Originally aired January 3, 1997
Written by David Peckinpah
Directed by Jeff Woolnough
An increasingly hot-tempered Arturo is kidnapped and sent to a fantasy camp where he is hypnotized into believing that he is a detective on the trail of a nefarious serial killer. As the other Sliders try to find a way to restore Arturo to normal, complications arise when a young boy steals the timer and dismantles it.
Tropes present in the episode:
- Becoming the Mask: Arturo's brainwashing leads him to think he's Reginald Doyle, an Expy of Sherlock Holmes. Through the course of the fantasy, he solves the case.
- Child Prodigy: Trevor dismantles the timer and rebuilds it without any complications.
- Disposable Sex Worker: Wade and the other "tarts" in the fantasy murder mystery game.
- Gone Horribly Right: Dr. Bolivar oversees Arturo's brainwashing into Reginald Doyle, which ultimately leads to him being exposed as a murderer.
- Jack the Ripoff: With a twist. The Reginald Doyle mystery is set in Victorian England and about catching Jack the Ripper. Everyone but Arturo knows it's just pretend, but there really is a killer in the park and using the game as a cover to actually kill people.
- Mind-Control Device: The pocket watch given to Arturo. The brainwashing isn't permanent on its own, so every time he looks at the pocket watch, it reasserts the conditioning.
- Oh, Crap!: Wade when she realizes she was the intended target.
- Rage Breaking Point: Arturo is on edge from a bad mood and sliding into some garbage. He loses it when one of the locals accidentally spills some coffee on him.
- Red Herring: An inadvertent example in the phony mystery. As Doyle, Arturo deduces that Jack's first two notes (which were part of the game) were written by Inspector Reed—meaning he would've been revealed as the story's killer at the conclusion. However, the note from the actual killer has different handwriting, which "Doyle" notices. As he confronts the real killer, he notes how Reed's actions were a charade that distracted him from the truth.
- Shout-Out: To Sherlock Holmes, particularly with naming the Professor's character "Doyle."
- Street Urchin: Trevor's role in the mystery. It's through the course of this that he sees the real killer in action.
- The Reveal: Dr. Bolivar is the real killer.
