Eggheads

Season 1
Airdate: 4/26/95
Rating: 5/5

“We’re supposed to be in some elevated, super intellectual society. Everything’s just as twisted as it is back home.”

The Sliders travel to a world where academic achievement is equivalent to being a sports superstar. Just think it, but don’t just do it.

We start out on this world with a sign displaying “longer library hours”? and a guy with his boom box playing opera, if you can believe it. Pretty interesting right off the bat. We get two instant contrasts between this world and our own. The Sliders also discover Einstein on a fashion ad and the most shocking, Quinn’s double on an athletic billboard. Before the Sliders can compose themselves they’re swarmed by fans. Arturo soon discovers he’s famous as well. Wade and Rembrandt’s meddling soon brings them to discover Quinn and Arturo are the “Sliders”?. This episode starts out nicely and gets us to imagine how on earth Quinn could be a famous athlete, and yet at the same time a slider.

Since their doubles are Sliders, they rush to Quinn’s basement in search of the sliding machine to auto set the system, i.e. to go home. They turn up empty, with a basement full of old trophies and sports magazines. Everyone agrees to assume the identities of their doubles in order to find the sliding machine, but it’s not gonna be easy. Since our Quinn arrives his teammate named Wilson is thrown out of the starting lineup since he was originally a benchman. However, Wilson is the villain who is determined to get him off the team and take care of some unfinished business. It turns out that Quinn’s double skipped out on some gambling debts, and therefore our Quinn is in some deep trouble. The Sliders go to the Professor’s office to try to find so papers on their sliding machine but come up empty handed. They actually come into contact with a colleague at the school. He’s played by none other than William B. Davies, famously known in his role as the sinister Smoking Man in The X-Files. Even in this episode he has a lingering look of menace. I think it’s something the filming crew intentionally threw out considering his X-Files role.

One thing that really sticks out in this episode is the amusing hip-hop “Library Rap” music video. It so well done that it looks like it came straight from the MTV channel. In fact when I first watched this episode my family and I kept part of this scene muted since we thought it was a commercial. The giant library books started to give it away. It was one of the ingenious ideas the creator made for this series. This episode frequently shows us how much knowledge has influenced this world through music, scientists, authors, and even the common day man. Quinn is awestruck by the complex game he has to play in order to assume his double’s role. “Mindgame” blends games with the likeness of Othello, Family Feud, Jeopardy, and tag. The team who captures the most squares wins the game. Strangely enough, this is a university led academic sports game. You think our own educational systems would adopt such a sport. Not only would this game bring some starlight to the eggheads, but it would also make our society more intelligent and educated about the world. Everyone I talk to loves this idea of Mindgame. Hopefully a big company out there will take note instead of the promoting the excess number of traditional football games. We’ll see, as any of these episodes are ‘prophecies’ as so many proclaim.

The sliding machine seems as if it will never turn up and Arturo brings to question if their doubles have just fled overseas given their troubles. Professor Arturo gets lost in an idea of visiting his former love Christina. Anyone would like to go see their former love interests, friends, families and more. But sliding can throw a veil over the situation as the people are double’s, not those who you truly know. It turns out our Arturo is given a subpoena from his wife. His double cheated on Christina and the whole world revolved around him. As Christina puts it “me. me. me.” Back on earthprime, Arturo’s wife Christina died of a brain aneurysm at a young age. It comes to a point where he tells everyone “she is my Christina alive” and almost has thoughts of staying on the world. In the end though he’s trying to reconnect with her and hopefully give his double a better chance of being forgiven.

I’m really surprised by the lack of support Wade and Rembrandt give to Quinn and Arturo. They seem to just sit back, drink some beer, and watch television. When Quinn is studying for the Mindgame, Wade just sits back and shoves down popcorn, while she belittles him that he needs to think of something. Not to mention Rembrandt’s stupidity by betting on the games. Arturo is in anguish and Quinn is so stressed in trying to pull off the role as his double. Sadly as a fact of life there are times even when you can’t expect your best friends to help you when you’re down. Quinn’s teammate Wilson is connected to a mobster. After Quinn’s house is besieged, he expects a million bucks in his gambling debts. It turns out Quinn’s double skipped out on the debt and fled. It order for our Quinn to survive he has to rig the Mindgame Championship so that MIT will win.

This is an enjoyable episode, given the stark contrast between the flashy sports on our world and the academic maturity on this one. The episode is written by Jacob Epstein, and is a favorite of co-creator Robert K. Weiss, Tracy Tormé and Jerry O’Connell. Everyone seems to love it. The thought put into the episode makes it work, and work well. Only eggheads could have come up with such a clever sports episode. So long suckers.