Sliders (TV Series)

Season's Greedings (1996)

John Rhys-Davies: Prof. Maximilian Arturo

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Quotes 

• Prof. Maximilian Arturo : [Quinn punches a bad guy]  Tis better to give than to receive.

• Prof. Maximilian Arturo : Everything here is fake; including me. What the devil am I doing, playing jolly old Santa Claus, contributing to this... fraud on children.

  Rembrandt 'Crying Man' Brown : That last story didn't sound like perpetuating the fraud to me; you were trying to teach the kid a lesson.

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : Yes, and do you think he heard me?

  Rembrandt 'Crying Man' Brown : Eh, maybe he did.

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : No, I don't think so. Look at parents so consumed by consumerism... Oh, dear. All this wretched advertising and, jingles.

  Rembrandt 'Crying Man' Brown : So you're just gonna let 'em down because it's too much work to reach them? Look, you're wearing that suit, it comes with strings attached. You've gotta keep trying.

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : [sighs]  I don't think so.

  [the boy from earlier tugs on his sleeve; he adjusts his beard and turns around] 

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : Yes?

  Jason : [choked up]  Santa, I broke my little brother's favorite toy and, I-I promised I'd get him a new one, but I never did. Please don't bring me a sockful of coal.

  Rembrandt 'Crying Man' Brown : [long pause; kneels]  Did you know that telling the truth has just put on Santa's good list?

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : Yes, it did.

  Jason : May I hear another story?

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : Yes, of course you can. Did I tell you the one about the impudent elf who taught Santa a lesson?

• Quinn Mallory : I looked up a few other employees' files and they've all got huge credit lines from a company called Crescent Vista Funding. Carol's in for over six figures.

  Wade Welles : But why would a company loan money to people who couldn't pay it back?

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : Oh, they will, Miss Welles. They will... with high interest over the entire course of their life. Slavery is another word for it.

• Carol : When your father came back to get you, did everything work out okay?

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : We had many good holidays together, but that was a very special Christmas. It was postwar England; no toys to be had anywhere. So, he made me a little wooden car with black wooden wheels and painted it blue. When he gave it to me, I remember, his hand were shaking slightly and I looked up into his eyes and I saw there were tears in them. That was the moment I knew my daddy was home and that he loved me. Best gift he ever could have given me.

• Carol : I used all of my available credit to pay someone to smuggle me out. That's how I was able to get Alex to the Flats. Now he won't have to grow up a prisoner, like his mother.

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : No, he'll just grow up with the horror of having been abandoned.

  Carol : Who are you to judge me? What I did, I did for him.

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : Carol, listen to me. In the closing days of World War II, I was a small child. My mother took me out to the country to spend some time with some elderly aunts. The second night we were there, the house was bombed. My aunts were killed. I woke up to find the firemen pulling my dead mother off my chest. She had thrown herself over me to protect me, you see. They did not know who I was. They had no way of identifying me. My father was in India, fighting. So, they put me in an orphanage 'til the war ended and he came back to pick me up. For months, every day and every night I wept because I knew I would never see my parents again. All my life, I have lived with the fear and terror of that abandonment. I beg you, don't do this to your child. Don't let your child grow up with that demon.

  Carol : I won't. I'm going to pay off my debt, I'm going to have this removed and then, I'm going to get him back.

  Prof. Maximilian Arturo : Look, will you wake up? This system is so set up that you can't possibly pay back the debt. You are always going to have this on your wrist and unless we do something special, you will never get to see your child.