As Time Goes By
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.
Worlds Visited
 | Nueva EspañaOr more specifically, San Francisco Republica de Nueva España (Republic of New Spain). |
 | Lions WorldSan Francisco Lions Football rules! Quinn’s family moved to Seattle in the 10th grade when his father got a job in aerospace. Now alt-Quinn is a graduate at the University of Washington. |
 | Reverse WorldBecause time can just as easily move backwards. |
 | Phone Booth WorldA world layered with such subtlety and impact it is unlike anything seen before or since. A scene in which Quinn battles his inner demons… against the eerie backdrop of a Pacific Bell phone booth. |
Details
- The Spanish signs on the building-side on the street warn of violent ramifications to those who break the rules.
- The Sliders are waiting for work on the corner of Juarez (Street).
- The license plate of the La Migra truck reads 27-2R4 Immigracion Inspeccion.
- The names of the two Dobermans are Nitro and Cajun (sic).
- The names of the Daelin’s boss’s two children are Anna Marie and Jorge, who’s playing with his friend Tomas.
- Arturo, Rembrandt and Wade appear in court at approximately 2:41 p.m.
- Daelin’s brother is a member of La Raza Blanca (the White Race).
- The bus carrying Rembrandt and the others will be traveling up Route One all the way to Canada.
- On Lions World, the sign on one bench advises “Elect Dakota Bennett Judge 36 District. Return Integrity to our District.”
- The other reads “San Francisco Lions [Football Team]. Season’s tickets now on sale.”
- Daelin’s daughter is named Julie.
- The towel in the jail cell reads San Quentin, the maximum security prison in the Bay Area.
- On Reverse World, the Sliders’ appeal is turned down by Judge [Ruth Bader] Ginsburg, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.
- As the Sliders split up to escape the arriving police, Quinn tells the others to meet him at the Presidio (a reference to the sea-side naval base in San Francisco).
Character Information
- Quinn had a crush on a girl he grew up with named Daelin Richards. They had known each other since they were kids and dated for a couple of years in high school until her family moved away in the 10th grade and broke Quinn’s heart.
- Though a hit in America, the Cryin’ Man didn’t have much sales success in Canada.
- While Rembrandt was with Little Rembrandt and the Shandells, there was a back up singer named Violet whom Rembrandt had a crush on, except he was 17 — and she was 29!
Money Matters
- The first guy in the Chevy truck offers the Sliders 40 pesos to dig out a tree stump, prompting Quinn to point out that normal pay for that job is 50 pesos. (It’s possible that the Sliders were broke on Nueva España because the cash they had with them was no good there.)
- On Lions World, Rembrandt and Quinn have enough to buy a few beers.
- Quinn offers Daelin a few dollars for gas.
Canada Bashing
- When Dennis Richards remarks “kind of nippy out here, eh? Reminds me of Vancouver,” he’s nudging the audience in the side as Sliders was filmed in Vancouver, Canada for the first two seasons and the people behind the show tended to have a little trouble making the rainy, often cold city a substitute for San Francisco.
- While La Migra is raiding the labor workers huddled on the corner, the closed captioning (but not the dialogue) indicates that the leader yells “Ay, caramba. Damn Canadians.” Later, while chasing Quinn, it reads “You ignorant Canadian fur-back!” though the line isn’t heard in the on-screen dialogue.
- Wade: “I want to go home, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in Canada.” Remmy: “You think I do? It’s wet, it’s cold. My records didn’t sell spit up there. All they ever listen to are Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot.” (Murray and Lightfoot are two prominent Canadian singers.)
Notable Quotes
- “God it is cold out here. Why couldn’t you have invented sliding in Miami or something?” — Rembrandt, generally complaining again.
- “I am not your sibling sir, for which I thank God and good breeding.” — Arturo, to Dennis, who calls him “bro’.”
- “This is so trippy. We keep getting involved with the same group of people.” — Wade, after getting one look at the judge on Reverse World.
- “Not lately.” — Wade’s response to the professor’s assertion that the four have gotten out of worse binds than the pursuant cops.
Arturoisms
“Go with it!” — Arturo, ironically uttering what would later become Executive Producer David Peckinpah’s seminal catchphrase.
Nitpicks/Errors
- What are the odds that the Spanish would build a Golden Gate Bridge across the San Francisco bay?
- Quinn tells Kit that it’s crucial that he rescue the others by 10:23 [a.m.], supposedly their slide time. In the next scene, Rembrandt tells the others that he can’t believe immigration woke them up at 5:00 a.m. to be deported and then Wade says they slide in less than two hours. That puts the slide time at around 7:00 a.m. Then again, Quinn is the one with the timer.
- In an editing error, we see Rembrandt jump into the vortex and then cut to Daelin holding her dying brother as a guard kneels beside her and places his hand on Kit’s chest. Then the shot cuts to Quinn entering the gate and back to Daelin as the guard just begins to kneel beside her (again) and place his hand on Kip’s chest (again).
- When Arturo, Rembrandt and Quinn suddenly find themselves at San Quentin, they have lost Wade and their street clothes — but they still have the timer. It’s unlikely that the processing guards at the prison would have let them keep such an item.
- Quinn says that he can’t figure out what’s wrong with the timer, even though he’s taken it apart and put it back together again. In jail, where would he find the tools (a screwdriver especially) to undertake such a dissection?
- The bailiff on Reverse World introduces the judge as Ramon Estevez though his name plate clearly reads “Hon J. Estevez.” Incidentally, Ramon Estevez is actor Martin Sheen’s real name.
- As the four are escaping police, Quinn tells everyone to meet at the Presidio, then later tells Rembrandt that he’s going to try to prevent Daelin’s murder. However, Quinn himself quoted the paper earlier as reading that Daelin was “shot to death in Golden Gate Park.”
- Um, so Reverse World has time moving backwards, right? So that means that the end of the universe on this world was at the same time the universe began on Earth Prime, right? So, unless the exact moment the Sliders slid into Reverse World was the exact median of the life of the universe, wouldn’t the Sliders land in a world that either didn’t exist (the sun’s going nova in a few million years, folks), or is some super-elevated futuristic society?
Neatpicks
In Nueva España, attorney Sanchez has brown eyes, but on Reverse World they are blue.
Rewind That!
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.
History Lesson
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.
The Inside Slide
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.
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“‘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.
Guest Stars
- Brooke Langton as Daelin [Anna Marie] Richards
- Matthew Flint as Dennis McMillan
With
- Charlie O’Connell1 as Kit Richards
- Dennys Payamps as Gloria Sanchez
- Eli Gabay as La Migra
- Mina E. Mina as Judge
- Lori Triolo as La Padrona
- Gary Rousseau as Jailer
- James Crescenzo as Head Guard
- Francisco Trujillo as El Padron
- Dee Jay Jackson as Bailiff
Unaccredited
- The briefly seen Jacob the gardener.
- The federal marshal who unlocks the Sliders’ handcuffs.
- Charlie O’Connell is Jerry O’Connell’s younger brother. He can also be seen in The Young and the Relentless as Quinn’s waterlogged double, in Dragonslide and in much of the fourth season as Colin Mallory.