Originally aired June 22, 1998
Written by Keith Damron
Directed by Richard Compton
On a world where virtual reality is commonplace, Maggie is injured in an explosion and awakens to find they have missed the sliding window, but not everything is as it seems.
Tropes present in the episode:
- All Just a Dream: Maggie was put in VR after the explosion during The Teaser and spent about half the episode that way.
- Artistic License – Military: Invoked. Randall initially tries to convince the team that they've slid back to Earth Prime and that the Kromaggs have been routed. Randall tries to pass himself off as a military official, but Maggie sees various flaws in his disguise and story.
- Continuity Nod: Part of Randall's military deception involves offering Rembrandt a Naval commission so that he can formally join the fight against the Kromaggs. Rembrandt having been in the Navy was mentioned several times last season.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Duvall blames Randall for Maggie being rescued, saying he was sloppy for not expecting Quinn and Rembrandt to take action.
- Exact Words: Holding a gun on Randall, Maggie says she's putting an end to all of this right now. She doesn't kill him, but she does destroy all of the sliding research they got from her.
- Foreshadowing: When posing as a military officer, Randall talks about debriefing the group, including talk of the resources of other worlds. That turns out to be his true motivation for acquiring sliding and how he pitched this scheme to his bosses.
- It's Personal: Maggie wants to settle the score for Randall manipulating her and using her to get the secrets to sliding.
- Kiss Me, I'm Virtual: The episode has some fun with it. Maggie plugs into Quinn's VR fantasy to get him back to work and finds he's in bed with a virtual version of herself. Awkwardness and arguing ensue, but later when it looks like Maggie's going to kiss Quinn for real, it's revealed that she's been in VR the whole time.
- Race Against the Clock: In the real world, the group only has less than three hours to get the timer back.
- The Scapegoat: After Maggie is rescued, Randall is informed by Duvall that he'll be on the hook for any failure. She was in on this whole thing, but she'll gladly bury him over it to save herself.
- Virtual-Reality Interrogation: People on Randall's world want sliding technology for themselves. Maggie is made to think the team missed the slide and that Quinn needs to build a new timer. Because her husband researched sliding extensively, Maggie's brain is picked for any information she may've heard.
- Visual Innuendo: A not-very-subtle one. A man wears VR goggles to paint, and it's explained that he believes he's painting a masterpiece. Cut to a shot of a man inserting a long tube into a tunnel.Rembrandt: Man, I don't wanna even know what he thinks he's doing.
- We Need a Distraction: To get back the timer and put a stop to the experiment, the group needs a diversion to get past building security. The first idea is to simply turn off the workers' VR units and causing them to experience the withdrawal symptoms, but Maggie doubts that'll be enough. She suggests instead manipulating the VR system to show people their worst nightmares, which does work.
- Wham Shot: Just as Maggie's about to kiss Quinn, he suddenly shorts out and is revealed to have been a VR simulation.
- Women Are Wiser: Duvall chastises Randall for not focusing on Quinn (the actual scientist) and for sloppy mistakes that result in Maggie being rescued.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: While pointing out the flaws in Randall's military cover story, Maggie believes he's actually a Kromagg using the kind of mental tricks that Quinn and Rembrandt had told her about. Actually, she's just in a VR simulation, essentially a different kind of mental trickery than psychic powers.
