Gillian: Stop speaking in public!

Date: 04/20/1999
From: LShel

I'm a new Sliders fan, ever since Sci-Fi Prime started, and new to this BB in the last couple of weeks. I've learned a lot from reading all the ep summaries, your postings, & watching some of the re-runs. Fortunately for me, someone here gave a heads up for this episode Gillian of the Spirits as one of the best of all times, so I made sure to watch it.

I'm missed the very beginning, about how Quinn ended up separated from the others & apparently on an astral plane that only Gillian (& maybe others like her?) could perceive. I loved the scene in the church where Wade talks out loud to the invisible Quinn just hoping that he's there & he is, hoping she'll keep talking. It appears from this ep that Wade is Catholic. Is that revealed or developed in any other episodes?

Although I really enjoyed this one, the one thing I just couldn't understand about this so-called troubled girl, Gillian, is why she didn't wise up & just talk to Quinn in private, once she got outside the church while she was "getting some air", instead of yelling at him as he pursued her on her way out, where her mother & others would see her talking to "no one" & think she's crazy? Why didn't Quinn help her to see her predicament & say "OK be quiet, let's talk in private when you get outside?" Obviously, her apparent outbursts to "ghosts" is what got her into trouble w/ her family and society & this talking to apparently no one is what would get her institutionalized. I found myself busting at the seams ready to yell at the screen at this woman to just shut up & listen & ask her questions in private. Quinn could have immediately alleviated her fears instead of frightening her further by simply saying "I'm really here, you're not crazy, pls let's just talk in private". Even after Quinn persuaded her to listen, like the scene at the restaurant, why didn't he think to convince her to excuse herself to the ladies room & talk to him there instead of making a public spectacle of herself? Of course, if she had wised up, they couldn't have had the whole scene in the taxi cab where the cab driver kept wondering who she was talking to while she just stared pathetically.

I loved the scene between Quinn & Gillian where he convincingly told her what a special gift she had. You could just see her self-esteem inflate before your eyes. The facial expressions & eye contact, the whole thing, just made me think "oh what a special moment they're having", sigh, like love scenes I love 'em. If only they could have hugged, or dare I say it, even kissed. JOC did a great job there. Plus, Quinn's good-bye to Wade ... couldn't have been better.

One thing that I was sorry to see in this story was that Michael Mallory was still on the side of the government, gunning after them in the end. I would have liked to see him just putting on an act w/ his cronies and in the end, holding them back in defense of the sliders & their cause, just as they get away. Instead Quinn holds him off by his plea as he becomes visible in front of the vortex. This image was very cool & even more cool when a second vortex in red appeared moments later ... just after my heart had dropped bigtime in sorrow for stranded Quinn.

Well, I haven't seen enough of the Maggie/Colin episodes vs. the Wade/Arturo episodes to decide just yet about which team has better chemistry, but Gillian of the Spirits was a good one. Plus, in the absence of Quinn, some true colors come to the surface w/ the other sliders: Remmy proves he can be more of a leader & a thinker, the Professor shows some respect for Quinn's accomplishments, & Wade shows her underlying longings for Quinn. I for one like the shows w/o Kromaggs, war, etc. This one was a winner for me.

P.S. To Executive (& anyone else): Amongst all the numerous postings on Road Taken, a reply I sent is buried back there in article #4844, The Unlikely Paths of "Road Taken", with a few questions I'd like some feedback on. Would you (or anyone else) kindly go back & humor my inquisitive ramblings?

I read your replies in #4844, LShel

Date: 04/20/1999
From: Executive

I really didn't have anything new to add yesterday, so that was one reason I didn't respond. The other was in the end of your 2nd post in which you said that it was just a TV show! ;-) Anyway thanks for your kind words about my first post: ====>

www.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/5505

Here is your response (with theories), some of which seem very similar to mine: ====>

www.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/5505/6

But since you asked, I'll re-explain my theory in a different way. First with a reference from an earlier show: In the 2nd season finale "As Time Goes By", the position of the two moons in orbit around that Earth (the 3rd and last in that story) changed when the sliders opened the vortex to slide in the end. By doing so they switched time to flow forward instead of backward.

I strongly believe that the bubble world in "Roads Taken" was also created by opening a vortex. Maggie and Quinn were trapped in between these 2 worlds on the astral plane in a different manner than what happened to Quinn in "Gillian of the Spirits" and the boy in "The Alternateville Horror" (whom only Colin could see and hear at first). There was either a psychologically and/or spiritual connection between both sets of Maggie & Quinn in the 2 worlds. Our heroes were the originals, not the copies. Their wills were strong enough to return to their bodies via the vortex after Thomas Mallory sent them back. Tom briefly brought Colin and Remmy into the bubble world for the extra support that their friends needed to return. As a result time reversed to the point to which they first made that slide, only with Maggie & Quinn exiting the vortex with Rembrandt and Colin the second time around.

That's why it seemed like a script contradiction to me. If the sliders remembered all that happened in a world that no longer exists than it DID exist until they "uncreated" it.

T h e
E x e c u t i v e

I know what you mean

Date: 04/20/1999
From: SlidingThrough

I kept wanting to yell at her, too, to stop talking until they were someplace private. But it did show just how much she was risking to help Quinn out which I guess was what the writers were going for.

I guess it's kind of like those running scenes in movies, the ones where someone's being chased and they trip over something and fall and take *forever* to get back up again. You know it's all about dramatic tension...but it still drives you nuts!

ST

To Exec, Thx but see no contradiction

Date: 04/21/1999
From: LShel

Exec, thx for your response & being so thoughtful as to include the cross-references for other readers. Unfortunately, I have not seen some of the episodes which you refer to (As Time Goes By & Alternateville Horror). Nonetheless, I appreciate your final thoughts on this subject and how alternate dimensions where characters are separated from one another are not new to Sliders. It appears that we are pretty much in agreement that the entire experience in the other world regardless of how it was initiated DID exist. Apparently, how it ends is what seems to be causing the "contradiction" in your mind. However, the point that time reversed and thus "uncreated" the existence of Thomas Mallory is not problematic for me at all. Just like when we sleep and experience a dream, the dreaming itself is a real experience, one that may or may not be meaningful to us or change us, but a real experience nonetheless...even when it ends. I see no contradiction here because just like a dream the story in the alternate world simply ended (or was uncreated as you put it), the story itself did not go back to the beginning, only the physical bodies were transported back in time, not their minds. In MHO, the only issue confusing the situation seems to be the hangup with time and, as you mentioned, the ability of time to be reversed, suspended, or even flow forward as you say apparently is not new to Sliders.

Original URL http://www.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/5595
Nominated by Blinker