The episode opens with the Sliders falling right into a maintenance closet. Maggie and Quinn are arguing about something, and Colin asks if it’s possible for them to slide inside of a solid object. Quinn objects, saying that there’s a densitometry circuit which prohibits this, but Maggie begins arguing with him again. Rembrandt says he needs a drink and Colin follows him.
We find that the Sliders have slid inside the Chandler Hotel, and Colin asks Rembrandt if Maggie and Quinn always argue like that. Rembrandt just says that when you slide long enough, people will get on your nerves every once in a while. Sitting down at the bar, Rembrandt comments on the eclectic type of drinks available while Maggie and Quinn emerge from off-screen, still bickering. A man in the background named Damon walks up to them and tells them he’s a licensed facilitator and that he’d like to help. When Maggie yells at him, Damon steps back, takes out a dart gun and shoots a tranquilizer into Maggie’s shoulder. Maggie collapses to the ground, a very tranquil woman.
Quinn helps Maggie up and asks Damon what he shot her with and why. Maggie dances around as Damon tells Quinn it’s just a standard mood elevator, and aims his gun to Quinn to try and elevate his mood as well, but Quinn deflects the shot. Unfortunately, it hits Colin, who begins hearing colors and tasting aromas. Rembrandt takes care of Colin as Quinn and Damon run outside to see where Maggie is. Maggie is dancing in the street but in her blissed-out state doesn’t see a bus coming towards her. Quinn saves her life but Maggie begins to have severe withdrawal symptoms, so Damon and Quinn rush her to a clinic around the corner.
Inside, Doctor Helena Malone prescribes a dose of troxoprine for Maggie, a drug that neutralizes any other drugs in her system, while expressing amazement that neither she nor Quinn have medical infusers on their arms. Malone tells Quinn to wait in the waiting room while she makes a quick call, but when Quinn overhears his name being mentioned, leaves and goes to find Rembrandt and Colin. Rembrandt and Quinn drag a drugged-up Colin out of the Chandler and help him come down. However, Colin wants to get high again, and when he sees the vehicle Damon was driving, runs after it. Damon and a group of facilitators capture Colin, but Rembrandt and Quinn escape.
Inside the clinic, Colin is interrogated by Fletcher Lowell, an agent of the Drug Empowerment Administration. After drugging Maggie again, the two are taken outside and to a Reorientation Compound. Quinn and Rembrandt see them being taken away and try to enlist the aid of a tax cab driver, but he’s too drugged up to care. Quinn and Rembrandt then enter the clinic and find out why Quinn is being aggressively sought after when he finds a computer file containing video of his double, a hippie anti-drug activist. Rembrandt finds where Maggie and Colin have been taken and they go to the compound, which looks like 1950s suburbia. Quinn and Rembrandt knock on the door and are greeted by a very happy Colin. Maggie, dressed in a homemaker outfit, descends the stairs and greets them as well. Quinn and Rembrandt find out that on this world, Sigmund Freud paved the way for drug therapy when he gave up on psychology after discovering lithium.
Maggie and Colin sense that Quinn and Rembrandt aren’t happy, so they page a medical emergency, calling several facilitators to the compound. When Quinn attacks one, Colin and Maggie run and hide, and Quinn and Rembrandt flee to avoid capture. On the street, they deduce that taking them on the slide while on drugs could produce bad effects on the next world, so they try to buy some troxoprine from a street source. Lowell finds out about this and gives Damon Decimide — a PCP-esque drug to bring down Quinn and Rembrandt. Damon goes on a rampage, seriously hurting the dealer and chasing Quinn and Rembrandt into a warehouse even after being hit by a car.
Meanwhile, Maggie decides to try cooking. She isn’t very successful.
Quinn and Rembrandt manage to subdue Damon and help him out of his Decimide-induced haze. Damon agrees to help them, and the three drive to the compound, where Damon calls Lowell and Helena on his walkie-talkie and tells them he killed all four Sliders. When Helena and Lowell show up, Damon takes the medication and takes out some troxoprine while Quinn and Rembrandt hold the doctor and agent at bay. Damon administers the troxoprine to Maggie and Colin, and when Lowell tries to up his dosage from Tranquol to Ecstacide, he passes out.
At the clinic, Helena helps clear all the drugs from Maggie and Colin’s system. Damon decides to stay drug-free. Quinn tells Maggie not to get them in trouble on the next world, which prompts another argument, and, well, they slide.
1402 Elm Street… or is it? Dialogue says it’s Street, but in the next shot, it shows a street sign saying Elm Avenue!
Maggie’s laughter is considered “sensuous grunting” according to the closed captioning people.
In the beginning of the 20th century, Sigmund Freud found out about the psychological effects of lithium and began researching drugs as a way to promote well-being, abandoning his other areas of research. Pharmacology paved the way into the American consciousness, and as a result, is now the de facto method of controlling the population.
It is also hinted at that most of the western world uses medical infusers to prescribe medication, saying that only a few parts of Canada still prescribe the drugs orally.
The Drug Empowerment Agency was enacted instead of the Drug Enforcement Agency, allowing the government to make sure that its citizens are kept happy and complacent through the uses of pharmacotherapy. Police are substituted by licensed facilitators, men and women who inject people with mood tranquilizers like Tranquol to keep them docile. As a result, the amount of crime is seriously reduced to the point where door locks and camera monitoring systems aren’t implemented, even in sensitive areas like doctor’s offices.
In 1995, in Monterey, California, the seal population exploded, prompting the state government to call in the Coast Guard and lessen the numbers by spraying high-pressured water on them. A protest was held by a group of environmentalists, and a few Facilitators were given Decimide to eliminate the problem.
Now, in 1998, Quinn Mallory is considered a high-profile criminal. His whereabouts are unknown.
The working title for this episode in pre-production was “San Fernando Valium.”
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Kari Wuhrer waxed enthusiastic about this episode.
“I also had a great time doing an episode called ‘Just Say Yes.’ It was when Charlie just started and Charlie and I got to be strung out on drugs the entire show.”