Pilot, part 2

Episode number: 2
First Aired: 03/22/95
Production number: SL-102
Previous Episode: Pilot, part 1
Following Episode: Fever

Summaries

The adventurers land on an Earth where communism rules and Wade's counterpart is a rebel leader fighting for democracy. -Fox

Conclusion. After a narrow escape from an icy death, the Sliders find themselves in a Soviet-ruled U.S., where their only hope of escape is to free an imprisoned revolutionary. -TV Guide

Alternate Earths

4. Red Dawn Earth

A world where the Domino theory became fact and the Soviets took over the world. This Earth's alternate Wade is a leader in the American underground. Alternate Rembrandt was killed twelve years ago in the Detroit Uprisings. Alternate Arturo is Citizen General (i.e. the warden) of a political prisoner camp in the local university. ("Alway a leader among men!")

5. Dad's Earth (a.k.a. Earth Prime + Dad)

An alternate Earth very similar to Earth Prime in every detail but one: in this world, Quinn's father never died.

Notes

• If Dad's Earth really was identical in every way to Earth Prime except that Quinn's father had never died, why didn't the Sliders remain on that Earth? Perhaps the Sliders' alternates returned to this world. Or perhaps knowing that this really wasn't their Earth, their friends, and their lives made sliding into the unknown preferable to living out someone else's life. The Sliders faced this issue again a year and a half later in the episode Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome.

  Ah, the philosophy of sliding.

• The SLIDERS pilot was originally aired as a single, two hour episode. This is how TV Guide described the original airing of the pilot:

  While researching anti-gravity, brilliant grad student Quinn Mallory accidentally opens an inter-dimensional portal, which sends him and three companions on a cosmic roller-coaster ride to alternate Earths. In the opener, they find themselves in a Soviet-ruled U.S., where their only hope of escape is to free an imprisoned revolutionary. -TV Guide

Credits

Teleplay by:  Tracy Torme
Story by:     Tracy Torme and Robert K. Weiss
Directed by:  Andy Tennant
Music by:     Dennis McCarthy
               
Guest Starring:
  Linda Henning     as Mrs. Mallory
  Joseph A. Wapner  as Commissar Wapner
  Doug Llewelyn     as Comrade Llewelyn
  Garwin Sanford    as Doc
    
Featuring:
  Roger R. Cross    as Wilkins
  Yee Jee Tso       as Wing
  Frank C. Turner   as Crazy Kenny
  Gary Jones        as Michael Hurley
  John Novak        as Ross J. Kelley/Interrogator
  Don MacKay        as Artie Field
  Alex Bruhanski    as Pavel Kurlienko
  Jay Brazeau       as KGB Colonel
  Andrew Kavadas    as Vendor
  Sook Yin Lee      as Pal
  Wayne Cox         as PBS Spokesman
  Raoul Ganee       as Sentry
  Tom Butler        as Michael Mallory
  
"Cry Like a Man" by Tracy Torme and Paul Kelly.
Arranged by Hummie Mann.

Earth Prime -- The Fans' Guide to SLIDERS is maintained by Ed Hall (edhall@brillig.com).