Electric Twister Acid Test

Season 3
Airdate: 10/4/96
Rating: 3/5

“Where there’s humor, there’s life.” – Professor Arturo

Nestled in their frigid bobsled, the Sliders come out of the vortex into the middle of a desert. It’s on this world where a tyrant rules a secluded village because he has protected them from a world of electric tornadoes. Rembrandt sees some kid riding on a twister, and the Professor states it’s operating on “some electrical field.” Let the madness begin. This episode may have been inspired by the 1996 movie Twister. However, how close the timing of the writing of the script, I’m not sure. At any rate, I believe it’s at this point in the series where ‘movie ripoffs’ begin. For some, it’s well known that the writers would simply have several VHS movies in hand in order to write their scripts for many season three episodes. And no, I’m not kidding.

After jumping through the twister to save the boy, the kid just suddenly disappears into thin air. This scene was shot in the famous Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park. The large rock face in the background is notorious for being in the background of nearly 200 movies, music videos, and TV shows. Some examples are Star Trek, Gunsmoke, Roswell, Airwolf, The Big Bang Theory and Planet of the Apes. I’m sorry, but this is just ridiculous for entertainment media. Every time I see this background I’m reminded of some random TV show or movie. I’m sure you notice the same thing. It’s like some badge of honor to film there. Any way you slice it, it shatters the immersion of whatever you’re watching.

In this episode the Sliders theme “whisper” is provided by guest star Corey Feldman, known for The Goonies, Stand by Me and more. Back to the story at hand, the twisters are interfering with the timer and the Professor believes the entire atmosphere is electrically charged. Wade recalls being scared watching The Wizard of Oz with tornadoes, witches and flying monkeys as a kid. For any kid including myself the movie was indeed scary. After leaving the desert and rocky area the timer finally begins to stabilize. The area is filled with lodestone, which is magnetically charged magnetite. The Sliders are desperate for drinking water and off in the distance they see a green thriving landscape.

They’re greeted into town with a dead man in a torture stock, which was often used in the Middle Ages. If you’re not familiar with it, these “stocks” had the offender’s head and arms locked into a wooden device while standing. It was a form of punishment and humiliation. At this point, the Sliders knew they were in for some trouble. In the community the lead tyrant, Franklin Michener, orders a meeting to discuss what should be done to “the outcasts”. They are the people who steal the communities food supplies. To do so, they dig tunnels to get to their community. At this time, he’s not referring to the Sliders, but to any outsider who has already defied his authority. If someone disobeys his rules, they are then sentenced to beatings, banishment, you name it, including the ultimate sentence, execution.

His daughter Jenny notices the Sliders using one of their barns as a place of sanctuary. Soon enough one of the twisters jumps the lodestone rocks and lands in their community causing destruction. Apparently the timer is a “tornado magnet”. Dictator Franklin Michener finds them held up in a tornado bunker. Timer in hand, Quinn is confronted by him. He’s sentenced to beatings in order to find the truth about the timer. The Professor keeps telling Franklin about it opening the doorway to parallel worlds. To be honest, it’s somewhat comical because trying to tell someone this story is like talking to a wall.

The guys are banished from the community and taken out in the middle of nowhere. Wade on the other hand is kept because she may be of reproductive value. She’s held against her will and forced to work in a garden. Not I’m not against gardening, but she’s being held hostage by some lunatic in a backward community. Jenny helps Wade but is seemingly mum about her brother being banished as well. Rumors are some scientific laboratory went awry causing this world’s problems. It reminds me of bizarre experiments such as the Hadron Particle Collider, HAARP, chemtrails and many other projects that were once considered conspiracy theories.   

As the guys travel through a dust storm, it’s almost as if Rembrandt intentionally turns to his side to be hit by a lightning bolt. Gotta churn out an episode, so do whatever it takes. Arturo mentions “where there’s humor there’s life”. I guess you have to give this episode that, it’s pretty wild and campy. The boy that disappeared in the middle of nowhere now shows up and finds refuge for them in a cave, which we will see dozens of times for the rest of the season. In the depths there they find Franklin’s son, named Reed played by actor Corey Feldman.

Reed explains that his father Franklin, was indeed a scientist and a colleague named Thomas Malone were experimenting with the “natural electro-magnetic dynamos”. These were under the ground to create electric tornadoes. They were to help benefit mankind such as creating trenches, building demolitions and whatnot. It’s appears underneath it all Franklin took his experiments too far and wanted to step back into the olden days of mankind. Reed discovered his father’s diary about these secret experiments and he was ultimately banished like many others.

To top the rest of the episode off, we’ve got Wade nearly being stabbed to death by a pitchfork, thrown into a chair to be drowned, a Jeep that runs on natural gas, and some rambling from the Professor about coils. In future interviews with John Rhys-Davies, it’s no wonder he accidentally described these tornadoes as upside down, large at the bottom and the tail spinning to the top. One good thing about this episode is the homage to the 1986 movie Stand by Me. Jerry O’Connell and Corey Feldman do the secret handshake called skin-it from the movie. This episode can be fun to watch for the weird, crazy and campy feel, but it shouldn’t be taken seriously. Or maybe it should.

By accident, I stumbled upon a title on IMDb called ‘The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.’ What’s it about? Well, it’s a nonfiction book written by Tom Wolfe in 1968 that documents a group traveling across the United States exploring the experiences of a drug-fueled lifestyle with LSD, or “acid”. Stir together script writers hopped up on LSD acid, as they watch the Twister movie and you have the perfect episode, Electric Twister Acid Test. If there’s anything to learn from this episode, it’s to stay away from the acid.