Summer of Love (Sliders)

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Sliders episode
“Summer of Love”
Wade embracing hippie culture
Episode no.	1-6
Guest star(s)	Jason Gaffney Arthur Reggie III Obba Babatunde Andre Benjamin Joy Coghill Michael Dobson Deborah Lacey Gabrielle Miller Gerry Nairn Joanna Piros Robert Isaac Lee Ajay Karan Berry Pepper Michele Goodger Robert Leacock
Writer(s)	Tracy Tormé
Director	Mario Azzopardi
Production no.	70401
Original airdate	1995-04-19
List of all Sliders episodes

"Summer of Love" is the sixth episode of the science fiction television show Sliders. It originally aired on April 19, 1995 and was later rerun on August 13, 1995. In the episode, the sliders land in a San Francisco resembling the culture of the 1960s where the "Summer of Love" never ended.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The episode begins on Earth Prime. The FBI knocks on Conrad Bennish, Jr.'s door and takes him to Quinn Mallory's basement. The FBI gives them the name of the four sliders and told him that they had been missing since Tuesday. When Bennish said he didn't know what happened to these people, the FBI asked him about the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge and showed him a video tape of Quinn saying that just yesterday he had been discussing the bridge with Conrad Bennish and then he's actually crossed it. Then Conrad Bennish, Jr. said that if the reason the four people were missing was because they crossed the bridge, it means that they have travelled to a parallel earth.

The episode then shifts to the four sliders. They are exiting the vortex on a deserted earth. A television says that a mutant breed of spider-wasp hybrids have escaped the lab and are a threat to anyone around. Since the spider-wasps can break through walls, staying indoors will not make them safe. Rembrandt then demanded that Quinn get them out of there. Quinn was afraid that the timer did not have enough power but opened the vortex anyway. Rembrandt and Wade went in, the vortex closed, then Quinn opened the vortex again so that he and Maximillian Arturo could slide through it.

Wade and Rembrandt landed on another alternate earth. When Quinn and Arturo did not follow them through, they believed that this would be the last earth they would slide to. A group of people dressed like hippies saw Wade and Rembrandt exit the vortex and concluded that they must be gods. Wade and Rembrandt suspected they might be home and asked the people what year it was and who was governor and president. They were excited when they were told it was 1995 and the governor was Pete Wilson but disappointed when they said Oliver North was president.

Quinn and Arturo landed on the same earth but in a different location. They did not realize that Wade and Rembrandt were on the same earth and Arutro believed that they were probably on an alternate earth. Arturo was very irritated with this earth because of its resemblance to the 1960s: he said he hated the 60s when it was the 60s. Shortly upon landing on this earth, A spider-wasp from the previous earth was found on Arturo's back. Quinn threw a rock that which he intended to hit the spider-wasp but it hit Arturo's head instead. Quinn got a multicolored bandage to put on Arturo's head, which annoyed Arturo.

Rembrandt decided to visit the counterpart of a house that he grew up in. The people in the house were having a funeral for Rembrandt's double. His double's brother was talking about how he was a better singer than Rembrandt and this annoyed him, so Rembrandt confronted his brother's double. This surprised everyone since they all believed that Rembrandt was dead. Rembrandt found out that his double was married to the double of a woman that he wanted to ask out but was too afraid to and had a son, named Rembrandt, Jr. Rembrandt decided to stay on this earth.

Quinn and Arturo rented a room for the night where they intended to fix the timer. Arturo claimed to the landlord that they were brothers and Quinn claimed they were father and son. This made the landlord suspicious that they had inconsistent stories, so she called the police and told them that Quinn and Arturo were planning to assassinate the president. The FBI had shown up the next day, saw the physics work that Quinn and Arturo wrote on the chalkboard, and concluded that this might be plans for a bomb.

Meanwhile, Rembrandt's wife was very abusive towards him. In addition, a memo was received that revealed that Rembrandt was still alive despite what was originally thought. Rembrandt's double's wife got angry and tried to shoot Rembrandt, realizing that he was an imposter, so Rembrandt quickly drove out of there.

Rembrandt drove past the building Quinn and Arturo were staying. Quinn saw Rembrandt outside the window. Quinn managed to escape from the FBI and ran after Rembrandt. A few minutes later, Arturo followed Quinn. Quinn, Arturo, and Rembrandt drove to the place where Wade was staying, where Wade was telling the local population her opinions about the war. Arturo felt it was very stupid of Wade to give opinions since she knows nothing of this world's war or politics and that her position should have been "no comment." Wade felt that it would be better to combine the wisdom of Earth Prime with the wisdom of the alternate earths so felt it was a good thing to give her opinions about the war. In addition, Wade did not like Arturo telling her what to do.

The FBI showed up just as the sliders were leaving. The next earth they landed on had a tsunami headed towards San Francisco. Rembrandt revealed that he cannot swim as the episode ended.

[edit] Episode ordering and the missing scene

Counting each part of the pilot as individual episodes, Summer of Love is sixth with respect to the sequence the episodes were originally aired in on Fox, and third with respect to production order. There was a missing scene from the episode that explained the way the timer worked. According to this scene, after the first time the timer had been reset, the sliders did not need to slide at the moment the timer hit zero. However, since the timer had been damaged when Quinn opened the vortex on spider-wasp earth when the timer was weak, it could now only be activated at a unique window of opportunity, which the timer counted down towards. This amount of time could vary between a few minutes to several months. If they did not slide at this window of opportunity, there would not be another window of opportunity for another 29.7 years. This scene would have made sense if it aired immediately after the pilot. However, if it was sixth in sequence it would not make sense, because in the other episodes, the sliders had to slide at the specific point of time in which the timer counted down towards.

In addition, the last scene where the sliders landed on an earth with a tsunami headed towards San Francisco was intended to be the same earth as at the beginning of The Prince of Wails where the earth was flooded. In addition, the sliders were wearing the same clothes at the end of Summer of Love as they were wearing at the beginning of Prince of Wails. The original production order was for Prince of Wails to immediately follow Summer of Love. However, the order Fox aired the episodes was Prince of Wails before Summer of Love.