Sliders/Fever

Fever
Season 1, Episode 3
Airdate	March 29, 1995
Production Number	5ABB01
Written by	Ann Powell & Rose Schacht
Directed by	Mario Azzopardi
← 1x01/02 Pilot	1x04 → Last Days
Sliders — Season One

Fever is the third episode of the first season of Sliders.

Starring: Jerry O'Connell (Quinn Mallory), Sabrina Lloyd (Wade Wells), Cleavant Derricks (Rembrandt Brown)

and John Rhys-Davies (Arturo)

Guest Starring: Ken Pogue (Dr. Darren Morton), Allison Hossack (Dr. Eileen Stanley)

with: Yee Jee Tso (Wing), Alex Bruhanski (Pavel Kurlienko), Marie Stillin (Waitress), William Sasso (Gomez Calhoun), Dean Haglund (Stock Boy), David L. Gordon (Tactical Moonsuit), William MacDonald (Medical Moonsuit), James Bell (Trucker), James Timmins (Pharmacist), Garvin Cross (The Sick Man)

Uncredited: Charlie McGlade (The Pitchman), Mike Levy (Mike)

Plot Overview

The group finds itself in a germophobic society that is under fear of a virus known as Q. When their Quinn is mistaken for his double who happens to be patient zero, he is taken away, leaving the others to look after Wade who has fallen ill with the virus.

Notes

Brave New Worlds

• Oil mining in San Francisco leads to a financial boom among many of its residents.

• Hyper focused on hygiene and sanitation that finds itself being ravaged by a virus.

• Little is known except that at least some portion of San Francisco is inhabited by a cannibalistic tribe.

Doubles

• Wing

• Quinn

• Pavel

Timer

• 58 seconds (later said to be 20 minutes in total)

• A little over 2 days

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Quinn points out that sliding made a difference by bringing a cure to the last world.

Characters

• In her hallucinatory state, she want to tell Quinn's double that there are things she should have told him long ago and later imagines him telling that he loves her more than life itself.

Trivia

The Show

• This marks the first appearance of Gomez Calhoun who would wind up being the longest-running recurring double in the series.

Behind the Scenes

• This was actually the fifth episode filmed.

• Despite locations only being seven blocks away, filming this episode prevented Dean Haglund from appearing in The X-Files episode "Fearful Symmetry", the only episode of that series to feature the Lone Gunmen trio without the character of Richard Langly.

Allusions and References

• During Wade's hallucinations, there is an image that looks nearly identical to Boris Karloff from The Mummy.

Memorable Moments

• The group fly out the vortex from an alley that reads:

ONE WAY
DO NOT
ENTER

Goofs

• When Quinn thinks the waitress is pointing at him, it cuts to his terrified reaction before it cuts to another angle where he seems relaxed before he becomes terrified.

Quotes

• Wade: Did I just hear right? There's oil everywhere and everybody's rich?

Rembrandt: Yes!

Wade: Yes!

Rembrandt: How much time we got?

Arturo: About a minute.

Rembrandt: Oh, that sucks. That just sucks!

Quinn: Easy come... easy go.

• Arturo: I think it's a natural consequence of sliding. I think first the terror and then afterwards the relief brings hunger.

• Rembrandt: You can take a man's body and beat it, you can take his soul and try it, but to do this to a hamburger - it's just downright unkind.

• Quinn: You wanna know what I've been doing that could've cured me? Fine, I'll tell you. I've been sliding through an inter-dimensional wormhole seeing how many different ways people like you can screw up civilisation!

• Rembrandt: You really do love driving cabs, don't you?

Pavel: Ah, yes. It's my destiny.

Rembrandt: You don't know the half.

• Arturo: Rather confirms one's opinion that biology is what you do if you haven't got the maths for real science.

• Rembrandt: Who do you suppose they're going to eat first?

Arturo: I suppose the young are more tender.

Quinn: Age before beauty. That's a universal tenet.

Rembrandt: Don't look at me. I'm just a Chicken McNugget. (to Arturo) You the Quarter Pounder.