“Paradise Lost” is episode fifteen (and originally shown as that) of season three of Sliders.
At night and a man in a tent is leaving a message for someone saying he’s detected weird seismic activity, not geological in nature. Power goes out and people approach his tent and grab him. They lower him into a cove, and one of those participating looks to be the sheriff. The man they lowered runs away from a blue-glowing tunnel. There’s a berm under the sand and he’s dragged below by whatever is causing it.
The Sliders arrive on a beach; all are unhappy with the landings they’ve had with the new timer they acquired in the previous episode, “Slide Like an Egyptian”. Quinn will keep adjusting it until they get landings they like. Or at least survive, according to the professor. Wade suggests they could stay on the beach, catch some sun and swim, if it warms up. The professor indicates a danger sign; Wade complains the first time they slide to a beach, it’s closed. Paradise is the closest town.
A woman is changing a tyre and a man, one of those who took the man from the tent, is walking up behind her with a tyre iron. He’s apparently going to hit her when Quinn calls out. The man claims he was just helping her change the tyre. Quinn says they can do it. After the man leaves, the woman, Laurie, thanks them; the man was one of those creepy guys from town. She and her assistant are looking for an oil deposit; she was in LA for a few days and he left a strange message and she hasn’t been able to contact him since. With the tyre changed, Rembrandt asks if they can get a ride into town.
In town, the Sliders lack money but a restaurant is advertising for staff. The owner, and worker of many other jobs, Parker, comes out and says there are two openings. The professor volunteers Rembrandt and Quinn volunteers Wade. Inside, an old woman grabs Wade and tells her to leave whilst she can.
Laurie asks the sheriff, Burke, about her assistant, Michael. Burke says he visited Andrew’s camp and nothing was out of place. He doesn’t see the point of a search party – he does know what happened to Andrew, after all – but Laurie is welcome to look. Burke claims he’s pretty busy. He’s reading the paper. Quinn comes over but Burke gets called away on an emergency. Quinn says he and the professor will help.
Burke is with the man who was going to knock out Laurie, Bud. They have a dead body; Burke says her appetite is bigger. They need to feed her more and there are outsiders in town. He wants Bud to collect all the blue slime. Bud eats some, then starts putting it into a bucket.
Some kids are playing football and Quinn wonders why they’re playing on the concrete, not the grass. He kicks the ball back but it ends up on the grass. Quinn goes to get it, and steps off just before a berm got to him. He and Laurie think the kids’ behaviour was odd, as they hadn’t seen the berm.
The professor is checking into a B&B. As for next of kin, he says the four lack any but each other. The woman owner exchanges a look with a man. She also claims not to know anything about Andrew. The professor spies a photo of her on the wall, then sees it was taken in 1941. She says it’s her grandmother, who founded the place, on the day it opened.
Quinn and Laurie are reconstructing data that Andrew sent. The computer then detects something odd moving underground, something alive. The professor is talking to Wade and Rembrandt; the people are polite but tell you noting. And, since 1949, there are only three graves in the cemetery. Wade says half the customers only speak to Parker. Apart from Trudy, the old lady who grabbed Wade, the professor is the oldest person in town. Rembrandt suggests the professor goes to a bar to ask around.
Inside the restaurant, one of the staff collapses to the ground. Others keep Rembrandt and Wade from helping. So they don’t see that the young man who collapsed is now a dead old man. Quinn and Laurie find an overturned tractor, but no farmer, and some blue substance.
The town is clearly keeping a secret, and not just the monster they’re feeding people to. The blue substance appears to have value and going by various things, it looks like it stops people from aging. The sheriff doesn’t want to help the Sliders, and they should really start to wonder why that is.