Time Again and World

// K0801 · Originally aired April 5, 1996

After witnessing a grisly murder, Wade entangles herself in a vast government conspiracy when the same events begin to play out on the next world.

Written By // Jacob Epstein
Director // Vern Gillum
Music // Anthony Marinelli

Reviews

// Earth Prime

“Time Again and World” is too riddled with mistakes to be considered adequate. It pains me to do it, but I can’t in good faith give it a passing grade. Somebody hire an editor and try again.

// Think of a Roulette Wheel

Apparently Sabrina Lloyd asked that they give Wade a more robust presence on the show, and this is how they complied.

// External Reviews

Worlds Visited

Hoover Prime

How can four people stay on a world with zero civil liberties and not know it? Well, on this world women growing facial hair might serve as a distraction.

Hoover Double Prime

No Constitutional freedoms, out of control police oppression and J. Edgar Hoover in a skirt. Wait, am I talking about Earth Prime?

Details

The murder occurs at just after 5:25 PM.
The matchbook cover reads “Top Hat Night Club.”
The license plate of the blue Pontiac four door involved in the accident is 2JEB659.
The plate of the police van reads 184237.
The four stay in room 103 at the Dominion Hotel, which is down the corridor and to the left from the registration desk.
Rembrandt picks up a copy of San Francisco View magazine, which features a cover article on Dragnet: The Next Generation.
The terminal that Wade uses at the Doppler Computer Superstore is called a JEH Power Computer and has a picture of J. Edgar Hoover beside the IBM-like logo.
Hurley suggests upgrading if Wade finds the “Tolson” model too slow.
The warning on the Constitution computer disk reads “Classified Information: unauthorized reading is punishable by death.”
The cab that Rembrandt takes to the Top Hat Nightclub is car number 106.
The sign behind the bar of the Top Hat reads: “Attention Minors: Drinking Under the Age of 27 is Strictly Prohibited. By order State of California [unreadable] 32-4297-12.”
The license plate of Natalie’s yellow Cadillac convertible reads 2JAG482.
The sign on the door of the police truck reads “To Serve and Enforce.” The truck is No. 201.

Character Information

Wade says that Judge Nassau looks like her father.
Rembrandt quips that he once played a low-key concert in Florida. “The average age was deceased,” he says.
Wade says that she is 23.

Notable Quotes

“Mr. Brown … I swear you aim at me deliberately, and you manage to target my backside with the regularity of an atomic clock!”—A frustrated Arturo, who takes another beating upon his exit from the wormhole.
“Do you have any idea what you weigh?”—Arturo, to Rembrandt.
“Maybe they just have better razors.”—Arturo’s musings about why the women of Hoover Double Prime don’t have beards.
“The Scots are a notoriously dour and repressive people. But they did invent Scotch whisky, which is a definite plus.”—Arturo, to Wade, who wonders if the cops wear kilts thanks to Scotland’s influence.
“Don’t even try to understand it, Professor, it’ll just give you a headache.”—Quinn, after trying to explain the muddled plot holes congregating on this world.

Arturoisms

“In vino veritas. In wine, truth.”

Money Matters

Rembrandt and Arturo buy a few drinks on Hoover Prime.
As the Sliders check into the Dominion for two nights on Hoover Double Prime, Rembrandt slides three or four folded gray bills across the counter to Gomez.
Rembrandt gives the bartender at the Top Hat a couple of bills for the drinks, and Quinn gives the same man a few more later for information about Natalie.

Nitpicks and Errors

After Quinn and Wade barely manage to make the slide, Rembrandt asks “what happened back there?” Quinn tells him that there was a shootout and he and Wade almost didn’t make it.” Duh! Rembrandt was standing on the sidewalk when the shooting occurred.
When O’Neill and Dietrich burst into the Sliders’ hotel room, there is no number on the door. The number should be 103.
As the Sliders scurry into the safety of the Lamplighter, they nearly bump into a young man with shoulder-length blond hair and a black leather jacket who’s on his way out. A moment later, Arturo mentions that the barmaid is the same as on the last world and a shot of her behind the bar also shows that same young man sitting at the bar and calmly drinking a beer.
The dying cop, shot by Judge Nassau, tells Wade “Elsie, the Rock, 5-4, 8:00,” but Quinn later whispers to Natalie “Elsie, 10:00, the Rock, 5-4.”
The establishing outside shot of the Doppler Computer Superstore is the same one used in the Pilot and the car pulling into the parking space is actually Quinn in his BMW.
On the video poker game that the barfly is playing, he wins 25 points with four eights and a three. He had bet two points on that hand and has no credits in the machine. Despite that, the machine declares Game Over and automatically shuts down.
In a major continuity error, the Sliders land at 5:30 PM (per the city square clock) and then say they next slide 36 hours. That night, Gomez is arrested at the hotel. The next day they try the Top Hat Nightclub. That night Judge Nassau is arrested. The next morning (at 10:30 am) Arturo says they slide in eight hours, which would be 6:30 PM—giving the Sliders a grand total of 49 hours on Hoover Double Prime. If they had actually slid 36 hours after arrival, they would have left at 5:30 am, a full five hours before Arturo looks at his watch over coffee in the Lamplighter.
What is the deal with that purple money Rembrandt flashes before going into the Top Hat?
Let me get this straight. There’s a fully functional Internet that allows Americans to access material from abroad, and the way Judge Nassau wants to disseminate the Constitution is by California radio?! Why not upload the whole thing from a terminal in the first place instead of putting himself and the viewers through all this convoluted nonsense?

Neatpicks

While Arturo is complaining about sliding, he hoists his glass of wine and pronounces “In vino veritas. In wine, truth.” That phrase later becomes the basis for the episode title In Dino Veritas .
Arturo refers back to Luck of the Draw when he says “The last time we became involved in the affairs of the worlds that we visit, Mr. Mallory here ended up with a bullet in his back.”
Banners in the rafters of the computer store advertise “Doors 95″—a spin on Microsoft’s “Windows 95” software.

Rewind That!

In the hotel room, as Rembrandt packs the knapsack in preparation of leaving San Francisco, he quietly slips in a bottle of booze.

Parallel History

In 1963, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. After their death sentence was carried out, J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, was elected President instead of Lyndon Johnson.

Once Hoover he assumed power, he abridged the Constitution and declared martial law. In his Second Gettysburg Address, Hoover spoke out against the ills of civilization, saying that democracy was leading to “rampant crime, godless amorality and the breakdown of the family unit.” Hoover served as head of this terror state for 22 years, up until his death in 1985. He was succeeded by Lydon LaRouche, ironically.

Martial law has changed the face of the nation in several ways. Want to stay in a hotel? Prepare to be fingerprinted for identification. Want to drink? Head to Europe if you’re under 27. Want to kill a cop? Prepare to be electrocuted. All hotel guests must be fingerprinted by order. Cop killing is punishable by electrocution. Alcatraz is still open, thank God, and is the second biggest tourist attraction in the nation, right behind Hoover’s Tomb. Bobby Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sam Kinison are housed there today.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing about the police on this world are their kilts. Why? Well, with Hoover in power, he may have instituted the bizarre dress code because of his affinity for cross-dressing with his friend/lover Clyde Tolson.

Criminal element aside, the crackdown on civil liberties also deprives people of the right to selective personal interests in favor of state-approved blandness. Wholesome, mellow ballads come from the likes of Jim Morrison and Kurt Cobain. Want to get really out there? Try Donny Osmond.

There is an element of contemporary society hidden amidst the pablum in the form of underground clubs and pirate radio, but most of that has been radically cracked down on.

Guest Starring

Rebecca Gayheart as Natalie [Nassau]
Garry Chalk as Lt. Graves
Gary Jones¹ as Michael Hurley
George Delhoyo as Judge [John] Nassau

Featuring

Garvin Cross² as [Lt. Ray] Alverez
Ravinder Toor as L.C. [Lloyd Clark]
Barry Greene as Deitrich
Lesley Ewen as O’Neill
Jed Rees as Hipster
William Sasso³ as Gomez Calhoun
Tom Heaton as Rummy
Robert Metcalfe as Bartender (at Top Hat)
Alfred E. Humphreys as Family Man (at computer)
Brad Loree as Driver
Travis MacDonald as Lowlife

Unaccredited

The actor who plays Agent Taylor, shot by Judge Nassau.
The actor who plays Officer Dixon who interviews Rembrandt on the street.
The actor who provides the voice of Marty in the Lamplighter.
The actress who plays Karen at the computer store.

Gary Jones plays the irritating Michael Hurley in the Pilot and Prince of Wails.
Garvin Cross plays the sick man who rescues Wade in Fever.
Will Sasso also plays the venerable Gomez Calhoun in Fever, The King is Back, Gillian of the Spirits and Greatfellas.

Script Archive

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

The Inside Slide

“I had some problems with ‘Time Again and World,’ which really didn’t work for me,” says Tracy Tormé. “It also suffered from being the first show we shot last year, and there were still a lot of bugs in the production. Anyone who wants to look carefully can find some pretty blatant continuity errors, the result of not having our act together yet.

“We had the same problem in the first season with Summer of Love, and the network actually turned on the director, which really wasn’t fair.”

· · ·

“I’ve noticed the difference in Wade already—she is being written much stronger this year,” says Sabrina Lloyd. “In the very first episode, she saves the day. It’s something I really wanted, and it made me realize my voice was being heard, that the writers believed in me. Through these adventures, I think she has become a bit of a wild woman. She’s getting more and more daring.”

Part of Wade’s new found strength comes from her belief in her womanhood, Lloyd believes. “I think she’s much more comfortable in her sexuality now. She has really changed. I think she’s one of the strongest characters in the show in the sense that she knows what she wants, she’s a fighter. She now goes into these parallel worlds and tries to help when she can, and learns from the experiences. Before I think she was more of an observer.”