26. The Guardian

Aired:		Friday, October 11, 1996
Filmed:		???
Production #:	K1803
Network #:	SL-305		
Written By:	Tracy Torme
Directed By:	Adam Nimoy	
Music By:	Danny Lux
Edited By:	Edward Salier, A.C.E.		

Ratings:			Competition:
	Viewers: 10.3		NBC:	8:00 	Baseball: "ALCS Playoffs" (14.3/27)
	Rating:	6.5 		ABC:	8:30	"Sabrina, the Teenage Witch" (14.3/31)	
	Share:	12 		ABC: 	8:00 	"Family Matters" (13.2/33)	
	Rank:	64/103		CBS: 	8:00 	"Dave's World" (10.1/59)
				CBS:	8:30	"Everybody Loves Raymond" (9.5/61)
				Fox:	8 :00 	"Sliders" (10.3/64)

Repeated:  Friday, March 21, 1997
Repeat Ratings:  Viewers: 7.6; Rating: 5.1; Share: 10; Rank 88/113.
Logline: Quinn is shocked when he and the others land on a world where time is moving at a rate 12 years slower than normal, and Quinn happens to cross paths with his recently widowed mother, his teacher and himself -- as a boy.

World From:

Hospital World: Arturo is having a C.A.T. scan performed on his head. The results are not good. It seems that the professor is suffering from a terminal illness and it is just a matter of time before...well, needless to say he is frightened. He wants to stay on this world rather than burden the others with his illness but Quinn feels differently and convinces Arturo to come with them on their next slide. After the professor's appointment, Quinn says that they slide in an hour and per Arturo's watch it's 12:20 pm.

Duration:

Unknown but long enough for Arturo to set up a doctor's appointment.

World Into:

Eighties World: As close to time travel as you can get without actually going anywhere. Because the this World is revolving on its access at a slow rate than Home World, this world is approximately 12 years behind the events of Home World.

Duration:

Five days. They land on a Sunday morning (because Arturo goes to a football game that day) and Quinn says they slide out early Friday afternoon.

Timer Status:

Fine.
Details, Details:
  • According to the CAT scan computer, Arturo's "Patient Data File" number is GA473298 and his "Patient ID" number is 30-85-91 and there is a mass in his cranium located at the occipital bone (the natural bump on the back of the head). The screen shows a cross-sectioned skull under the word Sagittal with a blue mass in that area.
  • The plate of the brown Cadillac that Remmy admires on Eighties World reads V-CE465.
  • A store across the street from the cemetary is Fishbecks Patio Center.
  • Remmy says that they've landed in 1984 (or its Eighties World equivlant). And Quinn confirms this by saying they'e landed on a world moving 12 years slower than Home World.
  • The sliders' favorite pizza place, Acovone's, once stood on Post Street but it burned down a few years ago.
  • Arturo drives Wade and Remmy past La Castila del Arroyo.
  • The first numeral of the Mallory's house number is 2. The rest of the numbers are obscured by a stratigically placed potted plant.
  • The hotel the sliders stay at is located on Jones St.
  • Before Wade, Remmy and Arturo leave for the opera, Wade is sitting in the hotel room reading a magazine called Whitewater. (It's unclear as to whether it's a brochure for whitewater rafting -- possibly the next big adventure on Arturo's checklist -- or a real estate brochure courtesy of Governor Clinton in Arkansas.)
    Personal File:
  • Twelve-year-old Quinn's homeroom teacher was Miss Heather Hanley who drove a Volvo and whom he had a crush on.
  • When Arturo was a young man he owned a luxury car, which gives some insight into his economic status at the time.
  • Quinn's neighbor on his street is Mrs. Van Derbeken, a tall lady with red hair and thick glasses. [named after Torme's real-life friend Derik Van Derbeken, an actor who also appears as a security guard in the episode "Murder Most Foul."]
  • Quinn plays chess, as did his father.
  • Arturo enjoys classical music.
  • As a boy, Quinn skipped two grades in school and had very few friends. He considered his genius a curse and spent much of his free time in his cellar -- his 'Fortress of Solitude' --where he would conduct various experiments. All the while, he longed to be an athlete.
  • Wade enjoys Black Velvet liquor.
  • Quinn's father was a man of peace. On Quinn's eighth birthday, he gave his son a telescope and used to take him out to look at the stars. (That telescope can be seen in the "Pilot" episode in the opening, establishing shot of Quinn's bedroom.)
  • As a boy, Quinn got into a fight with a kid named Brady Oaks. In trying to defend himself, he used a baseball bat against Brady and ended up breaking Brady's knee. The event scarred Quinn for life -- and Brady Oaks walked with a limp for the rest of his.
  • Quinn's school was built in 1901.
    Arturoisms:
  • "The past should be remembered, not re-lived."
  • 'Life is the performance, not the rehearsal.' -- paraphrased by Rembrandt.
  • "It's better to live one day as a lion than a thousand as a lamb."
    Script Snips:
  • "The only difference between a rut and a groove is a few inches." -- Mrs. Brown, per Rembrandt.
  • "I'm gonna put a dent in that special brain of yours." -- Bully Rex Crandall, just before big Quinn rescues little Quinn.
  • "Well fine, but why not have a drink first?" -- Arturo to Ambrosia who says "I wanna Skip and Go Naked" when he offers to buy her a drink.
  • "But you're looking at me. Are you confused?" -- a very calm Arturo to neanderthal Bull who says that he was talking to Ambrosia.
    Rewind That!:
  • At the biker bar, one of the patrons calmly taps Wade on the bottom as she walks past him. Remmy notices but doesn't do anything about.
  • As Arturo steps up onto the bridge to bunjee jump, it's evident that whatever logo appears on his black running shoes has been covered over with black tape.
  • The baseball cards that (old) Quinn peruses on the porch with his younger self are not cards from the era in question. The backs of the cards, white, red and blue suggest that they are cards from the 1986 Fleer set.
    Remmy Sings: Barely. He sings one line from an unknown song while Quinn and he are playing cards in the hotel room. The lyric he mutters is "And from your love."
    Money Matters: It's probable that Arturo skipped out on his doctor's bill -- unless he paid cash, which is also probable because the sliders seem to have a lot of money on Eighties World (or maybe the dollar is worth more with reverse inflation and all). A quick checklist of items purchased here include: a Rolls Royce rental, pizza from Acovone's, three tickets to a San Francisco 49ers game; new outfits for the opera and three opera tickets; complete bunjee jumping equipment (unless they rented), a hotel room (presumably at the Dominion since they're in San Francisco).
    Nit-picks:
  • Because this is essentially Home World, though a little behind the times, the surroundings and geography should stay fairly consistent with those of Home World. Yet Quinn's house sits on a corner on Home World and does not on Eighties World. Filming restrictions aside, this should not have been overlooked.
  • In the "Pilot," Quinn's dog Bopper was shown to be a black dog, in this episode, it is tan.
    Neat-picks:
  • Arturo, incenced that "kids today" have too much pop culture and not enough plain culture, sums his frustration up in one sentence. "Your generation thinks nothing of seeing Indiana Jones 13 times. Well, I happen to feel the same way about Mozart." Quite funny, considering John Rhys-Davies was in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." (See Inside Slide for more details.)
    History Lesson:

    The sliders land in an area that was destroyed in the Bay Area earthquake of 1989. 

    Guest Stars:
	Phillip Van Dyke1	Young Quinn [Mallory]
	Linda Henning2		Mrs. Mallory
	Leslie Horan		[Miss] Heather Hanley
	Meadow Sisto		Ambrosia
Co-starring:
	Marty York		Brady Oaks
	Timothy Wiley		Rex Crandell
	Robert Winley		Bull
	John Kendall3		Bartender
	John C. Colton		Priest
    The Inside Slide:

  • The last of writer Torme's favorite episodes, but why did he make Quinn's alias Jim Hall? It seems Torme named him after his favorite baseball player.
    "I'm a big California Angles baseball fan," he says. "And when I first went to my first game when I was a little kid, my favorite player was an outfielder named Jimmie Hall."
    Memories of that game run strong for Torme, and he says that he chose the name to pay tribute to the man who sparked those memories. "I just sort of did that as a little homage to him that no one would ever pick up."
    In case you're wondering, Jimmie Randolph Hall played 120 games in the outfield for the Angels during the 1967 season and then played 46 games in 1968 before moving on to the Cleveland Indians. His combined batting average while in California? .231.

  • As far as Arturo's comment about "Indiana Jones" goes, Torme says that it was John Rhys-Davies idea.
    "John's been trying to find a way to put "Indiana Jones" into every script and so finally he got away with one," he says with a chuckle. "I think he's immensely proud of "Indiana Jones." I think it's the thing he's most proud of and he's always referring to it just in conversation, so he not only put [the reference] in, but he said 'people of your generation go to see it nine or 10 times and think nothing of it' and, in fact, it worked within the context of the story so I didn't have a problem with it."

  • "Arturo's illness was one of the concepts that I came into the third season with," Torme says. "I had a number of things I wanted to do and that was one of them.
    "I like the idea that only he and Quinn knew about it [and the others] just thought he was acting strangely -- I like the idea of carrying it over from world to world, and I also felt if John were to leave the show, this would be a good way to set it up. On the other hand we could certainly cure him somewhere down the road."
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    Back to Season Three.