I have been watching off and on the DVD collection I have for the racketeering production the 1995 television series "Sliders." I have just reached, watching the episodes sequentially, a scene in the episode from season 2, which was the third episode, and was titled "Gillian Of The Spirits," when I had the profound need to make this observation. I think about it now after having paused the DVD that making this observation is not really that important, and that annoys me because I want to describe something here that will get me out of this godforsaken place, but I am compelled to document it anyway. I do not recall a single detail about that episode. I have the DVD paused about the nineteen minute point and there has been not one single detail that seems familiar about that episode. That's kind of surprising because if "Sliders" was on television today then I would watch it if it was on a broadcast television channel and I am pretty certain I was watching that television series back then.
What the scene reminds me of is something that I was actually thinking of several days ago. Several days to a couple weeks ago. I was thinking of a time in the context of my artificial memory. In the context of my artificial memory I was married to a woman and her father asked me to repair a television remote control for him. The way I remember it all, as was common to my work in the 1990's, when I worked out of that office in First Federal, I often used a soldering iron to repair electrical devices. Her father asked me to repair his television remote control and he told me specifically what component needed repair. The way I remember it the remote control needed no replacement parts. All it had was an electrical lead that needed resoldering. Sitting here writing this sentence and trying to remember precise details I think to myself that maybe it could have been dropped on the floor and the soldered component broke apart. So I took it back to my office and I put it off for a long time. Eventually Tracie asked me about it and she said her father was asking about it. The work to repair it took only less than a minute. Waiting for the soldering iron to heat up took longer than the repair.
So now I am watching "Gillian Of The Spirits" and the whole episode is about how their "slider" device is broken. The device, which always reminds me of a cellular telephone from back in those days, is about the size of television remote control.
But the dialog specifically mentions that televisions do not exist in that time-dimension. There are no television repair shops, "Arturo" explains, in the telephone book.
They have jumped into an alternate dimension world, in that severe work of Nazi propaganda specifically designed to steal my private property, where advanced technology does not exist.
So they meet the father of "Quinn Mallory." Only when they are talking to him that he hands back to "Arturo" their broken device that something seems profound about that. Apparently, he is part of some kind of underworld organization that is actively defying the law against advanced technology and he gives "Arturo" some tools he has hidden to work with electronics. "Quinn" is trying to scream to "Arturo" about how the polarity is wrong and sparks fly and then "Arturo" is complaining about how he is only a theoretical physicist.
Watching just now this episode the plot element of "Quinn" becoming not only invisible, but transparent, reminds me of thoughts I have had in recent years. I might have even written several months ago about me becoming transparent and I was thinking of how I would interact with the reality of this world. That notion was expressed in that episode early on when "Quinn" tried to pick up a stone and he could not because his hand passed through it. But as I have sometimes thought about with the 1990 film "Ghost," which I cannot recall ever seeing, since the very early 1990's, his feet don't have trouble remaining above the surface of the ground.
So in the episode, no one else but "Gillian" can see or how "Quinn" and he can talk with her. "Rembrandt" confesses to the priest, and that is how they find "Quinn's" father. "Gillian's" mother disapprovingly takes her to the coffee shop from church, where "Quinn," lurking about, suddenly noticed that "Gillian" could see him.
There might have been some other point I wanted to make here but that slipped my mind long ago.
http://www.tv.com/shows/sliders/gillian-of-the-spirits-29783/
tv.com
Sliders
Gillian Of The Spirits
Season 2, Episode 3, Aired 3/15/96
Quotes
Arturo: How am I expected to work like this? I'm a theoretical physicist, I work with universes, not piddling little stuff like this.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0702733/quotes
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Memorable quotes for
"Sliders"
Gillian of the Spirits (1996)
Rembrandt 'Crying Man' Brown: If there's one thing I've learned over the years, Professor, it's that there're only two people you trust to keep secrets.That's a lawyer and a priest. And a priest doesn't charge you anything.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0702733/plotsummary
IMDb
The Internet Movie Database
Plot Summary for
"Sliders"
Gillian of the Spirits (1996)
In a world where technology has been banned after the event at Hiroshima, the Sliders must find a way to fix the timer that was damaged by lightning. Quinn doesn't fully materialize and must accompany his friends in a ghost-like state in the astral plane as they run into the Bureau of Anti Technology whose real motive is to build up their technological cache.
- posted by H.V.O.M - Kerry Wayne Burgess 05:29 AM Pacific Time USA Saturday 21 April 2012
