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** This is an archived, static copy of the Casebook messages boards dating from 1998 to 2003. These threads cannot be replied to here. If you want to participate in our current forums please go to https://forum.casebook.org **
Sliders: Murder Most Foul
Casebook Message Boards: Ripper Media: Specific Titles:
Television (Fiction):
Sliders: Murder Most Foul
Author: Stephen P. Ryder
Thursday, 19 November 1998 - 08:38 pm |        | Sliders: Murder Most Foul
Aired -- Friday, January 3, 1996
8:00 PM EST, FOX TV (US)
60 mins.
Fans of the popular American television series SLIDERS will have been pleasantly surprised by last week's episode, entitled MURDER MOST FOUL, which incorporated Jack the Ripper into its plot. For those who are not regular viewers of the programme, the series is a science-fiction enterprise in which four characters (Quinn, Dr. Arturo, Rembrandt, and Wade) "slide" a la QUANTUM LEAP into different dimensions in each episode, where they are in the same time and the same place, but in a world where there are apparently miniscule differences.
In this particular episode, the adventurous foursome slide into a world where the world's geniuses are carefully monitored through a secret and omnipotent government programme. Should one of these geniuses become "fractured" (the definition of which is left fairly vague, but it appears that for some reason the individual has an equivalent of a mental breakdown), they are sent to a laboratory where they are implanted with a fictional personality from 19th Century London. The idea being that they immerse themselves in the fictional character, eventually clearing their minds of all "fractured" sections, after which time they are mentally cleared and their old personalities restored. If this sounds complicated to you.... IT IS.
In any event, they are then entered into a lifelike Victorian set, where actors portray East Enders of the period 24 hours a day in order to help the "fractured" geniuses. The set is so lifelike that even the Ripper murders of 1888 are re-enacted, with DVs (designated victims) who feign death in order to help perpetuate the health of the fractures. And so it is that Dr. Arturo is mistaken as a fractured genius, and entered into the Victorian set believing he is a world-famous detective named Doyle (perpetuated by some sort of hypnotic pocket-watch), trying to solve the murders. The other three sliders enter the set as actors in order to help their friend. Unfortunately, disaster strikes as the timer necessary for them to slide to the next world is stolen by a small child who disappears into the fog. Then to make matters worse, a woman is murdered for real, in the same style as the faked Ripper murders -- only we learn that the woman who was killed was a case of mistaken identity.... the killer really wanted to kill Wade.
In a strange twist of events, Quinn learns that the child who stole the timer is really a fractured genius himself. He finds him and retrieves the timer, but in the meantime the Ripper has found Wade. Luckily, Dr. Arturo breaks the pocket-watch by accident and regains his original identity, naming the Ripper and barely preventing his friend's death. From there, the dimensional porthole opens and the foursome slide into a new adventure.
A somewhat twisted and confusing turn of events, and the link with Jack the Ripper really has very little historical foundation, but an enjoyable programme all the same. Don't go out of your way to find a copy -- just wait a few months for the end-of-Spring re-runs to begin and you'll be sure to come across it. |
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