Disco Inferno
Hot off the heels of a Van Meer World and right before dipping into time travel, we have an odd little story idea floating around the production offices that involves the Sliders encountering a world where's it's still 1976. While the idea isn't a full outline, the broad beats give everyone something to do—although the story oddly serves Quinn and Arturo more than famous 1970s R&B sensation Rembrandt Brown.
Wade, Rembrandt, and the Professor flee a group of white blonde guys who have, for lack of a better term, “gone native.” (The parallel quirk is that European “adopted Indian ways” when they emigrated to North America.) Quinn, having been accepted into the tribe and dressed as a Native American, appears, activates the timer, and helps the Sliders escape into the wormhole before diving in himself.
They arrive on a world stuck culturally (and temporally?) in 1976, in the middle of a disco dance-off at a local club. Rembrandt lands on the DJ or the dancers, ruining the contest and getting the Sliders into trouble. (Naturally, the crowd wonders if Quinn is one of the Village People.)
Against the backdrop of a world deep in the thrall of the disco movement, Quinn discovers a double of his father, who is his age and working toward a law degree. Mike Mallory is working two jobs, has a wife and baby Quinn at home, and is worried he won’t be a good father. In a reversal of The Guardian, Quinn bonds with his dad and begins to serve as a role model to him, assuaging him of his doubts.
At the same time, Professor Arturo encounters his 35-year-old self, who is currently in San Francisco on academic fellowship. Arturo’s younger double is working so hard that his personal life is suffering; he’s ignoring his family and children, especially his eldest son. “Our Arturo has many regrets about this and talks [his double] into spending more time together: don’t let these moments pass away, because when all is said and done, it’s better to have memories of one’s family than memories of one’s theories.” Arturo and his double then attend a baseball game their son is pitching in.
Wade begins to flirt with the DJ glimpsed at the beginning of the episode: “on any other world he’d be a catch,” but here he’s a beer-drinking loser driving a Camaro with an 8-track player in the dash. Wade doesn’t find him very “bitchin’.”
Rembrandt enters the Disco Dance-Off; “somehow he gets roped into doing this—maybe for the prize money or for a woman. This will have to be the jeopardy line.” Dance—or else! (“Man, they take their dancing seriously.”)
As the storylines conclude, the Sliders reconvene at the Dance-Off and slide in full view of the crowd. “When the vortex opens and the light happens, everybody dances—’cool, a new effect!’” The DJ, sad to to see Wade go, spins Donna Summers’ “Don’t Leave Me This Way” as they head to the next world.