That Time Robert Englund Brought a Robotic Nightmare to Season 3 of Sliders

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A post shared by on Jan 01, 2022 at 12:00pm PDT

https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/remem...n-3-of-sliders

In Season 3's "State of the A.R.T.," Robert Englund plays an alternate Earth roboticist, with a secret.

By Cassidy Ward Jun 9, 2025, 1:51 PM ET

Over the course of five seasons of SYFY's Sliders (streaming now on Peacock), Quinn Mallory (Jerry O’Connell) and the rest of the Sliders visited dozens of alternate Earths, each different from our own in at least one key detail. Between visiting a world with fire-based organisms and another about to be destroyed by a pulsar, they stopped by an Earth almost entirely populated by robots.

The city is a ghost town when the Sliders pop out of their portal and onto the street in the Season 3 episode “State of the A.R.T.” All of the buildings are well maintained and everything is clean, but there’s nobody around. The only thing out of place is a mangled collection of metal and wires, lying in the street. Suddenly, a couple of people come running toward them, chased by an armored vehicle firing laser weapons.

In the middle of Season 3, all four of the original Sliders were still in action. The episode stars O’Connell, Sabrina Lloyd, Cleavant Derricks, and John Rhys-Davies as Quinn, Wade Welles, Rembrandt “Crying Man” Brown, and Professor Maximillian Arturo, respectively. The episode also features supporting performances by Eddie Mills as D.E.R.I.C. (short for Delta model Emotional Response Intelligence Chip unit), Kathleen McClellan as E.R.I.C.A. (short for Emotional Response Intelligence Companion unit), and horror icon Robert Englund as Dr. James Aldohn.

Robert Englund, from Elm Street to the multiverse of Sliders



Englund is undoubtedly best known for his portrayal of the king of nightmares, Freddy Krueger, in A Nightmare on Elm Street. But did you know he’s a classically trained actor, having attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at Oakland University?

His career began on the stage, before transitioning to film in 1974’s Buster and Billie. Englund broke into mainstream genre fare with his portrayal of Willie, an alien technician and part of the resistance movement in the classic science fiction series V (1983). A year later, he delivered the performance that would come to define much of the rest of his career.

From 1984 through the mid-’90s, Englund’s career was dominated by Elm Street and, even after Krueger was put to bed, Englund remained a fixture of horror, and entertainment in general. After more than 50 years in the industry, Englund has racked up nearly 200 credits including performances in Galaxy of Terror (1981), Bones, Chuck, Criminal Minds, and more. Along the way, Englund slid into an episode of Sliders to play an entirely different sort of monster.

After the attack on the street, the sliders realize the victims were robots and they carry one back to their temporary hideout. That’s when they meet D.E.R.I.C., a humanoid robot crafted by Aldohn Robotic Technologies.

He knows Dr. Aldohn as Father, the creator of every intelligent robot on the planet. When the RPP (a robotic police force hunting down other robots) shows up, the party splits and things go sideways. Wade, Arturo, and D.E.R.I.C. escape, but Quinn and Rembrandt are captured and taken back to the factory, birthplace of all robots and home to Dr. Aldohn himself.

He’s the last living human being on this Earth, surrounded only by the facsimiles he’s created, and he has no intention of letting Quinn or Rembrandt leave. In the beginning, robots took over the jobs people didn’t want to do, then they took over the rest of the jobs and the humans rebelled. Some of the robots fought to preserve their existence and humanity was wiped out. Dr. Aldohn needs Quinn and Rembrandt’s brains in order to test a technology for transferring living minds into a computer construct. If successful, it would allow Dr. Aldohn to join his children and live forever. But nothing on this world is as it seems, not the robots, and not Dr. Aldohn.

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How can you build or create a female android robot similar to the character E.R.I.C.A., as portrayed by actress Kathleen McClellan in the television series episode of Sliders (from its third season in 1996) entitled "State of the A.R.T."?

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Originally Posted by TMC

How can you build or create a female android robot similar to the character E.R.I.C.A., as portrayed by actress Kathleen McClellan in the television series episode of Sliders (from its third season in 1996) entitled "State of the A.R.T."?

• Can green gel really conduct electricity to areas that aren't hardwired?
  
• Can you still repower an android robot with badly burned circuits by working around the damaged areas (or by improvising)?
  
• Can you build a functional access panel for an android robot with a spinal bundle that can disable and deactivate the robot when pulled from out of its back?
  
• Is it plausible for a recently or just activated android robot to need to reset its special orientation coordinates?
  
• Can a humanoid robot really have internals analogous to the human form? For example, a bundle of wires running down the spinal cord being the android robot's central nervous system or metal plates being its vertebra.
  
• Why would one deactivated humanoid robot lie with its eyes and mouth open while another won't?
  
• What kind of android robot is E.R.I.C.A. (as portrayed by Kathleen McClellan) in the Sliders television series episode "State of the A.R.T." (Season 3, 1996)?

[TMC]

Originally Posted by TMC

How can you build or create a female android robot similar to the character E.R.I.C.A., as portrayed by actress Kathleen McClellan in the television series episode of Sliders (from its third season in 1996) entitled "State of the A.R.T."?

• What is the exact design and capabilities (fictional specs) of the female android robot character, E.R.I.C.A. as portrayed by actress Kathleen McClellan in the Sliders television series episode "State of the A.R.T." (Season 3, 1996)?
  
• How fashionable would it be for a woman to wear a silver leather jacket and pants, silver platform boots, silver lipstick and eyeshadow, and a light blue shirt? Actress Kathleen McClellan wore an outfit or costume that's similar to this when she portrayed an android robot named E.R.I.C.A. in the Sliders television series episode "State of the A.R.T." (Season 3, 1996).

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Retro Review #33: “Chat A.R.T.”

FANDOM ENTANGLEMENT is back with another retro review of the 90s sci-fi series SLIDERS. This time, we’re chatting in real time about Season 3, Episode 11, “State of the ART” (original airdate: December 6, 1996 on Fox).

The Sliders land on a world where the human race was wiped out by robots. Quinn and Rembrandt are captured by the robots’ demented creator who has plans to use them in a mind-transfer experiment.

The episode’s teleplay was by Nan Hagan from a story by Schuyler Kent, was directed by John Kretchmer, and guest-starred the one-and-only horror legend Robert Englund as James Aldohn.

Human co-hosts Damon Sugameli & Mike Bloxam are pleased to welcome back human author Erik Dreiling as we discuss the timeliness of this story in the advent of the very quickly-rising A.I. revolution. Ironically, this used to feel like a standard-fare episode that is now much more relevant and leaves more of an impact that it did nearly 30 years ago. Is A.I. only as smart as the humans who created it? Will the near-future bring us pleasure bots determined to serve their masters or terminators determined to eradicate us from existence? One thing we can all agree is a good thing: Robert Englund’s creepy and unsettling performance as the villain of the story. Another thing you can count on with absolute certainty: this entire description was written (as it always is) with no A.I. assistance.

Hope you enjoy our analysis and review (100% free of chat bots)!

Carefree Black Nerd Presents: Stumbling Through The Multiverse, A Sliders Review w/ Robert K. Jeffrey II.

10- The Sliders end up on a world where legal disputes are settled on a television game show, and Quinn is soon involved in a case of mistaken identity.

11- The sliders (John Rhys-Davies, Jerry O'Connell, Sabrina Lloyd, Cleavant Derricks) encounter a world where a master manipulator (guest star Robert Englund) seemingly has created robots to replace human beings.

On this episode of Sliding Through Dimensions, we take a look at “State of the A.R.T.”, where Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt, and the Professor land on a world run by robots. Humanity has mostly stepped aside, leaving machines to handle everything—from daily life to medical care.

Things take a dark turn when Quinn and Rembrandt are captured by a scientist who has transferred his own mind into a robotic body. As they learn more about his experiments, they realize he’s been trying to make robots more human—without any regard for human life. Meanwhile, Wade and the Professor work to rescue their friends before the next experiment begins.

Join us as we talk about the episode’s take on artificial intelligence, what it means to be truly human, and how the Sliders once again find themselves questioning the cost of progress in a world gone mechanical.