Originally aired July 16, 1999
Written by David Gerrold
Directed by Richard Compton
When Mallory is paralyzed while fleeing from an anti-nanotech army, his only chance of walking again rests on a similar world where that very same nanotech has been accepted for its healing properties, though not without a price.
Tropes present in the episode:
- Bittersweet Ending: Mallory is cured and convinces the locals to choose for themselves how to deal with the nanotech. On the other hand, Mallory says he can no longer feel Quinn.
- Calling the Old Man Out: On the third world, Jill condemns her father for building the Dead Man's Light.
- Dark and Troubled Past: The reason Mallory embraces The Glow is because he spent five years in a wheelchair and doesn't want to go back.
- For Want Of A Nail: The three featured worlds all relate to the nanotechnology and feature the same guest doubles.
- First world: society resisted the Believers (those who used the nanotech) and actively hunted them, with Krislov leading an attack on the Sliders.
- Second world: the Believers won the struggle and were free to spread the nanoprobes. Krislov (having to walk with a cane due to injuries from the war) laments losing his daughter, Jill, to The Glow and cautions the team to not let Mallory fall victim to it.
- Third world: development of the nanotech stalled, so neither outcome could occur. While Krislov is healthy as can be, Jill struggles with a chronic medical condition that only The Glow could fix.
- Government Agency of Fiction: The Bureau of Internal Reconstruction (BIR).
- Hero Antagonist: On the third world, the other three Sliders become BIR Men.
- I Did What I Had to Do: How Rembrandt and Maggie justify forcing Mallory through the vortex.
- Mental Fusion: People infected with The Glow become connected.
- Patient Zero: Mallory becomes this in a world where he's the only one infected with The Glow, and he's willing to spread it around.
- Riddle for the Ages: With both the nanoprobes and the Dead Man's Light available to them, what will the people of the third world decide to do and what will happen next?Jill: We choose... as individuals.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Mallory towards Rembrandt and Maggie for forcing him to slide.
