44. Slither 

Aired:		Friday, April 25, 1997
Filmed:
Production #: 	K1829
Network #:	SL-323
Written By:	Tony Blake & Paul Jackson
Directed By:	Jim Johnston
Music By:	Stephen Graziano
Edited By:	Edward Salier, A.C.E.

Ratings:			Competition:
	Viewers: 7.9		CBS:	8 pm	Movie: "Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion" (15.1/32)
	Rating: 5.1		NBC:	8 pm	"Unsolved Mysteries" (11.6/45)
	Share: 10		ABC: 	8 pm	"Family Matters" (10.7/59)
	Rank: 83		ABC: 	8:30	"Boy Meets World" (9.9/61)
	 			Fox:	8:00	"Sliders" (7.9/83)

Repeated: 	Not repeated on Fox.	
Repeat Ratings: N/A
Logline: While on vacation in South America, Quinn and Remmy get mixed up in an illegal snake deal and find themselves stuck in the middle of no where with no timer, no ride home ... and no snake bite kit. Meanwhile, Wade and Maggie get involved with a shady man in their search for the others.
World On:
Snake World: Remmy and Quinn have taken a 'break' from Wade and Maggie and left them in San Francisco to vacation in Colombia. Remmy infers that they slide on Wednesday, in a couple of days, and are trying to catch a flight home to slide when they run into a bit of a flight delay -- and a lot of snakes.

Duration:

Remmy infers that it is Monday afternoon when the episode opens and that they slide on Wednesday, but it's unknown just how long they've been on this world. Still, since they guys took a vacation, it's evident they had some time to spare here. A guess would be about two weeks.

Timer Status:

Fine.

World Into:

Unknown.

Details, Details:
  • The plane at the start of this episode is HK 3177 Interand Colombia.
  • The plane Quinn and Remmy hitch a ride on is N4NE Perris. [Does anyone know the makes of these planes?]
  • The label on the snake case reads "Please Handle with Care Fragile"
  • Wade says that Quinn and Remmy hitched their flight at Zamara airport on a plane headed toward Delgado.
  • Carlos fires seven shots into the snake that is about to attack Maggie. [I'm not gun savvy but aren't revolvers only supposed to hold six shots?]
  • In Santa Marta, the words on the side of the Dodge, Partridge Family-like bus read "La Grande Turismo."
  • The angry villagers of Santa Marta shout "Vayate" at the sliders. [traslations?]
  • Quinn fires 13 shots from his AK-47 at the snakes in the fuse box, before he runs out of bullets.
  • As Maggie, Wade and Carlos drive into Santa Marta, a shot shows the front of a building with the words Tienda de A[rest obscured] written over the door.
    Personal File:
  • Remmy says that he, like Wade, is really afraid of snakes (see "The Dream Masters.")
  • Remmy expresses his agreement with the fact that tobacco is banned on this world.
  • Wade speaks a little Spanish.
  • Remmy again quotes from the Bible.
    Script Snips:
  • "Yes lady, it is cute, but I don't need a dead cockroach holding a little tennis racquet." -- Remmy's 'polite' refusal of a peddler at the airport.
  • "Never heard of it. But we travel a lot. We never get a chance to read the business section." -- Quinn's response to Kyra's explanation of her job at Selvatech.
  • "Unfortunately, I don't think you'll be able to collect for quite some time." -- Maggie after purring that a 'mutual' deal could be worked out with the greasy mechanic, and then hoofing him squarely in the almonds.
  • "Ya, you'd be surprised at some of the 'impossible' things we've seen since leaving home." -- Quinn to Kyra who dismisses Remmy's theory that the snake's mate is following them as impossible. [That dialogue is not included in Closed Captioning readout of his episode, indicating that it was probably a dub-over, used to further along the plot after the episode is filmed.]
  • "This has turned into the vacation from hell." -- Remmy, also summing up this episode.
  • "You know, I'm getting the distinct feeling that it's not your head doing your thinking right now." -- Remmy to Quinn, yet another sexually-charged line in an episode chalk full of them.
    Money Matters: Quinn and Remmy obviously took a vacation, which means they paid for airline tickets, and Quinn later offers a 'fair price' to Kyra in an attempt to get home, which means he either has money on him or can get some when they get back to San Francisco. Later, Wade and Maggie rent a plane from a guy for $300 (cash) -- and that's all they have left.
    Nit-picks:
  • For someone whose tracked snakes in Colombia for five months, Kyra seems awfully afraid of walking through the jungle.
  • If Tobacco is considered a drug on this world, and they still have "drug cartels" here (as per Carlos), they why wouldn't they still have the Drug Enforcement Agency rather than the [rather contrived] Tobacco Enforcement Agency.
  • Just before the snake drops out of the tree onto the cartel henchman, you can notice the lower back pad the actor is wearing for his upcoming fall backward. It's protruding from his pants and shirt.
  • Another movie rip-off? How 'bout a crouching Maggie unwittingly refreshing herself by the water as a menacing reptile sneaks up on her -- just before Carlos kills it. See: Crocodile Dundee.
  • Maggie seems to have gotten over her murdered husband, Dr. Steven Jensen from "The Exodus," rather quickly. In Slider-time, it's only been a few weeks and already she's looking to "enjoy the company of a man."
  • In "The Dream Masters," Wade express -- quite adamantly -- that she was deathly afraid of snakes, and yet when it comes time for her and Maggie to leap over a pile of them (twice) in this episode she seems to think nothing of it. In general, she doesn't seem all that alarmed by the fact that there are thousands of snakes within a foot of her. In the writer's defence, however, it's possible that she's trying to put up a good front so as not to get the third degree from brave Maggie.
  • Explain to me how a three dozen snakes or so get vertical on a flat wooden door and produce enough force to break it off it's hinges and slam it to the floor. Please.
  • Also please explain first how is it that Quinn shot the timer at a 45 degree angle and yet the vortex ends up horizontal with the ground and second why he shot it in the air in the first place. Ridiculous.
  • As Kyra is supposedly lying dead at episode's end, watch her [unnecessarily exposed] belly quickly heave up and down. Looks like breathing to me. Quick! Paddles! Clear! [Buzzt] Dammit. It's too late. This episode's dead.
    Neat-picks:
  • Rembrandt echoes Harrison Ford in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" with the line "Snakes. I hate snakes."
  • Quinn opens up to Kyra as he talks about how the professor's death (in "The Exodus, Part 2) has left the burden of being the father figure on his shoulders. "It's all up to me. And I'm flying blind," he says.
  • It's interesting that Wade interrupts Maggie's kiss with Carlos and then Remmy interrupts Quinn's kiss with Kyra.
    History Lesson:

    Kyra works freelance for a biotech firm called Selvatech. She is bringing her company a mated pair of Python-like Triadder snakes, which she's been chasing for five months, because it's believed that their venom may help fight Parkinson's disease.

    On this world, the reach of South America spreads all the way north to Delgado (where Los Angeles should be).

    Tobacco, like pot and cocaine on Home World, is illegal on this world, and considered a drug. As such, you still have Colombian drug cartels, but instead of the Drug Enforcement Agency, they have the T.E.A. -- Tobacco Enforcement Agency.

    The drug cartels have prospered in these parts and as one result, the San Francisco International Airport, while still existing, looks like a back-water landing strip.

    One major port of trade is Zamara, where Quinn and Remmy vacation, which is south-east of Delgado. When the two crash, it is about 10 miles east of a place called Santa Marta.

    Carlos later says, at the Delgado airport, that Quinn and Remmy's plane went down somewhere east of Delgado.

    Rough Map of Events:

    		* San Francisco
	
		
			
			* Delgado (L.A.)		
					    house*  * Santa Marta
							* plane crash
								

									* Zamara
    Guest Stars:
	Julie St. Claire		Kyra
	Randy Vasquez			Carlos
	Marc Tissot			Don [in the white suit]
	Danny Mora			Angel [in Santa Marta]
	Thomas G. Waites		Randy [the plane mechanic]
	David Correia			Customs Official
Uncredited
	The two cartel henchmen who chase Remmy, Kyra and Quinn.
    The Inside Slide:

  • Capitalizing on the fact that this episode's content and airdate coincided with the Kari Wuhrer film "Anaconda," Fox sent out this release on April 24, 1997 at 9:45 am (est)

    v7175 r e foxex FOX-KILLER-SNAKES-SLIDERS			04/24	9:45a


HOT FROM FOX...

KARI WUHRER BATTLES KILLER SNAKES ON TWO FRONTS --
IN 'ANACONDA' AND ON 'SLIDERS' APRIL 25 ON FOX

	Kari Wuhrer, who currently is starring in the box office hit
"Anaconda," also stars in "Slither," the SLIDERS episode airing
Friday, April 25 (8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT). In the episode, the sliders
land on a new world and are separated from one another. When Quinn
(Jerry O'Connell) and Rembrandt (Cleavant Derricks) hitch a flight
in South America, they find themselves involved in a rare snkiae
trade gone awry. Maggie (Wuhrer) and Wade (Sabrina Lloyd) rush
to their aid and find themselves menaced by the deadly snakes.

	"Anaconda" is an action-adventure about a documentary film
crew that strays into dangerous territory when it takes on a
passenger obsessed with exploring the habitat of the world's
largest snake -- the anaconda. Wuhrer plays a production assistant
on the film crew that embarks on what starts as an innocent journey
down the Amazon River, but becomes a primal fight for survival as
the anaconda becomes a vicious predator.

    Obviously, Fox had no shame in capitalizing on the fact that the episodes were becoming movie rip-offs at that point.

    Closed Captioning:
  • It's a wonder how Kyra bribed the customs officer at the beginning of the episode; according to CC, she explains the "Thank You Law" to him as "when a jerk like you looks the other way and a nice person like me says thank you with money." In the episode dialogue, Kyra says "when someone like you looks the other way."
  • Per CC, the person who answers Quinn's distress call at Delgado field is a man; in the episode it's a woman.
    References:
  • Remmy's paraphrase from the Bible, "the apple was there, the snake was persuasive, only this time the man didn't take a bite," is a reference to the Old Testament story of Adam and Eve.
    Back to Contents.