Double Cross


On a world where resources are so scarce horses are on the endangered species list, the Sliders find themselves in the overpopulated fusion of Los Angeles and San Francisco. Unable to find anything worth eating, Rembrandt accepts a dinner invitation from a wealthy superfan of his double. The others are pursued through the streets by Logan St. Claire, a brilliant young scientist who detected their incoming wormhole. She offers them her equipment to find their home coordinates in exchange for whatever help Quinn can give on fixing her faulty sliding machine.

Suspicious about the death of his double, Arturo and Wade launch an investigation that points the finger at Logan. They uncover her plans to raid other worlds for their natural resources and uncover security footage of her murdering the other Arturo. Before they can expose her, Wade is abducted and Logan attempts to kill Arturo by sending him through an unstable wormhole. Quinn makes an unpleasant discovery of his own — he and Logan are the same person, just with an x chromosome swapped for a y. Meanwhile, Rembrandt’s super fan turns into a super stalker, and thanks to its theft by Logan, the timer’s 2 mile radius is expanded out to 400 miles.

Worlds Visited

Shoe World

The only thing known about this world is that Rembrandt bought new boots and a shiny new suit that looks a lot like the one he wore in the Pilot.

Read the full Travelogue entry »

San Angeles

Urbanization has overtaken the West Coast to the point where Los Angeles and San Francisco are boroughs of a 400-mile-long city called San Angeles.

Read the full Travelogue entry »

Lotusland

A ganja-filled time can be had by all, mon.

Read the full Travelogue entry »

Details

  • The Sliders land in Sector 47 in the city of San Angeles.
  • Ethyl gas on this world is $409.10 9/10 per gallon.
  • Quinn pulls a paper from a San Angeles News newspaper box.
  • The Sliders are given pamphlets for the San Angeles Transit System. In the bottom left-hand corner a title reads “City of San Angeles.” One discernible line reads “local shuttles.”
  • The large video screen in Prototronics’ lab reads “Vortex Detected” and “Vortex Integrity Stable.”
  • When Adrian shows Logan the thermal scanner readouts, the title at the top of the screen reads “Thermal Scan Comparisons” and flashes “averaging” below the two body models. When the two bodies overlap one another, it reads “Identical Match” and the figures on the left of the screen are simply numbers and letters designed to let the viewer know that the computer is working hard.
  • The lithograph inscription on the Crying Man poster reads “Love ya — The Cryin’ Man Rembrandt Brown.”
  • Rembrandt gets on train No. 44172 and climbs to the roof above the Coach section.
  • The plaque under Arturo’s medal reads “Maximillian Arturo Congressional Metal for Scientific Excellence.”
  • According to the video screen readout, the co-ordinates of this world are 1GCKED.
  • At Prototronics, Wade is being held in room 267.

Character Information

  • Arturo hates Los Angeles.

Money Matters

  • The Sliders have enough to order a hot dog from the Geomash vendor, although they don’t get it.
  • Quinn pops a coin into the San Angeles News newspaper box.
  • Rembrandt doesn’t have enough to purchase a train ticket.

Notable Quotes

  • “You know, it seems like every world we go to we have trouble with the food.” — Rembrandt’s observations concerning Geomash, and he’s right on the money.
  • “How very male of you.” — Wade’s response to the other guys’ reactions to Rembrandt’s biggest fan.
  • “Good heavens, a union of Los Angeles and San Francisco. It goes against the laws of nature.” — Arturo.
  • “What was all that about an overweight surcharge?” — Arturo while trying to contemplate the 10-block, $85 cab ride to the Dominion Hotel.
  • “No need to sound so surprised. I may not be your idea of a shower fantasy, but I do have my admirers.” — Arturo to Wade, who acts incredulously that the professor’s double was having an affair with Logan St. Clair.
  • “What dark corner of our soul did you crawl out of?” — Quinn to himself, or herself depending on how you look at the situation.
  • “I’m so sorry.” — Arturo, right before he clocks a Prototronics guard in the mouth.
  • “Don’t ever say that to me again.” — Rembrandt to the hotel manager who claims that he’s the Cryin’ Man’s “biggest fan.”

Nitpicks/Errors

  • After the Sliders are given pamphlet maps of San Angeles, we see an over the shoulder shot of what they look like inside and then a head-on shot showing some type of logo on the front of the maps. But if you freeze the frame over Quinn’s shoulder, there is nothing on the front of his map when he opens it the first time.
  • As the Sliders are looking at Logan’s readout screen she says that “the one to the right is your wormhole” and the graphic moves counter clockwise to a 6 o’clock position, but in the close up scene of the screen, the vortex graphic begins at an 8 o’clock position and moves counter-clockwise.
  • As Quinn grabs onto the yellow bar, to stop from being sucked into Logan’s vortex, he grabs onto the bar with his right hand, but that hand has a watch on its wrist. In other episodes, Quinn traditionally wears his watch on his left wrist.
  • The Dominion Hotel seems to be a five-star establishment on this world, yet Wade and Arturo mention nothing of the severely changed surroundings.
  • Just when the four are about to slide, a public address system announces that the daily power blackout will begin in 15 seconds and last for 15 minutes, however, twice before the blackout has been said to last for 30 minutes.

Neatpicks

  • The beige Rolls Royce that Monique is driving looks like the same one Arturo would later get behind the wheel of in The Guardian.
  • Quinn makes a reference to Tundra World when he says “I opened the vortex early on another dimension before the timer reached zero. The early access corrupted the program and erased our home co-ordinates.”

Rewind That!

  • While looking at the gas prices, Quinn mentions that for the price of $410 a gallon, at least they pump it for you, prompting Arturo to remark “That’s steep for full service,” but in closed captioning, he actually says “At that price they should deliver it to you.”
  • As Quinn, Arturo and Wade are getting into the electric tram cab, there is no dialogue but the closed captioning quotes one of them as saying: “It should only be a short ride to the Dominion.”
  • In a voice-over, Logan apologizes for her guards drawing their guns on the Sliders, on screen, Quinn laments “Ya, you should talk to them about that,” but in closed captioning he says “It’s okay, forget it.”
  • As Monique moves toward Rembrandt in her wedding gown, just after he’s discovered the shrine, the closed captioning dictates that she hum “The Wedding March” while she walks toward Rembrandt for an embrace. In the dialogue, she does not hum.

History Lesson

“It goes against the laws of nature,” but somehow, Los Angeles and San Francisco are the end neighborhoods of the megalopolis San Angeles. The coastal city extends through Santa Barbara, Salinas, and San Luis Obispo.

Because so many people are living in such a concentrated area, natural resources aren’t exactly in abundance. Congress has placed horses on the endangered species list, and five-minute power brownouts are scheduled every three hours and there’s a power blackout every day at 4:00 pm.

Prototronics, a company based in the San Francisco borough of San Angeles, has been working to develop sliding on this planet so that they can utilize the natural resources of parallel Earths. The inventor of the project, Maximillian Arturo, died mysteriously while testing the stability of a Prototronics vortex, a major setback. His assistant, Logan St. Clair, has taken over the development.

Rembrandt Brown is still a top-drawing act and is currently touring Europe. Monique, a huge fan of the Cryin’ Man, lives off the wealth of her father, who invented the paperless toilet on this world. They still have paper toilets here but to use it will cost the user at least five dollars.

On this world, Logan’s mother, Mrs. Mallory, remarried after her husband, Michael Mallory, died. She married a man named St. Clair and Logan took her step-father’s name.

The Inside Slide

Between season two and season three, production moved from Vancouver, British Columbia to Los Angeles, California.

“I guess there was some kind of change in the tax laws that enabled us to make the move [to Los Angeles],” says Tracy Tormé. “The feeling was that the better weather, longer daylight hours and being able to do things on the lot just about offset the financial advantages of doing it in Vancouver.”

Production was also moved because of the lengths that Tormé and associates would go to circumvent FOX’s notes.

“During the first two seasons, we did the shows we wanted to do subversively,” he reveals. “We found ways to ignore the network’s notes and stubbornly go in the direction we wanted to go in.”

While this may have worked with previous producers such as Jon Povill and Jacob Epstein, the new regime brought in for the third season erased that subversive element, and FOX mandated that the show move so they could keep a closer eye on it.

· · ·

What ever became of Logan St. Clair? According to the September 1996 TV Guide Fall Preview, Logan was definitely created to be a recurring character/villain. Yet she never appeared in another episode of the series.

“Fox killed Logan because they didn’t think she was ‘hot’ enough,” says writer Paul Jackson. “Another smart network move, yes? She was a great character and we had just started to think about her return (obviously she was coming back!) when they told us to forget it.

“We had foreseen as many as two more eps with her: one where she returns and confronts Quinn head on and one where she actually changes her loyalties and dies trying to save ‘herself’ (Quinn). Sadly, it was never meant to be.”

For the record, the staff at Earth Prime all think Zoe is hot.

· · ·

The recurring character of Elston Diggs was created by Tracy Tormé as one of just many ideas he said he had coming into Season Three. The original concept of the character was to have him as a bartender who blended into whatever kind of lifestyle was evident on any given world. “I think his name originally was Elton Diggs and we had to change it because there was somebody actually living in L.A. with that name,” he says. “So he became Elston Diggs, and the idea was to create a sort of chameleon character who was going to appear in this bar that we had as a standing set and he was different on every world.”

· · ·

The futuristic Golden Gate Bridge and the bullet train that travels through it, which gave Rembrandt the ride of his life, was designed, modeled, and animated by Larry Bowman.

· · ·

While originally intended as the third season opener, this episode was pushed to air second after Rules of the Game.

· · ·

Rumor has it that the character Logan St. Clair is named after the Sliders production office St. Clare Entertainment.

Guest Stars

Co-Starring

Uncredited:

  • The actress who plays the disgusted woman in the cab tram as the Sliders escape the motorcycle guards
  • The actress who plays the blonde hotel bell hop.
  1. Lester Barrie also appears as Diggs in The Dream Masters, Desert Storm, Dragonslide, Murder Most Foul and The Breeder.
  2. Monte Perlin returns as a Kromagg Guard in Genesis.

In Brief

Written by Tony Blake & Paul Jackson
Production # K1801
Network # SL-301
Directed by Richard Compton
Music by Stephen Graziano
Edited by Michael B. Hoggan, A.C.E.

Chronology

Previously:
Next:

In Review

A
Essential

“Double Cross” is an incredible hour of television that proves ​Sliders​ can balance believable antagonists, interesting plot twists, cool character moments, and action adventure when the need arises. If FOX is mandating more running, jumping, and explosions, I can certainly get behind it when this is the end result.

Read the review »

Logline

On a world that redefines urban sprawl, the Sliders befriend a beautiful woman who has the technology to send them home... but for a price.

Timer Status

Oops! Kiss cold, foggy mornings goodbye — the Sliders are heading for Los Angeles. Thanks to Prototronics, the timer's laser gyro has been swapped with a whispering gallery gyro, extending its radius from two to 400 miles.