The Sliders are chased by fast food workers in clown costumes and their huge jack-in-the-box leader, who is holding Diana hostage. In the midst of a hail of gunfire, they vortex out in the nick of time but Diana is experiencing terrible claustrophobia from her capture. They arrive in a vacation resort called The Arcade, a state-of-the-art family entertainment center which offers role-playing scenarios. Rembrandt chooses to play a Shaft-type detective dressed in a polyester leisure suit and platform shoes. Mallory, portraying a Confederate soldier, witnesses a holographic soldier “die.” But before his image disappears, he tells Mallory, “This is no game.” Meanwhile, Diana and Maggie are kidnapped to become the human hosts that drive each simulation. In their efforts to locate the women, Rembrandt finds Diana’s hologram soliciting on a New York street while Mallory returns to the Civil War battle. Suddenly, he sees Maggie leading the Union infantry line. She disappears after being mortally wounded, proving that she, too, is a hologram. Mallory and Rembrandt confront Hal, a maintenance man, who takes them to the underground complex. They save Diana from among the rows of unconscious victims who experience a real death each time it occurs in the games. It’s a race for the Sliders to disengage Maggie from the program before she is further traumatized by another painful death.
MSG WorldPrice wars have been taken to another level on a world where fast food restaurants like Flannigan’s and Burger Monarch will do anything — including gunfire — to beat the competition. |
Fun WorldIntricate VR simulations are cheap sources of entertainment on a world where people are completely absorbed in games, not work. |
K Family Shoe Co. 260 South Los Angeles Street. Los Angeles, CA 90012 TEL: (213) 626-6651 (213) 626-0409 FAX: (213) 626-3266 IMPORTADORES & MAYDRISTAS
Einman Entertainment Roman Holidays and Spa Visitors Registration LOG IN LOG OUT NAME: RISA BLEWITT 8:15 10:15 NAME: MELANIE BURZYNSKI 8:30 11:00 NAME: TERESA LEONARD 8:30 11:00 NAME: JUDY DAVENPORT 9:00 12:00 NAME: EVE BUSHMAN 9:20 12:15 NAME: ED BUSHMAN 9:20 12:15 NAME: SKIP ALLIOTI 13:00 15:15 NAME: LAURA SANCHEZ 14:00 16:30 NAME: NAME:
BNL 35
EF 35
ACC
In closed captioning, Spinning Topps is spelled Spinning Tops.
Einman Entertainment controls the world. Literally? Perhaps. But his Arcades, placed in major cities around the globe, attract millions of people a year because of their realistic scenarios.
Visitors can choose to play any number of simulations: Western Roundup, Street Cop, E.R. Doctor, the visitor is immersed in a holographic environment that is totally lifelike. However, this realism is supplied by a neural network of captive humans who become NPCs inside the games. When those people die on the battlefield or in the game, they experience a real death. Too many of those deaths, and their body gives up. They die for real.
It’s unknown what will happen now that all this has been revealed. Einman himself is in prison facing innumerous murder and kidnapping charges, and the Arcades themselves have been closed pending a federal investigation.
“The idea for ‘A Thousand Deaths’ came to me in a Las Vegas video arcade,” explains Story Editor Keith Damron. “I had become quite fond of a game called Time Crisis. During one particular game session I was doing fairly well, racking up a pretty impressive body count of cyber-terrorists, when I caught sight of a young lad out of the corner of my eye. He too was playing a similar shoot-em-up and seemed utterly hypnotized as he mindlessly blew away each human simulation. It really made me stop to think about what I was doing. On one hand I was simply playing a game similar to those I had played all my life. But the bad guy images I was splattering, soulless as they were, were still of people. I really had to wonder if activities such as these can desensitize a certain few to a higher reality. I also knew there was a story in this somewhere.
“The basic concept was, ‘what if video game characters were really living beings?’ I managed to write a pre-production draft in five days.”
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“A Thousand Deaths” gave Damron the opportunity to use an idea he felt harkened back to the early days of the show.
“It gave me a chance to put in the ‘fast food war’ gag,” he says. “Sort of a throw back to some of the first season alternate world vignettes, I had been saving it for just the right episode.”
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“I really enjoyed any opening to build on Rembrandt’s backstory, particularly where his career was concerned,” Damron says. “This script provided me with a chance to explore a television opportunity for The Cryin’ Man. One that could have been but wasn’t. Plus, as a general rule of thumb, it’s always a good practice to try to occasionally put your main characters in a situation that will show them in a different light.”
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Principle photography on A Thousand Deaths was completed on February 12th 1999.