the evil and the fog are nowhere near as bad as most dialogue this season, but even though they contribute to the mood, they are rather trite.

• "Damn it Mallory, I almost had him!" says Maggie after Rickman gets away. I don't know what she's talking about as Quinn's prone state resulted in Rickman standing over him, thus giving Maggie the perfect chance to shoot him (More of Rickman's exquisite military prowess at work). Instead she lets him walk off before even trying to kill him and has the gall to blame Quinn (at least it sounds like she's blaming Quinn). It's difficult to tell if she's doing that or just expressing that she missed her opportunity, especially with the way Kari delivers her "ANGER/HATRED" lines.

• Who was Wade talking about when Rembrandt runs out of the fog after looking for Quinn and Maggie? It sounds like she says: "They should have just let RITMAN go."

• Rickman not only goes native, he also goes hippy with:

  "All that sulphur builds up on the brain [What doctor wouldn't follow that prognosis? Heh heh]. He understands, man. I mean he really understands . . . why I had to do . . . what I did." The googly-eyed expression and jerky movements don't help this doozy of a line either.

• More hippy speak with: "You're my saviour, man." Too bad Quinn doesn't find that to be particularly groovy. (This would have been a good time to insert Ash from EVIL DEAD 1, and 2 and ARMY OF DARKNESS: "Groovy").

• Action hero Quinn strikes again! He looks weak, as per normal Quinn, then when he gets his chance he does his transformation into Super Hero Quinn (he didn't even need a phone booth), grabbing the native with the overbite by the throat and saying (in true S1 Quinn fashion): "Let me out of this cage, or I kill you!"

• Quinn then says "Say something" to the guy, apparently unaware that the guy can't speak because he is choking the life out of him!

• Remmy's superstition speech is actually pretty good as it (1) Is well expressed, (2) Has some relation to the episode and (3) Gives us some background on Remmy. The DISASTER of this dialogue is that this quality level isn't repeated again for the rest of the season.

• Quinn's Tarzan impression before he opens the vortex wouldn't scare a phobic mouse, much less a crowd of homicidal fog people.

• Fog person Quinn with his Alice Cooper/KISS eye paint.

• Again, the mark on the neck of Rickman's victim is considerably larger than it should be (possibly related to - as Quinn says - him being sloppy.) This episode is covering itself pretty well here though.

• When Maggie runs into the fog after they find Rickman's blood, it is accompanied by a WHOOOSH sound, like you might hear on BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES when Batman swings overhead. I thought only action-hero Quinn got the superhero treatment. Later on, when Rembrandt leaves the fog, he gets the same sound effect.

• The magic mirror swirling effect to denote weirdness in the forest.

• Jungle Quinn somehow managed to acquire glow-in-the-dark paint for his face.

• For one episode only, Rickman's timer opens a circular vortex identical to that seen in SLIDE LIKE AN EGYPTIAN! This first and last occasion on which vortex footage was recycled only serves to point up the fact that the cave set on this ep was reused from SLAE, THE DREAM MASTERS, ELECTRIC TWISTER ACID TEST, PARADISE LOST and countless other shows this year.

• Rickman leaves his burnt-out microchip in the cabinet with some medical folders where Quinn finds it. Quinn seems to find it rather more easily than would be possible too.

• You know, that gas mask Yodeling Zeke gives Quinn just after Maggie runs into the fog might have done some good for Maggie too. Another contrivance to allow for Quinn to rescue Maggie later and get captured.

• Rickman AGAIN has a prime opportunity to kill Maggie and passes it up because the time "isn't right."

• Action hero Quinn rushes after Rickman without even contemplating that he's being led into a trap. He doesn't even have a mask, yet he runs straight into the fog to get Rickman!!

• Rickman passes up a chance to kill Quinn, followed by Maggie standing around with the rifle looking dumb and letting Rickman casually stroll off. She doesn't even try to fire off a single shot until Rickman is able to get behind a tree. As he says, "You always were slow on the draw Beckett!"

• The natives holding Quinn run off the instant Rickman leaves, thus allowing Action-Hero Quinn to spring to life to take on a challenge worthy of his great fighting prowess - beating himself into unconsciousness!

• Rickman explains that the injections changed his face. This is just like how people getting blood transfusions morph to look like the blood's donor and why the police now inject themselves with blood at a crime scene to get a description of all those involved.

• Magic tea that allows one to breathe sulphur!

• Consistency problem: the Kromaggs were sliding well before 3 years ago (Mary even said she was taken as a little girl.) Perhaps Jungle Quinn gave one group of them the sliding equation, but there's no way the Kromagg Dynasty would be so powerful and rule so many worlds in so short a time. S4 revelations of the Human/Kromagg war also make this a bit iffy in the grand scheme of the show as it is more likely the Kromaggs obtained the technology from the humans they lived with (or vice versa) or through cooperation with the humans. Gotta admire the writer for at least trying though.

• Magic smoke that projects the face of psychic woman and distracts the fog people. I suppose we got off easy as this is the most obvious silliness in the episode. It sure beats giant worms, vampires, hybrid people and giant, flesh-eating rabbits, but it would have been better without the smoke package at all. There are other ways to create a distraction without this gimmick.

• Let's see now . . . an infinite number of Quinns, countless millions of them Sliders, a dozen or so that this guy alone personally met . . . and he instantly figures out which one he's talking to?

• Just when I thought there wouldn't be any gratuitous shots (everyone is dressed a lot more practically this episode and for once Maggie is somewhat covered up, even though she seems to be wearing leather pants) and when I let my guard down - WHAM - Lingerie Maggie hits the scene! They even managed to do a bit of bondage as well. Way to go guys! Of course this is all handled tastefully and with subtlety, notably the way the camera starts at Maggie's midsection and pans up to her face!

• Maggie gets a new native wardrobe (revealing of course) when she's tied to the stake.

• Wade wonders why Rembrandt seems touchy after he's told they won't take Lucy to the hospital because their faith will heal her. Cripes! Even Maggie figured that one out.

• Where does Wade get the impression that Rembrandt won't put his anger aside to listen to her apology? She didn't even apologize to begin with!!! Or is her apology: "I'm sorry you're upset." No wonder he's annoyed.

• The double-barrelled blow gun. The Foggin with the overbite and Alice Cooper make-up blows into it once and shoots two darts (hitting both Quinn and Maggie, even though he never adjusts his aim - he should just hit one of them twice in that case). And has anyone ever tried to fire two projectiles from one blowgun by having them in it at the same time? It wouldn't work in all likelihood.

• You've gotta see this. When Remmy comes out of the fog and Wade starts talking of this mysterious RITMAN character, watch the trees next to where Rembrandt's head is (in the background). Between the two trees, you can see Yodeling Zeke (Lucy's relative, Mr. LaCroix, I think) moving around as he waits for his cue to come out from behind the trees a couple shots later!!!

• The rigidity of Maggie's legs. She gets knocked out by Jungle Quinn, but instead of hanging unconscious from her bonds she is obviously standing with her head hung down.

• The anger Quinn exhibits when Rickman has a nice, over-the-top maniacal laugh over the death of Arturo. Quinn's anger over such things drops off faster than Peckinpah's learning curve over future episodes, making him appear to be an uncaring S.O.B.

• The sliders are forced to deal with the equivalent of the Beverly Hillbillies, including Spitting Billy T, Yodeling Zeke and Lucy Clampett.

• When the psychic first speaks of Rickman, we get a shot of him holding up the needle and looking at it in such a way that his eyes start to cross. We also learn that he is now "One of them", something we see happen in THIS SLIDE OF PARADISE when he becomes one of the hybrids. That's Rickman's problem. He just wants to "belong".

• Psychic woman is a fire hazard waiting to happen with all the things that erupt in sparks in her house when they are thrown in the fireplace. She also seems to be that world's spokesperson for cigarettes as she puffs away while being questioned by Remmy and Wade.

• Psychic woman turns over the death card after Wade and Remmy decide to go after Quinn. hands up everyone who was surprised to see that card come up? None. I thought so.

3 out of four.

I'd call this "The best of the worst" (episodes after EXODUS) . . . you know, kinda like Chuck Norris is to action films. Good scenes of Quinn talking to his double, Rembrandt's dislike of superstition, the scene where Remmy and Wade do Rock-Paper-Scissors and they complain that the other didn't do the one they usually do, and some interesting revelations about past occurences marred by Neil Dickson and some lame-o magic stuff. Overall, much more difficult to put down than the other post-EXODUS episodes, so this wasn't quite as fun to tear apart as, say, SLITHER.

The interesting thing here is that the episodes I liked when I first saw them are the ones I have the hardest time finding numerous problems with when I review them in detail (which I did not do when I first saw them.) Granted, some of them weren't very hard to find problems with - BREEDER, anyone?

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