The Sliders are foreigners in their own hometown in the country of Nueva España, and the local immigration police want to deport them to Canada. Quinn evades a raid but is injured in his escape. He stumbles his way to a wealthy estate where he is surprised to find his high school sweetheart, Daelin, employed as a maid. He learns her fiance, Dennis, was swept up with his friends, so the two conspire with her brother’s gang to intercept the deportation bus. The plan fails when Dennis sells them out to get his green card. The Sliders escape, but Daelin is left behind. Rembrandt encourages Quinn to look up Daelin again on the next world and he finds her in an abusive relationship with another Dennis. Quinn offers to slide her away, but a baby ruins the plan. Instead, he sets her up with his double and slides again, but something is horribly wrong; time’s arrow is running in reverse, and the four are in prison for the murder of — you guessed it — Daelin. Quinn ignores Arturo’s plea for him to not interfere with the timeline and attempts to save her, possibly destroying the dimension in the process.
“Go with it!” — Arturo, ironically uttering what would later become Executive Producer David Peckinpah’s seminal catchphrase.
In Nueva España, attorney Sanchez has brown eyes, but on Reverse World they are blue.
Check out the look on Quinn’s face as he completes the handshake with Daelin’s brother (Jerry O’Connell’s brother, Charlie) and tries to understand what the ‘fist move’ is for.
In Nueva España, the Spanish have taken over Northern California and have instituted their own government over the American one somewhere along the timeline. La Migra are the equivalent of Immigration Police and Canadians are considered illegal immigrants with the derogatory slang “fur-backs” leveled upon them. Canadians are dying to get into Nueva España because their country is lying in poverty. According to the immigration jeep’s license plate and the flags hanging in the courtroom, the Stars and Stripes is green and white with a circle of 13 stars in red, indicating that there are only 13 regions in this country. On this world, the Anglos lost the New World to Spain.
· · ·
On Lions World, the history of this world is very similar to Earth Prime’s with the notable exception that the Detroit Lions are now playing in San Francisco. It’s interesting to wonder what happened to the 49ers. Prior to the 1980s, the 49ers were a lackluster team. Perhaps they moved. Also, Quinn’s father relocated the family to Seattle when Quinn was in 10th grade, instead of Daelin’s father.
· · ·
Reverse World is instantly different than any other earth they’ve visited: time flows backwards, and effect precedes cause. Stephen Hawkins’ theorem of times arrow being able to point backwards has proven itself to be true.
While “As Time Goes By” was produced sixth and scheduled to air in the middle of the second season, it ultimately ended up airing after the second season finale, Invasion.
“The network maintains the right to run the shows in any sequence they want,” says Tracy Tormé. “There was one show they didn’t like and pushed it back, so we actually had a cliffhanger and then another episode.”
“It was a show the network never really understood,” he added.
· · ·
“‘As Time Go By’ is the one they actually ran last,” adds Tracy Tormé. “Steve Brown is a brilliant writer who based the episode on some theories of Stephen Hawking, about time running backwards. It was funny, because Steve always completely understood the concept — none of us did — and he sounded so convincing when he talked about it that we all said, ‘OK.’
“I ended up liking it because it’s the same woman on three different worlds, and Quinn has three different shots at it,” he continues. “He thinks he’s going to set it right and be with her, but something goes wrong each time. It was a bit surrealistic, with the Sliders going backwards in time while the world was going forwards, a kind of trippy concept. When I saw some feedback on the Internet, a good percentage of people couldn’t figure out what was going on while others thought it was one of our most bizarre episodes.”
· · ·
Tormé also had a personal stake in the success of “As Time Goes By.”
“We divided the rewrite up and I wrote the part where [Quinn] goes and finds [Daelin] with that sort of abusive boyfriend,” he says.