The Return of Maggie Beckett
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Season 5
DVD Box Set
Region 1 NTSC
 A
B
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Season 5
DVD Box Set
Region 2 PAL
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(Sliders Story No. 77, starring Robert Floyd)
- written by Chris Black
- directed by Peter Ellis
- music by Danny Lux
- produced by Paul Cajero
- Production # E0812
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Story: Arriving in Maggie's hometown of
Fresno, California on a slightly more advanced world,
the Sliders discover that Maggie's double was a heroic astronaut
whose ship disappeared on the return trip from the first human
landing on Mars. Should Maggie explore the museums and monuments
erected in her honour, or lay low to avoid being recognized?
Does she dare attempt to reconcile her relationship with
her father, "The General"?
On this world of open Extra-terrestrial contact,
Reticulan-American Free Trade Agreements, and reverse
government conspiracy theorists, not all is as it seems....
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In-Depth Analysis Review
by Martin Izsak
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WARNING: This review contains "SPOILERS", and is intended for
those who have already seen the program.
To avoid the spoilers, read the
Buyers' Guide to the season instead.
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Season five delivers another super story here. In fact, you could
probably make two or three separate episodes out of all the good ideas
and elements crammed into this one. Most of all this is a nicely
focused character story, and probably the best Maggie story Sliders ever
produced.
Maggie comes home...
The Sliders make a most unusual and entertaining exit from the
wormhole as they enter this adventure, which sets it off to a good start.
Then we go straight to discovering the identity of Maggie's double,
which will fuel both audience interest and plot. Excellent.
One sad note is that we don't quite get complete consistency on
the spelling of Maggie's last name. The on-screen titles, street name,
and park name all use two t's, which means the memorial plaque is
outvoted and its Becket with one t is an unfortunate typo. Yikes.
I'm very pleased to see such lengthy exploration beats at the beginning
of this story, which work because the writer has such good concepts
to explore, what with the Mars mission, the alternate world history....
make that galactic history, and both Maggies' relationships with
their fathers.
This is so much better than the usual formulaic premises that other
episodes often come up with.
Zeta Reticuli
Something that makes this story very special amongst other offerings
from "Sliders" is that the alternate history on display today expands to
include civilizations beyond the Earth(s). It's logical, smart, and as I
hinted at in my review of
"Strangers and Comrades",
something I'd been secretly hoping for on this show for a long time.
It's great new territory for "Sliders" to explore.
Add to that the obvious bonus that writer Chris Black must have been
doing some research into UFO phenomenon and E.T. contact reports
to enhance the details in this script - and he does it better than is
managed in most episodes of "The X-Files" for that matter.
The name of the Reticulans is not just pulled out of the air.
It refers to the sixth brightest, or "zeta", star of the Reticulum
constellation, which is where a race of grey humanoids come from,
a race that reportedly had a lot of UFO interaction with us Earthlings
over the course of the 20th century. For more information on them,
a philosophically helpful source I'd recommend would be
Royal Priest Research.
But of course, this is "Sliders", where each universe's history
is different, and the same must apply to the Reticulan history as well.
Interestingly, we don't actually meet a Reticulan character today.
Doing their species justice on "Sliders" reduced budget and time constraints,
much less getting their characterization right, probably would have been too
much to ask. So we get a human with some Reticulan features, which is
an effective compromise and allows for the creative freedom that will
naturally poke through anyway.
Chris Black seems to be handling his DNA explanation a little less
than believably though, making essentially the same mistake that he did
back in "Applied Physics". A vaccine did this
when the subject was a baby or young boy? It resurrects the old problem
of trying to change the DNA in every cell of his body in exactly the
same way, instead of doing it at conception, when he is only one cell
in size. And if you do research the Zeta Reticulan interaction with
humans on our Earth, there's a much more plausible explanation for his
existence just waiting to be used. Why not say he was a product of
our joint program to create Human-Reticulan hybrids? It would just fit
his look so much better, and handle the DNA questions more easily.
Or did the switch from President Eisenhower to Stevenson put any
additional monkey-wrenches into the existence of such a program?
Of course, as a hybrid, one may have to lose or drastically change
the whole "alone and abandoned" thematic arc for this guy, as he should
both have plenty of hybrid companionship within the program and have a more
subdued, clinical expression of almost all of his emotions.
Forced Plot
But on that note, all of the characters of this story can be brought
into question. Chris Black is generally very good at creating
internal issues in all of them that get explored deeply in very emotional
scenes, which is great. He attempts to make the plot spring from
those character points, and yet the plot often doesn't feel as much organic
as it does forced. This problem doesn't turn up in the opening
exploration beats which are superbly handled, but is really noticeable
as the story's antagonists are brought into play. And once more the regulars
fall too easily into the role of the pawns of the guest characters for most
turns of events.
Early on, Mallory has a beat being one of the antagonists,
and he is pretty badly handled. It may not be a totally
bad idea to have his greed to cash in on Maggie's celebrity trigger
something, but approaching her with a knife as she sleeps is a little
too ridiculous.
Daddy Issues
Maggie's early scenes with her father are frustrating. She gets into
a deep discussion of trying to explain who she is, where it makes no sense
that she should talk so much while skirting around the truth about sliding
and doubles. Plus, why does she waste so much time accusing this man
for what his double did? Parental accusation is usually a waste of
energy in any case, but add the concept of doubles, and it can't make any
sense anymore.
To be fair, the problems seem to be here as a kind of artificial way
of driving to the point where the General admits a certain revealing truth,
which is a nice dramatic turn. Massaging this into a slightly more
tasteful way of getting there would be a good goal.
The real bonus is that after we get to
that point, we get twice as much time again of scenes between
Maggie and her father's double that actually deliver absolutely super,
wonderful material. Good show. Chris Black has been one of the best
writers for taking care of Maggie's character, defining her voice,
making her likeable, making the audience want to invest their emotions
with her, and ensuring that she shines, and in the end, this episode
is probably the crowning jewel in that journey.
Rembrandt also steps up to the plate in later sections, with some
nice supporting bits from Diana, in proactively working to solve their
problems.
We also get a nice guest appearance by Rob LaBelle in this story,
who was just making himself famous as a regular on the "Fugitive"-like
conspiracy series "First Wave" that debuted and aired right after
"Sliders" in the Sci-Fi Prime line up for fifth season. He's got a good
role in this one, with some surprising twists and nice bits in it.
It's clearly a different role for him, but has enough similarities
to the "Crazy Eddie" character on "First Wave" that once again
the connotations brought from that show actually help make this episode
work better.
One area of slight concern is whether two of the concepts in this story
really work well together. If humans have contact with extra-terrestrials
that is established well enough to produce trade agreements, how significant
does the "first" mission to Mars remain? The E.T.'s have probably already
been there many times, and may be able to reveal much about Mars that we
would otherwise have to piece together haphazardously. Do humans and E.T.'s
venture on joint missions? If so, a mission to Mars may only be a big
deal to the humans. I've covered a few other important aspects of
human proactivity vs. reliance on aliens in my review of
"Star Trek 8: First Contact",
so I'll point interested readers there and refrain from repeating myself.
What we do actually get in this episode can easily still work, but
perhaps an extra line of alt-history dialogue here and there could help
calm the yellow flags.
In the end, we have here another one of the gems of the show that
all "Sliders" fans should see and enjoy, and it remains yet another
significant notch in season five's belt. Good one!
This story has become available on DVD.
Click on the Amazon symbol for the location nearest you
for pricing and availability:
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Season 5
DVD Box Set
Region 1 NTSC
for the North American market:
in the U.S.
in Canada A
in Canada B
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Season 5
DVD Box Set
Region 2 PAL
for the English/German European market:
from Holland via the U.K.
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the author from this page:
Contact page
LYRATEK.COM
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Read the In-depth Analysis Review for the next story:
"Easy Slider"
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