Season 3

Sliders3 — The Season 3 cast. From left to right: Rembrandt Brown, Maggie Beckett, Quinn Mallory and Wade Welles

In Season 3 of Sliders, the third season takes a more bizarre twist, producing a series of one-off episodes.

Early in the season, Quinn Mallory meets a woman named Logan St. Clair, who is working on sliding technology herself, and decides to help her. It is later discovered that she is not only a female double of Quinn himself, but also one with nefarious purposes. As a result of their interaction, a key part of the timer, which normally ensures that characters slide within a two-mile radius, has been replaced with a version that causes them to slide anywhere within 400 miles. Before this, their slides took them to alternate versions of San Francisco. Afterward, they could arrive in many varied locations, but most episodes take place in alternate versions of Los Angeles.

In the middle of the season, the Sliders do not slide when their timer reaches zero, which means the timer cannot open a vortex for another 29 years. However, they later find a replacement timer, and are able to continue sliding.^[1] A little bit later in the season, Quinn mentions that his timer has a 500-mile radius, which presumably could be the radius of the new timer.^[2] However, later in Season 4, Maggie Beckett says that the timer has a 400-mile radius.^[3]

During a slide to a world that is soon to be destroyed by fragments of a pulsar, the Sliders are pulled into a military operation commanded by Gulf War veteran Colonel Angus Rickman and Captain Maggie Beckett. The goal of this operation is to develop sliding technology in order to evacuate the best and brightest to a new homeworld. While helping the operation to succeed, Quinn amazingly finds what he believes to be Earth Prime; but Quinn also discovers that Maggie is unable to breathe there. Meanwhile, the other Sliders uncover that Rickman is murdering the evacuees in order to obtain donor tissue necessary to stave off a strange brain disease Rickman contracted during the war. To protect his secret and himself, Rickman kills Professor Maximillian Arturo and Dr. Stephen Jensen (Maggie's husband) before escaping with the only timer Quinn believes can finally take the Sliders home.

A new mission is born - the search for Rickman. Maggie wants revenge on Rickman for killing her husband, and the other Sliders want to stop Rickman from harming anyone else; but more so, the Sliders want Rickman's timer and the chance it offers to finally send them home. Maggie joins the Sliders, and they continue to chase Rickman until he meets his demise in the season finale. With Rickman's timer in hand, the episode ends with Quinn shoving Wade Welles and Rembrandt Brown into the vortex that may finally take them home, but Quinn makes a last second decision to stay behind with Maggie who fears she can not survive on Quinn's home world. Refusing to give up, Quinn convinces Maggie to take a chance and slide with him using the remaining timer, but the duo finds that apparent damage to the timer has caused a malfunction. Quinn and Maggie have not followed their friends; Quinn and Maggie have instead landed on an unknown parallel earth.

Production[]

Production of the series was moved from Vancouver, Canada to Los Angeles, California (due to an increased desire for oversight by FOX Network executives), necessitating a creative adjustment in the climatology of future stories - whereas Vancouver was very "green" and lush, the Los Angeles filming environments brought a much "brighter" color palette to the series, including (for the first time) desert location-shooting.

While filming the episode "Desert Storm" actor Ken Steadman (Cutter), was killed in a dune buggy accident.

"Double Cross" was filmed as the premiere for Season Three. In this episode, the audience learns why the Sliders will now be able to slide anywhere between San Francisco and L.A. However, FOX opted to air "Rules of the Game" first, since it was a more action-oriented episode.^[4]

"The Last of Eden" was filmed before John Rhys-Davies left the show. However, FOX chose to air the episode for the first time on March 28, a full month after Arturo had been written off the show, requiring a new opening scene be added to frame the story as a flashback.^[4]

Season 3 Cast[]

Season 3 Episodes[]

DVD[]

Season three was released on the Sliders - The Third Season DVD and the Sliders - The Complete Series DVD.

↑ Episode: "Slide Like An Egyptian"
↑ Episode: "The Exodus", Part 1
↑ Episode: "World Killer"
↑ ^4.0 ^4.1 "Sliders: The Classic Episodes", Brad Linaweaver (1999)

[1] Episode: "Slide Like An Egyptian"

[2] Episode: "The Exodus", Part 1

[3] Episode: "World Killer"

[Sliders-The-Classic-Episodes-4] 4.0 ^4.1 "Sliders: The Classic Episodes", Brad Linaweaver (1999)

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