The Chasm

// K2817 · Originally aired April 9, 1999

Rembrandt and Maggie are put to the test emotionally when a short slide lands them in a town where collective bad feelings are transferred to one person, and Quinn’s newfound bliss isn’t helping matters.

Written By // William Bigelow
Director // Robert Hudecek
Music // Danny Lux

Reviews

// Earth Prime

Last season, Sliders delivered a particularly foul turd of an episode about a weird little town with a horrible secret. No matter; here is the sequel nobody demanded—Paradise Lost II: The Chasm. And this time, it’s personal.

// Think of a Roulette Wheel

This is supposed to be the second-worst episode of the series. I don’t know what I just saw, but it wasn’t that. I don’t know what it was, was it real? Did I imagine it? I feel terrible now, but I know one thing—this isn’t the second-worst episode of the series.

// External Reviews

Worlds Visited

Chasm World

Theme park wars in Americaland. Isn’t that would Uncle Walt would have wanted? (Hey, isn’t he frozen, too?)

Details

The specialty of the Sweet Shack is a wicked chocolate malt.
The map of town features the Temple of the Chasm, City Hall, the Hardware Store, the Sweet Shack and two cafés.
Coleman supplies various things to the hardware store.
Andy is the proprietor of the hardware store.
The brochure reads:
Middletown Amusement Park
Home of the World’s Happiest Ride
You get happy through the transmigration of bio-energy.

Character Information

Rembrandt is eaten up inside by the feelings that he abandoned Wade and his attempted murder of Quinn. Rembrandt knows that he was forcibly separated from Wade but can’t reconcile that with his feelings for her.
Despite her three friends, Maggie feels very much alone in her journeys.
Maggie thinks that Quinn doesn’t want her because she isn’t Wade.
Maggie believes that Colin is too busy getting used to sliding to notice her.
Knowing Steven [Jensen] was the best part of Maggie’s life.
Quinn’s tired of searching for his home.

Notable Quotes

“Depression… it can squeeze your soul like a vice grip.”—Rembrandt.
“Rembrandt was the best friend you ever had and you still want to stay here?”—Colin, to Quinn, puzzled over his brother’s desire to stay.
“I’m not Wade.”—Maggie. Yep.
“That was almost better than sliding.”—Colin, on their journey into the Chasm.
“All great leaps of faith look forbidding at first.”—Mrs. Meadows.
“Ugh.”—My gut reaction to this episode.

Money Matters

Colin steals a bunch of climbing equipment.
Quinn and Colin eat popcorn in Middletown and they all get chocolate malts, but it’s unknown if a charge was issued.

Nitpicks and Errors

Now the Chandler set is standing in as a church interior?
If, as the sheriff claims, there are no mountains around Middletown, why is the hardware store stuffed full of barrels of mountain climbing material?
For that matter, how can there be a cave of solid rock and not have there be a mountain?
Why would Middletown need a sheriff for the past 23 years?
Why is there a hardware store in the middle of a theme park?
Why does a peaceful place like Middletown need guns in its hardware store?
For a place that siphons off everyone’s bad feelings, that sheriff sure gets pissed off pretty fast after Colin steals the rope and carabineers.
After Maggie, where are the Chosen going to fit in the belly of the Chasm? There are only enough pillars for that number of people.
Who designs a machine where all of the controls are placed inside and are only accessible by those who are in a process of cryogenic suspension and were Chosen?
If someone had that much frost on them, their cells would crystallize and they’d die, not fall into a cryonic slumber.
The readout box goes from -126 degrees to 56 and then back to -126. It also gets blown up by Maggie’s shot, is magically healed and then falls apart again.
Does Maggie shoot the window or the controls? Maybe she was borrowing RJ’s gun from My Brother’s Keeper, which can fire two rounds in different directions simultaneously.
Does Mrs. Meadow walk the Chosen from the bottom of the Chasm to the receptacle? If so, how do the frozen Chosen get up from the cryogenic bed and make it over to the pillar where they stand upright as they freeze?
What’s the significance of that waterfall?
Last one: there are at least a dozen people in the cryo chamber. Are these people supposed to stay frozen forever?

Neatpicks

The exposition that Maggie and Rembrandt feel when they’re hallucinating is good character information, but really, did it have to be shoehorned into this miserable script?

Guest Starring

Antoinette Picatto as Amy Nichols
Michael Sabatino as Derek Nichols
Angela Paton as Mrs. Meadows
Zander Rice as Adam Meadows
Kurt Knudson as Sheriff Hardy
Harrison Young as Henry Nichols

Script Archive

Click on the links below to download rare scripts, outlines, and memos associated with this episode.

The Inside Slide

What did Kari Wuhrer think about being over-the-top emotionally in this episode?

“I spent an entire episode crying my eyes out,” she explains. “It was horrible, I couldn’t wait for that show to be over.”

· · ·

The emotions may have made it horrible for Wuhrer, but the poor scripting and lackluster plot made it horrible for Marc Scott Zicree. He advised planning a picnic and doing that rather than watch “The Chasm” during its first run.

“It’s not one of the high points of this season,” he admits openly.