On a world where people are consumed by consumerism and live in giant, "floating" malls, the Sliders get jobs as mall employees – Arturo is a reluctant Santa, Rembrandt and Wade his elves while Quinn gets an administrative job. Meanwhile, Wade faces some strong emotions when she meets her sister and father.

World From:

Jungle World : A world inhabited by pygmies. Wade almost gets the Sliders killed when she smiles at a local – unaware that doing so means that she wants to have his children.

Duration:

Unknown.

World Into:

Mall World : Wade doesn't exist on this world, or so she thinks, actually she died at birth along with her mother.

Duration:

Two days.

Timer Status:

Fine.

Details, Details:

• The bus that Carol hops on is the Sky High Plaza Employee Shuttle.
• Plaza shops include: Jodi Maroni's Sausage Kingdom (Home of the Haut Dog), The Nature Company, Victoria Jewelers, Victoria's Secret, Lerner New York, and Toy Mania.
• Toys the boy wants include a Sammy Spender Doll and a Cosmic Turbo Fighter Jet. He also mentions a sticky, gooey thing but Arturo interrupts before he can name the item.
• Ted's promotion will bring him and Kelly to a mall called Paly, up north.
• A man named Steve is responsible for selling the subliminal advertising tapes to Ted Bernsen.
• While Wade is trying to hack into Bernsen's computer, the screen reads "Sky High Plaza / Security Level Three / You have 60 seconds to enter your password or security will be notified."

Personal File:

• While Wade believes in mysticism and such, she is also devoutly Christian.
• We finally get to meet Wade's sister, Kelly Welles, who is older and father, Don (Donald) Welles.
• Wade shared her bedroom with Kelly on Earth Prime.
• Quinn says he lost his father when he was eleven years old.
• Quinn's Christmases had been "empty" from the time his father died until he was about 15 years old when he mother and he went to a tree farm and picked out a tree that reminded Quinn of his father's passion for pathetic-looking trees.
• Wade's mother is blonde and is named Liz.
• During the final days of World War II, Arturo's mother brought him out into the English countryside to spend some time with his elderly aunts. The second night they was there, the house was bombed. Arturo's aunts were killed and Arturo awoke to find the firemen pulling his dead mother off of his chest in order to rescue him. The firemen then had no way of knowing who this little boy was as Arturo's father was fighting the war in India. As a result, little Maximillian was placed into an orphanage where he remained until after the war was over and his father came to get him.
• The Christmas of 1945, as such, was very special for Arturo – and his father gave him a blue, hand made wooden car with black wooden wheels. It was the "best gift he ever could have given," the professor says fondly.
• When Wade's sister was nine, she found all of the hidden Christmas presents and told Wade that it ruined Christmas for her.
• The first boy that Kelly ever kissed was Christopher Sliney, who promptly ran home.

Arturoisms:

• "Christmas is a time for miracles – miracles and faith."

Script Snips:

• "I don't suppose you'd want to trade, would you?" – Remmy, dressed as an elf, to Arturo, dressed as St. Nick.
• "Think happy, think toys, think sales." – the employee motto at Christmas.
• "Uh, this kid I grew up with." – Quinn, explaining to Kelly who Charlie Brown was.
• "Remmy, something's going on with you man. Trust me, you don't love us this much." – Quinn in trying to figure out why Rembrandt has bought so many gifts for the others.
• "Always love to perform for the little people." – Remmy as he is about to sing 'Silent Night' for the baby.

Rewind That!:

• While Ginny the hot dog girl is telling the Sliders that they can't buy food with cash, Quinn steals a French fry while she's not looking.
• When the picture is taken at the end of the episode, Quinn displays a really goofy smile.

Remmy Sings:

• Christmas carols remodeled to encourage spending: To the tune of "Hark the Herald Angels Sing," he tries: "Prices are the lowest here..." and "Hark the herald jewelers sing/Buy your wife a diamond ring."
• At the end of the episode, he sings the first few (traditional) lines of "Silent Night" with baby Alexander in his arms.

Money Matters:

• It sure does on Mall World. The Sliders have enough cash to pay for their meal at Jodi Maroni's, but the mall doesn't accept cash, only credit/debit cards provided by the mall. Looks like the four are going to have to get jobs again but the jobs are more equivalent of slave labor as employees only get $200 per day. Half of that $200 is taken off for housing and $80 per day must be spent at the mall – that leaves $20 per employee per day left over.

Nit-picks:

• John Rhys-Davies is obviously very uncomfortable in the Santa getup, especially the white fake beard over his own. He pats the beard down or touches it at least 33 times during the episode.
• As Bernsen and his goons, with Arturo and Remmy in tow, approach the base of the escalator at the climax of the episode, Arturo is seen with his arms at his side. In the next scene, standing around the escalator, they are being restrained behind his back.

Neat-picks:

• When Arturo agrees to hold the baby, he says "I would be delighted, as a matter of fact, I delivered a little fella like this not long ago," a reference to his mid-wife duties Prince of Slides where he delivered Remmy's baby.

History Lesson:

While the malls are floating palaces high above the Earth, ground level is called 'the flats.' Many of those who live in the flats believe that the malls are paradise.

The Sky High Plaza contains schools, libraries and a hospital. There are three regions, Western, Central and Eastern and two levels. The employees of the mall reside in the Western Region on the first level.

The employees who cannot pay off their debt on demand are not allowed to leave the mall. Like Prison World in El Sid, they wear bracelets that shock them if they pass outside a certain, approved perimeter.

The plaza does not accept cash, only credit from a debit card called a "Plaza Card" (see Money Matters).

Most of the employees are in debt to a credit company called Crescent Vista.

The malls have been around for at least 20 years or so.

Guest Stars:

Co-Starring:

Unaccredited:

• Baby Alexander.

The Inside Slide:

• This episode was originally scheduled to air on December 13, 1996.
• "The Christmas show ... has been the most difficult episode to work on because I have to dress up as an elf throughout most of the episode," Jerry says. "The pointy ears, the clogs, the striped socks, the whole nine yards. We shot a lot of it outside, and shot in the mall yesterday, and I was eating lunch with that on in public. That was a little embarrassing."
• Sabrina Lloyd concurs: "... These pointy ears. People at the mall ... kept asking if I was a Vulcan or something."

Closed Captioning:

• It's interesting to note an omission in the dialogue that would have somewhat carried on the storyline about Wade's desire to have children. After the four realize that the baby's mother has vanished, Arturo asks Wade to hold the baby while he heads for the bus. He hands the child off to Wade without a glitch, in other words, the child is silent, but in CC, it reads "baby cries." One has to wonder if the producers intended some irony by having Wade longing for a child, but basically disliked by babies in general.
• As the Sliders ascend the escalator towards the mall, Quinn suggests that the 'floating' mall is balanced on massive tiers. Arturo says "Well, if it's not, there's been a significant change in the laws of physics." However, closed captioning states that the line once read "Well, if it's not, someone here has made a quantum leap in the laws of physics." [It's possible that 'quantum leap' was excised due to the ultimate comparisons made between Sliders and the 1989-1994 NBC time travel show "Quantum Leap."]
• In the same breath, Arturo says that "one can hardly admire a world that places shopping in higher esteem than motherhood." However, CC reads "one can hardly admire a world that reveres architecture over motherhood."
• As with Rules of the Game, there are slight differences between what the p.a. announcer says and what appears as his dialogue in CC throughout the episode. As the Sliders are [still] ascending the escalator, the announcer says "Attention shoppers, only two more shopping days till Christmas. Show someone your love with that extra special gift. Instant credit loans always available." Yet in CC, it reads "Attention please, only two shopping days till Christmas. Show someone you love them with that special present. Instant extra-credit loans always available."
• As it turns nighttime, and Arturo continues telling the children those wondrous and meaningful stories, a suit-clad Quinn approaches Remmy to have a talk about how everything is going. Though Arturo's story in the background is muffled on screen, the closed captioning reads that he is actually relating "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" to the kids. It reads "So you see, the Whos didn't care about their gifts. What was important to them was Christmas, and being together."
• As Arturo and Remmy are being hauled away by Bernsen and his goons, Arturo tells the children, "Children, don't worry, Santa's just going to feed the reindeer." But in closed captioning, he said "Children, watch. Father Christmas is being arrested."