Summer of Love

“Summer of Love”
Wade embracing hippie culture
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 3
Written by	Tracy Tormé
Directed by	Mario Azzopardi
Guest stars	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 Barry Pepper Michele Goodger Robert Leacock
Production no.	70401
Original airdate	1995-04-19
Episode chronology ← Previous Next → "Sliders (pilot)" "The Prince of Wails"
List of Sliders episodes

"Summer of Love" is the second episode (although it aired fifth) 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.

Plot

The episode begins on Earth Prime. The FBI knocks on Conrad Bennish's door and takes him to Quinn Mallory's basement. The FBI gives him 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 traveled 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 from a lab in Venezuela and are a threat to anyone around. Since the spider-wasps possess an ability to break through walls, staying indoors will not offer protection. 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 slide first, however, the vortex closes early, forcing Quinn to open 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 become excited to hear that the year was 1995 and the governor was Pete Wilson but disappointed that the president was Oliver North.

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 Arturo 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, who was believed lost in the war in Australia (a victim of the North Outback Kong). 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 Sharon, the double of a woman that he wanted to ask out but was too afraid to, and had a son, Rembrandt, Jr. With little to no chance of leaving this earth, Rembrandt decided to assume his double's life.

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 showed 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, Sharon began to show her abusive nature. In addition, a memo was received that revealed that Rembrandt's double was still alive despite, what was originally thought. Sharon got angry and tried to shoot Rembrandt, realizing that he was an impostor, so Rembrandt quickly drove out of there.

Rembrandt drove past the building where Quinn and Arturo were staying. Quinn saw Rembrandt outside the window, escaped from the FBI and ran after Rembrandt. A few minutes later, Arturo followed Quinn. Quinn, Arturo, and Rembrandt drove to the hippie commune 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.

Worlds Visited

• Spiderwasp World
• Free Love World
• Tsunami World

The missing scene and episode ordering

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 (after repeatedly opening the wormhole in an attempt to get home faster), 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 the episode aired immediately after the pilot. Since the episode aired fifth, this scene 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. Also, 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.

Trivia

• Wade telling her followers that all they need is love and their response that love is all you need references the Beatles' song "All You Need Is Love".

Goofs

• When Quinn throws a rock at Arturo, he does it from behind him, yet the camera shows the rock being thrown from the front of his face.
• In the pilot, the first slide takes place on September 27, 1994. As the Sliders are still wearing their clothes from the pilot, it cannot be more than a few days- the FBIs comments to Bennish indicate that it has been less than a week- yet the hippies tell Rembrandt and Wade that the year is 1995. While this is not impossible, it is hard to believe that they have been sliding for at least three months (October -December) without acquiring a new set of clothes.

External links

• "Summer of Love" episode capsule at Earth Prime
• "Summer of Love" review at Earth Prime
• Downloadable script PDF
• "Summer of Love" episode summary at TV.com
• Summer of Love at the Internet Movie Database