Fever

A quick stop in a San Francisco where the streets flow with black gold refills the Sliders’ meager coffers, but the next slide takes them straight into a plague. A virus known only as the Q has proven unstoppable and Quinn’s doppelganger is Patient Zero. Quinn is captured by the California Health Commission while the others align themselves with his renegade double deep within the quarantined zones of the city. Knowing that they can’t possibly risk spreading this disease to another dimension, Arturo races to find a cure for both Wade and himself before it is too late. Quinn escapes the CHC with the help of his other’s former girlfriend, but inadvertently brings them right to the man they want to see dead the most — alternate Quinn, who was set up by the institution as the patsy.

Worlds Visited

	Oil Boom World San Francisco is sitting on top of a couple billion barrels of black gold, and the locals are whooping it up… complete with hillbilly Texan throwing his hat in the air. Read the full Travelogue entry »
	Q World A viral epidemic has engulfed the populace in fear. The disease, a streptomycin-like illness dubbed the Q, has driven the poor away to die while the rich live in sanitized protection. Read the full Travelogue entry »
	Cannibal World Here, San Francisco is a tropical environment complete with requisite people-eaters. Read the full Travelogue entry »

Details

• The banner headline on the San Francisco Daily Star at the beginning of the episode reads: “SAN FRANCISCO OIL BOOM” with an accompanying article called “Gushers discovered all over the City.” Other readable headlines on the top fold of the front page include: “The world reacts” and “Black Gold’ Rush is On.” The bird pictured in the paper’s title appears to be a California Condor.
• The trolley car bears a sign that reads “Powell [Street].”
• Two readable messages spray painted on a wall on Oil Boom World read “Greed is $ex” and “teenager.”
• The sign across the street that Rembrandt sees is “Faye’s Restaurant.”
• On Q World, signs posted all over the city show that the Quinn Mallory here is wanted by order of the California Health Commission (CHC) because it considers him to be “Patient Zero.” They are also offering a $1,000,000 reward.
• Spray painted in red over a billboard of Quinn’s wanted poster is a sentence that reads “Cure the Q, it’s them or you!”
• A church along the Sliders’ route to the motel is called “The New Church of the Divine Immunity.” Unfortunately, it’s been quarantined by the CHC.
• Rembrandt says that he and a swooning Wade will check into the “Motel 12,” although the sign outside appears to read “California Motel.”
• In the “Feel-Rite” pharmacy (where all products are hygienically approved), there is a CHC-approved brochure available called “The Q: Important Health Information.” Also in the pharmacy is a cardboard stand-up advertisement picturing a pretty lady in a skin-tight gold jumpsuit with helmet. It reads:When at home I’m in Chanel
  When in a crowd I’m in my
  RACLAR puncture proof germ-free suit.
• On Amazing Bargains, hosted by perennial infomercial celebrities Charlie McGlade and Mike Levy, shoppers in Q World can buy the “Biological Purification Kit.” It includes:
  • Five pairs of sterile surgical gloves.
  • 36 bars of Medidine Soap (“It kills germs on contact”).
  • An autoclave with stainless steel pullout drawer (for sterilizing utensils).
  • A self-activating front door home protection unit (for sterilizing visitors).
  • The price? Less than $49.95.
• Protection Areas are labeled with a sign that reads: “You are now leaving the protected area — re-entry is prohibited.”
• Wade is resting in a bunk in section E of the protection area.
• The CHC building is located on Polk Street.
• Pavel’s cab is # 37. The license plate is 3M9L8C2.
• Arturo rests in a bunk in section D of the protection area.

Character Information

• Wing says that Quinn lives on James Street. [see Nit-picks]
• Arturo’s favorite foods include Beef Wellington and asparagus.
• Rembrandt once played an Easter weekend concert in Salt Lake City in 1989 and apparently wasn’t happy with the crowd’s response.
• Quinn tore up his knee playing football.
• When he was a boy, Arturo’s mother used to give him penicillin in a cherry syrup drink.

Money Matters

No problem here. Before they slid off of Oil Boom World, Rembrandt scooped up gobs of discarded cash on the street and had enough for lunch, a hotel room and $100 dollars for a cab ride. He even offered Pavel the cabby another two hundred to stay put while he rescues Quinn.

Notable Quotes

• “Oh, I like this world.” — Arturo, after getting kissed by a drunk young lady on Oil Boom World.
• “Oh, great, we get twenty minutes in Wealthyland … we stuck two days here in Psychoville.” — Remmy, after Arturo observes that on this world, men don’t seem to like kisses from pretty girls.
• “Man, you can take a man’s body and beat it; you can take his soul and try it; but to do this to a hamburger is downright unkind.” — Rembrandt on the quality of the grub at Faye’s.
• “You want to know what I’ve been doing that could have cured me? I’ll tell you. I’ve been sliding through an interdimensional wormhole seeing how many ways people like YOU can screw up civilization!” — Quinn, to the scientists who are studying him.
• “Man, look, I know you’re hungry but where’s your dignity?” — Rembrandt, to Arturo, who is looking through the trash to find mould for penicillin.
• “Don’t look at me, I’m just a chicken McNugget, you the quarter pounder.” — Remmy to Arturo on who he thinks the flesh eaters on Cannibal World will devour first.

Nitpicks/Errors

• On Oil Boom World, Wing mentions that Quinn’s house on James Street hit the mother lode. But in Summer of Love, Quinn’s driver’s license lists his address as 3759 Lab… the rest of the street name is cut off due to the magnification of the picture but it’s definitely not James St. It is possible that Lab… is the street that intersects James St. because the Mallorys live on a corner, but then in Eggheads, Quinn tells a cab driver to take him to his house at 4159 Blue Jay Way. Perhaps Quinn’s double has a different address?
• During Amazing Bargains, Charlie McGlade talks about the sterilization unit “with stainless steel pull-out drawer.” Soon after, Arturo and Rembrandt go into the bathroom to talk. When they come out, about a minute later, McGlade is again talking about the unit and repeats his line verbatim. It’s as if the continuity of the ad was missed between scenes.

Neatpicks

• When the four are spit out of the vortex into Q World there is a sign right beside the wormhole that reads “One Way Do Not Enter.”
• During Wade’s feverish hallucinations, she thinks Arturo and Rembrandt are hideously deformed and, thanks to a terrific make-up job, so do we.

Rewind That!

The very brief flash of a face with red eyes during Wade’s hallucination in the alley, looks suspiciously like Boris Karloff as the mummy in the 1932 horror film classic “The Mummy.”

Guest Stars

• Ken Pogue as Dr. [Darren] Morton
• Allison Hossack as Dr. Eileen Stanley

With

• Yee Jee Tso¹ as Wing
• Alex Bruhanski² as Pavel Kurlienko
• Marie Stillin as [“Faye’s”] Waitress
• William Sasso³ as Gomez Calhoun
• Dean Haglund as [“Feel Rite”] Stock Boy
• David L. Gordon as Tactical Moonsuit Guy
• William MacDonald as Medical Moonsuit Guy
• James Bell as Burly [coughing] Trucker
• James Timmins as [“Feel Rite”] Pharmacist
• Garvin Cross⁴ as The Sick Man

Unaccredited

• Charlie McGlade as Himself on the infomercial.⁵
• Mike Levy as Himself on the infomercial.⁵
• The man who complains about the sick trucker in Faye’s.
• The voice of the computer.
• A nun at the hospital compound.

1. Yee Jee Tso also appeared as Wing in the Pilot.
2. Alex Bruhanski also plays Pavel in the Pilot and Into the Mystic.
3. William Sasso’s Gomez Calhoun appears in The King is Back, Time Again and WorldTime Again and World, Gillian of the Spirits and Greatfellas.
4. Garvin Cross, who plays the man who saves Wade in the street in this episode, would return in a substantially bigger role as Alvarez in the second season episode Time Again and WorldTime Again and World.
5. Charlie McGlade and Mike Levy pull off successful cameos doing what they do best: pitching products on infomercials. McGlade is known for his energetic style while Levy usually turns in sidekick performances sporting an endless supply of colorful sweaters. For this episode, a Fox press release lists their characters as ‘The Pitchman’ and ‘Mike’ respectively. The two are also credited by a Fox release for Luck of the Draw but they do not make an appearance.