“Pilot” is episode one of season one of Sliders.
This episode is sometimes shown as a feature length one together with the next, “Pilot, Part 2”. It opens in a San Francisco basement with a young man babbling to the camera about something happening. Then a woman calls his name, Quinn, and he says he thinks he just knocked out the power.
Quinn is woken by his alarm and heads downstairs. His mother says he’s too much like his father, who worked himself to death. Quinn says his father was hit by a car. Yes, but he was on the way to work. As Quinn heads down to the basement, his mother tells him that in two more semesters she’s going to turn the place into a bed & breakfast. Quinn plays a video diary in which he’s saying he was working on an antigravity device when something happened. Not antigravity; a ring opened up. A tunnel a gateway to another existence.
Quinn heads through Golden Gate Park, where a man is ranting about the inevitable victory of Communism. At school, he is drawing rings whilst the professor, Maximilian Arturo, is lecturing. Professor Arturo tells Quinn he could do the courtesy of listening.
Later, at a computer store, one of the sales assistants, Wade, is advising a couple of customers not to buy some computers yet, but to wait for the new models. She sees Quinn, who also works there, and starts telling him about hockey tickets she has. They can go together. Not as a date. Though she clearly – though not to Quinn – would like that. Their boss, Hurley (Gary Jones, perhaps best known as Stargate‘s Walter ‘Chevron Guy’ Harriman) complains Wade let $20K walk out the door. She replies they’ll be back with $50K next month.
At home in the basement, Quinn looks at a formula he’s been unable to solve. He views more diaries about sending objects into the void, then about one he sent with a timing device designed to return it. The object, a basketball, returns when the time is up. He thought about sending his cat through, but couldn’t, and cameras don’t work. So, he’s going to send himself.
Quinn does another recording, in case he doesn’t return, then enters the ring. And arrives in his basement. Thinking it didn’t work, Quinn heads out. On the road, everyone else stops for green lights and goes at red. The radio talks about vinyl replacing CDs and Jack Kennedy – who is married to Marilyn Monroe – not wanting to run for another term. Americans moving across the border to Mexico for a better life. A billboard advertises a live concert by Elvis. Returning home, Quinn finds his mother pregnant. By their gardener. Then the timer goes and Quinn is returned to his original home. He did go to another world.
Quinn heads to Professor Arturo’s class to tell him what happened. The professor is not happy to see him and says if Quinn won’t leave, he will. It seems Quinn called him a pompous windbag. At the computer store, Wade asks what he’s doing there. Quinn works there. Not any longer; Hurley fired him. Quinn says that was not him. Wade says she expects him to say the kiss meant nothing. Quinn thinks this means he was fired for kissing Hurley. No, he kissed Wade. Why would Quinn kiss her? They’re buds.
Back home, Quinn checks he didn’t offend his mother then heads downstairs. The equation has been solved. He wonders who did it and a voice replies. The voice is coming from Quinn. Another Quinn. Quinn thinks the gateway split him in half. Quinn Two says no, he is Quinn. From another Earth. A parallel dimension. He’s a Slider and this is his eighth slide. The ring is an entrance to a wormhole between worlds. Quinn Two can’t chose the destination. Yet. Quinn Two has to go and get back to his wife and starts to tell Quinn something very important about the timer. But is sucked into the wormhole before he can finish. That’s probably going to cause problems.
Professor Arturo and Wade head to see Quinn at home. He has a wormhole device to show them. And he doesn’t know entirely how it works. Which causes problems, and their first destination is less than great.