This episode first aired in the US on the Sci-Fi Channel.
Director: Reza Badiyi
Guests: Rob Youngblood (Keeper James), Granville Van Dusen (Keeper Abraham),
Austin Nichols (Seth), Vicki Davis (Sara), Eamon Behrens (Keeper Samuel), Cissy Wellman (Head
Matron), Marshall Bell (Vortak)
Background:
Additional Notes
* Rob Youngblood played a main character on Space Precinct (who's name escapes me) and
also appeared in the Season 3 episode "Paradise Lost."
* According to the Season 5 Journal the original
idea for this episode was an interdimensional library under seige by the Kromaggs.
Plot:
The Sliders exit the wormhole on a beach with 80 hours till the Slide. Maggie has a fever, but they see a building and go towards it. It appears to be some kind of monastery. The leader is loathe to let them in, but the doctor wants to help Maggie.
CREDITS
Maggie is taken to the infirmary while the others eat. They meet two young people at the monastery: Sarah and Seth. Seth is the son of Father Abraham, the monatery's leader There have been troubles on this world which the Slider say they escaped by moving around. During solitary contemplation time, the Sliders are locked in their rooms.
Abraham want to be sure the Sliders are not 'Volsang' spies. If they are, they will be killed.
The Sliders have to work as those in the monastery do. They are assigned people to watch them. Quinn and Remmy get Seth to guide them.
Maggie's fever breaks and she wants to see her friends, but she is still too weak to walk, so she asks for Remmy to be brought to her.
Quinn, Remmy and Seth have to look for clams on the beach. Quinn finds a quartz. Seth explains the history of the place. The Hemispheric Alliance collapsed and the Volsangs took over everything like pirates. Remmy makes a slip up and says 'your world,' which Seth notices.
Diana is cleaning floors with Sarah, but not very well. She notices that the floors are warm about and she asks Sarah about it, as well as the underlying noise she can here. Sarah refuses to answer.
The guys tell Seth the truth about themselves. He wants a favour in return for his help.
Diana follows one of the women into a room, but the woman is no longer there. She can't find a passage, but the noise is louder there.Sarah catches Diana where she shouldn't be. Diana thinks the noise is electrical-mechanical which the monastery is supposedly against.
James the young doctor has a thing for Maggie and tries to pursuade her to stay with him.
When they are back in solitary contemplation, Seth arrives and agrees to take them to Diana. They are all nearly caught and have to hide in the room Diana was in before. When the door shuts it turns into an electric lift. They are taken to a huge library where people are working at computers.This is The Great Work; inputting data for storage. Abraham explains the history a little more. He cannot let the Volsangs get hold of this information.
The methos of storage is fragile and bulky. Diana thinks she knows another way. There is a Volsang alarm. They have only until dawn. Diana thinks she can do it, but she needs a big crystal.
Maggie and James talk and Maggie realises that James is going to betray his own people to the Volsangs.
The Volsangs begin their attack. Maggie finds Remmy and Quinn and they all hide inside.
20 minutes till the Slide. Abraham is killed by th Volsangs. Seth tries to help him a la Star Wars. The Sliders and Seth go downstairs, but the raiders follow.
Diana is finished with the crystal.Seth and Sarah go through a passage to get the crystal away in a boat. The library is destroyed so the Volsangs won't get it.The Sliders open the vortex and leave.
Seth and Sarah get away in the boat.
The Sliders land in Giant World in an office.
Did You Notice?
* They land on the edge of the 'Northern Sea' on this world, on the island of Saint Caroline.
* Abraham believes quartz represents the purity of knowledge (what kind of bollocks is that!!)
* The leader of the Volsangs or Vortak from Alaska.
Cool Quotes:
I suppose it was the first story this season that wasn't part of an arc of any kind, but that doesn't really excuse it. It needed something more. Something to make you think of at least find compelling.
Well, I suppose we did get some continuity! YAY!! Prophets and Loss may not have been the best of episodes, but references to past Slides are always welcome! By me at any rate! :-)
The characters of Seth and Sarah were rather cliched naive characters, but I suppose they might well be if they were brought up entirely on that island. But all the other characters seemd rather 2D and even more cliched. Keeper James was probably the most cliched character of them all with Keeper Abraham just behind. Oh wait, I forgot the Vosang leader-bloke. He was the most cliched character. It was obvious James was going to betray the order. Someone had to and other than the naive innocents who wouldn't know how to go about it anyway and Keeper Abraham, he was the character we knew the best. I guess we learnt about more characters than the previous episode, but they weren't exactly exciting. Were Seth and Sarah the only people their age on the island? Or did we just not see the others. Actually, thinking about it, Seth and Sarah weren't that bad. They both seemd dedicated, but too naive.
Okay, that secret passage was difinitely a cliche. But was there enough time for it to return before Diana entered after that woman went down? I doubt it, considering the length it took later. And what would happen if the door was opened before it returned??? And what about all safety stuff? And the noise? Perhaps I'm reading a little too much into it. I think just shutting thr door is a little awful way to start it up though. I can think of all kinds of problems.
And the romance between James and Maggie? Oh, come on! There was nothing there! It was so forced! Nope, didn't like that. It was rather pathetic. Rob youngblood couldn't even make it seem like there was! I didn't like his character portrayal in Paradie Lost either (okay, so I hated all that episode) though I don't remember him being that bad in Space Precinct (I admit, I watched that, but you have to remember, I was only about 12).
What about the four central characters? Well, let's see. Maggie did very little all episode and when she was up and about, it wasn't very interesting anyway. Rembrandt was concerned for Maggie, which was good, but he didn't seem to try very hard. But it wasn't too bad. Nice interactionw ith him and Mallory in the bedroom, but not a lot else to say. Mallory didn't much. His attempts at being funny were lovely, but other than that he didn't get a lot to do either. Diana was really the only one who got much interesting to do and that was because she was apart from the others! Well, until the end with the crystal stuff her part was good. They all seemed to manage okay with this ep, but I had a lot of problems with the script and their roles within it.
The fact that they weren't a contemplative order wasn't really much of a surprise. Again, it was cliched. While Abraham's cautiousness over the Volsangs was understandable, I could see the penalty comin a mile off!
The crystal stuff? I think it's mostly been said. It didn't take Diana very long to get that sorted out, did it? And why did they wait until dawn anyway? They could have got started at night before the Volsang's started landing! And the whole storing on there? Ick! How WOULD they retrieve it? Especially if no-one else other than Diana knew how to put it on there in the first place? And where were Seth and Sarah going to go? And do what with the crystal? If the raiders had come while it was still all on disk, what would be the point of the great work? they'd blow it all to pieces and then what would everyone do? couldn't help anyone in little pieces and there was too much of it to take anywhere. And they left the books anyway! The Volsangs could recreate at least bits of it from that anyway! Eugh.
Ooh, one quick thing. The death of Abraham with Seth by his side kinda reminded me of Return of the Jedi. Not completely, but a little.
Don't even get me started on the Volsangs! The leader was not exactly one I would peg for taking over the world. the ambition he had but that was about it. He was badly 2D and very dull and predictable. And his crew and their likes took over the world? I find that very hard to believe. They reminded me of that gang in Net Worth, only less interesting and more pathetic. They looked like they'd reused the costumes!
Hey! Maggie didn't know about the button thing!!!!! Only Diana and Sarah were there when Abraham told them that! Are we back to the Maggie being psychic thing I mentioned in the previous review? Because it certainly seems they're going that way!
And that wasn't 14 seconds at the end. It was 28. I counted. Ish. They NEVER get that stuff right. I would think that they would time it on a run through and then put an apropriate time in! Otherwise they have some badly warping time!
Another bloody giant world?????????? How many now? Three? This one was more interesting that either of the other two though. I always think Gulliver's Travels when I see them, though. when are we gonna get a world of little people then? THAT would be odd.
Overall, I was pretty disappointed with this episode. It was rather pathetic. And it was too close to the Kromaggs. as I said before, as described in the journal, the other versions of this and last episode would have been better. I wasn't fond of this episode. It wasn't quite Paradie Lost awful, but it was implausible if you start thinking about it and incredibly dull and lackluster. I hope next week's episode is better than this.