10. Into the Mystic

Aired: 		Friday March 1, 1996
Filmed: 	Nov. 22 - Nov. 30, 1995
Production #:	K0807
Network #:	SL-203	
Written By:	Tracy Torme
Directed By:	Richard Compton
Music By:	Anthony Marinelli
Edited By:	Bill Zabala
Ratings:			Competition: 
	Viewers: 9.3		ABC: 	8:00 	"Family Matters"(r) (14.8/40)
	Rating: 6.2		ABC:	8:30	"Boy Meets World"(r) (14.1/46)
	Share: 11		NBC:	8:00 	"Unsolved Mysteries"(r) (12.4/52)
	Rank:	76/100		CBS: 	8:00 	"Due South" (10.7/68)
				Fox:	8:00 	"Sliders" (9.3/76)

Repeated: 	Friday July 5, 1996.
Repeat Ratings:  Viewers: 5.4 million; Rating: 3.7; Share: 9; Rank: 80/106.
Logline: (to come>
[World From: Lottery World : See "Luck of the Draw."]
World From:
Park World : This is the last world we saw the sliders on in Lottery World. Here Ryan has left the group after removing the bullet from Quinn's shoulder and asking Wade (unsuccessfully) to stay with him.
Duration:
About three days.
World Into:
Mystic World : The population here is deeply embedded in the occult and relies heavily on a mystical "Sorcerer" for commercial products. Quinn's double was initially a visitor here who's went on to take up permanent residence.
Duration:
The sliders land near dawn, spend a full day here, and are visited by the reaper that night. The next morning they meet Ross J. Kelly, the fortune teller and later the sorcerer. That night, they have 11 hours until the slide which puts their exit close to dawn. In total they seem they spend two full days here.
Timer Status:
OK. World Into:
Home World : Yes, the sliders finally make it home. But they don't know it. After reading a paper full of news headlines about O.J. Simpson's trial, and the Cleavland Indian's entry into the World Series, they decide that this can't be home -- and they leave.
Duration:
Two minutes.
Details, Details:
  • On Mystic World, Remmy scours the yellow pages for a doctor. Some of the advertisements on the two pages he searches include:
    - Sorcerer: Creative Solutions the Pharmaceutical Way. 555-0139.
    - The Sorcerer's Source for Occult Parapharnalia: Books, Candles, Skulls, Posters, Knives, Crystal Balls, Ouiji Boards etc. You name it, we have it. 555-0183.
    - Ordering Directories is Easy, Fast and Convenient: Just ask the Sorcerer. We stock directories for most areas preferred by the Sorcerer. Call 555-0125.
    - Dr. Xane (sic) Medical Clinic. Located at the corner of [hidden] and Warlock. Open 24 Hours.
    - Other ads: 555-0140 and Mark[hidden] Home of "Sorcerer" Brand Products.
  • Dr. Xang's degree on the wall reads:

    
Pacifica University witnesses that Manfred Xang, M.D. having completed the prescribed 
    program and having been recommended by the faculty, is hereby granted the degree of 
    Doctorem Philosphiae Auric & Pranic Healing Spells, Formulas, Divinations with all the
    rights and priviledges by  testimony whereof by the authority of the faculty we hereto 
    sign our [names].

  • A television commercial in the hotel room pitches "Mr. Sorcerer Steak Sauce" for $1.79.
  • The sliders stay at the Dominion Hotel in room 13.
  • Pavel's cab is # 808 for the Golden Bay Cab Company; 555-0100.
  • The warning at the bridge opening reads "This bridge is cursed. Crossing is hazardous to your health."
  • Arturo and Quinn say that Mystic Quinn has figured out the "spectral readings of the Torodia Conomology Class" and has figured out that the "Z-2 dileton embedment is a constant."
    Personal File:
  • Quinn was born in 1973.
  • Wade has a friend named Sabrina on Home World.
  • The fortune teller says that Arturo has a son on Home World and he does not correct her.
  • In December of 1986, Rembrandt played at the Coconut Grove in Norfolk in front of "hundreds" of fans who came to watch the Crying Man's last performance with the Spinning Topps.
  • Arturo speaks a little French.
  • The gate in front of the Mallory house on Home World has been squeeking since Quinn was 12.
    Script Snips:
  • "Given the fraudulent nature of this man's claims, I suggest a response that harkens back to our childhoods: run. Run like hell!" -- Arturo to the others as they try to get out of Dr. Xang's extrodinary bill.
  • "Do I know where the sorcerer lives? Ha. Is Helen Reddy?" -- Pavel the cabbie.
  • "I'll have you know that this isn't the first time the Crying Man has walked on air." -- Remmy while crossing the seemingly invisible bridge to the Sorcerer's castle.
  • "It's like looking into a living mirror." -- A bespecled Mystic Quinn to Home Quinn upon their first meeting.
    Rewind That!: When Dr. Xane is examining Quinn, with Remmy and Arturo in attendance, the overhead boom microphone slips into the frame in the top right corner. The camera then ducks down to hide the error.
    Money Matters: Despite having come to Mystic World indirectly from Lottery World, the sliders don't have enough to pay Dr. Xang's $266 bill for "services rendered." Still, it seems they do have enough to pay for one night at the Dominion Hotel and [presumeably] for the fortune teller's reading.
    Nit-picks:
  • In the beginning dream sequence, Arturo is leaning on Quinn's tombstone which reads 1973-1996 but when we last left the sliders, they were on Lottery World in 1995, so if we are to believe the continuous timeline between seasons, it should read 1995.
  • In the tent on Park World, Quinn clutches his right shoulder but later in the episode he is clutching his left shoulder.
  • As Remmy is picking through the yellow pages trying to find a doctor, he stops his finger on Dr. Xang's ad, but if you freeze the frame, the ad clearly reads Dr. Xane.
    Neat-picks:
  • This episode borrows heavily from the "Wizard of Oz" in more ways than just the plot -- Mr. Gale shares his name with Dorothy from the film. Her last name is also Gale.
    History Lesson: (rewrite):
    The differences in Mystic World can be summed up in one phrase: Former President Edward D. Wood Jr. That's right, the Home World film director who made movies that were so awful they're considered comedy gems was once the leader of the free world here.

    Reapers deliver subpeonas. Accredited shamen are allowed a retribution substitution if their patients don't pay their bills. Essentially, the shaman is allowed to keep a body part from a patient in lieu of money. Brains bring a lot on the black market.

    There is currently a fundamentalist movement to bring Ouiji boards into the classroom though some feel such a move will vilolate the agreement of separation between coven and state.

    The Sorcerer lives in a big black castle on the other side of a chasm that's bridged by the the Golden Gargoyle Gate Bridge. Everyone who works at the castle lives on that side of the chasm and never ventures across to the other side. While the hundreds of people who visit the Sorcerer believe that he's an evil-looking astral projection, the "Sorcerer" is actually a cover for a massive business empire. The Sorcerer has the market cornered on everything from "miracle balm" to steak sauce. The Sorcerer can be "met" on the castle's second level.

    Before the alternate Quinn slid into Mystic World, the area was primarily controled by Dr. Xang and the other shamen who sold the public spells and potions. When Quinn arrived (at least a couple of years prior to the sliders' visit), he saw a great potential for profit and got the idea to slide to different worlds and bring sellable products back to Mystic World. The only problem was that Xang's hold on the market didn't allow Quinn to get shelf space for the products. So, he teamed with Mr. Gale and created the "Sorcerer" brand name and the idea worked. 

    Guest Cast:
	Christopher Neame	Dr. [Manfred] Xang
	Phil Fondacaro		Bounty Hunter
	Hrothgar Mathews	Mr.  Gale*
	Nicholas Lea 1		Ryan [Simms]
With:
	Mikal Dughi 2		Nurse
	John Novak 3		Ross J. Kelly
	Alex Bruhanski 4	Pavel Kurlienko
	Karin Konoval 5		Fortune Teller
	Rod Wilson		Sorcerer [image]
	Deanne Henry 6		Mrs. Mallory
Uncredited:
	the clerk at the hotel

    1. Nicholas Lea is only seen in the beginning dream sequence as a way of bridging the events from "The Luck of the Draw" to this episode.
    2. Mikal Dughi played Dr. Karetzky on the "X-Files" episode "Tooms."
    3. John Novak returns for his second episode as the slimy lawyer.
    4. Alex Bruhanski returns for his third episode as the cab driver Pavel.
    5. In a strange case of type-casting, Karin Konoval also appears as palm reader Madame Zelma in the "X-Files" episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose."
    6. Deanne Henry takes over the role of Quinn's mom from Linda Henning who played Mrs. Mallory in the "Pilot" episode. Henry would return in "Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome" though Henning would take the role again in the third season episode "The Guardian."
    * Mr. Gale, Mystic Quinn's right hand man, is also seen as the undertaker on Park World and the Mallory's handyman upon the revisit of Home World.
    The Inside Slide:

  • Tracy Torme says he had to battle the Fox network in order to create a resolution to "Luck of the Draw:"
    "That was a terrible experience," he recalls. "What happened in a nutshell was the network had concluded that no one would care about the cliffhanger, because we had been of the air for a year, so let's just pretend it didn't happen, that we hadn't left our main character in a pool of blood.
    "Then, they said maybe we could just make a reference, like 'It's a good thing that bullet didn't catch your heart!' and move on. But again, I said, 'Look, we've taken someone with us, a new slider, and Wade has a relationship with him, Quinn's lying in a pool of blood -- you have to be kidding!' This was one area where I said, 'I cannot give in, this is where I have to draw my line in the sand.'
    "Ultimately, the compromise was, if I could answer all of it in a teaser, I could do what I wanted. I wrote a six-page funeral scene for "Into the Mystic," which turns out to be a dream, and everything is tied up and explained. Then, Fox went back on a promise they made and said 'We can't guarantee that "Into the Mystic" is going first, because it's an untypical episode, so you have to take that teaser out, because it locks the episode into going first.' I wrote a brand new teaser, with the sliders trying to order a hamburger on a world where everyone's a lawyer, and attached that to "Into the Mystic."
    "Later on, Fox said 'We are going to run "Into the Mystic" first,' so I said, 'Well, then you have to let us pay off the cliffhanger.' By this time the episode was already timed, and the scene on Lawyer World was two minutes and 39 seconds, while the original scene at the funeral was six minutes. So I pulled the lawyer scene to use in a later episode [note, that ended up being "Greatfellas"], and wrote two and a half minutes that would still maintain what I wanted to do.
    "Given those parameters, we did pretty well, but I was sure our regular viewers would think that we just tossed it away, which I can understand, but that's not what happened."
    Nick Lea's character, Ryan, was also originally conceived as a running character. But, obviously, things didn't work out that way.
    "Originally, Ryan was going to be in several episodes at the start of the second season and I worked out with Jacob Epstein, who was also executive producer that year, the path that Ryan would take. We had in mind three or four shows to do with him. By the fourth show, something shocking was going to happen to him."
    But , again, the network had other ideas.

  • Torme, who wrote this episode, says that Wade's quip about her friend Sabrina being into witchcraft and the occult was a little inside joke from him to her because he feels that Sabrina Lloyd is not unlike the character she portrays.
    "I would say that Sabrina and Wade are the most alike as far as the actor and the character being close together," he says. "So a lot of Sabrina's '60s sensibility in astrology and mysticism has sort of come into her character since it was originally written.

  • The Dr. Xang character was originally written to be an oriental, Dr. Wu.

  • Did the four really return to their true home at episode's end?
    "[At] the ending of "Into the Mystic" the sliders did, indeed, return -- albeit briefly -- to their home world," Torme says.

  • The parallels between this episode and "The Wizard of Oz" don't stop with the "We're off to see the Wizard" storyline. Torme named Mr. Gale after Dorothy herself, whose last name in the film was also Gale.

  • On May 9, 1996, actor Nicholas (Nick) Lea talked to fans on People Online about the possibility of coming back (at the time). He said: "I spoke to Tracy Torme about the possibility of coming back on the show. He would like me to. Thank goodness, I'm fairly busy these days."
    Title Shot: It's very possible that title of this episode comes from a song called "Into the Mystic" written by Van Morrison. It can be found on his albums "Moondance" and "It's Too Late to Stop Now" or in cover versions by Valerie Carter & Lyle Lovett on "The Way It Is" or on Joe Cocker's "Organic" album.
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