Proposed Season 5 Episodes

Season Premiere

Redemption

When Colin and Quinn disappear mid-slide, Rembrandt and Maggie track a vortex and follow it to a world engulfed in war and another Slider who needs help getting home.

Rembrandt and Maggie exit the wormhole and look around for Colin and Quinn. Despite having entered the vortex first, they’re nowhere to be found.When the timer detects another sliding tunnel being activated, Rembrandt and Maggie slide in pursuit of it, thinking that it belongs to the Mallory brothers. They’re wrong, however, and find that the person they were following is a 27-year-old African-American scientist named Melissa Hunter. A quick discussion reveals that her timer has burnt out after her first slide required her to corrupt the mermory and slide early. She has been looking for her Earth Prime since.Rembrandt and Maggie agree to help Melissa and together the three slide, only to land in world entrenched in a third Wold War. In their travels they find a young man, Derek Quade, incarcerated in jail. The Sliders release him but Derek, unwilling to trust his new friends, double crosses them by stealing the timer. After pursuing Derek and retrieving the timer, Rembrandt, Maggie and Melissa agree to let Derek join them and help him leave his war-torn world.He accepts, and the four slide.

Title Unknown (aka The Unstuck Man)

When a series of sliding mishaps destroys Colin and merges Quinn with another slider, the trio must make their way through a chaotic world and fix the timer.

Rembrandt and Maggie enter the wormhole. Looking back for Quinn and Colin to join them, they are horrified to see Colin blown to bits inside the vortex. Matters are complicated further when the remaining three exit and find that Quinn doesn’t look like himself but like another man.Reeling from all this, Quinn, Rembrandt and Maggie discover that due to the accident, Quinn has taken on the physical appearance of another slider who was somehow in the same vortex. This amalgam Quinn retains all of Quinn’s memories, which is good, because the timer is toast.The world they’ve landed on is chaotic — the wind is blowing wildly, looters are running amok and a preacher screams about the Apocalypse from atop a soapbox. They make their way through the madness and end up at the Chandler Hotel.Later, they meet up with a woman who is also (coincidentally) a Slider.

At the end, the sun comes out. All around them, people stop and look up at the sun.

Deja Slide

Rembrandt decides to set the timer to revisit his young friend Malcolm (The Exodus, Dinoslide), but is shocked to find the world the Sliders arrive at taken over by Kromaggs.

Enigma

When Rembrandt injures himself after a rough slide, he develops amnesia and finds himself trying to come to terms with the idea of sliding.

Originally the first of a two-parter, the story was condensed to allow another story to fit in the schedule.

Conquest (aka Toppless)

The Sliders enter a world where Rembrandt never joined the Spinning Topps and is distraught and shocked to learn that the Topps have made millions. Wondering what went wrong here, Rembrandt searches for his “shady” double.

This was an episode that was originally commissioned for season four.

God in the Machine

When Mallory is accidentally paralyzed, his only salvation is a communal group of spiritual healers.

This story was also known as God’s Country and Semi-Colin in pre-production. Various drafts involved different people accepting the blessing.”I’ve been talking to both Chris Black and David Gerrold, advocating that they do the story,” said season four producer Marc Scott Zicree. “It will take some retooling now that the leads are different, but will still make a terrific episode, I think. The reason we didn’t do it last season was that it held a certain similarity to one of our other episodes, so we couldn’t do them too closely together. “Zicree rewrote Gerrold’s original outline for the script which deals with “a gestalt mind and one’s personal connection to God.” This was an episode that was originally commissioned for season four.

Detour

A surprise slide to a Kromagg breeding camp turns deadly when information about Wade leads not to her rescue, but a trap.

The Sliders land in the middle of a Kromagg breeding camp. Working their way through the tent village, Melissa finds some Kromagg computers she can access and works her way into the system looking for information.While Derek and Maggie keep watch Rembrandt and Melissa scan the information as it comes up. Suddenly, Rembrandt sees a photograph of Wade Welles, and the accompanying information tells them that she’s currently being held on Earth 274. Rembrandt keys the coordinates to that world into the timer and the four slide in pursuit of Wade. The information, however, is a ruse; Kromaggs are waiting for the quartet when they exit. Their timer is confiscated and the four are separated with 48 hours before the next window of opportunity. Melissa and Maggie are shipped off-world while Derek and Rembrandt are confined. During interrogation, Rembrandt demands to know Wade’s whereabouts, but he is simply thrown against the wall and left. Rembrandt befriends a blind cellmate who lost his eyes to the Kromagg appetite. He tells Rembrandt that Quinn, Colin and Wade were all prisoners on this world until recently, a surprising revelation that leaves Rembrandt knowing what happened to his friends in the season opener. All three were shipped to another world for slave labor less than a week ago.

Derek escapes from labor the next day by assaulting a Kromagg guard and stealing his master key. He rescues Rembrandt and recovers the timer. After offering their aid to the blind man (and being refused), Rembrandt and Derek hack into the Kromagg database and track Melissa and Maggie. Sliding to that world, they find their friends and release them with the master key before sliding away.

The episode ends in a Kromagg meeting room where a group of Kromaggs witness the aforementioned escape. The head Kromagg exclaims that the four will soon meet their end, and the Kromaggs plan to use Wade to accomplish that.

Ascension

The Sliders land in a space shuttle that is just about to take off from Earth… on a mission to Mars.

“There were a number of other space episodes considered,” says Keith Damron. “One pitched by Mark Scott Zicree involved the Sliders getting stuck on a mission to Mars. Another idea dealt with Earth actually being a colony of Mars and had our heroes encountering the crew of the first mission to Earth. Like so many before, these ideas became… lost in space.”

Sliding With the Enemy

When Michael befriends the double of his father, things turn sour for the Sliders when the Mallorys steal the timer and slide to another world.

On a seemingly fine world, Maggie, Rembrandt and Diana encourage Michael to go off to have some fun and he does. He meets a double of his father and the two become fast friends.Later, when the group slides out of this world, Michael secretly brings his father along on the slide. When the others find out (on the next world where the Industrial Revolution is going full steam, literally) Maggie is angry with Michael and tell him that his father must go back to his world the next day when the vortex opens again.Later still, Michael’s father convinces Michael to help him steal the timer so the two can go off sliding by themselves. Michael agrees and they steal the timer while the others are sleeping. Surprisingly, Michael’s father double-crosses Michael and knocks his lights out just before opening the vortex and slides… but Michael is able to follow him.The world they land on is a jungle environment where cannibals thrive. Soon, Michael is captured by the flesh eaters and is designated as a sacrifice for their leader.

Back in the Industrial Revolution, Maggie is ticked. She surmises that the only way the Sliders can get off this world is by having Diana fix her burnt timer. Using whatever supplies she can muster on this technologically-challenged world, Diana does just that — and just barely. Amazingly, her timer now has the slight ability to barely track worm holes. They track Michael and Jeremy’s sliding signature and follow them into cannibal world.

Upon entry, Diana’s timer burns up to a crisp and is now useless.

Soon, the others find Michael and rescue him from the sacrifice. As the cannibals give chase, they stumble onto his father. Michael, now really angry, gets into a fight with his faux friend and eventually wins the timer back.

The Sliders slide out of this world, leaving Jeremy behind. As the vortex closes, Jeremy is dragged away by the cannibals.

The character of Michael’s father was initially someone named Jeremy with no familial connection.

When Darkness Falls

The Sliders land on a world where, after the full moon rises, the population turns into werewolves.

Dynasty

Wade’s fate is learned when the Sliders land on another Kromagg-ravaged world.

The Sliders set up camp in a cave to hide from the Kromaggs. After they are settled, Michael offers to go in search of food. Later, Michael returns with an amazing claim: Rembrandt’s friend, Wade, was executed by the Kromaggs. Rembrandt is shocked and returns to the execution site to see for himself. When he gets there he finds only the mutilated remains of a body. He hopes against hope that it is not Wade but then discovers a tattoo on the body that Wade once showed him. He accepts the obvious, that Wade is dead, and the Sliders bury her body nearby. As he did for Arturo’s memorial, Rembrandt sings a song over Wade’s grave site. Sabrina Lloyd would not have appeared in this episode.

The Fugitive

Rembrandt becomes an outlaw after he unknowingly breaks the rules on a world where music has been outlawed.

Twofold

A sliding mishap splits the team on two different worlds.

On [yet another] war-torn world, the Sliders endeavor to slide out as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Diana claims that the timer doesn’t have enough power to slide the entire quartet. Like the adventurers that they are, the Sliders risk it — only to find that the vortex has split, sending Rembrandt and Michael to one world and Diana and Maggie to another. And that’s not good, because the timer is fried.

This was to have been written by Chris Black during October of 1998.

Insomnia

There is no information for this episode.

Sci-Fi Slide

A world immersed in science fiction poses troubles for the Sliders when they’re abducted by scientists who want to study them.

The Sliders land on an alternate Earth where the Roswell landing in New Mexico changed the way society looked at Science-Fiction and technology. After the landing, scientists learned from the alien technology and were able to create hover cars. Later, television adapted an all-Sci-Fi lineup.The Sliders soon discover all of this and decide to head to the Chandler — but the Craters Hotel stands in its place. Rembrandt sits down to watch some TV and is amazed to find over 1000 channels, all Sci-Fi, and flips through programs like Star Trek (now in it’s 33rd season), The X-Files and, of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation. But he also discovers Melrose Planet and Gilligan’s Space Station.Maggie suggests that they all go out for a bite to eat and, agreeing, they all head down to the bar.Unfortunately, someone left the timer in the room and the maid, upon seeing it, picks it up and puts it in her pocket when they’re gone. She brings the timer to a local lab where scientists begin investigating it. When the FBI learns about this, they head off to the Craters to intercept the Sliders, who have already returned to their room to find the timer missing.The Sliders immediately call 9-1-2 (not 9-1-1 here) but the FBI bursts in and takes them back to the scientist’s lab where they are thought to be aliens and are used as test subjects.

Later, one scientist demands to know what planet Rembrandt is from. He tells him the truth — that he’s from a parallel version of Earth.

Just then, the timer hits zero and the scientists are dumbfounded when a big vortex opens up in their lab. In their amazement, Maggie is able to push the scientists aside, rescue rembrandt, grab the timer and leap into the vortex.

They don’t realize, however, that the scientists have followed them.

On the next world, which consists of simply blue sky and sand, the Sliders realize that the white-coats have followed. They also realize that they only have minutes to stay here and try to explain to their ‘guests’ that they must get home.

The scientists understand and follow the four back to Sci-Fi World where the Sliders drop them off and slide out again.

After the Sliders are gone, the male scientist walks over to the woman scientist and says, “Did you track them?”

He then pulls off his ‘human’ mask, revealing himself to be an alien. The female then pulls off her face.

“Yes,” she says.

Fade out.

“It’s wacky, fun, and something new,” says the writer. “I thought the show needed a little [more] spirit to it, more sci-fi, and so I wrote this episode, which I hope everybody will love.”

The Final Sacrifice

Discovery of a potent weapon leads to a final showdown between the Sliders and the Kromaggs.

A bumpy slide brings the Sliders to a world where the Kromaggs were recently defeated. After realizing they’ll be there for over a month, the four head to the Chandler. While Rembrandt gets a job building houses and Michael starts pumping gas, Maggie and Diana befriend a few locals to learn how the Kromaggs were driven off-world. They’re told a man named Vincent Turk is responsible for weapon — a laser that initiates a plague that causes Kromagg brains to hemorrhage. All invading Kromaggs were killed.

Rembrandt takes it upon himself to set off to find Turk. Soon, he traces him to an beat up old house and convinces the man to give him the schematics and blueprints for the weapon. Rembrandt then brings them back to Diana. Using the schematics, Diana soon modifies the timer into one of these super weapons. Later, Vincent brings the Sliders a lap-top computer that was once owned by the Kromaggs, complaining that he can’t seem to find a way to activate it. Michael then remembers the master key he stole (from Detour) and uses it on the computer which boots up immediately. With a few keystrokes, the co-ordinates for every Kromagg-controlled world come up on screen. In total, there are no less than 304 worlds that the Kromaggs have taken over.

Just then, on Earth 170, the Kromaggs detect an unauthorized computer entry and track the co-ordinates to learn that the signal is coming from the world that defeated the Kromaggs controlling it. The head Kromagg promptly sends out a warning to all Kromagg computers through a special transmission.

Back on the Sliders’ Earth, Diana creates a vortex into a Kromagg-controlled world. When the vortex opens, she points the timer/weapon into it and fires. On the other side of the wormhole, hundreds of ‘Maggs fall to the ground, dying. That vortex closes but another one opens right away. Out of that vortex falls the Head Kromagg. He limply crawls toward the Sliders and the weapon but dies before he is able to make it.

The Sliders wait for the timer to get another readout. When it does, it reads 10 seconds. With little time to spare, the Sliders prepare for another adventure… and slide out.

Fates Beckoning

On an intensely hot world with two suns, the Sliders are thankful to slide out after two days until Rembrandt spots a figure from his past — the conniving Logan St. Claire (Zoe McClellan), who claims that she has been trapped on this world ever since Quinn pushed her through the vortex in the episode Double Cross.

Sleepless in San Francisco

Maggie must choose between a new love and her obligations to the Sliders.

While settling down on a world where the Sliders have to stay for two months, Rembrandt gets a gig singing in a local club for some extra money while Maggie meets a new beau named Harvey. The two hit it off and strike up a romance which goes on for a few weeks. Impulsively, Maggie moves in with him and the relationship gains momentum. Finally, out of the blue, Harvey asks Maggie to marry him. Maggie is floored and doesn’t know how to respond. She decides to move back into the Sliders’ rented apartment and spends a couple of days alone in order to think things through. Rembrandt tells Maggie that while he would miss her, she should follow her heart. With two days left before the slide, Maggie returns to Harvey in tears and explains to him that she cannot marry him because she has another commitment (she doesn’t tell him that that commitment happens to be a pending wormhole to another dimension).Harvey urges Maggie to reconsider but her mind is made up. She kisses Harvey good-bye and heads back to the apartment where the others are getting ready to slide. Rembrandt is relieved at the news and the four slide together.

As of 10/7/98 this was only a story floating around the production office. It had yet to be scripted, although there is compelling evidence this story idea was the beginnings of Easy Slider.

Journey’s End/Oblivion

Journey’s End

Rembrandt learns that his Earth Prime may not be under Kromagg control when Melissa determines she’s home.

Melissa becomes certain that the Sliders have landed on her Earth Prime because everything is exactly as it is supposed to be and exactly as it was when she left — including this Earth’s history. She says farewell to her new friends and the Sliders prepare to leave this world without her when Rembrandt is hauled away by the FBI. As if this wasn’t enough, Maggie collapses, unable to breathe. The timer countdown passes, rendering it useless for the next 29.7 years. Elsewhere, the Feds question the Cryin’ Man as to his disappearance five years earlier. They demand to know the whereabouts of Quinn Mallory, Wade Welles and Professor Maximillian P. Arturo. Rembrandt can’t believe his ears when he’s told that the San Francisco newspaper ran a story back in 1994 with the headline “Cryin’ Man Does Not Show for Anthem.” Rembrandt soon comes to believe that he is really home, and that the other world that was overtaken by Kromaggs wasn’t Earth Prime after all. Soon, Derek tracks down Rembrandt and tells him that Maggie is in the hospital. Rembrandt is released by the FBI and he and Michael go off to see Maggie, who has been given some sort of shot that enables her to breath this atmosphere.Later, Diana meets back up with the Sliders still claiming that this is, in fact, her Earth, but that it is also Rembrandt’s Earth. It seems they were from the same place all along. Realizing this, the Sliders go back to Diana’s house. With the timer now useless for another 29 years, they get rid of it and decide to sit down for a big supper that Diana has offered to cook.

Just as they’re getting ready to eat at the table, a huge vortex opens above them. With looks of shock and dismay, the vortex pulls the Sliders up and into itself and closes.

Fade to black.

Journey’s End — Take Two

Rembrandt’s homecoming turns bitter when he learns that Maggie is pregnant — with a Kromagg child.

The Sliders discover that they have landed on Rembrandt’s real home world — the one from the Pilot — but soon Maggie discovers that she has become (somehow) impregnated by a Kromagg. Later, Melissa is killed by a new super villain that is actually her double who has become mutated via a sliding mishap. Meanwhile, Derek and Rembrandt are sucked through a new vortex and land on a desolate world inhabited by a species of creature that hasn’t fully evolved yet. With 20 seconds to spare, the two prepare to slide, but the timer is grabbed by one of these creatures and destroyed. Back on Earth Prime, Maggie is left alone with her unborn child.Ta da, cliffhanger.

Oblivion

Diana separates Quinn from Michael — at a terrible price.

On a Depression-era world, the Sliders are upset after Michael collapses and slips into a coma… evidently from some sort of tumor. Diana realizes that the only way to save him is to separate Quinn from Michael via a special device that she created on another world. With that as seemingly the only hope, Diana slides off to retrieve the device. She returns a few days later. The Sliders attempt to separate the two using the device. As they do, Quinn’s voice can be heard saying that he will, indeed, get them home. Then his soul turns into a vortex, and the Sliders slide through it… with Michael now fully himself. The next world is Rembrandt’s Earth Prime. Everyone is happy that they’ve made it home until they learn that Conrad Bennish, Jr. used Quinn’s sliding equipment to do a little experimenting… and the FBI went with him.Regretfully, Rembrandt and the others slide off in search of them.