Dust

// E0817 · Originally aired January 21, 2000

The Sliders are shocked to find the Chandler Hotel a part of an archaeological dig beneath a post-apocalyptic Los Angeles desert.

Teleplay // Tim Burns and Bill Dial
Story // Chris Black
Director // Teynaldo Villalobos
Music // Danny Lux

Reviews

// Earth Prime

For a science fiction show, the production team seems very hostile to science. Bigelow is treated like a villain for doing his job. He’s attempting to find out what happened to the world and he’s being thwarted by the superstitious and the incurious.

// Think of a Roulette Wheel

Buried beneath the sands of time, obscured by ancient flesh, we are left with only dust, or less—the memory of the dust that was.

// External Reviews

Martin Izsak

Worlds Visited

Apocalypse World

A parallel world approximately 400 years ahead of ours a la Van Meer’s World in The Guardian, this Earth suffered some kind of cataclysm that rendered the land between the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn a desert, while regions like South America and Canada are temperate zones.

Timer Status

For the first time in a long while, it’s doin’ good.

Details

Hiring locals to help dig in the Badlands is incredibly expensive.
Beer mugs on this world didn’t have glass handles until after 1590 (late Renaissance), when the big glass plants went into production in West Virginia.
Seattle is at least a four day ride from Los Angeles.
Bigelow has all the necessary permits from Mexico to dig in the Zone.
The Saga of the Tolucans details the story of a frozen deity.
The nearest labs fully equipped to work on a suspended body is 600 miles away.
The manila folders read Del Monte Suspended Animation Clinic and Storage.
The suspended animation tube reads Haf-99435.
Who’s been frozen? Luther Bates McCorkin, aged 54. He died of congestive heart failure. He was an aluminum siding salesman and a Shriner.
The poster in Rembrandt’s shrine reads:Rembrandt Brown
The Cryin’ Man
TWO SHOWS
NIGHTLY!
His Latest Album on
ONSLAUGHT
RECORDS
Rembrandt’s Caddy still reads “CRYNMAN” as its license plate.

Character Information

Mallory has worked a chain gang.
Jack Bigelow is a forensic paleontologist with the University of the Yukon.
Gwen is one of Bigelow’s best students.
Bigelow always insists on providing his associates with plenty of food and water.
Rembrandt doesn’t agree with Bigelow’s methods.
Rembrandt is The Voice.
Alt-Rembrandt released an album on Onslaught Records prior to the Cataclysm. Titled “Don’t Make Me Cry,” it sold 500,000 copies and was awarded gold record status.

Notable Quotes

“I know it’s not fair, but personally, I blame this on Mallory.”—Maggie, about their slide into the middle of the desert.
“If it’s got to be a desert, why not a desert resort? Golf course, swimming pool, drinks in coconuts, hot and cold running maids.”—Rembrandt, on their predicament.
“Well… I’ve dug a few ditches in my time.”—Mallory, alluding to his shady criminal past.
“You think we should tell the professor that the only religion practiced in here involved a lot of scotch and soda?”—Mallory, upon discovering that the Chandler is part of the dig.
“I think it’s some kind of ceremonial goblet. Probably used in rituals conducted in this very room.”—Professor Bigelow, ‘analyzing’ a beer mug.
“Until I can take it apart to study the mechanism, let’s call it the ‘coin operated time dispenser.’”—Bigelow, on a parking meter.
“I just had a warm, fuzzy thought… what if our duplicates died here?”—Mallory.
“‘By morning it should be thawed enough.’ He’s talking like it’s nothing but a Thanksgiving turkey.”—Rembrandt, about the body in suspended animation.
“Well, that’s sort of royalty.”—Mallory, on the discovery that the frozen guy was a Shriner.
“Wow. A Hard Rock Cafe; literally.”—Maggie, off Rembrandt’s “shrine.”
“Come on, guys. The man needs some time with an old friend.”—Maggie, to Mallory and Diana, giving Rembrandt some space with his 70s Cadillac.

Money Matters

The Sliders get food, water and safe lodgings as long as they help with the archaeological dig.

Nitpicks and Errors

Shouldn’t Sliders from 400 years ago have a flip-phone timer like the one Quinn developed?
Likewise, why would the Sliders assume that doubles of Maggie, Mallory and Diana would even be in the group?
If Diana is 100% certain that the timer they find in the Chandler is their timer, why not keep it for spare parts instead of tossing it in the rubble?
Why would there be a shrine to Rembrandt in Los Angeles? Shouldn’t it be in San Francisco, or, dare I say, Motown?
After 400 years, wouldn’t English have evolved just a little bit?
Little coincidental that the Chandler is the first building uncovered in the wasteland? You’d think they’d find San Francisco, San Jose, Fresno, Santa Barbara, etc. first as they make their way down.
How exactly do they light the undercarriage of Rembrandt’s car? Maybe the same power source that keeps the cryobed functioning after 400 years?

Neatpicks

Rembrandt’s shrine rocks.
The Tolucans, some mythical tribe, take their name from the Toluca Lake region of Los Angeles, which, incidentally, is in Burbank and close to Universal Studios.

Guest Starring

Ken Jenkins as Jack Bigelow
Elizabeth Lackey as Gwen
Marco Rodriguez as Escobar

Script Archive

Click on the links below to download rare scripts, outlines, and memos associated with this episode.

The Inside Slide

“We just did a show in which the Chandler Hotel is an archaeological dig,” says Bill Dial. “Somehow it’s 400 years off from our time, and it’s layered over with sediment and our people get to be part of this dig. When they go and see it’s the Chandler, they find a beer mug that the archaeologist decides is a sacrificial goblet, then they have a big debate over what a parking meter might have been: ‘It sells time… but to what end’! It’s really our take on how these funny archaeologists can find one pot and then invent an entire civilization!”