With my recent defense of "Rules of the Game" and my newfound ability to see the good in "El Sid", I decided to give one of my most reviled episodes a third chance. "The Exodus" did not disappoint. It is every bit the loathsome piece of garbage it has been since it first aired lo five years and some months ago.

I don't demand hard sci-fi from Sliders. I accept the intricacies of the timer and sliding itself, despite the inherent contradictions with reality. So long as a reasonable effort is made to explain these things, I'm satisfied. But when you make no effort at all, when you show wanton ignorance about the subject you're attempting to present, it pisses me off to no end. This is without question the greatest technical failure of the series. This isn't science fiction; it's science fraud.

So without further ado, I present the 100 Things I Hate About "The Exodus, Part I":

1. That's not a Pulsar! Part I: We open with an explosion in space, and suddenly luminescent toilet paper rolls are on the move. What the hell are these things? 'Pulsars' would not have been high on my list of guesses and we'll soon see why.

2. Someone has extracted something from someone's neck and injected it into his/her own. I can't fathom why.

3. I don't know of anything you could inject into yourself that would cause you to look like someone else, possibly excepting LSD.

4. Let's see, the air raid sirens are going, everyone is hiding—hmm, what should I steal? I got it! A couch!

5. Why must all cars catch on fire? Why can't they simply get banged up…like in real life?

6. "He's hurt bad." Well, no shit, Quinn. No one just walks away from a flaming auto wreck. (Now flaming plane crashes? That you can walk away from. See "Slither.")

7. Lucky the plot came right to us, huh? It's a good thing they happened to be in the street when Dr. Jariabek died or we might have missed this entire adventure. Oh, if only we had.

8. "Yeah, well you won't anymore." Quinn says to Arturo after he mentions he used to attend Dr. Jariabek's lectures. First, it's extremely callous. Second, it's not exactly true as Dr. Jariabek is probably very much alive back home. The argument that this is actually clever foreshadowing of Arturo's impending doom doesn't hold water.

9. "He's dead," Maggie declares. Very observant, especially since it was your team that killed him.

10. Not to take away from the Sliders' abilities, but are we really supposed to believe they disarmed and captured a military unit?

11. They stuff Maggie in the trunk and they handcuff the others. Then they walk down the street as if nothing had happened. I know Maggie and company were incompetent, but wouldn't you be slightly concerned that they had some back-up?

12. Why tell Maggie your name? You wouldn't beat up a judge and then give him your home address, would you?

13. That's not a Pulsar! Part II: Arturo gives a very lucid and accurate description of a pulsar. It's too bad the episode pays no attention to what the Professor has to say.

14. "They must not be in theory on this world." I suppose it's possible, Rembrandt, but why would you draw that conclusion? People don't get killed trying to protect the secret of the Cepheid variable.

15. Col. Rickman demands hourly updates on the trajectory. Uh, it's not like it's going to change. That's why it's called a trajectory.

16. Maggie's an intelligence officer. Is that the definition of oxymoron?

17. Note to casting: Usually American forces are led by Americans. We're friendly with Britain, but not that friendly.

18. The sliders go to Jariabek's office. Did it not occur to them that the people who killed him would not have already sacked it? Well, they are led by Maggie…

19. That's not a Pulsar! Part III: Arturo compares the pulsar to a lighthouse, and the CGI jockeys apparently took it to heart. But a pulsar doesn't resemble a stick. It's highly compacted matter, so it would likely be a sphere.

20. Someone might want to inform Quinn that light and gamma rays are part of the same electromagnetic spectrum. In effect, they're the same thing, just moving at different frequencies. He is a physics major, after all.

21. That's not a Pulsar! Part IV: Pulsars do spin very rapidly, like thirty times a second! For all intents and purposes, it might as well be a constant beam.

22. Here's a fun fact about the earth's atmosphere: it's opaque to gamma rays. What does that mean? It means it blocks all extraterrestrial gamma rays from getting in. Let me make this abundantly clear: the radiation from pulsars is of NO THREAT to us. This is why we have satellites collecting data on pulsars—because we can't detect them from the ground!

23. That's not a Pulsar! Part V: The vast majority of pulsars emit in the radio spectrum. Again, not too threatening.

24. And just to belabor the point, pulsars 'hit' the earth every second of every minute of every day. That's how we know they exist, and thus far the earth hasn't exploded as a consequence. That's not to say a globular cluster of pulsars on track for Earth wouldn't be a calamity, but they would be so because of their gravitational pull, which I'll discuss once the toilet paper reaches Saturn.

25. Ah good, we're here. Let's say, for kicks, another star the size of the sun suddenly entered the solar system. What might happen? Aside from things getting a hell of a lot hotter, the gravitational struggle would fling all the planets out of orbit and into the cold depths of space…assuming they didn't get incinerated or ripped apart first. And this would happen long before the star got inside the solar system itself. Now let's throw in a neutron star, which is at minimum twice as dense as the sun and see what happens. You see why radiation is the least of our concerns?

26. Quinn pluralizes the pulsars before Arturo announces there are more of them.

27. Kari Wuhrer has an UNusual speech patTERN. Who did she take PROnunciaTION lessons FROM? Alanis MoRISSette?

28. A million people might die? The population of Moscow is 8 million alone. I know it's cold out there, but it's not igloo country.

29. Both Maggie and Rickman seem unaware that they should be the ones asking the questions in an interrogation.

30. This is supposed to be an army base? For who, the Spanish armada?

31. "I've had some problems with the development of my sliding." I've had some problems with the development of my sentences.

32. Rickman gives Maggie the timer for safekeeping, the same woman who was stuffed in a trunk by four unarmed civilians.

33. Jensen has learned how to track wormholes and store coordinates…except everything they send in comes back as toast. So they can store co-ordinates, but can't figure out their own?!

34. Quinn's chip alone wouldn't solve their problems. Truth be told, I don't see how it would solve any of their problems. The chip has always been played up as a power source and not much more. They've got plenty of power, they just can't program a timer properly.

35. Rembrandt tells Malcolm that his artwork is good stuff. No, Remmy, it really isn't.

36. In that same vein, he tells Malcolm that his art is better than his songs. I'd say five gold records would argue otherwise.

37. Not many army bases have frescoes. You should see the tiled mosaics in the locker rooms.

38. The lightning force field. Do the producers just get a perverse pleasure from electrocuting Rembrandt every fifth episode?

39. Uh, Remmy? You might want to pull your foot out of the force field.

40. Even if Quinn doesn't know Jensen and Maggie are married, the photo on his desk clearly gives the impression they're involved. Undeterred, Quinn continues to make jokes about her unit's morale.

41. Jensen "severed" a neurotransmitter, leaving him paralyzed. Do I even have to explain why this makes no sense?

42. "Nah, we're married." Quinn's response? "I'm sorry." Wait, that's actually pretty funny now that I think of it.

43. Opening the vortex with Quinn's chip doesn't solve anything. The problem was things kept coming back crispy, remember?

44. That's not a Pulsar! Part VI: A globular cluster of neutron stars? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Stop it, you guys, you're killing me.

45. Wouldn't a collapsing galaxy…oh, I don't know…collapse?

46. Arturo informs us that transit will take place in 43 hours. Try 43 million years. You have any idea how far away the closest galaxy is? Tony Blake and Paul Jackson didn't. It's 2 million light years away. We've got plenty of time!

47. You see why the all-important trajectory doesn't make a damn bit of difference? 86 degrees, 87 degrees, who cares? The sun will have exploded by the time anything reaches us.

48. Again, the earth's rotation is irrelevant. And even if it was, it's not as if that lead pulsar will just go its merry way after destroying Russia. It'll still be sending back radiation. It won't just shut off.

49. That's not a Pulsar! Part VII: As Arturo informed us, pulsars spin very rapidly. The one attacking Russia seems jammed in neutral. Miss Daisy got more RPMs than this thing.

50. "Mr. Mallory, all life on this planet will be extinguished before we're due to leave." Keep that in mind folks, because by Part II they'll have forgotten it.

51. Quinn tells us a lot of worlds are uninhabitable. To date, we've hit only one. Well, two if you count the dimension Quinn probably destroyed in "As Time Goes By."

52. Why use Quinn as a scout? He's hostile to you.

53. Rickman doesn't trust Rembrandt, but he trusts Quinn? He apparently also trusts Arturo and Wade. Methinks the colonel's a racist.

54. Arturo tells Rickman that they'll have to travel with the colonists so they can slide from the next world. Arturo should know that's not possible. He says as much in "Invasion." The timer can only be used on the world it's counting down for. Final proof they took the wrong Arturo? Or laziness on the part of the scriptwriter? I leave it to you.

55. I can see setting the timer for thirty minutes. Time is short and you don't want another Ice World catastrophe. But if the world is uninhabitable (i.e. deadly to humans), thirty minutes is still twenty-nine minutes too long. You'll still be dead.

56. Of course, you may be dead anyway as you never tested to see if the return vortex was still on "deep-fry" setting.

57. Which leads us to the next point, why set it at all? You have the ability to store coordinates and the power source is uncorrupted. If there's an emergency, just open the vortex and leave.

58. Giant world? Someone missed the memo on "same planet, different dimension."

59. Quinn says the radius is 500 miles. Up to now it had been 400. I know the radius is a much-abused part of continuity, but it wouldn't kill someone to write these little facts down.

60. If the ball landed in the rough, why is it on a tee?

61. Rickman doesn't need Wade's help. The script needs Wade's help.

62. Better yet, why bother giving Wade anything to do? You're not using Arturo at all, and he's going to be killed next episode. After all, aren't they taking up precious screen time that could be focusing on Maggie's breasts?

63. Rickman implies that no one will slide if the list isn't compiled. 'Sorry, we've got a vortex ready to go, but we don't have a list! I guess we'll all just stay here and die.'

64. Malcolm's mom is James Brown?

65. The whole Remmy/Malcolm subplot. Seriously, who cares?

66. Maggie may be new to sliding, but 'abandoned well' was a pretty stupid guess considering she'd just encountered a forty-foot golf ball.

67. What is Maggie's fixation with the rabbit? I say if it's big enough to eat you, stay back.

68. Hey, it's Bunnicula!

69. Nice fangs. The rabbit from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" was more convincing.

70. Quinn decides they won't slide back after each mission in order to save time. That confirms they can open the vortex at will. If there's no recall function, there's no need to set the timer. Just open the damn thing!

71. Malcolm's father must be blind in his left eye if he couldn't see the guy standing off camera.

72. The next camera angle clearly shows that the attacker would have had to have been just standing outside. There's not even a plant or a column to hide behind.

73. Since Malcolm can see his father from down the hall, there must have been sufficient light to have seen the attacker.

74. Rembrandt states twenty people have fallen into comas in three months. And no one thought this was unusual before?

75. How much sense would it make to attack fellow comrades-in-arms? Shouldn't this brain guy go off base for his victims?

76. I like the happy 'Garfield' font the prop department used for the 'Military Security' folder.

77. "How would you be fooled into letting two intruders escape?" Gee, Quinn, we've only got 44 minutes per episode to count the ways.

78. Maggie is logical? See the rabbit incident.

79. Maggie is myopic? Well, no argument there.

80. Maggie is buoyant? Oh, sorry, it's the shirt.

81. Even more disturbing is that she's hitting on Quinn. She is married, right?

82. To Jerry O'Connell's credit, he's having a hard time saying his lines with a straight face. You almost get the impression he's reaching out to the audience and saying, "Yeah, I can't believe I have to say this too."

83. Wade doesn't seem to be concerned that all the people coming with them need O- blood.

84. That's not a Pulsar! Part VIII: Jensen announces the next wave is coming. I really have nothing more to say on this matter aside from it's STILL WRONG.

85. Hey, it's Arturo! I forgot he was still in this episode.

86. How numb is Maggie? Her double walks into an interrogation room…alone…with the object her suspects want.

87. Quinn, please don't oversell the flattering remarks. We're all having a hard enough time looking at the screen as it is.

88. Why did Jensen build his timer out of a Sega Genesis controller? And is that a D-pad I spy?

89. The two-storey tumble the comatose guard takes didn't look remotely real.

90. The killer is Rickman? Noooooooo. I didn't see THAT twist coming.

91. Quinn says it's his house. It doesn't look anything like his house.

92. Wait a minute, wasn't it night just one slide ago?

93. Before she asphyxiates, Maggie says this world will serve their purposes. Has anyone put any thought into the impact of just dropping three hundred soldiers from a parallel earth into an inhabited area? This ought to be part of the crux of the moral dilemma this episode poses. But it's never addressed.

94. Maggie can't breathe this world's oxygen, yet Quinn can easily breathe her world's. Furthermore, Maggie had been able to breathe on every other world they scouted so far. At least makes some sort of attempt at plausibility. But this gets better, like everything else in this sorry episode.

95. It takes Maggie two minutes to realize she can't breathe. Usually the brain makes that connection sooner.

96. The birthday bit with Quinn's mom is too contrived. The day he went sliding? What kind of a jerk would Quinn have to be to do such a thing? And even so, Quinn of all people knows that a sliding double would have likely bought the same gift.

97. As contrived as that is, it's not nearly as contrived as just happening to rediscover home with a foreign timer.

98. Maggie is unable to breathe for a full twenty minutes. She really ought to be dead.

99. Quinn decks the doctor trying to save Maggie's life. Had he just opened the vortex, everyone would have undoubtedly backed off.

100. As bad as this is, Part II will work feverishly to sink even lower.

        R317