Once upon a time, in a parallel universe far, far away...

ThomasMalthus sits in front of his keyboard, thinking of ideas for his (moderately) popular fanfic series and its latest episode "It Also Sets".

"Hmm. Hey, what if I put the Sliders in jail? That's never been done befo...oh, wait, I forgot about those fifty million times in the last three seasons where they did that, and even in the first two they overdid it a little. Gotta think of something else, or the BBoarders will accuse me of ripping off David Peckinpah, and that's gotta be a fate worse than death."

Fifteen minutes pass.

"A big tornado? Peckinpah covered that one."

Fifteen more minutes pass.

"Desert world? No, Peck again."

Yet another fifteen minutes later.

"Hey, I wonder if I can cut and paste David Mamet dialogue and change the names around. I mean it's not like anybody's actually seen 'Oleanna'. Nah, that won't work and besides, I'm not that desperate."

Another excruciating fifteen minutes gone forever.

"Arrgghh! That moron Peckinpah is polluting my thoughts with exceedingly bad plot ideas for "Sliders". I wish David Peckinpah had never even heard of "Sliders", much less worked on it."

And somewhere, somehow, some strange power emerged from my computer. And it was made so. (Whether or not by Patrick Stewart and/or Jean-Luc Picard is up to the reader's imagination.)

What I did not, could not, realize then was that everything has to be in balance. If one bad thing is made good, a good thing must be bad. (Yeah, yeah, get on with it, Wendy Windbag.)

ThomasMalthus unknowingly wakes up in a new universe of his own making. "Woah, never went to sleep at my keyboard before. I wonder if I have those cool face indentations that make me look like one of those cheap aliens from 'Lost in Space' or the original 'Star Trek' series. Wait, what's this? Not even one David Peckinpah-bashing post on Sci-Fi's 'Sliders' board? I'll fix that!"

And so, the most (arguably) ignorant post ThomasMalthus has ever made goes up on the Sci-Fi Sliders Discussion Board (have I referred to myself in the third person more than Bob Dole yet?). The responses were clear and flaming. "Why bash David Peckinpah here?" One particularly nasty poster flamed. "He's never worked on 'Sliders'. In fact, I'm fairly sure he's never even heard of 'Sliders'. Look, didn't you read the third and fourth paragraphs back? Your wish about Peck was granted, OK? Now let's get back to our discussion about which Wade slid in the episode 'Quiche Me, Kate'."

Of course, TM was amazed and overjoyed. He immediately rushed to his collection of "Sliders" tapes. Quickly pushing the first tape which had Season Three episodes on it into the VCR, he was amazed to find quality scripts, good acting and Tracy Torme fully in control. "Yes!!!" cried out TM triumphantly doing his little happy dance. This calls for a celebration. "Time to do what I always do when I want to celebrate: watch 'Hush' for the umptibajillionth time!"

As TM thumbed through his tape collection, his expression of joy turned to that of dismay. No "Buffy" tapes in the bunch! What had happened to them all? Then a horrible thought came to him: "Tony Danza will be back on television in a matter of weeks!" Then, equally harrowing, "What's happened to 'Buffy' in this weirdo universe?!?"

Rushing back to the computer (and realizing he wasn't cut out for all this rushing between rooms) he went to his favorite search engine and typed in the words "Buffy the Vampire Slayer". Quickly finding one with a decent episode guide, he discovered what he thought were the most horrifying words in the English language. "'Buffy' airs on Fox? Good Lord, what could be worse?!?"

As if to answer him, and with that kind of a setup, how could you resist, he scrolled down under the first episode listed and found now what he was sure were the most horrifying words in any language.

Written. And. Directed. By. David. Peckinpah.

(And yes, all those periods were there in the episode guide, too, because that's how it looks in the credits for the episode. It was Peck's idea, don't ask.)

"Sweet merciful Whedon! What have I done????"