turningone

This season-six premiere picks up right where �The Seer� left off. Rembrandt successfully makes it through the wormhole alive and arrives on Earth Prime. He links up with the Resistance and tells them that he has an anti-KroMagg virus in his blood which can be synthesized and modified to be airborne, thus killing or driving-off all the KroMaggs on this world. Remmy experiences mild side effects to having the virus injected directly into his bloodstream, but nothing more than a headache and fever (luckily, he and Vernon were the same blood type). A sample of his blood is taken, and within two days the virus is synthesized, modified, and released into the air. The �Maggs, recognizing the virus from previous encounters with it, retreat within hours of its release with minimal casualties.

That done, Rembrandt begins trying to figure out how he can get back to the Seer�s world to get Maggie, Dianna, and Mallory. The only thing he can think of is contacting Dianna Davis�s Earth Prime double in hopes that she might be something like the Dianna he knows and know about quantum physics. But his hopes are soon dashed when, after doing some searching, he discovers that no Dianna Davis exists here.

Rembrandt doesn�t know what to do. He could try returning to San Francisco to find Quinn�s basement and his notes there, but the odds do not seem good that both the FBI and the KroMaggs would just leave the place untouched; besides, he wouldn�t be able to understand all the techno-babble anyway. He feels so helpless; he�s saved his world, but he�s lost his friends. But suddenly Rembrandt realizes who might be able to help: Wade.

After the incident at Outpost 88 (in �Requiem�) she had telepathically contacted him a final time and told him that she would be there for him whenever he needed her; well, he needs her now more than ever. So he concentrates on her, desperately crying out for her in his mind, and hoping beyond all hope that she will somehow be able to hear him. She does.

Rembrandt tells her that he�s back on Earth Prime at last and he�s saved it from the �Maggs, but he now has to find a way to get back to Maggie, Dianna, and Mallory. Wade replies that she will help him but that there�s something she has to tell him: the world he�s on is not Earth Prime. It is the world that they slid to after the final showdown with Rickman (in �This Slide of Paradise�), but Rickman must have tampered with the coordinates before they got the timer back, because the world that Remmy is on right now is not Earth Prime.

Rembrandt is ecstatic over the fact that his world may still be untouched by the �Maggs after all, but he�s devastated by the fact that he may never find his home.

But Wade has another surprise: she knows where Earth Prime is, and she can send him there. Exhilarated, Rembrandt asks her to do so. A vortex created by Wade opens in front of him, and he jumps into it. He�s finally going home...to his real home.

Rembrandt emerges from the wormhole into a stodgy-looking living room. Looking around, he notices fine furniture and a fireplace with a mantle, on which are placed photographs. Out of curiosity, Rembrandt walks over to get a better look at the photographs; they are of the Professor...and Quinn, and Wade, and himself. Given the room�s decor and these pictures, Rembrandt realizes that Wade�s vortex must have dropped him off in the Professor�s living room.

But if that�s the case, why hasn�t the house been sold in the years since their disappearance? And now that he thinks about it, why would the Professor have had photographs of Quinn, Wade, and Rembrandt on his mantle before he slid (since he had only known Quinn as his student and he had not known Wade or Rembrandt at all)?

Rembrandt speaks of these concerns aloud to himself. His ponderings are quickly followed by the sound of a throat being cleared. Rembrandt spins around to face the person making the noise, and sees the Professor standing in the doorway!

Rembrandt isn�t sure how to respond; his Professor died over two years ago, and if he (Remmy) really has returned to Earth Prime as Wade claims, then this man must be impersonating Arturo. Even if that is so, is it an honest mistake made by this Arturo who simply thought he had finally returned home after sliding, or is the man purposely trying to replace the real professor for some unknown reason? The man in the doorway seems just as surprised to see Rembrandt as Rembrandt is to see him, but is that a good sign or a bad one?

Before either has a chance to say anything to the other, Wade�s voice returns to Rembrandt�s mind: �It�s him Remmy; it�s the Professor...our Professor...the real one! He can explain everything, Remmy, and he can help you find your friends. It�s a long story, but I can�t help you anymore; I have to go now. Trust him, Remmy. Trust him.� Rembrandt trusts Wade, so he trusts this man. �Professor?� Rembrandt asks, �Is it really you?� �Yes, Mr. Brown,� says Arturo happily, �Yes, indeed it is.� They greet each other with a hug of relief and joy.

The Professor briefly explains how he was left behind in �Post-Traumatic Slide Syndrome� and so forth (all the developments portrayed in Second Chances), and how he eventually slid home about four months ago (and had, since that return, obtained the photographs of his friends from their friends and families here).

Rembrandt then briefly explains what�s happened with him and the rest of the Sliders since the Professor was separated from them, even talking about the pain they all felt when the Professor�s double died. (Arturo�s response to the news that his duplicitous double became a beloved ally who ultimately died defending Quinn�s life is superb.) But now Rembrandt is overjoyed; not only did he get to save the world he thought was Earth Prime, but he has also now returned to the real Earth Prime and been reunited with his old friend, the Professor, who he had thought to be long-dead.

Side Note: In the course of his summary, Rembrandt also reveals to viewers how Geiger was able to determine the Sliders� home coordinates. He explains that Dianna took time to fill him in on a few things (on Ostrich Burger World). According to Dianna, at some point during the events of �The Unstuck Man,� she downloaded all the timer�s data (including coordinates) into the GAR computer system. She speculated Geiger must have then copied that info to a PDL of his own before becoming unstuck again and that Quinn must have somehow indicated which coordinates were those of �EP� (by putting the coordinates in bold or storing them in a separate file, or something like that). She further speculated that (either during �Applied Physics� or later, on that world from �Eye of the Storm�) Geiger must have realized what the significance was and known that he could use his new knowledge as leverage in any future encounter with the Sliders (which came in �Eye of the Storm�). (Don�t worry, the explanation is smoother and quicker when Rembrandt gives it).