Season’s Greedings

// K1806 · Originally aired December 20, 1996

All is not calm for the Sliders, whose Christmas is spent in a giant mall where customers run up outlandish bills, then become virtual prisoners while trying to pay them off.

Written By // Eleah Horwitz
Director // Richard Compton
Music // Danny Lux

Reviews

// Earth Prime

Taking the obnoxious American tendency to “shop ’til it hurts” to extremes, “Season’s Greedings” crafts a hyper-consumerist society that offers up scathing commentary on the nature of debt during the holiday season.

// Think of a Roulette Wheel

Out of nowhere, we have the show pull another semi-gem out of its ass.

// External Reviews

Martin Izsak

Worlds Visited

Pygmy World

Whatever you do, don’t smile at the locals — they’ll want you to bear their children.

Mall World

Just when you think the Christmas consumer frenzy was bad, you end up here. Huge open malls that contain schools, lodging and everything a person could need to subsist are big business and a social ill. This gives “just another day at the mall” a whole new meaning.

Details

The bus that Carol hops on is the Sky High Plaza Employee Shuttle.
Plaza shops include: Jodi Maroni’s Sausage Kingdom (Home of the Haut Dog), The Nature Company, Victoria Jewelers, Victoria’s Secret, Lerner New York, and Toy Mania.
Toys the boy wants include a Sammy Spender Doll and a Cosmic Turbo Fighter Jet. He also mentions a sticky, gooey thing but Arturo interrupts before he can name the item.
Ted’s promotion will bring him and Kelly to a mall called Paly, up north.
A man named Steve is responsible for selling the subliminal advertising tapes to Ted Bernsen.
While Wade is trying to hack into Bernsen’s computer, the screen reads “Sky High Plaza / Security Level Three / You have 60 seconds to enter your password or security will be notified.”

Character Information

While Wade believes in mysticism and such, she is also devoutly Christian.
We finally get to meet Wade’s older sister Kelly and father Don.
Wade shared her bedroom with Kelly on Earth Prime.
Quinn says he lost his father when he was eleven years old.
Quinn’s Christmases had been “empty” from the time his father died until he was about 15 years old when he mother and he went to a tree farm and picked out a tree that reminded Quinn of his father’s passion for pathetic-looking trees.
Wade’s mother is blonde and is named Liz.
During the final days of World War II, Arturo’s mother brought him out into the English countryside to spend some time with his elderly aunts. The second night they was there, the house was bombed. Arturo’s aunts were killed and Arturo awoke to find the firemen pulling his dead mother off of his chest in order to rescue him. The firemen then had no way of knowing who this little boy was as Arturo’s father was fighting the war in India. As a result, little Maximillian was placed into an orphanage where he remained until after the war was over and his father came to get him.
The Christmas of 1945, as such, was very special for Arturo—and his father gave him a blue, hand made wooden car with black wooden wheels. It was the “best gift he ever could have given,” the Professor says fondly.
When Kelly was nine, she found all of the hidden Christmas presents and told Wade, which ruined her Christmas.
The first boy that Kelly ever kissed was Christopher Sliney, who promptly ran home.

Notable Quotes

“I don’t suppose you’d want to trade, would you?”—Rembrandt, dressed as an elf, to Arturo, dressed as Santa Claus.
“Think happy, think toys, think sales.”—the employee motto at Christmas.
“Uh, this kid I grew up with.”—Quinn, explaining to Kelly who Charlie Brown was.
“Rembrandt, something’s going on with you man. Trust me, you don’t love us this much.”—Quinn, trying to figure out why Rembrandt has bought so many gifts for the others.
“Always love to perform for the little people.”—Rembrandt as he is about to sing ‘Silent Night’ for the baby.

Arturoisms

“Christmas is a time for miracles—miracles and faith.”

Money Matters

Cash is useless in Sky High Plaza—only debit accounts are honored, something the Sliders learn when they try to pay cash for food.
Rembrandt buys a dozen gifts each for Wade, Arturo and Quinn.
Quinn buys a suit when he gets transferred out of elf duty.
Arturo and Rembrandt are able to buy snacks for a group of children during Story Time.
Wade buys herself dinner before her father’s surprise entrance causes her to drop it.
The Sliders are paid $200 a day for their work, $100 of which is deducted for housing. At least $80 of the remaining $100 must be spent at the mall.

Nitpicks and Errors

What a surprise—the housing facilities in the mall are identical architecturally to the suit layout at the Royal Chancellor Hotel (a problem that also rears its head in The Guardian, The Dream Masters, Dragonslide and The Fire Within).
John Rhys-Davies is obviously very uncomfortable in the Santa getup, especially the white fake beard over his own. He pats the beard down or touches it at least 33 times during the episode.
As Bernsen and his goons, with Arturo and Rembrandt in tow, approach the base of the escalator at the climax of the episode, Arturo is seen with his arms at his side. In the next scene, standing around the escalator, they are being restrained behind his back.

Neatpicks

When Arturo agrees to hold the baby, he says “I would be delighted. As a matter of fact, I delivered a little fella like this not long ago,” a reference to his midwife duties in Prince of Slides (also written by Eleah Horwitz) where he delivered Rembrandt’s baby.

Rewind That!

While Ginny the hot dog girl is telling the Sliders that they can’t buy food with cash, Quinn steals a French fry while she’s not looking.
When the picture is taken at the end of the episode, Quinn displays a really goofy smile.

Parallel History

Consumerism on Mall World has led to corporate fiefdoms around the country—literally. People live, work and love amdist the confines of massive shopping centers, and cannot leave if they owe any debt to those who own the facilities.

As such, the malls themselves contain housing, schools, hospitals and other essential services that make leaving all the more unlikely. Some, such as the Sky High Plaza in California, are dressed up using optical illusions to give the impression that they more exotic than they really are. The malls have been around for about two decades.

Those who don’t live in the malls are stereotyped as living in the “flats,” and many believe that the malls are paradise because of their flashy facade.

Guest Starring

Chase Masterson as Kelly Welles
Neil Roberts as Ted Bernsen
Allen Williams as Don Welles
Stuart Fratkin as Instructor
Jacqueline Obradors as Carol

Co-Starring

Paul Messinger as Priest
Jody Curtis as Ginny
Sean Flynn Amir as Jason
Nikolaus Keelaghan as Kid #2

Unaccredited

Baby Alexander.

Script Archive

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

The Inside Slide

“The Christmas show that we are shooting today has been the most difficult episode to work on because I have to dress up as an elf throughout most of the episode—the pointy ears, the clogs, the striped socks, the whole nine yards,” laughs Jerry O’Connell. “You’ll see me and Sabrina both in this get-up. We shot a lot of it outside, and shot in a mall yesterday, and I was eating lunch with that on in public. That was a little embarrassing. I mean you have got to see John in his outfit, and when you see Cleavant, that’s also pretty funny. I do admit, though, that we just have a blast on the show.”

“I know, I know, these pointy little ears,” Sabrina Lloyd says with a sigh. “People at the mail yesterday kept asking me if I was a Vulcan or something.”

· · ·

This episode was originally scheduled to air on December 13, 1996.