MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men" (1989)

Let me go ahead and get my thoughts out of the way for the TL;DR crowd: This. Movie. Kicks. All. The. Asses.

Okay, so I'm technically cheating with this one as it isn't a movie in the strictest sense.  It's a pilot produced by Marvel Entertainment in 1989 for a series that never materialized, but because the series was never picked up, it could be easily counted as a stand-alone TV movie.  Just with a signficantly shorter run time.

You can watch it right here. And let me go ahead and warn you, it's pretty damn epic - especially for a twenty minute show.  Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants seek to redirect a comet to Earth, and the only ones who can stop them are the X-Men!

After a PSA from Spidey and a kickass intro to prepare us for what we're about to see, Stan Lee himself narrates the opening over a New Mexico desert at night, where a military convoy is transporting Magneto, Master of Magnetism and the leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants.  However, the White Queen herself - Emma Frost - arrives and frees him with some mental manipulation.

At a familiar mansion in Westchester, however, a lone taxi drives up to bring young Katherine "Kitty" Pryde to the front doors of Xavier's School for the Gifted.  If you're one of the seven people one Earth who don't know who Kitty Pryde is, she's a mutant with the ability to walk or "phase" through solid matter. She is to the 1980s comics what Jubilee was to the 1990s comics, a character for the younger readers to identify within the X-Men books.

This pilot, as well as being titled on a pun of her, is her introduction to the team.  Greeted by an astral projection of Professor Xavier, she is brought to the Danger Room and introduced to the team.  Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, Dazzler, Nightcrawler, and Wolverine (the last of which is hilariously voiced with an Australian accent).  Naturally, Kitty being the new kid means she doesn't fit in that well by default - Wolverine in particular doesn't much care for her - but when the X-Men are sent off on a mission, only she and the Professor are left to defend the mansion when Magneto and Juggernaut come calling...leading into further adventure!

The story is largely Kitty looking in on the team, giving the viewer a similar perspective on the team as would someone who has no idea about the world she has stepped into.  She does come off as a bit whiny, but I hold (like many do) that this was to be the beginning of her character arc and - again, with Rule of Adaptation - she's not going to be exactly the beloved character we know and love from the comics right away.  Character development does have to be gotten out of the way after all.

The rest of the team besides Nightcrawler doesn't get much development - with him sort of. sort of not being set up to be Kitty's love interest - which works well enough for everyone save Dazzler, who I still don't know anything about and really don't much care to (give Jubilee credit, at least her powers don't stop working in a noiseless environment).  The rest though, most comic fans would know, especially those who are familiar with the John Bryne and Chris Claremont run, seeing as the lineup is virtually the same.

Some people would call it hokey, some people would nitpick. I'm not one of them.  Sure, I'll mock the raw cheesy glory of it and laugh at the rather stupid plan of Magneto and the Brotherhood (using a comet to plunge Earth into an Ice Age because...reasons?), but I admire the work that went into the animation, the voice acting is pretty good (if a little hilarious for certain Canadian members of the team), and it's just a pretty good twenty minutes overall.  If you've got the time, definitely follow that link and give it a watch.

And it made a thumb-bleedingly good Konami arcade game, so I suppose we ought to thank it for that if nothing else.  So yeah, check it out!

...and tell 'em MadCap sent ya!

X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men is brought to us by Marvel Entertainment, Marvel Productions, and New World Pictures.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Comic Reviews - "X-Men '92 #1"

The X-Men. The Children of the Atom. That rascally group of meddling kids from that mysterious school in Westchester. My exposure to them first came in the form of the 1990s X-Men cartoon on FOX, as well as the 1980s pilot on VHS for them known as "Pryde of the X-Men". The X-Men themselves have been a staple of comic books for years, have gone through many different iterations and even spawning new teams and literally thousands of different characters that all hold the distinction of being a mutant. Not created by a radioactive spider or a gamma ray explosion, they were simply  born with their special abilities, manifested from a specific gene in their DNA.

Kind of a cool concept until you realize it only exists because Stan Lee was tired of explaining himself about where everyone got super powers from.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to deny the influence that the X-Men have both within the Marvel universe and on comic books in general. At the time of their inception, I don't think even Stan Lee and Jack Kirby would have any inkling that that group of five teenagers with attitude and their wise mentor would spawn a mythos that rivals the entire rest of the Marvel universe itself. Because of this, the question I often ask is...why aren't they? But enough about the X-Men and how they and mutants in general really don't fit in Marvel, let's get on with the newest version of an old property...twice over, in fact.  This is X-Men '92 #1.

The 90s cartoon series is probably the most commonly known version of the team, which would definitely make this a good jumping on point for anyone who watched the show and has an overload of nostalgia on it...like yours truly. We are introduced in a quick series of panels to the seven of the eight main members of the X-Men team from the show: Cyclops, Jean Grey, Jubilee, Storm, Rogue, Gambit, and Wolverine, partaking in the most 90s activity there ever was - laser tag!

The "fight" is only three pages long and - to the shock of all - Jubilee is the winner. We get some post-combat banter among the team, such as Wolverine mocking Gambit's outfit, as well as some exposition being dropped about Battleworld, Senator Kelly (apparently now Baron Kelly of Westchester), and the enigmatic Bureau of Super-Powers. However, the information faucet gets turned off as Wolverine and Cyclops get into a pissing match as they are oft known to do and the short, hairy Canuck decides to bail....and then the laser tag is attacked by Sentinels!

Of course, this is a team that knows how to handle its Sentinels and start inquiring about what just happened.  Baron Kelly arrives on the scene, explaining that at the end of the "Westchester Wars", several Free-Ranger Sentiels did not receive a shutdown order that was broadcast to bring them all in, though he hopes the "Age of the Sentinel" will be ended soon thanks to the team dismantling one of them.  Here, unlike in the main 616 comics continuity or in many other versions, the X-Men apparently have a good working relationship with the authorities and even peacefully co-exist. Who would have thunk it?

Kelly also drops some exposition about a place called "Clear Mountain", as he explains to the team that after a massive battle between Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants and all of humanity - in which the X-Men fought - there were many mutants who had been recruited by the now-deceased Magneto that knew nothing but the violence of the Westchester Wars. So the Bureau of Super-Powers created Clear Mountain as a rehabilitation center.

Back at the Xavier Mansion, the team meets with Professor X and Beast to debate the validity of the program, The team is largely skeptical, deciding to check it out, except for Cyclops who thinks it might be legitimate...and suddenly I understand why everyone is a Wolverine fan.  He's beginning to doubt whether Westchester needs the X-Men and if Westchester doesn't need the X-Men...then the X-Men won't need him.  After this mission to check out Clear Mountain, he is going to be leaving the team.

The next morning, they journey by Blackbird to the Clear Mountain Facility and meet with the director - Cassandra Nova.  While the comic book affeciandos quietly freak out, I'll explain why. Cassandra Nova - to grossly oversimplify things - is a dark spirit that is a gender swapped shadowy reflection of Professor X.  If you couldn't tell that by her incredibly not at all like Professor X design, of course.

She shows hits on Beast and offers to show the ream around. explaining their therapy techniques in handling former evil mutants.  The first stage is mentoring, done in the courtyard of the facility. It's a judgment-free zone where role models help the former evil mutants learn to be human first and mutant second, which they say is essential for building trust and breaking down fear. We also get a bit where Jean suffers a psychic blackout and Cassandra explains the facility uses a psionic suppressor to keep telepaths from getting ahead in their treatment, apologizing for its usage.

Cassandra is displaying the second phase - in the form of a basketball court where former evil mutants engage in one on one play to accept loss - when Wolvie picks up a familiar scent...Sabertooth! However, from the look of it, Sabertooth has been effectively neutered. He only resists Logan's attacks in a defensive manner and insists that he's reformed, Cassandra's treatments have helped him get right of all that rage and hatred in him. The team looks on all shocked as he actually even goes so far as hugging Wolverine...skeeving him and everyone else out to no end.

Professor X, meanwhile, decides to put Cerebro to use to check on the team.  To his dismay, he finds only darkness as if someone were casting a psychic shadow over Clear Mountain.  Trying to figure it out, Charles hops onto the Astral Plane (trippy as usually) and discovers...a presence.  Cassandra Nova. She claims to now be in control of the dimension, calling it the "Mind Field".  They engage in mental combat while the team is shown the third phase of treatment: integration. Applying what they've learned in the first two stages and accepting that violence is never the answer.

As for the fight, Professor X puts up his A-Game, but it isn't enough as Cassandra basically walks through him before revealing her backstory via a psychic projection. In this version, Cassandra is a clone of the Professor (gender-swapped, of course) created by Apocalypse and possessed by the spirit of the Shadow King...now calling herself the Shadow Queen. Once more, Charles tries to win, but Cassandra curbstomps him and leaves him a broken shell of a man before turning her attention on the rest of the team.

Back at Clear Mountain, Cassandra introduces the team to the fourth and final phase - the Mind Field, a device used to identify antisocial behaviors caused by the X-Gene and quiet them.  The team takes a moment to talk it over, and they're all very skeptical of it and think there's something not quite right in paradise. Of course, they eventually come to the conclusion that if this does help mutantkind, there's really no way they can say no to it. Jean mentions that it might help Wolverine if it helped Sabertooth, which irks him and makes him blab about being first in line for it.

Jubilee, however, cannot go - the Mind Field is not set up for an undeveloped mind. She is taken away while the rest of the team head in to find a bunch of salon hair-drying chairs that they get in...and are immediately secured down to. It's a trap! Or as Cassandra puts it, therapy...leaving us on a cliffhanger as she activates the Mind Field...

I gotta say, I love this comic. It brings back a team I know and love without the dozens of storylines and arcs worth of backstory, has the (mostly) faithful return of the designs based on Jim Lee's work from the early 90s on the X-Men, as well as doing something that is divorced from most of the stuff going on in the big company-wide crossover that is Secret Wars (III) without having to bringing itself all the way in and confuse the living hell out of anyone jumping on, like the ongoing Spiderverse series has been doing.

I also enjoy the plot, though it's admittedly been done to death in fiction - A facility for rehabilitation having an astounding success rate...and having a dark and sinister secret behind it? How incredibly original! - but to its credit it is done well, so hush my mouth I guess. But even if the plot is a little overdone, the pacing is pretty good and feels fairly consistent. The artwork is also pretty good, as I said before, with faithful recreations of the 90s characters that were so beloved in the cartoon, with a few updates here and there (Sabertooth has a bit more of a "human" look in the face and such). All things considered, a good number one and first effort from the series.

I look forward to seeing more of it, which is more than I can say for almost anything else X-Men related these days...

X-Men '92 #1 is now available from Marvel Comics wherever fine comic books are sold.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

From MadCap's Couch - "Sliders: El Sid"

John Winchester had a rough go of it in the 90s...

Have you ever seen Escape from New York?  New York being turned into a maximum security prison by 1997 at the hand of President Samuel Loomis? Jack Burton himself being sent in with an eyepatch to go and rescue him from a cold and unforgiving land of criminals, psychopaths, and other delinquents who had been given an island to muck around on for the good of society? Awesome! Now forget all that, because this episode is rather more like Escape from LA than that movie.

...okay, that's not true. It's actually not a bizarre thing that I wish would go away and give me my two hours back. It's a pretty decent episode all told, though it highlights one of the problems I have with a certain character. More on that when we get to it. But to begin, we open on a truck blazing its way through a war-zone as guns are fired wildly about. The camera pans over and through some scaffolding to show the Sliders running to safety. With two minutes before the Slide, they stow themselves away in a warehouse, failing to realize a blonde woman - Michelle - watching them curiously from a hiding place.

And who is she hiding from? Why, John Winchester himself - that is, Jeffrey Dean Morgan - as the character of Sid, her leather jacket wearing abusive boyfriend. He makes his way in, demanding to know where she is and upon finding her begins to berate and beat her for not listening to him. The Sliders watch, horrified, and Arturo even comments on how much of a pathetic scum pile Sid is. However, Quinn is the only one to actually do something, charging out of cover with a pipe to save Michelle. However, Quinn's quarterback skills are no match for the skills of Papa Winchester and so the Crying Man has to come in with an assisting wooden plank to the back of Sid's head and a witty one-liner.

They run off to make the vortex and Sid actually manages to get up to follow without too much problem. Arturo gives some protest to the idea, but Michelle soon does come with them through the vortex. Sid is left to stare in confusion and, unlike many before him, is not left behind looking at the utter nothingness as he manages to jump through before the portal closes, leading into the main title sequence.

The Sliders and their two plus ones show up in a far, far better looking version of San Francisco than they were in moments ago. In fact, it almost looks utterly pristine. Before they can do a lot of walking around to explore, however, they're accosted by a man by the name of LJ - who Sid and Michelle know from their world. Sid puts Quinn against a post in an attempt to kill him, but is talked down and Arturo explains to him the concept of parallel Earths. Overhearing this, LJ gets them all to follow him away and out of sight.

"Hey, you wanna buy some deathsticks?"

At a corner, LJ gives the group "Buddy Bracelets" for free, apparently it's required here. As they head up to a checkpoint, they notice that the air is remarkably clean here and all the carts moving around are apparently electric. They go through a checkpoint and a small quake occurs, then LJ takes them off to get them housing - apparently the Dominion Hotel is a pile of rubble thanks to a recent earthquake. He also inquires about their plans to leave, which apparently will happen the next day, before he gets them lodging for the night  using a carton of cigarettes as barter. He takes them to their housing and when asked for a key, tells them that there are no locks - nobody steals in San Francisco, which earn a smirk from Sid and Michelle. Also, there are group therapy sessions which...don't really factor into the plot at all.

Inside, they find that government housing is ritzy as all get out, looking more like a fancy hotel done up to the nines. Sid, however, is ready to leave and demands that the Sliders take himself and Michelle to his world when he returns. Though Arturo attempts to explain that prematurely activating the timer was what got them into this in the first place, it ends with Sid pushing Quinn against a post and choking the life out of him...until Arturo explains to him that if he kills Quinn, they'll be stuck there being that he's the only one who stands a chance of getting them back home.

Quinn heads out after Sid does to get some air, being approached by Michelle. She thanks him for trying to help, even though it's caused a lot of trouble, and gives him a rather smoldering kiss before LJ shows up with the paperwork and an authority figure who registers their Buddy Bracelets. The system registers the bracelets, causing them to light up. "Buddies" are bonded, namely Arturo and Rembrandt, Wade and Michelle...and Quinn with the still distant Sid.

Ha! Irony.

The man begins to explain how the Buddy System works, but an alert gets his attention. Someone has violated curfew, which he solves by heading out to the balcony and shooting a man in the back on the street below, then calmly returning to explain the system while the others watch in horror. Apparently, if someone's Buddy commits the crime, they do the time right along with them - or, in this case, get a bullet through the back. Not being complete morons, they fear about Sid committing a crime out there that Quinn would pay for as well. Michelle reasons that Sid would go where the money is, so Quinn and LJ go out to look for him before he does something stupid.

As they're driving around, LJ drops a plot point about a mega-earthquake that's coming that will likely destroy the prison. When Quinn asks why they don't all just leave if they know it's coming, LJ reveals that nobody can - San Francisco is a maximum security prison.

"I swear, by the tears in my 'fro, I will shank you..."

Elsewhere, Rembrandt and Arturo are walking around searching themselves in spite of LJ's comments that they should probably lay low and trust no one. Arturo speaks on the nature of their sliding and how having extra bodies can damage their chances of successfully arriving...or worse, increase their chances of failure to the point of all of them being spread across an infinite number of worlds as jam.  They also speak of the strangeness of the world, though Arturo likens it to Singapore or Switzerland. The streets are ordered and the populace enjoys a good standard of living...though Rembrandt brings up that the trade off is punishments like being caned for littering.

However, philosophies will have to wait another day as a street punk decides to try and mess with Arturo on the grounds that he's...around? No real idea, but nonetheless he throws a knife at a sign near his head to taunt him. Of course, Gimli son of Gloin gives absolutely 0% of a damn and talks him down with the power of his Bluff skill. With the Neighborhood Watch nearby, the punk decides that it's not worth it now but promises to come back.

Elsewhere and later (apparently night), Wade and Michelle attend group therapy as Wade explains why they can't just take her and Sid home so easily, bringing up that they have been trying to get home as well and haven't managed it. They also argue the merits of Michelle staying with Sid versus leaving him. Wade, of course, taking the strawman approach of "he's an abusive jerk, so you should leave", though Michelle has the no better retort of "once you're with them, they all do it" and says that she's better off with Sid than without him, given the state of their world. She's just doing what she has to do to survive.

Nevermind that that's no longer the case, as Wade points out, but more on that later.

After a chuckle-worthy scene where Wade gets asked to confess what she's in for, Quinn and LJ are still driving around in the dark as LJ inquires as to the nature of sliding and Quinn gives a bit of detail about the unpredictability of sliding. They finally managed to come across Sid as he's about to knock over an ATM, which he does at gunpoint and LJ decides that he and Quinn need to get out of there - there's no stopping him now.

The Deputy Warden from earlier arrives at the scene of the ATM just as Sid's bracelet and Quinn's bracelet get activated in spite of LJ's attempts to separate them as much as possible. He is told by his superior to deal with Sid in spite of him having a hostage. LJ kicks Quinn out of the cab and tells him to hoof it, cover the bracelet up and hide for a while before coming to meet him at a nearby Bart Station later.

"Oh no! Not in the back! Not again, you bastards!"

Quinn heads out and an earthquake sees his bracelet revealed to some snipers who try to take advantage of it...at least until the quake resumes and the show becomes Cloverfield for a few minutes which causes a panic among the populace and allows Quinn to escape sans bullet wounds. He actually escapes back to the housing and explains the situation to Michelle and Wade. Quinn and Wade decide to head off in spite of Michelle's insistence that Sid will come back for her...but she decides to go with them. They meet up with Arturo and Rembrandt and Quinn explains what he's learned of San Francisco being a maximum security prison. They meet up with LJ at the Bart Station, Michelle pulling Quinn aside to bring up that the LJ on her world was a double-crosser...which the writers take for a moment of self-awareness that she didn't bring that up before with Quinn's retort.

They head down the tunnels for Wade and Michelle to have another scene of what they were talking about before. Wade bringing up the "I have friends" argument when Michelle asks her why she's so damn happy.

Honestly I'm wondering where she's getting "happy" from, seeing that she seems more a scornful mouthpiece of the writers, but whatever.

Getting back to the plot, LJ reveals the hidden world of the Fraggles to the Sliders and company, as well as the hiding place of an underground movement in the warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Apparently, the criminals LJ is working with have been promised the timer. After LJ demands it, Arturo hands it over...though not before rendering it unusable by any hand but their own in a subtle manner. Quinn tries to play that card, but LJ puts Wade at gunpoint to persuade him to see things their way. He begins to agree...but dancing their cares away is put on hold as the Five-Oh shows up.

A firefight breaks out, ending with Michelle killing LJ, and Quinn retrieving the timer. They escape back through the tunnels only to find the police outside the Bart Station waiting for them...Sid apparently having joined forces with the Deputy Warden in a double-cross of the rest of the group - shock and awe on that one. They are taken to a holding cell where Arturo once more berates Quinn for getting involved in the affairs of other people on other worlds, citing it as the whole reason they're in this mess.

The Deputy Warden comes in with an ultimatum - one of them comes forward and offers to control the timer so they can escape, or they start executing them all one by one. When they bring up the very logical point that if he kills them all, there's no way he can get the device to work, he doesn't care because we're in the last ten minutes of the episode and we need to wrap things up with no super advanced motivations or logic.

Michelle tells the Sliders that the Warden is using a tactic of Sid's, and that it almost always works once he killed someone to put some teeth behind his words. Quinn tells Michelle not to blame herself when she tries to apologize and another quake hits, disturbing them all as they try to decide what to do.

Meanwhile, Sid and the Warden twirl their mustaches. The scene ends with the Warden getting a note - apparently someone has agreed to help.

Cutting back to the cell, we find out that Arturo has apparently broken and agreed to help Sid and the Warden. The other Sliders protest, but Arturo retorts that it's better that one of them survive than all of them die. Arturo also brings up some very cutting remarks to Quinn, namely that he should have perfected Sliding before he imperiled the lives of all of them, which he plans to do upon returning to their world and take credit for the idea. As he leaves, Quinn swears to get him back for his betrayal. Nevertheless, Arturo and Michelle go and Arturo is given the timer to work with.

He checks the timer and claims that it's been reconfigured - he'll need Quinn's help. Though Sid tries to call him out on pulling a trick, Arturo tries to assure him otherwise though Michelle puts a fine enough point on it by actually holding him at gunpoint until he lets Arturo go. Back at the cell, it is revealed to have indeed been a trick as Michelle and Arturo return with only thirty seconds to spare before the vortex needs to be opened. Back in the office, Sid and the Warden have been tied up, but Sid gets free once more and is in pursuit.

As the Sliders start to make their way through, Sid pulls a Kruge and attacks Quinn. Rembrandt gets involved but is thrown aside...and then Michelle puts the man at gunpoint once more. Sid tries to get cocky...and she shoots him through the stomach. He bleeds out on the floor as she nonetheless mourns the death of her boyfriend and spends his final moments with him. Wade convinces her to leave with them, and they all go through the wormhole just as the Big Quake hits and brings the whole place down...ending the episode.

And now, we can finally get to the problem that has been bugging me since the first scene with Wade and Michelle. I do not condone abusive behavior towards anyone - be they woman or man or child - it's one of the most pathetic and cowardly acts one can commit upon another person. My problem comes with Wade trying to force her own views upon the people of the worlds that she and the others visit.

The Sliders are going to get involved in the affairs of other places and peoples, I understand that by this point (after all, we wouldn't have a plot if they didn't), and they are always going to try to get involved for the better rather than try to active cause malice and harm to people because that's who they are and what they do. Arturo may have some concerns about Quinn's "bravado", but he even acknowledges within the episode that Quinn couldn't have just left Michelle to have her head beaten in by Sid. Because, in the moments where he's written properly, it's not in his character to do so. Neither is it in Arturo's to not see reason when it's presented to him, even if he does not like that said logic demands he respond differently than he's so inclined.

My problem with Wade is that the writers have not given her character that ability to see things from other viewpoints as every other Slider is able to. She is there solely to be a mouthpiece by the writing staff on what they think are social issues that need attention, or a straw(wo)man feminist who is there to roll her eyes at the testosterone-poisoned men-folk. A more egregious example of both those was back in "The Weaker Sex", where she is literally so one-dimensional as to be completely and utterly transparent. That is not good writing and Sabrina Lloyd deserved a great deal better than to be a pretty mouthpiece.

And again - I'm in no way condoning abusive relationships. And while abuse is still a great problem on our world for both genders, the fact is that Sid and Michelle's world is very clearly not our world. From the short look of it it is, at best, a world where social order has begun to collapse entirely if indeed it hasn't already - likely due to the "War" that Michelle mentions during group therapy. While it's still not a good thing, Michelle points out that she's just doing what she has to in order to survive. She doesn't like it, but that's the reality of her world and while staying is clearly not a good thing for her physical or mental state, she is doing what she feels she must in order to survive.

Wade trying to force her views on a situation and environment that she knows all of squat about is really rather insulting and proof that the writers did not bother to think the message of this episode through, preferring instead to just hammer it in (though admittedly far less anviliciously than in other episodes) without appraising the entire situation. It should be Michelle's choice, not Wade's influence, that gets her to do so. And while they do have Michelle do her retorts as to why she stays with Sid, she's wrong due to the virtue of Wade having to be right because of smug moral superiority and Sid being a completely irredeemable, sociopathic asshole to her and everyone else that we actually want to see die.

And die he does when Michelle kills him, which I think makes for the good ending of her small but poignant arc when she finally kills him in spite of her feelings for him so that he doesn't hurt others. Her future is uncertain, but at least she is now free. She has made her choice and now she has to live with those consequences. Only get used to never knowing what happened to her, because like many people who have left with the Sliders at the end of an episode this season...she never appears again and never gets mentioned.

Next time, the Sliders witness a grizzly murder on one world...which leads to a social upheaval on another world...because...reasons?

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Game Reviews - "Crazy Taxi"

Because I needed affirmation that I'm not a good driver, here's Crazy Taxi.  A game from Sega that originally came out in the long forgotten year of 1999, made by Hitmaker for arcades before getting a port to the classic and still widely-loved Dreamcast...before being ported off to a bunch of other systems because Sega fell right out of making consoles like a bird with no wings out of the sky.

Sorry...too soon?

Crazy Taxi was only a game I knew of by word of mouth.  Car based games are not my thing - as certain reviews I've done might have tipped off long-time readers to - but I was told that this was one I'd really enjoy.  I was skeptical, but I decided to check it out and see for myself, seeing as it came up on my queue in the Xbox Live Arcade.  So, taking up one of four personas - "Axel", if you're interested to know, though I've found little difference in them besides aesthetics - I hopped into my taxi and booted up the main arcade game to see what it had in store for me.

Why in the hell didn't I pick this game up sooner?

I'm not joking, this game is really awesome! You have an indestructible taxi cab and you go around the city of not-quite-but-just-vague-enough-to-maybe-be-San-Francisco picking up passengers and weaving your way around other cars and obstacles to get them to their destinations as quickly and efficiently as possible...or not. Either way, in the end, you get a rating and a score. La dee da. But basically, this is a game that was made for the arcades. In that mode, the player has their set amount of time to run around and get passengers, scoring a few seconds with each successful delivery and certain amount of points.

Basically, the money from fares replaces the score, and you need to get as much of that sweet, sweet green as you can before the timer runs out. Or you could play in "Original" mode and set it for 3, 5, or 10 minutes and basically just do the set thing but within a set time.

That's really all there is to the game.  You have an indestructible taxi and you taxi people around, doing crazy stunts and tricks (which the game has another mode - the Crazy Box - specifically for) in the meanwhile to rack up the points. However, this isn't like a Big Rigs: Over The Road Racing thing.  Your taxi still has to yield to some of the laws of physics. You run into a wall, it's going to stop you, you do actually have to judge your distance to brake instead of just hitting the break button and almost instantly stopping, and your car does take a moment to accelerate much like a normal car would from a complete stop.

That all being said, there are a few glitches here and there, such as the taxi getting caught in a second-story banister during a jump until I reversed and pulled back...hitting the ground with (as you'd expect) no damage whatsoever, but they are few and far between - so I'm not sure whether that's the game itself or the port. And even though I know it's a port, it hasn't aged well as far as the graphics go - which I normally wouldn't talk about, and won't ding the game from 1999 for.

It has just enough realism to balance the game, and plenty of the exact opposite to allow for a crazy fun time. Couple it with an awesome rock soundtrack as you tear through the streets, and you've got one hell of a game!

Crazy Taxi is now available from Hitmaker and Sega for Arcades, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, GameCube, Microsoft Windows, the Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, Cloud, iOS, and Android.  This review being based on Xbox Live Arcade version.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

From MadCap's Couch - "Sliders: The Good, The Bad, and the Wealthy"

"...to a world of dung" Arturo predicts the later seasons of the show.

Growing up in America as I have, I'm familiar with the romanticized image that television and movies have given of the Old West. A time of heroic cowboys riding into town and getting into epic gunfights that would save a town from a government official who wants to buy up all the land once a newly-constructed railroad is built through it.

...or that may just be the plot of Blazing Saddles (at least that's what came to mind for me).

Of course, I'm not really a Western fan but I know enough of the genre to know some of the tropes and one of those, as I mentioned, is gunfights. You have to admit, a legal system built around this concept would be a hell of a lot speedier than most. No complicated court proceedings or hours upon hours of research followed by hours upon hours of legal jargon. Got a hostile takeover? Just point and shoot, easy.

At least that's how I imagine the pitch for this episode went, because that's what we ended up getting.

We begin with what looks like an Old West town with the San Francisco skyline bluescreened in the background. A somber harmonica plays as we focus on a young man in a cowboy outfit practicing with toy guys at a poster of a man in a suit and hat. As he shoots, a wind picks up and he is witness to the opening of a vortex just before Quinn, Arturo, Rembrandt, and Wade fall from it. On the fly, Quinn bluffs that they are traveling magicians and the boy buys it. Arturo puts on a hilarious psuedo-Texan accent and inquires about food, the boy only too happy to direct them on their way to the "Wall Street Saloon".

I was gonna do a Monty Python Spam joke, but this is basically Heaven...

The Sliders head off, scoping out the world around them. It seems like the Old West, but there are modern automobiles being driven around - and again, San Francisco bluescreened into the background. Rembrandt theorizes that this is some sort of Old West theme park, but sadly there are no Yul Brynner cameos in our future. Checking out a sign, they find out they're in San Francisco, Texas, which prompts Arturo to go looking for bookshop to perhaps find out about the world they've landed on.

In the Saloon, Marty McFly is facing down Mad Dog Tannen while Quinn, Rembrandt, and Wade see some famous figures from Texas history in pictures on a wall - George Bush, LBJ, and Sam Houston. It's noted that there's a stock ticker above the bar, which strikes them as odd. We focus suddenly on a group of men playing poker. One takes exception to another winning and kicks him out of his chair, ruining the festivities. As a woman comes up to defuse the situation, Quinn comes to the aid of the fallen man and helps him to his feet.

The other man tries to take Wade hostage before challenging Quinn to a gunfight. When it's noted that he's unarmed, another man throws a gun to Quinn. The Saloon clears as the pair square off. At the count of three, draws are made and...Quinn shoots the man, killing him instantly. And Quinn, as you can expect, is absolutely horrified by this.

After the title sequence, Quinn is filled with shame but the people of the Saloon seem to approve which just fills him with more shame. The fuzz quickly arrives and Quinn is apparently arrested for helping the man and taken in...in spite of Wade and Rembrandt's insistence that it was self-defense, and Quinn is taken away. The woman who spoke up before watching all the while. Arturo returns just in time for us to have a funny bit where he laments that they're arrest in trouble.

Meanwhile, the Sheriff decides to go Law & Order on Quinn's butt. Apparently, Quinn not having a law degree makes it confusing that he knows how to shoot so well. However, a Billy Ray arrives working for a Mr. Bullock and informs the Sheriff that Mr. Bullock would like to see Quinn. Through some heavily implied corruption, Quinn's released into Billy Ray's custody.

Shots! Ha! Get it? It's funny because we all have guns...

Back with the other sliders, Arturo gives exposition. On this world, in 1836, Sam Houston became the President of the Republic of Texas as on their world. When the Civil War broke out, with the North and South busy fighting, the Republic expanded west and took most of the lands there, including California. There also apparently are no lawyers here, only 'negotiators' as they find in the Phone Book. On this world, corporate gunslingers are literally gunslingers.

As Arturo heads into the hotel, we get a small aside with the boy from earlier - Jamie - and the woman from earlier, his mother. The boy likens Quinn's arrival to the 'Mighty Morphin' Texas Rangers' (which, given Power Rangers actually had a Wild West episode, makes this even more hilarious), but his mother won't have any of it and shoos him off while he insists that they're not on the level.

Billy Ray brings Quinn to the corporate offices of Drexel-Bullock Corporation. Apparently, the man himself wants Quinn to be his new hotshot negotiator, seeing as he killed the previous one who was thought to be nigh-undefeatable. Because Highlander rules. It is, of course, abundantly clear that this man is not remotely on the level - if the scene of Billy Ray "convincing" the police to let Quinn go was any indication.

Then we get a scene at a karaoke Western bar (try to wrap your head around that one) where Billy Ray gets Quinn drunk. There's also a minor incident with another gunslinger named Lonnie who apparently is none too happy about Quinn getting the sudden fast track to success. Unlike the previous meeting in a bar, Quinn doesn't shoot. Billy Ray, on the other hand, is quick enough on the draw to put Lonnie down before he can even begin pulling his own gun. He tells Quinn not to worry about it, and just goes back to drinking like nothing happened. As you can expect, Quinn is horrified. Therefore, the writers found it in their infinite wisdom to have a scene of him completely plastered coming into the hotel room where the others are waiting.

We get a brief scene where Priscilla, the woman from earlier, is speaking to her broker - Cliff - and the writers have her force some exposition with all the subtlety of an oversized plumber's wrench in the face. She's apparently sitting on a computer chip that could change the face of the PC market, but can't get in without a one million dollar buy in to a trade show. In addition, her late husband worked too hard for her to declare bankruptcy.

Really, that's almost word for word what she says. There's really no attempt to weave it into dialogue that's remotely realistic-sounding. The reason that I'm not dinging it is because it has almost no relevance to the plot at all. What does have some relevance is Cliff's suggestion that she takes the money she has left to defend against a corporate takeover from Bullock's company.

The next morning, poor Quinn is hung to the over and horrified about how he ended a man's life. While Rembrandt and Arturo do their best to console him, Quinn doesn't really care about whether or not anyone cares about it - the fact is that a man is dead, and he killed him.

Wade, meanwhile, has an aside with Jaimie where she tries to convince him that Quinn is not a gunslinger. Priscilla arrives and once more tells him to shove off before she asks to see Quinn - apparently quite interested to learn that he's not a gunslinger. Wade brings her to the hotel, and she pulls Quinn aside to try and explain the situation...and the fact that Quinn didn't actually kill anyone. She killed him. Apparently autopsy isn't a thing on this world, given she was on the stairs in the scene where Quinn "shot" the man and was almost coming from a completely opposite direction, but what the hey, I'm just some guy on the internet who knows nothing about physics.

Yeah, no joke here. Just enjoy the screenshot of a yak.

Apparently, the same lawyer killed her husband in cold blood...on orders from Bullock. With that revealed, Billy Ray arrives to take Quinn out to the shooting range and Priscilla tells Quinn not to reveal anything he's heard to him or to Bullock. At the range, Quinn and Billy Ray talk after Quinn demonstrates that he's not remotely a crack marksman as they think. Billy Ray nonetheless tries to sell him the pitch and Quinn is still on the fence. He also tells Quinn that Bullock plans to bury Priscilla.

Meanwhile, the others are with Priscilla at the poker/stock exchange and Cliff has not shown up much to Priscilla's irritation. If there's not a body in his chair soon, he'll forfeit his seat and Priscilla's company will be ruined. Rembrandt ends up sitting in, apparently knowing "every form of poker known to man", and she, Arturo, and Wade head off to go find Cliff. When he doesn't answer the door to his room they break and find him hanging around...by his neck. It seems that he's hung himself...or that someone hanged him and wanted it to look like an accident...

Back on the floor, Rembrandt's not doing so hot. Wade relays the news to him. Rembrandt continues to hold the fort and Wade heads off to see the Sheriff...who is apparently going to do nothing. No investigation, no nothing. Wade berates him for this and calls him out as being afraid of Bullock. He kicks her out, and Wade stands on a soapbox with her moral correctness and is all too happy to call the Sheriff a coward while ignoring the fact that, while she gets to leave this world at the end of the episode he actually has to live there and deal with the consequences of things.

He doesn't. Everything gets pretty nicely resolved by the end of the episode (spoiler alert), but that's not the point.

Back at the gunslinging officers of Wolfram & Hart, Bullock gets Quinn and Billy Ray into his office. Apparently, words going around that Quinn is set to defend Priscilla against a corporate takeover. It seems he's out and he manages to bluff his way out of the room with his 'reputation' as the Waco Kid. Because Bullock and his cronies have a very low Sense Motive bonus, this works and Quinn's able to leave without resembling Swiss cheese.

Also, poor Billy Ray also gets the boot, though he's not threatened with gun violence.

Back at the poker table, the Crying Man has rolled up his sleeves and is cleaning house like a boss. Quinn returns and the group cashes-in to go hole up until the Slide. Outside, he runs into Priscilla just as she's being told that Bullock is doing a hostile takeover of her company and he's apparently hired Billy the Kid to come and do it for him. Apparently he was supposed to have worked for her, but Bullock offered more. Jamie is overly confident that Quinn save the company, but when his mother insists that he isn't Jamie is called a coward and isn't immediately punched in his smug mouth. But soon Quinn is delivered a letter of intent as the Chief Council for Priscilla's company.

Priscilla resolves to give up the company despite Quinn's protests, but the matter is quickly thrown to the wayside when Wade notices Quinn's gun is missing...and so is Jamie. Immediately they know where he's going and pursue him to Bullock's office. He's having a shot of whiskey with two of his employees, including...wait, Groosalugg?! Billy the Kid is Groosalugg?!

...oh, poor Quinn is so screwed. This guy is Pylea's greatest warrior!

"Hello..my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my pa. Prepare to die..."

Jamie strolls on in, gun drawn right on Bullock for an Inigo Montoya moment. And because security is more of a vague notion than an actuality, Quinn arrives and promises to see that he pays for what he did, managing to finally talk him down. The Sheriff arrives and Bullock sets Quinn in to have to duel Groo.

So tomorrow, it will be a case of kill or be killed, whether Quinn wants it or not.

Back on the broker's floor, Wade spouts off her quips about gun control and the need for it, and the anvicilious hope that they might land on a world where guns had never been invented. Nevertheless, Quinn is getting ready for the duel and Rembrandt has won somewhere between three and four hundred thousand so the company will be alright in the event that he wins - which he plans to. So, before the court house, the duel is set. A crowd gathers and parts to watch the show. In one corner, in jet black, a trail of terrible monsters left dead in his wake - the mighty Groosalugg, the Brave and Undefeated! In the other...Quinn.

...yeah, not really as impressive, is it?

The air is tense until the clock strikes high noon..and Quinn takes off his belt and drops it on the ground, telling him to just shoot him if he's going to. However, Groo doesn't because of...honor or something...and Quinn gets to do his Fortune Cookie summation of the moral of the story. He also tells the Sheriff to nut up and do the right thing. Though Bullock orders him to kill him, Groo ultimately will not shoot an unarmed man and Bullock gets his own gun to do it himself in spite of the Sheriff's protests. Billy Ray comes out of the crowd and stands before Quinn, telling Bullock that he'll have to shoot him first. Then Priscilla and Jamie come out of the crowd, then others for a big ol' "I am Spartacus!" moment.

To diffuse the situation, Arturo opens the vortex and everyone is utterly mystified and amazed. The Sheriff arrests Bullock and Quinn gets some parting words to Jamie - it takes a stronger man to put a gun down than to fire one in anger - and tells him to remember them before he jumps into the portal, leaving Jamie confused as to where he went.

I'll be honest, it may just be the piles of pretentious or nonsensical crap that came to us in season one, but I'm really surprised that two episodes in a row have been to my liking. Besides Priscilla deserving an award for the worst exposition ever delivered by dialogue and then Wade's short and quick dropping of an anvil on our heads about gun control at the end, this is a very solid episode. While it certainly doesn't use all the potential given the genre that it's homaging, it definitely makes a good - and I hesitate to use the word, but - "modernization" of the western. A hero riding into town to have a gunfight against some evil force for the greater good, except this time Quinn is able to solve the problem not through violence but through words and actions - inspiring others to do better as he did in "Prince of Wails" and "Gillian of the Spirits".

And while I do (and likely still will) give Quinn garbage for the Fortune Cookie speeches, I'll be completely honest that Jerry O'Connell almost always sells it. More so here than in "Prince of Wails" since his speech isn't a bunch of Presidential quotes and he actually has something to tell the others. Few have the skill to pull it off in a way that isn't eye rolling, and he does it very well here.

Whether or not you agree with gun control, we can all pretty much agree with Quinn's closing message - it takes a stronger person to put a gun down than to fire one in anger. Again, another moment where the Doctor is somewhere smiling and he doesn't know why. Because, when written properly, Quinn is absolutely awesome. As is the show. I supposed we should enjoy it while it lasts. It's going to change very quickly soon enough...and going to hurt about as much as a bullet between the eyes...dragged out over three seasons...

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

From MadCap's Couch - "Sliders: Gillian of the Spirits"

I know Wade said she could see through men, but this is ridiculous!

I made a joke last time about Quinn's subplot being relegated to some fluff for the last half of the show. Well, it seems the writers took that to heart and made that concept the basis of yet another show...except it instead actually has to do with the plot this time.

We begin with the Sliders making their way through a forest as a torrential storm rages overheard. Decked out in their rain slicks, they're keeping on the move until the Slide comes. When it does, Quinn is the last one through just before a bolt of lightning strikes the vortex. Wade, Arturo, and Rembrandt all emerge on a beach that is considerably less rainy than the world they just left, apparently having felt some kind of jolt on the Slide over.

Quinn, too, has emerged on the beach but it quickly becomes clear that none of his fellow Sliders can hear, see, or feel him - all three points illustrated when Wade literally walks through him as he tries to get their attention.

Apparently Quinn having near-death experiences is going to be a recurring theme this season.

The others are confused and more than a little worried that Quinn might have missed the Slide, but Arturo puts them on track to fix the timer - which has been on the fritz repeatedly throughout this season and the last and has apparently been short circuited by the lightning before the slide. Without the timer, they have no idea when the next wormhole will open and they could miss the gateway.

They head into a nearby town, finding it to be very much akin to a 1950s small town in America (and yet "Mr. Sandman" isn't playing as they enter. Damn, missed a perfect opportunity.) The technology level seems to be back as well, vacuum tubes still being advertised as transistors appear to have not been invented yet...and apparently electronic wrist watches are a piece of forbidden technology. Upon stopping a policeman to ask for a payphone, the man notices Arturo's wristwatch and immediately grills him about where he got it.

Before he can be arrested, however, Quinn manages to spook a horse even in ghostie form that's tied up nearby and get it to run off, forcing the officer to pursue and allowing them to escape. They make their way to the Dominion Hotel, where Arturo confirms more that this world is apparently highly anti-technology - there are no listings for electronics or television in the phone book. This, complete with the receptionist at the Hotel using a switchboard phone, pretty much confirms that they are pilgrims in a Luddite land. In getting the key to their suite, they also learn of the "Bureau of Anti-Technology".

Spiraling on from this, Rembrandt reasons that if there's a government organization going around putting a tight clamp on all technology, then there must be people around who are actually creating and using said technology. He also comes up with the idea to consult with a priest, reasoning that only they and a lawyer can be trusted with a secret - and a priest doesn't charge them. As Wade lights a candle and says a little prayer for Quinn, Quinn finds he can apparently interact with a young woman named Gillian. It would seem she's had some experience in hearing voices before, and wants nothing to do with him once he realizes she can see him, fleeing the church in protest with him in hot pursuit.

"Get his autograph! He kicks ass for the Lord!"

Outside, Quinn convinces her to give them a note, promising to never bother her again once she does so. Back at the church, the more solid Sliders comment on the priest being swarmed by the people and Gillian arrives to give them Quinn's note, after which they chase her back into the church and bombard her with questions. Gillian validates the story by retelling a misadventure of Quinn and Wade's where Arturo caught them necking in a basement. Gillian's mother arrives and proves to be the stern type, taking her to her job at the coffee shop and leaving the others confused and making their own theories to explain it.

Rembrandt, being the everyman that he is, gets the Astral Plane explained for him and the audience in simple terms - basically, if they can get the timer fixed up, they might be able to save Quinn with the slide to the next world. But until they can get it fixed, the point is moot, so Rembrandt goes to confession and in the next cut he has told him everything. While the priest has some reservations about the entire matter, he points him in the direction of a man named Michael who has "dabbled in the forbidden sciences". We also get some exposition about why this world is stuck with 1950s technology - apparently the world took notice of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima and it was decided (at least in America) that technology needed to be stopped from advancing for fear of causing more devastation. While there have been advancements over time, it has been incredibly slow.

Given the card, the group makes there way to the address given and discover that the man living there is none other than the Michael Mallory of this Earth, Quinn's father. We also learn that Quinn on this Earth is dead (and later learn it was because of polio, for which no vaccine was developed on this Earth). He's about to kick them to the curb when Arturo mentions that the priest sent them and he invites them in, taking them to the basement.

He explains that the Quinn of this Earth also had theories of travel to parallel dimensions, but with technology so simple in their world it was considered completely unworkable. Arturo says some kind words about their Quinn and the group makes an excuse for why he's not visibly with them. They manage to enlist Michael's help as he reveals his hidden workshop and Arturo gets to work on repairing the timer with SCIENCE!

Wade and Rembrandt have a little side discussion about what she and Quinn were up to in that basement, Rembrandt teasing her a bit as we get a bit more build up on the Quinn and Wade relationship that I'm entirely certain is going to end in a happily ever after for both parties involved.

"Give me your purse! A ghost told me you were stealing!"

David Peckinpah can eat my pasty white ass.

Moving right along, Arturo has some trouble with the timer, namely he forgot to reverse the polarity (ha!) before testing it, which Quinn tries to warn him about but can't for obvious reasons.

At the diner, Gillian is getting heckled by a girl when Quinn appears to her to ask for help once again. As she tries to get him to go away, the owner of the diner suddenly comes over to ask why the register is empty. She begins to berate her but Quinn, not being a total idiot, heads over to the girl who was heckling Gillian earlier and phases through her purse to find the money there.

She gets caught and the owner of the diner is none too happy about the theft, taking her out back while Gillian agrees to run off Quinn to aid his friends in understanding him.

Back at the Casa di Mallory, Arturo is once more hard at work on the timer. Thanks to his frustration, he ends up lashing out at Rembrandt and Wade and attempts to leave..only for Michael to be pushed down the stairs by two men in suits - two members of the Bureau of Anti-Technology as they introduce themselves. They confiscate the timer, and Michael plays it off as his own invention so that the others will be spared, so they take him away in handcuffs with Quinn and Gillian arriving just in time to see them head off.

Instead of meeting with the group and formulating a plan, Quinn and Gillian take a taxi and follow them to a power plant. There's an outright hilarious Taxi Driver reference as Quinn and Gillian talk for a bit before he goes in and discovers the terrible truth - not only are these men not from the Bureau of Anti-Technology, not only are they working for a Power Company, but Michael Mallory is a collaborator!

Oh, the horror! Though to the episode's credit, it's a twist I actually didn't see coming, so point to them there.

But it seems that the entire set up is one big scam - the power company collects advanced technologies as they come out and quiets the creators so that, when Congress repeals the Anti-Technology laws (as they're apparently set to do soon), they will have a leg up on their competition. Quinn is obviously appalled that his father would be involved in this. Regardless, the guys at the Power Company are planning to take out the Sliders to protect any patents they might get from the technology they could provide. Y'know, because the 90s were all about being anti-establishment, these people are the bad guys. Remember that!

"We don't serve you Federation scum here..."

Back at the Dominion Hotel, Arturo is lamenting that he's unable to repair the timer with the technology of this Earth. That's when Gillian arrives and catches the group up on the plot. And since Arturo doesn't have a better idea, the group begins to plan a daring raid on the power company to retrieve the timer and hopefully the technology they will need to slide away.

That night, Arturo and Rembrandt skulk through the dark around the Plant. Through the cunning use of flashlights and science, Arturo rigs the fire alarm to go off and clears the building. With the workers and security out, they head in. Arturo channels Gimli in order to break open the door to where the technology is being kept and they conveniently find the timer. Arturo quickly tries to put it back together, but security arrives and they are forced to flee with whatever they can get their hands on.

"Man, we just wanted to find the nuclear wessels!!!"

After the break, we get a scene at the "Lamplighter Pub" between Quinn and Gillian. She asks about the timer and what will happen if they can't get it fixed in time, and offers to be there to help him talk to his friends in the event they should be stuck there. She goes on to talk about how lucky he has to have friends and talks about how she has none. In a scene that would make the Doctor proud, Quinn gives her a pep talk about how people fear what they don't understand and she should be proud of her gifts, they're a miracle.

It's a short scene, but it really shows just what an awesome person that Quinn is, simply being a very kind and caring individual to people he barely knows. One of the overall strengths of the character.

At the hotel, Quinn, Wade, and Gillian are there when Rembrandt and Arturo return. However, they don't bring good news - Arturo doesn't have everything he needs to fix the timer. With the power station no longer being an option, they must go back to Michael Mallory's house. Though Wade gives her an out, Gillian reinforces the notion that she wants to help even if it's dangerous. Thus determined, they head out...and run right into Gillian's mother.

Apparently she knew where Gillian was because...psychic?

Or she read the script and knew she needed to be here. Either way, she's here and not exactly happy about her daughter hanging out with a bunch of weirdos. Arturo tries his natural British charm, but this strangely doesn't help the situation. Gillian comes out swinging with words about Quinn being trapped on the astral plane and emotionally blackmails her mother into agreeing with the crazy, though it's clear that she's not remotely comfortable.

They break into Mallory's basement and Arturo gets to work with Gillian giving Quinn's instructions. In a show that she's somewhat accepting of her daughter's supposed crazy, Gillian's mother offers her brooch pin when Arturo needs a substitute component. With luck, however, Arturo does succeed and the timer is re-activated! ...with only seventeen seconds to go before the Slide.

...what a remarkable coincidence!

But alas, with five minutes to go (in the episode), Michael Mallory arrives with gun in hand, deciding to put a stop to all these multiverse shenanigans! Arturo berates him for siding with people like the power company, but Michael refutes that he has no choice - the company got him out of jail early. Nevertheless, Arturo opens the vortex and all in attendance marvel at it. He offers for Michael to travel with them, but he's having none of it and is about to shoot him until Quinn appears in the gate - apparently, the energy from the Vortex makes him visible!

...insert coincidence joke here.

Quinn manages to talk Michael down and all seems well...until Quinn reveals that he can't slide. The vortex isn't active on the Astral Plane, the others will have to slide without him. And here we have a genuinely heart-wrenching moment. They all say their goodbyes, each of his fellow sliders getting their own moment with him - Rembrandt telling Quinn he loves him and the sentiment being returned, Arturo promising to find way to free him, and Wade not wanting to leave and having to be convinced to go - before they go through and the vortex seals behind them. And it seems that Quinn Mallory is forever trapped on a world where he can be neither seen nor heard except by a single individual that will...yeah, I'm just yanking your chain.  And so is the episode.

An orange vortex as opposed to the traditional silver-blue one suddenly opens and on the same plane as Quinn is the boot. For some reason, without a shred of evidence, he thinks he can slide. And while he can, this is a bit of a jump. Regardless, it means that Quinn will go on. Gillian thanks him and he tells her to tell Michael that he'll always love him before he slides...and he's gone.

Elsewhere, the other Sliders are walking down the sidewalk of a suburb rather somberly over the loss of Quinn. However, there's a-something hidden in a bush - Quinn! Once more, he's visible, audible, and solid much to their relief. They share in a brief, joyful reunion before Rembrandt asks if they've come home at last. We get a shot of a mailman suspiciously lacking in a uniform delivering male to a naked woman who is strategically censored by her front door, and Quinn noting that their mailmen generally wear clothes...and they share a laugh as the credits roll.

I won't lie, I really like this episode. Not only because it's a pretty good episode on it's own, but because it makes us face a rather harsh reality - the fact that, one day, one or maybe several of the Sliders could be left behind. Sure, we've had other episodes where the group has the Sword of Damocles over their heads, but they've always managed to either escape at the last minute or were otherwise alright.

This is the first real episode where we have the vortex actually close on one of the Sliders with no possibility of opening another outside of the deus ex machina. While the episode does have the deus ex machima in opening the vortex on the Astral Plane, for a short time when the vortex closes there's a feeling of finality. Despite Arturo's claims, you get the sinking feeling that Quinn will be trapped there with only Gillian to really talk to or interact with. And then after she passes away...it's not a happy thought, regardless.

Apart from that - which only helps it considrably - the episode stands well on its own. The pacing was actually fairly good - probably helped by the fact that we didn't know how long the Sliders were on the world for. The explanation for why this world is different is pretty good too - considering how the explosions of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima would have likely had very different reactions from different people. Some of those different people get into power and BOOM!, anti-technology world. Given how the governments of the world are able to control people through a climate of fear anyway, it wouldn't be hard to see the logical jump.

Throw in some good character moments with Quinn, a bit more development of Quinn and Wade's relationship, and a tearful goodbye from the others Sliders to Quinn before his sudden return to them make this one of the best episodes yet.

Next time...the Sliders enter the world of "Law and Order: Smith & Wesson".

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Stay Alive" (2006)

Oh, for God's sake. You lot really should appreciate what I go through for you to bring you these spewings from my mouth-hole onto this wonderful thing we call the information super highway. I figured that a horror movie about video games would be a no-brainer for me.  I mean, I sat through FDR: American Badass for the Flying Spaghetti Monster's sake! I figured if I could get through that I could get through anything. But this movie...it's just...so...so...so dumb.

While not quite Mazes and Monsters dumb, it's really close. I mean, close enough that this film could pop down the street and ask Mazes and Monsters for a cup of sugar.

The film begins with Peter from Heroes (Milo Ventimiglia) playing a video game that is too spoopy for me and gets himself killed by a pale woman in a red dress. He is naturally freaked out, but even more so when he dies in the exact same manner that he did within the game!!! Ooooh!

...spooky? Right? It's spooky.

At his funeral, his best friend Hutch (Jon Foster) meets totally not love interest girl Abigail (Samaire Armstrong) who gives him some of Peter's things including the disc of the game. So he decides to get together with her, his girlfriend October (Sophia Bush), her brother, Hutch's boss from work, and another guy (Frankie Muniz, who is introduced interestingly enough by jump scare).

Because they're all gamers, but they have never played any Dungeons & Dragons, they immediately speak the mystic chant when the game "Stay Alive" opens. Because reading the mystic chant curse of vaguely evil death is always a good idea and anyone who tells you differently clearly doesn't want you to be possessed by Cthulhu. What an idiot they must be, am I right?

Nevertheless, their chanting gets them all hooked into the game and when you die in the game...you die for real, simple as that. However, it's not remotely that simple. Apparently, the game is possessed by the vicious spirit of Elizabeth Bathory (Maria Kalinina) - who wants to kill them all because...um...evil. She also, in this universe, established a finishing school for girls in Louisiana in the 1800s where she killed several of them using her historical MO.

Kind of amazing considering that's a little over two centuries after she died...and on the completely opposite hemisphere where she was known to traffic. I mean, there's stretching the truth to make your story work and then there's not even bothering to try. It was 2006! You had the internet, screenwriters! This was not a difficult thing to research and go "wait, we need to fix this!"

I wish that critical research failure was the absolute worst thing about this film...okay, it is, but it's not the only thing I can complain about. Besides the usual horror film problems of hokey acting and people just seeming not to give a crap about even trying to take anything seriously, you have the unrealistic and often just plain outright wrong portrayal of how video games work. For example, rumble pack technology is treated as a new thing...on a PS2 controller...when that's been a thing since the Nintendo 64...in 1998...eight years before this movie came out!

Also, voice responsive software. Which had been a thing in gaming since the Konami LaserScope in 1990. Granted, it was less commonplace, but it did exist and was hardly "next-gen", even as it is still a rarely used thing today outside of handhelds. The overall point with what is admittedly nitpicking is that fact that they could have done some research into it and actually bothered to bring some reality into it.  Then again, these are the same people who tried to pass off the hilariously bad idea that Elizabeth Bathory opened a boarding school in the late 1800s, so that might be asking for a bit too much.

And on top of already having most of the problems a modern horror movie has - characters we don't care about, piecemeal character development for them, cheap jump scares used in place of any actual horror - it's also a PG-13 horror movie released under Disney's Hollywood Pictures production company - which ironically became defunct a year later. So, minimal actual bloodshed - and for a movie where Elizabeth "the Blood Countess" Bathory is involved, that's sad - minimal swearing, and no real nudity to speak of. Not that I'm a fan of the buckets of blood and nude virgins running around getting hacked apart by chainsaws, but at least in there I'm not bored to death by a bunch of twenty-somethings who can barely say "damn it" without the Sensor Board giving them dirty looks.

The movie is also plenty happy to ignore or outright lie about its own rules when the plot serves. It's established early on that Elizabeth Bathory cannot kill anyone until they die in the game, so the game eventually just decides to start playing itself, because oooooh, spooky! Roses are brought up as one of the only ways to protect oneself from her, but their frequency of effectiveness is all over the place, sometimes working so little that its pointless to carry one around and (in an instance later in the film) working so well as to completely break the rules that it itself has sent. And later on there's the always weird part of bringing things into the game world from the real world and vice versa.

On a related note, our hero Hutch goes from mourning the loss of his girlfriend October to hooking up with Abigail in the space of less than afternoon tea. And he's supposed to be the hero, folks!

This is really only a movie you can get enjoyment out of if you get together with some friends and laugh at how utterly dumb it is. I don't even  know who its intended for otherwise. Video game fans? No. Horror movie fans? No. History buffs? Definitely not. It's something I'd almost be tempted to say would make a good Sci-Fi (or Syfy) Original Movie. Just dumb, lacking in any depth or substance, only memorable because of how utterly it failed in what it was trying to do. At least Mazes and Monsters - for all it's sensationalist nonsense - actually tried to vaguely get something right...

...alright, no, they didn't. But they didn't come so (potentially) close and then fail so very, very miserably in pretty much every regard. It's got a very neat concept and admittedly Elizabeth Bathory is really rather uncomfortably chilling, but that does not a good movie make and this one has just way, way too many problems that should have been addressed.

Stay Alive is now available from Hollywood Pictures, Spyglass Entertainment, and Endgame Entertainment on DVD.

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