From MadCap's Couch - "Sliders: Eggheads"

Don't mind that, the subtitle is just misleading.

We live in a world where physicality is touted above intellectual superiority. It sucks, but that's the world we've been given. Nobody wants to date the chess club champion or the drama geek, but everybody wants to get a shot at the quarterback. Now, that's generalizing a fair bit, but a great deal of it is quite true in that most people have a great deal of respect for figures in Sports and can't even name a scientist who isn't Bill Nye. But what if there were a world where such a thing was reversed? What if brains did indeed prove to be superior to brawn?

Well, this episode doesn't give us a pure version of that concept, but it's the closest we're going to get to it, so we might as well enjoy it.  This is "Eggheads."

We begin with some scenic shots of some world's San Francisco pulling down to a sidewalk where a familiar vortex opens and everyone's favorite quartet emerge. Immediately, they once more think they've arrived home...only to find some things out of place. A light up sign declaring "Longer Library Hours" and a person walking by with a boombox playing Tchaikovsky (as Remmy points out, impressing Arturo), and an ad of Einstien wearing khakis from the "Cap" before they lock eyes on a billboard of Quinn in "Nikke" sneakers.

Yes, as the crowd that surrounds them upon realizing who they are indicates, Quinn Mallory is a famous mental athlete. Apparently, Arturo is also renowned on this world - apparently with text books and several lectures on tape. As the pair are swarmed by a hungry public for autographs, Wade and Rembrandt get pushed aside and are told that Quinn and Arturo are known as the "Sliders", apparently having had some sort of relationship on this Earth as well. The two quickly move to liberate their friends from the mob.

After getting into a cab, the driver apparently happy to just sit there for a while and let them talk, and Wade fills Quinn and Arturo in on the knowledge of their doubles on this Earth. Quinn suddenly realizes that if his double is a Slider as well, then he must have created a Sliding device as well - the group is going home!

After the title sequence, they arrive at the house to find that Quinn on this world has put the house up for sale and his mother apparently forced to move east. When they get inside, Quinn has a moment of dumb and doesn't immediately go to the basement, flopping down on the couch so he can called by Wade to come down and have the reveal that...Quinn's on a "Weeties" box.

The amount of not-product placement here is going to get somebody sued somehow.

But they journey down into the basement, which they should have done from the beginning...and find no sign of any of the equipment. Though Arturo suggests that the device might be at the university, given the relationship of their doubles in this universe, the gang instead decides to muck around in Quinn's basement until Arturo brings up the suggestion that they might pose as their doubles to seek out the technology they need to return home safely.

They go to the university to find that the Cigarette Smoking Man apparently works for the Professor, who is apparently the Chairman of the University and - unlike Doctor during Trial of a Timelord - hasn't been deposed in his absence. They get into Arturo's office and find a poster for the Professor's live lectures at the Mirage in Las Vegas and Arturo finds a phone bill with his home number...which he calls to hear a woman on the other end and hangs up. She calls back, he hangs up again, and determines that they really ought to get out of there.

However, first, Quinn has to attend practice...apparently word of his "return" has spread across campus like wildfire.

"What do you mean 'they have Bugs Bunny on defense'?!"

As stated before, Quinn is apparently a star athlete in the "Academic Decathlon", a game that requires as much brain as it does physical force and apparently uses various squares and a ball to some degree that the show doesn't really bother to make all that clear and doesn't have to, because this is a one-off episode.

Apparently the Coach is happy to see him, but literally nobody else on the team is, including Wilson - a teammate who will be taking the bench now that Quinn is back.

Wilson heads off to make a call to a "Joey", who the Quinn of this world did not take seriously the threats of...

After the commercial, we're treated to the "Library Rap" - aka the whitest rap ever performed by three black men ever - which Remmy and Wade rightfully mock while Quinn consults with the Mindgame rulebook for the upcoming championship and decides that the entire thing is completely insane.

Apparently, he's never heard of Blitzball.

He plans to completely blow off the game against Havard, but Wade and Rembrandt tell him that he has to go through with it until they can find the slide device.  Odd, because those two things really aren't remotely related and they could probably find the device more easily with another body around to do searching...but we need to have a sports montage, apparently.

Arturo returns to his office to learn that he apparently keeps all his files related to the Sliding project on his home computer, his agent has hired a PR expert...and there's a young woman waiting in his office for him. What appears at first to be a woman falling for that rugged British charm is apparently a court processor - Arturo's being divorced.

We then get thrown, without any sort of warning, into what appears to be a live broadcast of the semi-finals of Mindgame. The commentators start to blabbering on about the game much as actual sports commentators do, and to give the actors credit they do make it believable even though a great deal of what they're speaking is complete and utter nonsense.

While the game goes on, we cut to Wade, Rembrandt, and Arturo in a bar watching. While Wade and Rembrandt try - much like myself - to figure out what in the hell is going on in the game, Arturo reveals that he knows the woman involved - a woman by the name of Christina Fox. On their world, they were married only a few short years before she tragically died of a brain aneurysm. He considers her the one great love of his life.  And once again, not to completely lavish the man with my praise, but John Rhys-Davies absolutely sells the completel heartbreak that Arturo feels without even saying a word.

Unfortunately the game of Mindgame rears its ugly head and we're thrown back into the loud and confusing chaos, the contestants having to name things such as the craters on the dark side of the Moon or units of measurement beginning with "P" and so on and so forth.  And following some supposed drama that we're supposed to care about, Quinn's team wins by one point.

We also get a humorous scene right after where Wade calls Rembrandt an idiot for betting on a game he doesn't understand the rules of, which only serves to illustrate that Arturo left at some point during the proceedings. Rembrandt ends up telling Wade and Quinn that he had, in fact, lost all their money on the bet, and as they enter the kitchen in Quinn's home, Wade breaks rule number one "Never say, 'at least it can't get any worse'."

Thus, the mob. Apparently Wilson's phone call from earlier brought Joey in to collect this Earth's Quinn's "million dollars in gambling debts". After classing up the mugging of Quinn with some Latin...he mugs Quinn. Apparently, he brings an alternative to him paying off the debt - if Quinn throws the finals with MIT, he'll call the whole thing even stevens. Or Quinn can refuse and he'll be "mortis maxima". That is...morte...mortis...dead.

Apparently, Joey is a thug who loves his Latin. Which I suppose does make sense in this world.

Meanwhile, Arturo has apparently driven through the night to reach his estate so that he might see Christina...who believes him to be his double from his world and thus wants nothing to do with him as one might expect. After getting a rather vicious chewing out from the woman, he returns to Quinn's house and the others...who also chew him out. Wade also makes the point that it's not Christina of their world, though Arturo comes out as being quite a romantic and having a hope that he might have a second chance with the woman he lost.

Quinn, meanwhile, is heading for the hills - literally - after the meeting with the mob. When the slide device is brought up again, and Quinn brings up that they haven't found a trace of it, Arturo proposes a theory that it all might just be a hoax. He theorizes that both his double and Quinn's have disappeared for reasons of their own. Wade and Quinn are both discouraged, noting that this world, for all it's intellectual prowess, is just as twisted as back on their Earth. Arturo puts it succinctly with the quote "Intellectual refinement is one thing, moral refinement is something different."

I would like to think my way to a better episode, can I do that?

Quinn is still about to GTFO when a member of his team shows up to try and bring him back after missing practice. Because he can't deliver Quinn's message that he's off the team, Quinn has to go do it himself. The coach, being completely offbase from any sort of reality, eventually just tells him to get out of his sight...and Quinn is immediately taken aside by two FBI Agents, who apparently want to arrest him for tax evasion as well as his gambling debts. Quinn barters, bluffing that he's just a small part of a bigger game.

Elsewhere, Arturo has actually managed to get Christina to agree to meet with him, and he does his best to explain the situation. He begs her one last chance so that he might be able to set right all that has gone wrong between her and his double, and we don't get her response...but it's very strongly implied that she agrees and will halt the divorce proceedings.

Meanwhile, it's time for the big game and Quinn is there to take the field. More commentary, more jargon, etc. Wade and Rembrandt are onscene this time...as is Joey and the mob.

However, back to the actually interesting part of the plot, Arturo is leaving a video message for his double in the event that he ever returns. He tells his double that he has fame, wealth, success, and a wife that loves him, but still calls him a fool. Arturo tells that when Christina died in his world, he had lost everything that had given his life meaning, and promises if this Arturo loses his Christina, the same will happen to him and urges him not to let that happen. After recording, he gives his secretary the tape with the explicit instructions to give it to him when he returns.

It's a very short scene of almost entirely John Rhys-Davies monologuing to a camera, but you can see the man completely wrought with several conflicting emotions: joy, sorrow, anger all at his double and the life he has created for himself, and all that he stands to lose, tempered by his own experiences of that loss in his own world. It's poignant and powerful.

...but to hell with subtlety like that! Let's watch a bunch of people run into each other for a ball!
Quinn's team starts winning, and Quinn gets himself taken out a round. With the time for the slide growing closer, Arturo on the roof waiting, Wade and Rembrandt make their way out and Quinn goes to follow...with the mob hot on his heels as they cross the court in pursuit. Thus, an epic chase to the roof where the mob forget they have guns happens.

It's okay, Quinn, I'm still trying to figure it out, too.

With only thirty seconds to go, the mob corner them on the roof and suddenly remember that they have guns...only to be caught by the FBI, who likewise have guns and actually remember to pull them out as their first move. However, as Arturo opens the vortex, everyone forgets they have guns and Quinn gets to throw a "So long, suckers!" in Latin at Joey before they escape.

As you can probably tell, this is not one of my favorite episodes. The Mindgame aspect is entirely unnecessary to the plot and only serves to add an action aspect - which could have easily been solved by expanding on Joey and the Mob or the FBI Agents, both of whom seem tacked on and the latter of which feels even more so as an afterthought - and provide some padding. It's a neat idea, don't get me wrong, but when even the characters in-universe are calling it completely confusing and guano, it calls into question why we should care.

If it had any basis in some actual sport, I could understand. Something that helps fans of sports connect with them is an understanding of the sport. We don't get that here. Sure, jokes are made to that effect about no one being able to understand the game who doesn't come from the universe in question, but that doesn't change the fact that the game only makes sense to the people of the univers in question!

And yes, for the third time, it's really the acting of John Rhys-Davies that saves any part of this episode that can be. Give the man due credit, even when he has terrible writing (which isn't really the case here), that man sells it with raw confidence as though he were preaching holy writ. Arturo's few scenes involving Christina run the gamut of emotions from happiness at seeing his beloved alive again to sorrow at the complications that have befallen them and the frustration at his double for having let things go so bad.

Sadly, we don't really get a resolution for this, per se. After that last scene with Christina where it's implied she'll halt the divorce proceedings...we never really get an answer for what happened next, not even so much as a goodbye. Even though the idea is teased in the episode, it's obvious that Rhys-Davies was not going to be leaving the show, and we're never given any confirmation as to why he chose to remain with his fellow Sliders.

Though if I had to hazard a guess, given the scene with him recording the message for his double, Arturo decided that this life was ultimately not his and decided that all he could do was leave that message for his double in the hopes that he might fix things up properly between the two of them. In some small way, he could at least honor the one true love of his life and make her happy one last time, which is ultimately all he could ask for given the circumstances.

Powerful stuff in what is otherwise a mildly humorous, but not really all that good episode.

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