DVD Extras (included with season 2):
The enjoyment continues as it is revealed that one of the Sliders' contacts is played by actor William B. Davis, whom all X-Files fans will immediately distrust and suspect of being a leading part of some conspiracy. Thankfully, he is only playing Professor Myman in this tale, and so is not forced to smoke himself silly. He and John Rhys-Davies have a nice little exchange full of tension as the Sliders continue to try to find their feet in this world. Quinn and Arturo each get one of the story's major plotlines to contend with. Quinn finds himself captain of the local "Mindgame" sports team, trying to take the team to a championship whilst enduring added pressure from his double's secret life. It sounds like a formula guaranteed to make a hero out of him by the end, and this plotline immediately makes great strides in boosting his skills and positioning him for it. By the end of the second quarter of the story, the writers demonstrate that they know how to craft the kind of final victory that Quinn has been needing since the show began - only they've put it in the middle of their episode. Arturo's plot strand becomes much more personal, and reveals backstory and depth that remain a great credit to his character. With all of this going for it, "Eggheads" turns in an absolutely outstanding first half. But things start to unravel soon after. Actress Gabrielle Rose, who also played Mrs. Budahaas in the second episode of "The X-Files", turns in a fine and very believable performance as Arturo's jaded wife, but the right stuff just isn't in the script at this point. All throughout their scenes together, we have no real clue what Arturo is trying to achieve with her. We only know that he is holding back the full truth for reasons unknown, and acting little better than the lame wuss she knows his double to be. So this subplot doesn't turn out so great.
"It's like everyone expects me to be Wayne Gretsky!"Quinn's main plot also begins to slip in the third quarter, as he loses faith in what he is doing. Technically, this can still be made to work easily, since this is the classic stage where heroes reach their low point, and have to dig down deeper than ever into their reserves and their souls to find the inspiration to achieve their biggest victory yet for the story at hand. But I think Quinn is shown to sink a bit too low, full of run-away mentality and unable to answer - with honesty or wit or anything worth viewing - any of the significant heat that gets rained down on him by character after character after character.True to classic structure though, Quinn gets a brilliant idea to solve his problems, and gets back in the game and back on form. Great! Now we're all full of anticipation to watch him claim a double victory. But the episode really doesn't deliver well. To avoid spoilers, I'll save my dissection of the ending for the In-depth Analysis version of this review, which I encourage you to read after seeing the episode. Let's just say that I find the ending needlessly idiotic enough to make one sick. And so, pardon me if the ending we do get isn't enough to make me feel good about the heroic opportunities clumsily thrown away by Quinn and the team that wrote for him today.
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