Six paragraphs in and I just got it.. it's a cross between Quantum Leap and Sliders!!!

So I seem to have discovered a new show! It was on some obscure chanel in the upper-hundreds (which made it rather difficult to track down what it was called after I'd thoughtlessly changed the station). After a lot of narrowing down, I've determined that it's name was something like "The City between Cities", although more appropriate would have been "The World Between Worlds".

The premise is there's this scientist who was working on a device to, obviously, cross over to another parallel earth, and each episode would revolve around him taking someone over to that other earth so they could learn an important lesson about themselves. You get to see the machine in the opening credits, it's a convoluted looking series of tubes and straps that you would lay face down in, when the machine is activated there was steam everywhere, I think it was powered by a sort of built up charge of ambient heat. However, after the main character/scientist guy used it once, after that he could just transport between the worlds using a series of what sounded like mumbo-jumbo, but was probably some Indian dialect, or chinese or something, to suggest that the process was a mix between science and astral projection or something. I guess, come to think of it, that it'd be just like how John Carter gets to Mars in that book/movie.

The main character/scientist looked a lot like Scott Bakula... in fact the whole show in general seemed to be a bit of a Quantum Leap rip-off. Fine by me!

I got to see the end of one episode, and then I think the beginning of that same episode later (good old mountain time!) as well as part of another two episodes. I'll relate what happens in each.

The first thing I saw was the scientist giving a dog to this one guy who was scared of animals. It was revealed that he had used to love them, in fact this dog was an alternate universe version of his own old dog, one that hadn't died when he was a kid. But he wasn't just scared because his dog had died, that wouldn't have quite made sense. It sounds like his dog actually killed his aunt before dying (I guess the dog would've been put down after doing that...) and that's what traumatized the guy. Makes sense. But our scientist main character stresses to the guy that his dog was sick (I'm guessing rabies, right?) and so it wasn't the dogs fault. The guy seems to accept this, is glad to have "his" dog back, and the scientist lays a hand on both this guy and the dog, says his incantation, and they all pop back into their home dimension. End of episode.

I'm glad I got to see the beginning to this episode, just so that it made sense why being afraid of animals was a big problem for this guy. How was he in any contact with them at all? Well, it looks like on their world (their home dimension can't be ours either, since we don't have this practice) he's a sort of race car driver, and it's tradition for their to be a sort of back-end to the racers following the cars- a bunch of horses following after. If their are multiple horses it might make sense that it's actually a whole separate race, that they just happen one after the other on that world. Car race- go! then horses- go! Then maybe they release the hounds, why not? So the guy would always be so wary of those horses getting out of the block that all the other racers would have a huge lead on him, and when the horses were caught up to again going around the track, this driver would again be slowed down to a large degree taking that extra time to go even further than everyone else around the horses. The announcer said this was a practice that they only really had at that stadium, but that the remainder of the racing season was going to be taking place at that stadium, so if this guy didn't get over his fear his career would be ruined.

I didn't see at all how the main scientist got involved or why. Maybe he wanted to bet on this guy? That doesn't seem like his character, but I'm just guessing.

From the other two snippets of episodes I saw (it's possible that they were the beginning and ending to another single episode, I could see the one going in that direction) this important story element was gotten across: gravity and or physics worked differently on the other earth (also, it's winter on the base earth and summer on the other earth- the heat on the other earth makes it easier to gather power to make the jump back. Though it's also easier as it's more of a snapback than a pushing forward. It's the rubber band effect. Regardless, ambient heat seems to allow the process, and the whole thing can be sped up on the main earth because they have a device collecting power for the jumps, but on the other earth they have to rely on their own bodies I guess. Meaning they may be trapped until they gather enough heat energy or something.). That was a long bit of parentheses. Right, gravity and physics. So people transferring over to the other earth are inordinately stronger than they would ordinarily seem to be. This is mostly used for transportation, which makes sense from a story perspective: you don't want to spend every 15 minutes of an episode getting the main characters some car SOMEHOW. This way they can just super leap anywhere they want to go.

In fact they could leap to such an absurd degree that it's actually easier to find someplace by leaping than by using a map. That doesn't make sense. But regardless we got to see how this other world is set up, since presumably most of the adventures would take place in a particular section of that world. We got to see that this city was spread out over a series of islands clustered east of the north american continent. I imagine now that the idea is New York and Maine states, in this reality, aren't attached to the mainland. That's what it looked like to me anyways. Oh, but, don't quote me on Maine, that's just a guess.

The McDonald's all serve hotdogs and bags of chips (not burgers and fries), the automatic doors open and close slightly faster than on our world (get used to that rythm or get hilariously squashed), and it's socially acceptable for men to be wearing high-heeled shoes. Those may be all the main differences that I noticed.

So in this other episode I got to see the scientist go to this other world with two people, a guy and girl (again, they didn't have to sit in the device at all, the scientist just grabbed their arms, said his unintelligible phrase, and boom, there they were) and leap around to do some exploring. The girl ends up feeling sick from the teleport process, so the guy jumps around frantically searching for a hospital to bring her to, not knowing where to go since the scientist left them for some other quick business. I guess he's got business on this other world, I don't know. Makes sense if he's there all the time. It's during this sequence that we get to see the McDonald's and everything. Soon the scientist shows up and tells the guy that he's already brought the girl to a hospital.

That's all I saw of that, BUT if I assume that the other thing I saw was part of the same episode, then it looks like the guy is taught a process to be ultra strong (even beyond what happens normally from being on this world.. this lends credence to the idea that they are only travelling as a sort of avatars that can have whatever "programmed" strength. Maybe I was wrong about them taking the dog back with them in that previous episode...). It somehow works by leaping high into the air and concentrating, as his muscle mass undergoes a sharp increase. When he returns to the surface he immediately attacks the scientist (since the girl is nowhere to be seen, she may have taken a turn for the worse, that would explain everything anyways). The scientist takes advantage of his greater familiarity with the world and the abilities he's gotten used to, and is mostly able to outmanouever and outfight this guy- however the guy does eventually land a punch that sends the scientist literally flying, crashing through trees and whatnot. It was pretty spectacular, and definitely gave a good incentive to not get hit again.

The fight goes on, cool as it was, there wasn't much story to it. The scientist, with his greater speed and agility, not hampered by the excess strength, won the day. The guy was done, exhausted, and finally the scientist held the guys shoulder, said the phrase, and that was the end.

For the sake of narrative sense, let's say the girl had died, explaining why the guy was upset, and why she wasn't there for the return trip. Alternatively, this may have just been another episode.

So I suppose this show was more a mix of Quantum Leap, Sliders, and all the John Carter adventures. That's a pretty impressive mix- what hasn't John Carter inspired?

Finally, my big reveal... I didn't actually see this show on some late night chanel, I haven't had cable  in over a year. This was all a dream I just had. However, I DID actually dream that I was watching it on tv, with cable, and had tried to search out the show with the guide thing that tv's have nowadays.

But what's great about that is that it means I get to be the creator/writer of all this stuff, just now! Awesome!

Uh, with many thanks to, again, Quantum Leap, Sliders, and the John Carter series of novels, even though I'd only seen the big budget Disney movie.