Slide by Wire begins with easily the best teaser we’ve seen on Sliders. In a high tech establishment, Maggie attacks a guard, gains entry to a restricted area, and steals a circuit from a body held in suspended animation. She escapes, finds her friends, and they slide. As they disappear, the real Maggie watches on in horror.

It’s a great hook to a terrific story, which finds Quinn, Remmy and Colin visiting a new parallel Earth where technology is regarded as heresy, and slowly coming to realize that the woman they are travelling with is not who she appears.

Meanwhile, ‘our’ Maggie is trapped on a world where fighter pilots are enhanced with neural implants, turning them into neat, efficient killing machines. Her husband Stephen is still alive here – but their relationship went sour when the duplicate Maggie put her career before love. Now, the slider has one more chance to be with the love of her life one last time – before she joins the ranks of the ‘ultimate pilots,’ human husks preserved in vast tanks of liquid.

Yet another shining example of superb storytelling from Sliders’ fourth season, Slide by Wire has something for everyone. There’s a first rate narrative told in a unique style (by splitting the lead ensemble between different worlds), a worthy message (in the dangers of technology), plenty of romance, some fine acting and a dash of sexual chemistry. Kari Wuhrer steals the show as the two Maggies, and the return of Stephen Beckett (last seen in Season Three’s Exodus) gives writer Chris Black a wonderful opportunity to develop her character. The negative aspects? There are none – and for episodic Science Fiction that’s rare enough indeed.

Brian Barratt

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