Rules of the Game
3rd season premiere

Episode number: 24
First Aired: 09/20/96
Production number: SL-302
Previous Episode: As Time Goes By
Following Episode: Double Cross

Summaries

In the premiere episode, the Sliders land on one of their strangest worlds yet -- where life is a simulated electronic war game -- only the weapons and ammunition are very real. The Sliders meet a woman who captains a team and learn that the government has banned all other sports from being televised and built a wall around part of the city for "The Game." The small handful of people who survive receive millions of dollars. -Fox

In the third-season opener, Arturo is seriously injured when the Sliders become unwitting participants in a bloody game, in which there is only one rule: stay alive. -TV Guide

Alternate Earths

51. Igloo Earth

The Sliders spent a month on this earth which Quinn refers to as "Igloo World." Considering that the parkas the Slider were wearing when they arrived on The Game Earth appeared modern and well-constructed and the fact that Wade mentions that she ate a lot of pizza, we can assume this is a world with a technology level similar to our own -- just a lot colder.

52. The Game Earth

The government on this Earth banned all sporting events ten years ago when the country was on the verge of a civil war. The people wanted to be entertained though, so they started up The Game -- a bloody sport held in a walled-off portion of San Francisco where a few dozen teams of players race each other through five levels of tricks, traps and mayhem trying to reach a goal set up near the beach. The first team to reach the goal is the winner and they, or their next of kin, receive $5 million.

A common expression of this world is "See you at the beach." which means "Good luck."

Notes

• While on The Game Earth, Quinn mentions that if they ever miss a slide, they're stuck on whatever world they happen to be on for 29 years until the next sliding window opens up. This information was to have been presented in the first season episode Summer of Love but that scene was editted out for time. Now, in the third season premiere they finally had a chance to mention it again.

• On the same day this episode first aired, an accident on the set of the episode Desert Storm killed one guest star, Ken Steadman, and seriously injured another, Christopher Maleki. As Rules of the Game was being aired, grim-faced nightly news anchors across the country came on with teasers for the evening news: "SLIDERS actor killed on location, details at 11."

  With a sound bite like that, it was only natural that rumors of the death of one of the show's leads, Jerry O'Connell, started immediately and continued for almost a year.

Credits

Written by:   Josef Anderson
Directed by:  Oscar Costo
Music by:     Danny Lux
               
Guest Stars:
  Laurie Fortier  as Nicky
  Joshua Malina   as Egghead

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