“Way Out West” is episode eighteen of season four of Sliders.
The Sliders arrive on a world from somewhere cold. It’s five days until they slide out and there’s not much around. A stage coach comes into sight and Quinn asks for a ride into town. The stage driver questions them in a colourful manner and Colin responds as to why they are out there in a manner that makes sense. The driver says two will need to get up top and to hurry up; this is Mister K’s territory. Colin and Rembrandt join the driver who colourfully explains that Mister K is an ugly bandit.
Inside, one of the other passengers, Ben (Jay Acovone), introduces himself, primarily to Maggie, and is explaining he’s in the area on business when a bullet punctures the side. Men on horseback are following the stage and shooting. The driver tells Colin to shoot back but Colin gets hit and tumbles from the coach. The driver won’t stop, instead telling Rembrandt to throw a chest off the back. That appears to be what the pursuers are after and they stop.
The opening titles are in Wild West lettering and in town the Sliders decide to find the sheriff. When he hears that it was Mister K who attacked, he tells them to grieve Colin and move on. However, a young woman has found Colin.
The Sliders head to the livery stable to hire horses. The owner is also the sheriff. He also owns the saloon. They don’t take paper money since the recession of ’74 and he doesn’t offer credit. However, he needs a songbird to entertain his saloon customers. Maggie is not pleased, but she eventually agrees. Inside the saloon, having changed, Maggie speaks to Ben again, who says saloons are on the way out. She then starts singing and isn’t bad. The other two found where Colin was and his shirt but no Colin.
Colin comes around in a bed and the young woman tells him he’s on a ranch., He says she’s just a boy; she tells him she isn’t. Her name is Ellie Starr. Ellie’s mother wants to know if Colin is one of Mister K’s boys. He tells her the bullet in him was probably from Mister K’s gun. She says he’s lucky; Mister K doesn’t normally miss. One of those bullets took her husband in the back.
Maggie is really getting into the singing, and appears to have changed the song line-up, when the bandits come in and the place goes quiet. They have a drink and leave and she follows to the sheriff’s, where Mister K meets with Ben and the sheriff. It seems Ben needs land to build something and there are still homesteaders on it. The sheriff says he’s dealing with it. Mister K heads out and catches Maggie eavesdropping. The reason he’s called ugly is because he’s a Kromagg. More, he’s Kolitar from “Slidecage”.
Maggie claims she was looking for the boss to say she’s going to freshen up between shifts. Kolitar asks if he knows her. She denies it. Though Kolitar might not recognise Maggie immediately, he does seem to think she’s familiar.
The other two arrive back in town and Maggie fills them in on ‘Mister K.’ After he was sprung from the slidecage, this must be the world he ended up on.
Kolitar might not have immediately recognised Maggie, but he still might. Ben, Kolitar and the sheriff appear to be involved in some sort of land scam and the Sliders have purely by accident landed in the middle of it. And they still need to find Colin, who is currently on one of the ranches that Mister K is driving ranchers from.