To Catch a Slider


The Sliders become alarmed when their timer begins to malfunction. Landing roughly in the next world, the Sliders are puzzled as to what the problem might be. Diana takes the timer apart and concludes a defective crystal needs to replaced. Meanwhile, a film festival is taking place and the Chandler Hotel is brimming with movie stars. Monique Mansfield, the Goddess of Sex, sports a fabulous gem around her neck. Using Mallory’s charm to gain information from Monique, the Sliders plan to steal it from her in an elaborate heist a la Mission Impossible. Diana is in charge of disabling the hotel’s security system, Rembrandt will be the lookout, and Maggie and Mallory are the cat burglars. Everything goes smoothly until Maggie and Mallory discover another intruder in Monique’s room. Maggie runs after the burglar, but soon loses the chase. Diana begins dating Grant Curtis, unaware that he is the hotel’s security specialist. Soon, she and the rest of the Sliders are recruited to help catch the real thief, which they do. Unmasked, the burglar turns out to be…Monique! Grateful for their assistance, Grant rewards the Sliders with a gem, which they use to repair the timer.

Worlds Visited

Boots World

Are we visiting the unseen world from Double Cross where Rembrandt got his new boots?

Glimpse World

Why Glimpse World? Because you only get a glimpse before the vortex opens and sucks the Sliders back in!

Chapare World

Similar to Boots World from the outset, this world has an overabundance of huge, vibrating crystals from the Chapare region in South America.

Details

  • A crystal of Chapare vibrating in the range of 9 Hz is worth $81,000. Each crystal is $9,000 a Hz.
  • The Star of La Paz has a $100,000 insurance policy on it.
  • The jewelry store is named Altobelli’s.
  • Monique Mansfield is the Goddess of Sex and Queen of the Festival.
  • Diana’s PDL doubles as a densitometer to measure frequency rates in living gems. Handy…
  • No one questions Altobelli’s integrity.
  • Monique is staying in Suite 243 of the Chandler.
  • The Chandler of Chapare World has a pool.
  • The fire escape doesn’t reach to Suite 243.
  • The opening ceremonies of the Film Festival end at 11:00 p.m.
  • The Chandler of Chapare World has a high tech safe-locking system that uses a digital push-pad for entering a personalized combination for the individual patron. It’s also run by Windows 95, which means it’s also very easy to crack.
  • Sandra is still wearing Bob Mackie, believe it or not.
  • The new James Bond movie, Midnight Never Cries, stars Steven Seagal.

Character Information

  • Quinn and the Professor discussed scarabs extensively when they analyzed the structure of the new timer. (This discussion must have taken place off-screen shortly after Slide Like an Egyptian.)
  • Mallory has seen — and enjoyed — SneakersCombine World isn’t terribly dissimilar to Earth Prime.
  • Mallory infers that he has broken into a jewelry store before.
  • Diana drinks tea.
  • Mallory drinks lemonade.
  • Monique’s insurance company won’t let her wear the Star of La Paz.
  • Diana read up on the process of wine fermentation a lot when she was younger.

Money Matters

  • The Sliders pay for a room at the Chandler for two nights.
  • Maggie and Diana purchase a dresse for Diana for her date with Grant.
  • The Sliders buy enough professional sneaking equipment to break into someone’s room without being identified.

Notable Quotes

  • “I think it’s genetic. Do you know any men who obsessively try on shoes?” — Mallory, to Rembrandt, while they wait for Maggie and Diana on Shoe World.
  • “Well, there was this drummer in Portland…” — Rembrandt’s reply.
  • “That’s all we need.” — Rembrandt, when Diana tells them that the time has yet another problem.
  • “Oh, here’s something. Quentin Tarantino just checked out. You can have his suite once we clear out the wreckage.” — Gomez Calhoun.
  • “You ever call me sweet cakes again, I’ll pull your heart right through your rib cage.” — Maggie, to Mallory.
  • “I loved ‘Sneakers.’ It didn’t get good reviews, but I loved it.” — Mallory, plugging the fine Universal property.
  • “The way I see it we might as well forget about sliding because jail time is gonna add up to a lot more than 29 years.” — Rembrandt, off the others’ discussion to steal a gem.
  • “[Your dress] needs to say ‘I’m an adult, on my own, love a good time, and have a healthy attitude about sex.'”
    “But without saying ‘Welcome aboard.'” — Maggie and Diana.
  • “Too many classes, not enough glasses.” — Grant Curtis.
  • “I swear to God we just talked about movies.” — Mallory, to Rembrandt and Maggie, after learning the Goddess of Sex’s true identity.

Nitpicks/Errors

  • The Sliders do a dead stop in the middle of the vortex. Hello? Are we forgetting the laws of inertia like the shuttlecraft in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home?!
  • Isn’t it a tad coincidental that these living gems, which no one has ever heard of before, power a timer created with Egyptian technology?

History Lesson

Five years ago, a Spanish explorer named Enriquez discovered the valley of Chapare in Bolivia. The region, close to the Cordillera of the Andes, contains an abundance of “living gems” used widely in religious ceremonies and healing rituals by the Aymara Indians as far back as the 17th century. These gems vibrate so strongly that the carat scale has been abandoned in favor of the hertz scale. A fringe item, Elizabeth Taylor purchased one a few years back and the rest, as we say, is history.

Chapare World hold several large film festivals around the world, with one especially high-profile gathering in Los Angeles at the Chandler Hotel. Monique Mansfield, the Goddess of Sex and the Queen of the Festival is currently incarcerated following his arrest for the theft of several high-priced “living gems.”

Guest Stars

  1. Israel Juarbe previously appeared as Gomez Calhoun in Lipschitz Live and Roads Taken.
  2. Judith McConnell previously appeared in My Brother’s Keeper as Sylvia.

In Brief

Teleplay by Bill Dial
Story by Chris Black & Bill Dial
Production # E0816
Network # SL-515
Directed by Peter Ellis
Music by Danny Lux
Edited by Stewart Schill

Chronology

Previously:
Next:

In Review

D
Bad

The producers have decided they’re not going to play by Tracy Tormé and Robert Weiss’s arcane rules anymore. From now on, any crazy idea they have is in play. Freedom!

Read the review »

Logline

The Sliders scheme to steal a precious gem in a desperate bid to repair the malfunctioning timer.

Timer Status

Man, oh man, what is wrong with this thing? Quinn's original timer may not have had sophisticated stuff like inputting coordinates and tracking wormholes, but it never split in threecreated bubble universesopened up on a pane of glassthrew people on a hyperspatial asteroidbetrayed the laws of the show or threw the Sliders into the middle of the ocean when its geographic spectrum stabilizer and power source crap out on them. Now it stops the Sliders in mid-slide? Has troubles locking onto a quantum vibrational rate? In any case, despite the fact that Diana just recharged the damn thing, it's fouling up again. The only thing that can fix it? A crystal so big it vibrates in the Hertz scale.