In Dino Veritas

Season 2
Airdate: 4/26/96
Rating: 4/5

The Sliders land on a world where San Francisco is a national park for the preservation of dinosaurs.

After being separated, the Sliders meet up in the middle of a park in San Francisco. They have “truth collars” locked around their necks. Not a novelty item, but a device presumably mandated by the government to detect and deter lies. It’s a ingenious idea used but I can’t help but feel it was borrowed from an idea earlier in the season episode “El Sid” called buddy bracelets.

Seeing the Sliders wear truth collars on this world for a full episode would be a good idea on its own, but this episode is about dinosaurs and the Sliders’ survival. They regroup and are chased by TV journalists from Hard Copy. Believe it or not the series tried to get Geraldo Rivera to play the part to later get devoured by a dinosaur, but it never came to fruition. The journalists standby and watch them slide, which is a refreshing turn from always seeing them hide from the public. Even the staunch advocate of evasion Professor Arturo, could seem to care less.

As interdimensional travel has it, new worlds bring new problems and this time it’s T-Rex sized. They broke one of the dinosaur’s eggs in this new world by landing on it after the slide and clearly the dino isn’t happy. That’s only part of their problem as Arturo falls and injures his ankle while losing their only tool of escape in the process, the timer. The CGI of the dinosaur is quite poor but that’s to be expected for a television series. It’s clever that this episode doesn’t use many dinosaur scenes, and does so only where it’s needed to aid the story. Quinn leaves the team to backtrack their steps in search for their lost timer while the rest seek shelter in nearby cave. The truth collars complicate the Sliders problems by shocking them with every lie on a dinosaur world or as Arturo so eloquently puts it, deprives them of the comforts of platitude and self deception. Hence, in dino veritas, or in dino truth.

This episode could of presented itself as a high action packed event like the 1993 film Jurassic Park, but I’m glad it didn’t. It’s takes a different more realistic approach and would have been a CGI disaster if we saw numerous action scenes of dinosaurs chasing the Sliders. Not long after a dino disturbs the sliders a ‘National Dinosaur Preserve Ranger’ instructs them they’re breaking the law by trespassing and allegedly poaching dinosaurs. On this earth the dinosaur is a protected species and obviously creatures of this size would indeed need a space the size of San Francisco. Having a black market for anything rare like dinosaurs would bring in big money, something the Sliders will later run into.

The drama really unfolds when the ranger informs the Sliders that Quinn may have been killed by an Allosaurus dinosaur. There’s an interesting surprise that Rembrandt discovers about the ranger but I’ll leave that for you to see. It’s a battle as it is on most every world, for them to prove they are travelers from another dimension. Rembrandt decides to venture out into the dangerous woods and identify the remains of a body left by the dino. While he’s gone the Professor consoles Wade and shares some personal information with her about Quinn. This is undoubtedly the most powerful moment of the episode and also one of the greatest performances by John Rhys-Davies in the series. He describes the first time he met his student, Quinn, who was a gangling and distinguished first-class scientist. It’s moments like these that build our understanding of their relationships, something that we all can relate to and love.

One thing that irritates me about this episode is the constant change of environment from dusk to nighttime. Countless TV series and movies have used lighting and editing techniques while filming in daylight to change the atmospheric feel. However, it’s like when filming this episode they were either extremely pressed on time, which TV series usually are, or didn’t know which scene to film at the right time of day. You can see rapid switches between dusk to nighttime scenes particularly near the end of the episode and this inherently takes away from the immersion this episode could have.

After Rembrandt regroups with Wade and Arturo in the cave, they discover an armed poacher among them. It only further complicates an already dire situation. He claims to have used dinosaur organs for healthcare including to speed burn healing, cancer research, and sinew for heart surgery. As arrogant as he seems to be, it turns out he has some sympathy for the Sliders and even gives some advice on what to do for Arturo’s injured ankle. It’s concluded that the remains of the body outside could be that of the poacher’s dead partner. I love the conversation he brings up with the Sliders about the Forest Service having a photograph of him. He explains he’ll probably windup on “America’s Most Wanted”. If you’re not familiar with the show, it would profile the top criminal cases in America each week, which aired the day after Sliders at 9:00 p.m. on the same network, FOX. Its just another gem Sliders rolls out to relate with pop culture.

Wade haphazardly attempts to search for Quinn in the woods while being encountered by a dino. Luckily she is saved by the poacher, who is soon after killed by the Allosaurus as she’s reunited with Quinn. I felt we should have seen some dramatic scenes with Quinn hunting for the timer but its seems they decided to take the approach of leaving the viewer hanging longer than necessary about Quinn’s well-being. With time fleeting they attempt a final dash to recover the timer. They have a plan of using a repellent and flare in an attempt to deter the dinosaur with only 2 minutes to slide. The final minutes of the episode are well worth the wait and its certainly one of the most dramatic final scenes of this season.

As strange as it sounds, this episode doesn’t try to cover a dinosaur story very in-depth, as it shouldn’t. Rather it takes a different path apart from heavy CGI action scenes to tell the story of those in a life or death situation. The Sliders are put to the test to trust not only each other but the skeptical yet faithful forest ranger. It proves that truth is the key virtue which sets one free. In dino veritas.