Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

This episode first aired in the UK on Sky 1 on 25th May and in the US on 6th (?) July in the US on the Sci-Fi channel.

Writer: Story by chris Black & David Peckinpah, Teleplay by Marc Scott Zicree & Bill Dial
DirectorDavid Peckinpah
Guests:Charlie O'Connell (Colin Mallory), Susan Haskell (Susannah Morehouse), Ben Jones (Sheriff Dawson), Adrienne Barbeau (Mother Morehouse).
Background:
*Quinn discovered he had a brother who was currently living on an alternate world in Genesis when he found out he was not from Earth Prime. He had his brother's co-ordinates, but was unable to input them until now.
Additional Notes:
* From the next episode onwards, Charlie O'Connell is billed as a cast member, but for this one it comes up in the guest credits as, "Introducing Charlie O'Connell as Colin Mallory."
* This is not Charlie O'Connell's first appearancein Sliders, although it is his first as Colin Mallory. His first appearence was in the Season 2 episode As Time Goes By as Daelin Richard's brother Kit (I think that was his name), and his second was in the third season episode Dragonslide as a male cop called ????, although he was billed as Charlie O'Donnell for some odd reason (at least he was in the German dubbed version).
* This is what Charlie O'Connell says about his character and erry's character: "We're actually brothers, but we were seperated at birth, kind of like Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia."
* TV Zone issue 103 reorts: 'Colin makes his entrance in the episode in a distinctive way, floating out of the sky on a hand-glider and crashing into a tree. "That was my first day [of filming] on the show this year," laughs O'Connell, who didmost of the stuntwork himself. "It was a greta introduction on the first day to get, 'Here's your hand-gider, now get in!' That was me for everything until it went into the tree. It was on a crane, and as they flung it around I just hung there."'
Plot:
Our 3 Sliders slide into the country. They have only two hours in which to find Colin and persuade him to join them. apparently one of the co-ordinates acts like a tracker for Colin's Slide signature so he may be nearby. Quinn has worked out that anyone who ahs ever slid should have one. They see someone in a hand-glider who crashes into a tree. They go to help him and find he is being chased by a whole load of amish farmers with guns. The local Sheriff comes and sends the chasers away. In order to account for their "odd" colthing, the Sliders say they are from Canada (which ends up as a running joke for the rest of the series!). The man who crashed turns out to be Colin Mallory. Quinn shocks Colin by telling him that they are brothers, but Colin doesn't believe him. Quinn tries to persuade him and wants to look for Colin's microdot. Their parents didn't take Colin back to their world because his foster parents died when he was a child.

Colin lives in an Amish-like worls where there is no electricity other than that he invented. Colin is a kind of scientist on his world, though the other villagers think that he is doing the Devil's work because they don't understand. They meet Susannah Morehouse who is Colin's love, although she is to marry someone else because Susannah's mother doesn't like Colin. Maggie's clothes cause quite a sensation. They go inside Colin's house. Quinn is very impressed with Colin's work with electricity. Quinn starts looking through Colin's parents things for the microdot. He looks through a book and smashes a watch but can't find it. Then, at Maggie's reminder that his mother had it in her arm, he asks for a knife so he can look in Colin's arm, but Colin won't let him. Then Colin remembers the lockes and when Quinn looks inside that he finds the microdot. He encourages Colin to use it and he does. The others are concerned about the psychological effect of the microdot because it hit Quinn pretty hard and he already knew about sliding. Not much time until the next slide. Quinn persuades Colin to join them.

When they slide, they land in front of a truck. Quinn, Maggie and Rembrandt jump out the way, but Colin, not knowing what a truck is just stands there, so the others pull him out of the way. Colin is not used to the way of life in this new world and he seems fasinated by the fasions. They go to the Chandler Hotel for a room and they are asked if they will pay bone graft or DNA debit. The Sliders, however, pay cash. In the room, Colin is fasinated by the television and he wants totake it apart. He is also fasinated by Pepsi.

Maggie and Rembrandt decide to go shopping so Quinn and Colin can have some time to get to know each other. When it comes to it, Quinn and Colin don't really know what to talk about. Rembrandt buys some clothes for Colin.

When the phone rings, Colin is scared, so Quinn teaches him about phones and Colin wants to take that apart as well. Quinn shows Colin the "outhouse" and then they go down to the bar. While Quinn is trying to get some girl talking, Colin spots Susannah's duplicate and goes to talk to her, amazed she doesn't know who he is. He buys her a drink anyway, and pays cash again, a fact that she is surprised at. She finds out that he doesn't have a bone graft and schemes to get him to go somewhere with her. Quinn sees him leave with Susannah, but does not see where he went because Susannah has a car. Susannah wants Colin to help her get her Uncle Ray out of a home because he is unhappy there and the security system at the home is designed to pick up bone grafts. Susannah sends Colin in and all he finds are frozen bodies. He goes back to tell Susannah and she explains to him about cryogenics. Colin goes back in and is nearly seen, so he hides in a cryogenics suite and emerges cold.

Maggie and Rembrandt return from their shopping spree with lots of bags, and Quinn tells them what happened. They go back up to the room because Quinn had only been looking on the street.

Susannah drives Colin and Uncle Ray back to her home

Quinn phones the police and as soon as he puts the phone down, the police are at the door. Apparently, cash transactions are unusual, so photographs are always taken. The Sliders present justify why they use cash by Rembrandt saying his mother told him never to spend money he couldn't see. The policeman (Dawson) then asks about Colin and shows them a photo of Colin stealing a body from cryogenic storage. The Policeman explains about DNA accounts and how rich people can freeze themselves and their assets until there's a cure for whatever ails them. He also explains how some people have taken to stealing the bodies and using the DNA to open their DNA access only accounts and stealing the money. The Sliders and the police think that someone is taking advantage of him, although Maggie thinks Colin is rather simple.

When Colin and Susannah exit the car, Colin picks up the mobile phone and keeps it, probably with the hope of disecting it later. "Uncle Ray" is taken to the sauna to thaw out and Colin is locked in the study without a phone (except the mobile one). Colin phones the Hotel using the mobile and the number he found in the "great book of numbers". The others just get the phone before they go out. Colin finds an address on a piece of mail and tells Quinn so they can come and help him. They find the house and get inside through the french windows (colin makes them jump when he appears on the other side of the window). Susannah and Mrs. Morehouse come in with a gun. They plan to use all the Sliders to hijack bodies as none of them have bone grafts. The police arrive and apprehend Susannah and Mrs. Morehouse. When they look in the coffin, all they find are a load of frozen chickens; Colin guessed Susannah was trying to get him to do something wrong when the man was frozen, so he filled the coffin with chickens from the kitchen. Colin leaves his deposition and they go back to the Chandler Hotel, where Colin tries on the new clothes Remmy bought him.

Did You Notice?
* The things Quinn looks in for the microdot:
An old book,
Inside the watch,
(He wanted to look in Colin's arm),
Inside the locket.
"We're from Canada"'s: I didn't count, but I know it's a lot.

Cool Quotes:

"One of these days we're gonna slide into a world where all they speak is Greek. You're gonna fit right in!" - Rembrandt to Quinn
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"We're from Canada." - Almost everyone used this as an explanation
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"My brother's a genius!" - Quinn
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"You're mad, are you not?" -Colin
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"You're kinda cute, in a wierd way." - Susanna to Colin
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"First thing I do after I find the guy is lose him!" - Quinn about Colin
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"I haven't known Colin that long, but I can pretty much tell he's not the shacking up type!"
- Quinn
"He's a guy isn't he?" - Maggie
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"Short skirts make new fools every day." - Maggie

Mistakes:
* Something was said by Susannah or Susannah’s mother (I can’t check who because it has now been over written) about Colin being upstairs in the house, yet when the others come to find him, they get to him easily throgh a window and we don’t see them climbing any balconies. Anyway, when Colin was led into the room in the first place he was not taken up any stairs. However, I have a feeling that they might have been in the basement when they said this, in which case it is not a mistake, just confusing.
* Timer numbers: Not long before when there was apparently about 10 minutes left on the timer, (according to Rembrandt) the timer says about 1 minute and 56 seconds.
* Some of the hand glider scenes where pretty badly done. I could tell what had been filmed separately from others etc.

My Opinion:
The first part of this I enjoyed. Quinn finds Colin, Colin doesn't believe at first, Quinn persuades him etc. However, the I didn't think much of the handglider scenes even though they were a good idea because they were not very well put together in my opinion. I could tell which bits had been shot seperately from others. I also liked the way Quinn and Colin got to know each other. I've never been in that position, but I guess that would probably be how I'd react. I also liked how Colin kept wanting to take the things apart to see hoe they worked. If he was an inventor on his world, of course he would. It's only natural to be curious. I agreed with Remmy that he was taking it very well (I know I wouldn't be able to!), but there is the possibility that his ease at adapting to worlds was because he wasn't from his world in the first place. There could be something in his sub-conscious that knew of his home world and how different it was from where he grew up, which could have helped him adapt so well. I haven't seen the pilot episode, so I don't know how well the other sliders coped.
I didn't really like the second part. To me it felt like it was tacked on the end just as a time filler, although the way Colin got involved in it in the first place was quite well thought out.



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