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.

Arturoisms

  • “Blistering idiot.” — To pharmacist.
  • “Biology is what you do if you don’t have the maths for real science.”

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.”

History Lesson

Q World is not unlike Earth Prime in many respects. Charles Manson and Richard “The Night Stalker” Ramirez both exist here, as does the emergency 911 number. However, this world never had the benefit of British bacteriologist Alexander Fleming’s discovery of penicillin.

The Quinn on this world, a med student, was the first to contract a strep throat-like virus after he volunteered to be a lab subject. After being injected with it by Dr. Darren Morton, Quinn was assured that he was all right and released into the general populace. Realizing the fatal error in judgment, the scientist and the California Health Commission (CHC), which is part of the Board of Health led by the Surgeon General, concocted a story which told the public that a disgruntled Quinn infected society on purpose, like some sort of serial killer. Society, in turn, dubbed the disease “the Q” in his “honor.”

Later, the CHC recaptured Quinn and tried to study this disease but he escaped and laid low, trying to find a cure for those infected. The scare also prompted the CHC to post wanted flyers and to order that citizens report any suspiciously sick people to the CHC. In the interim, the poor have been living in filth and sickness in government-designated “protection areas” while the rich stay protected and healthy.

The Q is a disease bearing many similarities to strep throat. While each case is different, it hits the Sliders hard because their immunities are different. It begins with headaches and coughing (stage one) before developing into a high fever which produces hallucinations. In its final stages, the disease jaundices the skin and turns the whites of the eyes red. Then you’re dead.

The Inside Slide

“When we did the show ‘Fever,’ this was one that some folks were nervous about, and it turned out to be one of our better shows,” muses Robert K. Weiss.

Tormé says that a prime example of the Fox network being influenced by what movies are currently in theaters is this episode. “They were very down on ‘Fever,'” he says. “But when [the movie] Outbreak did really well, they suddenly decided that ‘Fever’ would be our first show of the year, so [the network is] definitely influenced by things like that.”

“As we laid out the air order, it all would have made sense,” says Robert K. Weiss. “When the network started seeing the shows as they came in, their consideration was how to build viewership. They wanted to start with what they felt was stronger material, and that was how ‘Fever’ moved up in the viewing order.

“They were absolutely right, because if you start off with weak shows, you’re never going to build an audience. But it affected us in two ways; it affected how we went in and out of shows, and it also affected a couple of shows internally.”

· · ·

This remains one of Sabrina Lloyd’s favorite episodes. “It was fun for me as an actor, because my character got sick and I had to go through all the emotions associated with that,” she says.

Cleavant Derricks also feels that “Fever” is a prime example of writing a show for an intelligent audience. “There was a disease and none of it was curable because there was no basic penicillin. Now that is interesting to me, and I think that is interesting to the audience.”

· · ·

Dean Haglund’s appearance in this episode actually cost him an appearance on The X-Files” at the time. “I missed shooting … the episode ‘Fearful Symmetry’ (aired February 24, 1995) because I was double booked on the same night,” Haglund remembers. “The locations for the two shows were only seven blocks apart. But it didn’t work out.” As a result of his Sliders sacrifice Haglund did not appear in the episode — a fact that is prominently mentioned in the “Official Guide to The X-Files” book on page 206. It reads: “This is the only time the Lone Gunmen group has appeared without Dean Haglund’s “Langly” character.” Even still, the book and the official Fox X-Files web site credit him for the episode — a fact that is then brought up in the unofficial companion book “The X-Files Declassified” on page 159. It reads: “The official Fox web site erroneously includes Dean Haglund as ‘Langley’ (sic).”

Guest Stars

With

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.

In Brief

Written by Ann Powell & Rose Schacht
Production # 70402
Network # SL-105
Directed by Mario Azzopardi
Music by Mark Mothersbaugh
Edited by Tammis Chandler

Chronology

Previously:
Next:

In Review

A-
Great

It’s nice to be getting away from the strict alt-American history format employed by the first few episodes. “Fever” opened up additional possibilities with its concern for the next dimension’s welfare. Arturo would not willingly take a plague to the next world, but what if the four were to inadvertently do so? After all, the possibilities are infinite.

Read the review »

Logline

When Wade is infected with a deadly virus on an Earth wracked by an epidemic, Rembrandt and Arturo race to find a cure and free Quinn from a Gestapo-like health agency.