“The Unstuck Man” is episode one of the fifth and final season of Sliders.
In a lab of some kind, a young man is positioned in an alcove on the wall with a device pointing at him. Someone mostly unseen halts the countdown to make adjustments before resuming.
Rembrandt has the timer and a gun which is now empty. Maggie joins him under fire as Colin and Quinn retreat towards them whilst being shot at. The vortex is opened and Rembrandt and Maggie enter first. Inside, there’s a burst of light and an explosion and the vortex has changed colour when Maggie and Rembrandt exit it. The other two don’t follow. Standing in a nearby river is the man from the lab. When asked who he is, he says he’s Quinn. Quinn Mallory.
Only Maggie and Rembrandt are in the opening credits.
The new Quinn says he didn’t see them in the lab. How did they get here? How did he get there? He’s asked about Colin, and says he saw some guy hit by some kind of lightning. There were thousands of him, then he was gone. Quinn Mallory asks if they’re with a company. Rembrandt pulls the gun he told Maggie was empty and Maggie demands to know what the man has done with their friends. Quinn Mallory doesn’t even know them and mentions a weird guy he works for. He’s not heard of the Kromaggs either. Then he holds his head and recounts the events of “Roads Taken” and remembers Rembrandt. Who’s like a brother. He had a brother.
Maggie pulls Rembrandt aside and says that the alternate world only existed for her and Quinn. There’s no way anyone else could know about it. And is Quinn Mallory some new kind of alternate? They decide to head to the Chandler; if the other two are around, that’s where they’d go.
In town, there’s an electrical storm and everyone is panicking and looting. In the Chandler’s bar there’s a news story on the television about the weird magnetic storms and how it’s been raining in the desert for 17 days.
Quinn Mallory joins Maggie at the bar; he has to get back to the lab. Geiger will want a report. Quinn Mallory’s boss. He cured him. Rembrandt joins them; Colin and Quinn haven’t checked in. The barman tells them about a secret government lab outside town with a machine called the Combine. A phone rings and it’s Quinn Mallory’s. He tells the caller what happened and then tells the other two a van is being sent.
At the lab, the woman who showed Quinn Mallory into the alcove introduces herself as Dr Diana Davis. He’s sent to be debriefed and she takes the other two with her. Dr Geiger asks Quinn Mallory if it worked. Is he two people?
Diana is talking to the other two about the experiment. Rembrandt and Maggie explain they are not scientists and that their Quinn invented the sliding machine and the timer. Diana knows how long they will be stuck if they don’t make the next slide; their algorithms predicted it. Diana explains they are working on something called the Combine. They used it to extract healthy DNA from a transdimensional alternate and cured their Quinn’s previously uncurable strain of muscular dystrophy. Geiger is watching the conversation from his lab as Maggie and Rembrandt ask what happened. Diana says that Colin became unanchored and is now unstuck in space and time. He’ll spend the rest of his life jumping from one dimension to another, unless he’s stabilised in one universe. Diana’s Quinn Mallory has absorbed some of the subatomic structure of their Quinn.
Colin is lost, perhaps forever. Quinn is merged with an alternate, which has boosted said alternate’s intelligence. Dr Geiger is coming across as a complete mad scientist. The only good news is that Diana seems to genuinely want to help.