“Love Gods” is episode four (originally shown as episode two) of season two of Sliders.
The Sliders arrive on a world with 3 days and change until the next Slider. Rembrandt comments on there being a lot of women and that everything looks normal. The professor tells him there could be madness beneath. Wade indicates a shop, Brooks Sisters, and says maybe women have broken through the glass ceiling. Quinn would like a men’s store to get some new clothes. A little girl leaves a toy shop and sees Rembrandt. She seems shocked and runs off, calling for her mother.
The professor is looking in the toy shop’s window. To Wade’s query, he says you can tell a lot about a culture by the way it entertains its children. Wade sees there are no war toys or guns. Quinn notices that they’ve gathered quite a crowd looking at them, all women. The women run at them and a female cop calls for backup, saying something about escaped breeders.
Quinn, Rembrandt and the professor are in a police station. Every wanted poster portrays a woman; every cop is female. The professor wonders if they’ve landed on a world with no men. He and Rembrandt seem excited about the prospect. Quinn points out they’ve been arrested. A detective calls them over; Quinn tells the others not to say anything until they figure this out.
The detective, Specateli, does not find their story convincing. She wants to know how they escaped the virus. Another woman, a Dr Morris, enters and tells Specateli that the Bureau has final jurisdiction here. Morris will arrange transportation to the centre.
The three are taken in a van and, when asked what the Bureau is, they are told it’s the BRP. Bureau of Repopulation. There are reporters outside the centre and a woman in a car watches and contacts someone, saying their information is correct. She’s told their handler has been traced to the Dominion Hotel. Probably Wade.
It is Wade, and the hotel is very busy. She asks why; they’re taking applications to the repopulation centre and every hotel in town is jammed. The others are on the news; it’s thought they escaped from an enemy breeding centre in Canada and will be pressed into service as quickly as possible.
Quinn is given a physical and Morris say he will be limited to five times a day the first week. He says he’s passing through. No longer. No, he isn’t a prisoner; he’s a patriot.
The professor sees a wall with Breeder of the Month photos on it. Dominated by one man, Trevor Grant, an Australian he then sees. He asks another what Grant has done to get so many awards. 250 confirmed pregnancies for February alone. They’re lucky he defected. The professor disagrees; allowing that idiot to breed at that rate will put their civilisation back 10,000 years.
Quinn and Rembrandt arrive and they take the professor elsewhere to talk. Apparently, there was a conflict in the Middle East some years ago. The Iraqis released a viral agent that attacked the Y-chromosome. Since then, every industrial nation is in a rare to repopulate. This is a baby making facility. A man overhears them talking about getting out and comes over. It seems Australia is a new superpower; they were far enough away to suffer the fewest casualties. They started with over 1,100 men. The man, David, says his wife and sister are planning to bust him out. He could use the extra manpower.
That night, as the sister distracts the guards the men get over the wall and escape in David’s wife’s car. At their house, she says her friends think it’s immoral to want a monogamous relationship. Her application to have a baby was rejected; she’s not pretty or young enough. They want perfect women to make the perfect species. David and his wife, Debra, plan to flee to Mexico where there is no forced breeding.
Wade is being watched by the detective in the hotel and another woman comments on the news story about Quinn and the others’ escape, saying she doesn’t blame them from escaping. Having to go with six, sometimes seven, women a day and forced to take hormones. There are people who sympathise with their plight. Then Wade is told by the receptionist she has a call; the others arrange to meet.
Escaping is not easy. Quinn, Rembrandt and Professor Arturo are very valuable, and more than one country wants them to add to their breeding programme. The BRP will kill them rather than have them defect. The professor also discovers this world knows nothing about such as storing eggs and in vitro fertilisation. If they did, they wouldn’t need breeding programmes.