Mother and Child

This episode first aired in the UK on 27th July 1998 on Sky 1.

Writer:
Director:
Guests:Brian Cousins, Steven Rankin, Jim Metzler (Jonathan Griffin), Nathalie Redford (Christina Griffin), Brian Perry (Soldier 1)
Background:
* After a civil war on their homeworld, the Kromagg Dynasty was thrown of their world. The humans had developed a vitus which had prevented the female Kromaggs carrying children to term. The Kromaggs have sliding technology and they take over all human worlds they find. Human women are taken as breeders to carry hu-magg hybrids to term, because none will now be full Kromagg.
Additional Notes:
* Kromagg episode #7.
Plot:
The Sliders begin the episode in a bombed building trying to get away from the 'Maggs with 45 minutes until the slide. They escape to the hills and find a cave to hide in. Maggie and Quinn take first look-out duty.

At a Kromagg control centre, it is reported that a 'breeder' has escaped with a child. She is detected, as are the Sliders.

The woman runs by Quinn and Maggie. It turns out she knows their names; She was in the camp with Wade. Her child is a hu-magg hybrid, the son of the base commander. She tells them that Wade was shipped somewhere else yesterday and that Wade doesn't blame Rembrandt for her capture.

The Kromaggs are still tracking them and they know exactly where they are.

Quinn, Rembrandt and Colin all go to look out, leaving Maggie with Christina. The guys hear a noise and they go to investigate. Christina tells Maggie that her baby is eight months old and that hu-maggs are taken from their mothers at 9 months. The guys see 'Maggs in a vehicle. They go back Maggie and Christina and together they plot to get the vehicle.

The 'Maggs are using infra-red scanners. Maggie lies on the road pretending to be the breeder, dead, and they ambush the two 'Maggs in the vehicle. There are now only 18 minutes left until the slide. They wnat the co-ordinates for Christina's homeworld so they log into the computer system. Unit 4, the unit they ambushed, fakes a standard report in at gunpoint. They find Christina's co-ordinates and they also find that the Kromaggs withdrew from her world 6 months ago. They try to look for Wade's co-ordinates, but they don't have her number so they have to sift through all the information. Before they find her they are cut off. The 'Maggs are beginning to send in reinforcements because they have realised something is wrong. The Sliders and Christina take the vehicle and go, but are shot at by another vehicle. They open the vortx in front of the car and the entire vehicle with all of them inside goes through.

They land on Christina's world with 9 hours until the next window.

Back at the Kromagg control centre, they are very responsoble. Those responsible for the escape will be executed. After this event and probably others in Common Ground and The Dying Fields, during which Kromaggs died, the Kromagg Dynasty is now ordered not to leave the Sliders free, but to kill them if possible. No Kromaggs are allowed to go to Christina's World under penalty of death.

The Sliders go to Christina's house. Maggie holds Christina's baby while Christina goes up to her house. She meets her father there, but find the rest of her family died at the hands of the Kromaggs. She takes him outside and introduces him to the Sliders and her baby. Her father doesn't want her to keep the child because it's half-Kromagg. Her father temporarily leaves the house. The sliders will stay at Christina's until they slide.

Quinn and Rembrandt go outside to talk to Jonathan Griffin (Christina's father). They find that on this world, many cities were destroyed, such as New York, Moscow and Paris. He also tells them that he only knows about the weapons used because he was part of the intelligence service, and he won't give them the weapons they want. He asks them if they wil stay with Christina until they go because she will need friends in the next few hours. He also has a secret, but he won't tell them what it is.

Remmy and Colin go out to do some research on this world's war with the Kromaggs and Maggie and Quinn stay with Christina. They talk for a while and then Christina calls them to her because the baby isn't breathing properly. They run down the stairs to get to a doctor, but Jonathan won't let them go out the door. He tells them his secret; There's a virus in the air that only attacks Kromagg DNA and the baby, being half-Kromagg is affected by it. A man enters the house, but he morphs into a Kromagg in an enclosed suit. Jonathan says that there is a vaccine, but he doesn't think it's worth the risk. The Kromagg commander has come for his son (and the vaccine), so he goes into Jonathan's mind, and possibly Quinn and Maggie's as well, to find the location of the vaccine. They all call a truce to get the vaccine. Quinn and Maggie go with the Kromagg Commander to get the vaccine, which is nearby, because they don't really trust him.

Remmy and Colin return from their researching having found nothing of consequence.

To get into the secure lab, the Kromagg makes all the guards see what he wants them to see. He disguises himself as Jonathan Griffin and Quinn and Maggie as military personel.

Jonathan tries to justify his actions to Rembrandtand Colin. Quinn, Maggie and the Kromagg Commander return with the vaccine. Jonathan administers it. It should work soon if it will work at all. The Kromagg Commander steals some of the vaccine to take back with him by making the others think that it was never there. He then takes the baby and tells them of his plan to bring back armies of Kromaggs using the antidote. The Kromagg commander opens a red vortex and is about to go through, but Jonathan won't let him. Jonathan is hit twice by bullets, but he still manages to let air into the 'Maggs helmet. Both the Commander and Jonathan die.

Christina decides that because she has nothing left for her on this world, she will slide with them to the next world, but no further.

Did You Notice?
* Christina's prisoner number is: JK1125
* Quinn and Maggie were shown in uniform from the security man's point of view.
* The uniforms they wore looked a bit like the one worn by Maggie2 in Slide By Wire.
* The baby has very blue eyes.
Additional Notes:
* When the 'Magg Commander goes into Jonathan's mind, Quinn and Maggie's expresions make it seem like he also went into their mind, but I don't see why he would and there is nothing else that suggest this.

Cool Quotes:

"Why do I always have to come up with the good idea?" - Quinn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You've got a choice now. You can either work with us or die." - Quinn to a Kromagg
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The shows not over 'till the fat 'Magg croaks." - Rembrandt
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"What's wrong. You have that little crease between your eyes you always get." - Maggie to Quinn (finally, someone else noticed!)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Seem like we're always taking care of someone else." - Maggie
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You breed children like cattle." - Christina to Kromagg Commander
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I hate to sound like we don't trust you, but we don't trust you." - Maggie
Mistakes:
* From what I remember and have gathered from other episodes and stuff, Quinn always intended his machine to be a Sliding machine. There are 2 possibilities here. 1) Quinn didn't want to tell Jonathan Griffin that he built a sliding machine and 2) The writers decided that all the other humans who had sliding technology had found it accidently from an anti-grav machine and so decided that this should have been what Quinn did. - I've just been corrected on this, so ignore this comment. It turns out Quinn was building an anti-grav machine in his video diary on the pilot (which I haven't seen BTW) and he just stumbled on sliding by accident.
* Quinn didn't seem very concerned about Wade.
My Opinion:
I found this a very moving tale. I thought that Jonathan being torn between his grandson and his world was realistic, though I was surprised the Sliders trusted the 'Magg Commander at all, considering what they know of 'Maggs. Incidently, that thing about Quinn's original device being an anti-grav device; I was thinking about all that yesterday. It did seem odd to me that recently all these geniuses had been trying to make an anti-grav device and got a slide machine. Nevermind, that doesn't really affect how moving the story was. I even liked the way they came so close to Wade, but failed to find her. A good episode, though perhaps a little lacking in variety, although from some of the other Kromagg episodes, it was very different. I just think that just because the story-arc is built around them doesn't mean quite so many episodes need to be based around them. If they have a 5th season, they may have to change the arc because I think they ay at some point run out of different Kromagg story ideas, while there are so many non-Kromagg story ideas out there just waiting to be written. This episode does bring up a couple of questions such as was a virus the way Quinn and Colin's homeworld freed itself and also the question whether Wade had a Hu-Magg child or not.


Sarah's Sliders Episode Guide
On to next episode
Back to Contents Page
Back to Season 4 overview