Moral of the Story -> Prophets and Loss!

Date: 12/30/2003
From: Blinker

In the aftermath of taking on "Genesis"...

http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/4067480

...it seems only fair to counter its mind-numbing effects by promoting some literacy. Read: you're all getting books.

• dellyone wins "You Can't HANDLE The Burden of Truth: The O.J. Simpson Interviews!"
• Recall317 wins "Angela's Ashes!"
• Slider_Quinn21 wins "Me... The Slider_Quinn21 Story!"
• Callie21V wins an encyclopedia of biblical proportions!
• ThomasMalthus wins "The Larnani, or To the Twelveworld and Back Again!"
• sliderules wins Abbie the Insult Comic Counterculture Figure's "Steal This Book... For Me To POOP ON!"
• The_Seer wins historian of pharmacy William H. Helfand's "Quack, Quack, Quack: The Sellers of Nostrums in Prints, Posters, Ephemera, and Books!"

And this week's GOLD STAR OF POETICALITUDINOSITY recipient: dellyone!

-- "PROPHETS AND LOSS" --

BLINKER: Well, I learned that fundamentalist Christianity is a bad, bad, BAD sociopolitical entity. Apparently Mr. Dial thought he'd top the oft-mocked allegations of a "homosexual agenda" by suggesting a family values "final solution" of lobotomies and gas chambers.

MEDIOCRE FOURTH SEASON WRITER BILL DIAL: They were OVENS, okay? And you people should be grateful. If not for my efforts to expose the truth, Billy Graham might've gotten away with his crusade to outlaw science by now.

BLINKER: Sigh... Couldn't you at least have laid off the Nazi allusions for ONE FRICKIN' WEEK?!

SYNTHIA: If you two are done?

MEDIOCRE FOURTH SEASON WRITER BILL DIAL: Yeah... knock yourself out.

SYNTHIA: This episode proved once and for all that the slide windows really are determined by plot contrivance. I mean, first we've got the only six-week slide in the show's history exactly matching the span of Arturo's election campaign (to the last minute!) Then we've got the only ten-second slide in the show's history coinciding with its most lethal arrival site ("The Fire Within.") NOW we've got the first of two instant layover slides where the Sliders get to spend 30 seconds sorting out the fates of their passengers before immediately opening the vortex (see also "California Reich.") Not to m--

BLINKER: And *that's* the way we saw the worlds this week. So, what did YOU learn?

- Blinker 7:-/
http://slidersweb.net/blinker

SLIDER_QUINN21: What's the point of presenting me with my own autobiography?

BLINKER: It was that or *Katharine Hepburn's* "Me." And that isn't a book.

Me...

Date: 12/30/2003
From: Slider_Quinn21

Yeah, I could probably change, but what's the point? I named my *autobiography* after that freakin' phrase! Or phreaking phrase, whichever's cooler ;-)

Anyway, the moral of "Prophets and Loss" is that an episode without an original character name (The Oracle), plot (Hey, cults are bad!) or title (Prophets and Loss has been used a million times, including about 8 episodes of DS9) can still be almost decent!

Almost...

Quinn
http://slidersweb.net/otherworlds/214

My Moral...

Date: 12/30/2003
From: SabsGhost

...any story with a moral is piss poor excuse for a sermon.

Prophets and Loss Moral: "There's always an 'underground resistance.'" Will there ever be a world where the common folk just accept life the way it is? A good third of the series involved one set of resistance fighters or another. My favorite part is when a revolutionary force which has spent a decade recruiting members and stockpiling weapons decides to risk everything to help some off world strangers rescue one of their friends.

But getting back to the ep in question, wouldn't this ep have been better with a Sgt Schultz cameo? SCHULTZ!!!

And now it's time for...

Date: 12/31/2003
From: sliderules

BT on a skewer with sauteed onions and peppers! Mmmm...BT.

My moral is nice and simple, and to the point: When someone offers you a chance at happiness that involves giving them all of your money and killing you, explore other options!

Now that is a montra to live by.

sliderules
"Hungry? Why wait. Grab a BT!"

Red and yellow...

Date: 12/31/2003
From: MissingSliderRyan

BT's favorite is black and blue..........

... are my favorite colors.


If it looks like an Easy Bake Oven, it's an Easy Bake Oven.

Mmmmmmm muffins



Logan
currently running from her invisible weapon toting double

If You All Get To Heaven

Date: 12/31/2003
From: Recall317

OK, I won't quote Terence Trent D'Arby lyrics

I learned that subtlety is an artform, an artform no one on this show's been familiar with for some time now.

Of course, in defense of Bill Dial, those he mocked in this episode are usually about as subtle as a sledgehammer to the head, so what goes around comes around.

R317

PS. Thought Prophets and Loss was on the right track but lacked proper execution? Check out Sliders comics Ultimatum: Rapture and Ultimatum: Damnation. Now that would have been an episode!

What I learned was...

Date: 01/02/2004
From: Joey_Starr

...that BT is at a loss!



...that a really big oven will likely make heat resembling a vortex when turned up all the way. In fact, I was thinking about making one like that to cook x-mas dinner faster next year.

JS
Just call me Joey Crocker!

To boldly go where no Slider...uhm...

Date: 01/02/2004
From: DieselMickeyDolenz

scratch that.

What I learned is that appearing on an episode of Sliders isn't necessarily a career killer. While STAR TREK ENTERPRISE may well blow, Conner Trineer survived his guest role as Samson and is probably making a nice living for himself as Tucker on one of the few worthwhile characters on the latest Trek rip-off.

Of course, if Rebecca Gayheart (and later, Kristanna Loken) hadn't already deomonstrated this principle, then this isn't likely to convince anyone, either.

DMD

A moralizing ep gets moralized over...

Date: 01/02/2004
From: Callie21V

Someone toss BT in the vortex oven!

...even if its implications for the season's quality were downright *de*moralizing. I mean, having the group kidnapped THREE TIMES in one hour?!

Well, 'Prophets' taught me that against all evidence to the contrary, it's possible for the group to hold hands in the wormhole and land on their feet (albeit somewhat smudged, no doubt due to a drunken effects artist playing with Photoshop).

Also, that one world out there reserves unusual names for men ("Cadmus," "Samson," "Gareth") and sticks women with quintessentially plain ones like "Jane"...

>>> C/21

Hey, so far this is the second game in a row where everyone except Recall has ended their reply title with an ellipsis. What's with THAT?

I'm a rebel

Date: 01/02/2004
From: Recall317

Just like Samson

See you at Burger Pope.

R317

<Puts down Son of Sniglets>

Date: 01/05/2004
From: ThomasMalthus

Katharine Hepburn's "BT" was a total flop.

The moral I take away from "Prophets and Loss" is one for Rembrandt: If you can only identify Thomas Jefferson as "the man on the money", it's best not to pontificate on the political scene on your home Earth. Particularly not when you wouldn't even be familiar with said developments if you had left in 1994, as should be the case.

Hmm, maybe that one was actually for Bill Dial.

ThomasMalthus

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/4067521
Nominated by Blinker