Quinn Mallory
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| Quinn Mallory | |
|---|---|
 Jerry O'Connell as Quinn Mallory |
|
| First appearance | Sliders, Part One |
| Last appearance | Revelations |
| Statistics | |
| Nickname(s) | Q-ball |
| Year of Birth | 24 January 1973 |
| Occupation | Physics graduate student |
| Relatives | Colin Mallory (brother) |
| Portrayed by | Jerry O'Connell |
| Created by | Tracy Tormé Robert K. Weiss |
Quinn R. Mallory (born 1973) is a fictional character on the television show Sliders, portrayed by Jerry O'Connell. Quinn was raised in San Francisco.
Contents |
[edit] Background
[edit] Childhood
Quinn Mallory was born in 1973. The driver's license in "Summer of Love" indicates his birthday is January 24, but in the same episode, Wade says that Quinn is Libra, which would put his birthday between September 23 and October 22.
Quinn was skipped ahead two grades in school, at some point before 1984. However, due to excessive bullying he received in school, Quinn would have rather been known as an athlete among his peers than as a brain, but being skipped ahead two grades made him smaller and slower than his classmates in junior high school. Quinn's father died in 1984, when Quinn was 11. The week after Quinn's father died, several students bullied Quinn at school, which ended in an incident where he hit another student with a baseball bat. Quinn shattered the other student's knee and he walked with a limp for the rest of his life. This made Quinn feel guilty for a long time.
In the episode Summer of Love (Sliders), Quinn confesses to the Professor that he was starting quarterback in high school (thus despite being slower than his classmates in junior high, he became an athlete in high school). In the episode Slide Like an Egyptian, Quinn meets his father in the afterlife while Quinn is being used for life after death experiments. They discuss how they enjoyed throwing the football together.
[edit] Invention of sliding
Quinn Mallory attended UC Berkeley during the early 1990s to earn his master's degree in physics, specializing in superstring theory. In 1994, he invented a device that allows people to travel from one parallel dimension to another. Quinn refers to this technology as "sliding". On September 27th, he went through the vortex with his friend Wade Welles and professor Maximillian Arturo. Rembrandt Brown happened to be traveling in the area and was accidentally pulled into the vortex. The four of them landed on an earth where San Francisco was in an ice age. There was a deadly tornado heading their way, but because of the way the sliding technology functions, their only choices were to reset the timer and potentially lose the possibility to go home, or to wait for the timer to hit zero and go home then. Since the tornado was likely to kill them, they had to reset the timer, and lose the ability to go home. For the next five years, Quinn and the others slide randomly to each world with a fixed amount of time on each one, hoping each slide will be the slide home.
[edit] Distant origin
In the episode Genesis, Quinn learned that he is not originally from the Earth he believed he was from (Earth Prime) but that he is actually from Kromagg Prime: an Earth where humans and Kromaggs coexisted. Quinn learned that he was transported to Earth Prime when he was a baby and left with his parents' doubles. When his parents came back to get him, his adoptive parents were too attached to him so they hid Quinn, and Quinn was raised on Earth Prime. Quinn only learned this after he returned to Earth Prime after the Kromaggs had invaded two months prior.
[edit] The Unstuck Man
In late 1998 or early 1999, in the season five episode "The Unstuck Man", Quinn and his brother Colin were unwillingly part of an experiment by Oberon Geiger to merge people and worlds together. As a result of this experiment, Quinn was merged with a fraternal double of his who was referred to as Mallory (although his double's personality became dominant). After this double of Quinn, usually known only as "Mallory," was sliding for a while, the sliders met back with Dr. Geiger (in the episode "Eye of the Storm") and he attempted to unmerge Quinn from his double. Dr. Geiger said that the two have been merged for too long and the only way to bring Quinn back would require killing his double. Rembrandt said that Quinn wouldn't want that, so Dr. Geiger ended the experiment and Quinn was presumed to be gone for good.
[edit] Personality
From 1994 to 1996, Quinn was very wide-eyed and eccentric, a quintessential nerd who was ever curious and naive about virtually everything related to science. In late 1996, Quinn became less quirky and more of an action hero. Fans sometimes express the opinion that he lost his intelligence, as well.
With the move to the Sci-fi Channel in 1998, some fans argue Quinn's character returned more to the science nerd role, only now burdened by responsibility and guilt (over the loss of Arturo and Wade).
[edit] Beliefs
- In the episode, The Breeder, Quinn said, "I thought the military draft was bad on our world," after learning about a requirement on an alternate earth for young adults to be organ donors.
- Quinn often expresses opposition to killing murderers.
- Much to Arturo's annoyance Quinn often refused to turn a blind eye to people in need (such as in the episode "El Sid"). This do-gooder trait often initiated the episodes storylines.
[edit] Relationships
- Wade Welles: The two were close friends, working at the same computer store. Wade had a crush on Quinn, something that he was too oblivious to notice for some time. Afterwards, both were too shy and occupied by the situations they were thrown in to enact upon their feelings; it was never followed through due to a calamity befalling the sliders.
- Maximillian Arturo: Being Quinn's professor, it wasn't always easy for him to accept his student surpassing him. However, at most times, Arturo doubles as a surrogate father for Quinn. Quinn's relationship with Arturo meant a lot to him and Quinn was very hurt when Angus Rickman murdered him.
- Rembrandt Brown: Initially, Rembrandt was at odds with Quinn, being the only slider not to consent to sliding. The bitterness continued for a short duration, but dulled as Rembrandt gained respect for Quinn. The two became fairly close friends, though they still occasionally harbored conflicting views. Rembrandt gave Quinn the nickame "Q-ball".
- Maggie Beckett: Quinn might have been attracted to Maggie Beckett. In "The Breeder", Wade remarked to Quinn, "You have a thing for her [Maggie]?" which Quinn denied. In "The Exodus, Part Two", Dr. Jensen (Maggie's husband at the time) accused Quinn of having romantic interest in Maggie, saying "I see the way the two of you look at each other and I don't like it." Quinn told Dr. Jensen that he felt Maggie is just someone he had to put up with but Dr. Jensen did not believe him. In "Roads Taken" Quinn and Maggie were married in a "bubble universe" that existed only for the two of them.
[edit] Trivia
- The episode "The Young and the Relentless" reveals Quinn's middle initial to be R. This is because the show's creator, Tracy Tormé, also has R as a middle initial [1].
| Sliders |
|---|
| Characters |
| Quinn Mallory | Wade Welles | Rembrandt Brown | Maximillian Arturo Maggie Beckett | Colin Mallory | Diana Davis | Mallory Recurring characters of Sliders |
| Concepts |
| Earth Prime | Kromagg | Kromagg Prime |
| Actors |
| Jerry O'Connell | Sabrina Lloyd | Cleavant Derricks | John Rhys-Davies Kari Wuhrer | Charlie O'Connell | Tembi Locke | Robert Floyd |
| Staff |
| Tracy Tormé | Robert K. Weiss | David Peckinpah |
| Episodes |
