Double Cross

Season 3
Airdate: 9/27/96
Rating: 3.5/5

“Hey, Crying Man. Elston Diggs. I’m a big fan of yours! Hey can you do me a favor? Sign that for me. Yo, thanks, man. This is going to be worth a whole lot of green when you’re dead.” -Elston Diggs

The Sliders arrive on an advanced world that has developed sliding at a lab called Prototronics. You can find the Sliders landing everywhere on a world, this time a subway tunnel. Rembrandt gets trapped on the track and escapes, not by force but rather by the lack of power. It’s something we’re beginning to see in America today. Rolling blackouts. Another prophecy being fulfilled as fans put it? Gas is $410.10 a gallon. It seems this world is trying to ban the combustion engine and further their direction to more battery powered vehicles. The few there are that is. Get on a skate board or cart and you’ll get the cheap route.

Oddly enough a food stand operator seems to tip off the Sliders just because they don’t understand this world’s food called Geomash. Apparently it’s like the agenda “see something, say something.” One of Rembrandt’s fans drives up in a Rolls Royce and offers her proposition. The rest find a coin operated news stand. If any youngsters out there don’t know yes they did exist. Perhaps in a few places still. You put in a coin of money and get a paper of the latest news. On this world horses are on the endangered species list. The Sliders agree to let Rembrandt go with her fan on a private jet and eat at a 5-star restaurant. Normally I don’t think the Professor would agree to this. Especially when there’s frequent blackouts on this world. Perhaps its shades of the episode Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome? Wink wink.

The city they’re in is San Angeles, and San Francisco is only a neighborhood in the area. After boarding a small cart the Sliders are approached by a gang of motorcycles. Quite the chase I might add even going up stairs to reach them. They’re stopped by none other than Logan St. Claire. A scientist and tracker of inter-dimensional wormholes. She seems to know a lot about the in and outs of their concept behind it including that a person can have doubles. From the moment they enter the complex something sinister seems to be in the air. A orange vortex opens which we’ve never seen before. We’ll see more vortex colors down the road in the series including green and red. Everything Logan has sent through the wormhole comes back burnt to a crisp. It turns out Arturo’s double entered the vortex and died in the process with his experiments.

At the 5-star restaurant, his self proclaimed number 1 fan orders his favorite dish frog sweetbreads. It baffles the mind how Rembrandt would trust a fan from another world, but history shows he loves them. Not to mention the girl is quite a beautiful one, and she secretly holds back that they’re engaged. There has to be or should be a rule in the Sliders book about running off with a person as far as San Francisco to LA. That’s just under 400 miles. What if something were to happen with the timer? Sticking together in a closer proximity would be a wise choice.

Body scans act as security entrance to Prototronics and unbeknownst to Quinn she discovers she’s his twin. Talk about a bad awkward situation. Although it irks me that mediocre fans mudsling the idea that Quinn has sex with himself. When all he does is kiss her. Weird yes, but they seem to embellish and make fun of the female double twin idea. The idea of twins is ingenious if you ask me. In exchange for Quinn helping fix her sliding equipment, she will let him use the lab to find a way home. We know this isn’t a good idea. Already, I’m not a fan of Logan St. Claire even with how beautiful those eyes make her out to be. Nevertheless the idea of not having her in future episodes is a relevant complaint and I agree. Sliders can take some great ideas and somehow seemingly drop them. Different producers, different results. The show needed a guiding force and that person was the creator Tracy Tormé and he was being pushed aside. But that’s another story entire.

$85 for a 10-block cab ride. I guess with our own price expenses, they could always be worse. Plus the local hotel encourages you to shower only for 2 minutes and guest shower together. Arturo discovers his double was having an affair with Logan St. Claire. It raises deep suspicion as to what else she has lied to them about. Rembrandt is back with his fan Monique at her estate. Women sure know how to lure in men. Yet with Monique it’s more than that. For Monique it has more of a psychotic and disturbing element to it. She has an alter made specifically for her idol Rembrandt and waits in earnest for her marriage with him. The alter sheds a light on our own society. Don’t get too wrapped up about your favorite singer, artist or celebrity. You don’t know them and if you do it’s likely it’s very little. Use good judgment, they’re not God. There’s being a hardcore fan and there’s being disturbingly obsessive.

Back at Prototronics Logan seems intent on killing Quinn by sucking him into the unstable vortex. Arturo reunites with his double’s wife and breaks the news that Logan killed his double. On this world Arturo invented sliding and he didn’t want his invention to hurt people. But if necessary he would destroy it. There’s a lot more to this episode and I don’t want to spoil it. One thing I do want to point out is that from now on they will be sliding anywhere within a 400 mile radius from San Francisco to LA. There is one thing that sticks out and it’s that the whole episode seems cramped visually by being inside of a laboratory. I really like to see Sliders in wide open spaces if you get my drift. It’s one of the drawbacks by not filming the season in Vancouver, Canada like seasons one and two. Things get dicey after Arturo learns about his double’s invention. A slider’s life is at hand and a bullet awaits them. In every aspect of our life, there’s always more to the story. Don’t get double crossed.