• Registered: 2021-07-04
  • Posts: 1

Topic: Thoughts about one of my favorite shows.

Hey gang, I'm new to the board & wanted to share some thoughts about one of my favorite TV shows.

To begin, Sliders, to me, symbolizes an era in American & world culture that I feel was sadly lost after 9/11. What I mean is, when I grew up being born in 1983, and it may be rose colored glasses but I felt it was a very unique time in overall history. I got to see some pretty amazing things such as Hubble going into space & optimism of us going as well, the Hale-Bob comet, Star Trek TNG first run, Mortal Kombat, TMNT1, I was a ghostbuster with every toy and suit (grandparents spoiled lol), I went from hearing Ozzy & Metallica one week to Nirvana the next.. then Cobain's passing, I got to grow up with hip hop turn into rap & whatever it is now. I got to learn to love techno/Big Beat with performers like Fatboy Slim & The Crystal Method, the movie hackers & tech progression, all the blockbusters like Forrest Gump & T2 judgement day, seeing Twister at a drive-in opening weekend and most importantly I got to experience a message to the youth of that time that the future of the millennium with a blooming Internet would bring a new hope for society. A post cold war, end of the century celebration that was the 1990s and millennium.

IMO, we as a society were close to something special then, not just from being young & idealistic but it was a sense that people were done with the old ways of world wars & segregation & inequality, maybe not for all just yet but certainly on the right track with the message of tolerance and inclusiveness given to the youth. You may not agree & that's okay. It's how I remember being taught in schools then. Some examples of a communal future was Napster, file sharing & the Internet or World Wide Web kinda still then, which was more than mere sharing of music & those at the top knew that. Free sharing of information.. along with programs like ICQ, chat rooms & such, sharing our lives directly without some middle man big tech company & less fear of exploitation. I'm not saying that was the reason for 9/11 but I do think the control over the distribution of information might of been a factor. I still wonder, as a possible Sliders episode, what if 9/11 didn't happen. How would our society have developed differently and it makes me sad at the loss of potential going into the year 2001.

Pushing all that politics & nostalgia aside & rewind a few years, here comes a TV show somewhere in the middle of a decade of those 90s that had a plethora of possibilities, optimism, hope & creativity. A multiverse before Disney, what if stories similar to the Twilight Zone, a creator & talent from a hit Sci-Fi franchise via Star Trek, a handsome well known young man, an esteemed wonderful experienced actor, a wholesome loving Singer/Actor and a cute girl next door that many, including myself, had a crush on. All with enlightened morals of a just society against the extremes of that society. Sliders changed my life. Even when it went to the SciFi channel I watched every episode because I loved the spirit of infinite possibilities and thought. I even thanked JRD on Youtube last year for giving me the inspiration to be an intellectual which influenced my desire & career for computer science, the Internet and abstract enlightened thought. His character is a figure head to me along with Doc Brown, Rod Serling & TNG Picard among a few others that escape me at the moment.

And here we are now, almost 30 years later with science & math & entertainment highlighting a quantum multiverse idealism among many other story lines from the show that keep coming true. AI & viruses, political ideals & so on. The show has basically become a prophet of modern times, which is surreal to me. Lol I'm waiting for scientists to clone Dinosaurs & have a park in california any day now.

If I were to be excluded from such a community that I believe also sees the show as I do, for better or worst would be like taking away something deep in my heart I held onto through decades of ignorant arguments over how bad it got & how "off the rails" it became and also never knowing if it would ever come back to air. I wish I could be as dedicated as other core fans but as daily life pulls us away from the things we love that didn't happen. Plus I never liked the idea of a fan because it's short for fanatic. I always considered myself a strong admirer of stories, scifi & Sliders. Maybe I place too much weight on the show but in a world that has flipped upside down from the world of the 90s I once knew & experienced, the show has turned into a beacon of light. I myself at the moment am going through difficult times trying to find a job against bot application denials from over experience & under official education in tech career & minimal experience with hand based, trade or fast food jobs. Staying with family after losing savings due to the pandemic. I'm not looking for any handouts, only providing perspective. I've been rewatching the series this week, thinking about where I could go from here in my life. I'm sorry for dumping this but I hope you understand. Sliders in my eyes is a message of hope, not just on multiple worlds or Earths but on our Earth and in our darker or extreme times. The possibility and power of what if & imagination beyond the current now. A message of abstract enlightenment, not just with science or religion or a B level TV show but the sheer concept of possibility in the life we live & how we make those possibilities our reality on this planet.

---

I also want to comment on the direction of the show after season 2 or 3. When I first watched Sliders & taking into account my words prior, as I said, I accepted every season up to the last episode. Do I admit many episodes could have been better written, sure. However, I realized one hypothesis the show could use to explain every episode within cannon and how it became "off the rails". Here's my theory..

The premise of the show is travelling from universe to universe which Arturo explains in PTSD, with straight aligned layered universes side by side BUT I always though of each slide as a jump from a new plain or level to a banch of the last. The best way I can describe it is with the scene from Back to the Future 2 & Doc Brown explaining the Alternate 1985. He draws a branched line off of the prime timeline. Think of that as the first Slide(minus Double Quinn giving prime Quinn the answer to the equation) onto the red light go, green light stop universe. Then as the show story progresses they become lost. Each new slide is like a new branch of a branch of a branch of the multiverse, even Doc Brown explains if Marty went to the future of the alternate 1985 then it would be the future Alternate 1985 & not the prime 1985 which is what kinda happened to the Sliders. They slid to a new branch of close probabilistic & proximity universe BUT for each new slide, that reset the timer to make it reset as the initial prime slide. The timer had a Y2k bug and THAT took them further & further from the prime universe. The timer was programmed to execute each new slide as if it was from the prime universe.

This can also be thought of like a spiral or vortex. As a spiralled vortex goes around & around it slings out further & further from the previous point along the same orbit. Draw a spiral out & stop at 1 outer loop, then draw a line from the center, then draw another loop around & again continue the straight line to the second orbit and so on.. That line will become farther & farther between spiral curved orbits. That is what could be explained in cannon. After years of Sliding the spiral journey they took would have a huge orbit around it's center starting point. The time going around the orbit would be irrelevant since it's a instantaneous wormhole slide. Because each new world is further & further conceptual distance from prime, then the ridiculousness "off the rails" stories become justified. A different way to think of it is, just as the moon spins too fast around the Earth (it does) then gravitational pull is eventually lost and eventually it flings off into deep space (will happen one day IRL). Another visual is like skipping a rock along a infinite size lake and each skip jumps further & further exponentially. The story of the Sliders were following the pattern of a outward spiralling vortex or perhaps a whitehole.

Further more Wade brings this up in her diary in the opening of 'Greatfellas'. She says she believes they were going further & further away from their home world but Quinn insisted it was random. By season 4 & 5 the story cannon itself was flung way out. Also, dealing with multiple abstract dimensions means they can also overlap such as the times arrow going backward, time travel, astral planes, delayed or accelerated time progression, spatial distances would become meaningless like sliding over 500 miles around CA. Lastly it also explains the last episodes warning by the psychic TV writer saying there were no more slides he could see. The spiral vortex of the story was so far out that it was beyond comprehension or measurement. Much like the Cosmic background radiation of our IRL universe limits our view of the true scale to the universe. Maybe Remmy slid beyond the conceptual horizon like into a universe without laws or a absence of a universe or just one too far out of a point of no return information.

In my eyes the show became it's own premise and that is great to me. Other things to point out are the various story lines completely left open to help tie it all together, Mr. Bennish, the genius kid from 'Murder most foul', Quinns future kid from 'Love Gods', the Cromag arch, the search for Remmy after S5 and OG PTSD Arturo. Splitting new Quinn back to OG Quinn or saying season 4 & 5 Sliders were a set of different doubles Sliding than the Earth prime of season 1. All of it could be tied in a neat 10 dimensional bow. The power of possibility & hope.

Thanks all who read this whole thing. I hope it made sense.

  • Registered: 2015-06-22
  • Posts: 1,296

Re: Thoughts about one of my favorite shows.

Ubercoo wrote:

Hey gang, I'm new to the board & wanted to share some thoughts about one of my favorite TV shows.

To begin, Sliders, to me, symbolizes an era in American & world culture that I feel was sadly lost after 9/11. What I mean is, when I grew up being born in 1983, and it may be rose colored glasses but I felt it was a very unique time in overall history. I got to see some pretty amazing things such as Hubble going into space & optimism of us going as well, the Hale-Bob comet, Star Trek TNG first run, Mortal Kombat, TMNT1, I was a ghostbuster with every toy and suit (grandparents spoiled lol), I went from hearing Ozzy & Metallica one week to Nirvana the next.. then Cobain's passing, I got to grow up with hip hop turn into rap & whatever it is now. I got to learn to love techno/Big Beat with performers like Fatboy Slim & The Crystal Method, the movie hackers & tech progression, all the blockbusters like Forrest Gump & T2 judgement day, seeing Twister at a drive-in opening weekend and most importantly I got to experience a message to the youth of that time that the future of the millennium with a blooming Internet would bring a new hope for society. A post cold war, end of the century celebration that was the 1990s and millennium.

IMO, we as a society were close to something special then, not just from being young & idealistic but it was a sense that people were done with the old ways of world wars & segregation & inequality, maybe not for all just yet but certainly on the right track with the message of tolerance and inclusiveness given to the youth. You may not agree & that's okay. It's how I remember being taught in schools then. Some examples of a communal future was Napster, file sharing & the Internet or World Wide Web kinda still then, which was more than mere sharing of music & those at the top knew that. Free sharing of information.. along with programs like ICQ, chat rooms & such, sharing our lives directly without some middle man big tech company & less fear of exploitation. I'm not saying that was the reason for 9/11 but I do think the control over the distribution of information might of been a factor. I still wonder, as a possible Sliders episode, what if 9/11 didn't happen. How would our society have developed differently and it makes me sad at the loss of potential going into the year 2001.

Pushing all that politics & nostalgia aside & rewind a few years, here comes a TV show somewhere in the middle of a decade of those 90s that had a plethora of possibilities, optimism, hope & creativity. A multiverse before Disney, what if stories similar to the Twilight Zone, a creator & talent from a hit Sci-Fi franchise via Star Trek, a handsome well known young man, an esteemed wonderful experienced actor, a wholesome loving Singer/Actor and a cute girl next door that many, including myself, had a crush on. All with enlightened morals of a just society against the extremes of that society. Sliders changed my life. Even when it went to the SciFi channel I watched every episode because I loved the spirit of infinite possibilities and thought. I even thanked JRD on Youtube last year for giving me the inspiration to be an intellectual which influenced my desire & career for computer science, the Internet and abstract enlightened thought. His character is a figure head to me along with Doc Brown, Rod Serling & TNG Picard among a few others that escape me at the moment.

And here we are now, almost 30 years later with science & math & entertainment highlighting a quantum multiverse idealism among many other story lines from the show that keep coming true. AI & viruses, political ideals & so on. The show has basically become a prophet of modern times, which is surreal to me. Lol I'm waiting for scientists to clone Dinosaurs & have a park in california any day now.

If I were to be excluded from such a community that I believe also sees the show as I do, for better or worst would be like taking away something deep in my heart I held onto through decades of ignorant arguments over how bad it got & how "off the rails" it became and also never knowing if it would ever come back to air. I wish I could be as dedicated as other core fans but as daily life pulls us away from the things we love that didn't happen. Plus I never liked the idea of a fan because it's short for fanatic. I always considered myself a strong admirer of stories, scifi & Sliders. Maybe I place too much weight on the show but in a world that has flipped upside down from the world of the 90s I once knew & experienced, the show has turned into a beacon of light. I myself at the moment am going through difficult times trying to find a job against bot application denials from over experience & under official education in tech career & minimal experience with hand based, trade or fast food jobs. Staying with family after losing savings due to the pandemic. I'm not looking for any handouts, only providing perspective. I've been rewatching the series this week, thinking about where I could go from here in my life. I'm sorry for dumping this but I hope you understand. Sliders in my eyes is a message of hope, not just on multiple worlds or Earths but on our Earth and in our darker or extreme times. The possibility and power of what if & imagination beyond the current now. A message of abstract enlightenment, not just with science or religion or a B level TV show but the sheer concept of possibility in the life we live & how we make those possibilities our reality on this planet.

---

just gonna comment on the first half first.   and first off, welcome to the board here.  there's some good discussion here, and I think you'll like  it.

regarding your comments quoted above, I totally agree sliders really taps into the  anything is possible thing that can give us a sense of hope.  as many of commented over the last year or two, some people wish they could escape out of this universe.  or like we are living in an alternative one.

i am not quite so sure things were as rosey as they seemed prior to 9/11 however.  we obviously had the gulf war (which led to 9/11).  moreover, i think there was a lot of ugly we simply were less exposed to on a daily basis, because we dont have social media.  the news cycle, which gets put on steroids, and injected into our veins, is a lot to take -- maybe more than humans were designed to handle.  but just because we didnt have to deal with some of the ugly realities as much, it doesn't mean they didn't exist.  i always feel though the 90s brought with them some trepidation, and as humans we also tend to almost need to find a crisis to fight against if things are relatively good.  maybe some surival mechanism.

JRD really was an influence  and an inspiration.  sliders gave me some idea of how penicillin / vaccines work.  nothing i ever learned in school. 

regarding your difficulties, please try to hang in there.  i always think of what i am lucky to have rather than what i am unlucky to not have.  and life can be a challenge, it's part of the deal.  just do your best but never lose your zest for the world, even if it's easy to.

  • Registered: 2015-06-30
  • Posts: 981

Re: Thoughts about one of my favorite shows.

Have you seen Future Man (Hulu show)?  It went 3 seasons but has a lot of the kind of Sliders aspects to it.  Small group, constantly hopping timelines to fix it (get home).

  • Registered: 2021-01-21
  • Posts: 74

Re: Thoughts about one of my favorite shows.

Grizzlor wrote:

Have you seen Future Man (Hulu show)?  It went 3 seasons but has a lot of the kind of Sliders aspects to it.  Small group, constantly hopping timelines to fix it (get home).

I love Future Man. I thought it was a great show and it was pretty funny as well. Also since you were talking about comparisons between Future Man and Sliders, in an episode of Future Man, they get out of Haven by jumping through a portal. Reminded me of Sliders even though they referenced Stargate instead lol.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,323

Re: Thoughts about one of my favorite shows.

In terms of a job search -- the best advice from a generalist perspective is to locate specific advice that's relevant to your region from people whose specialty is helping other people find jobs. In my youth, I stumbled around a lot before finding the Quinn Mallorys and Professor Arturos of job searching -- mostly people in the not for profit sector. But there were many wrong turns and blind alleys when looking for them.

After university, I meandered and floundered in the face of job hunting advice from random acquaintances or family members, advice that included writing 5 - 6 page autobiographies for every job application or being told to apply to positions with requirements I didn't meet.

Some of this advice came from people offering anecdotal experiences that weren't as universal as they thought; some came from people whose last attempts to find positions were decades in the past meaning their suggestions were no longer applicable; some came from people more interested in appearing knowledgeable than providing useful knowledge.

Eventually, I realized that none of these people were capable of or interested in helping me. I sought out a temp agency, thinking their purpose was to find people jobs. However, four temp agencies provided no guidance, only phone calls saying a position was available and that I had to consent to have my name put forward followed by a phone call saying someone else had been chosen. I soon realized these agencies only cared about claiming to have available candidates to employers but were not concerned with placing their candidates with employers.

Later, I found a city program that finally helped me unlearn all the bad advice I'd previously received. There was a tax and donation-funded program that offered a one hour workshop on how to write a resume that was tailored to the specific job opening as well as a one hour workshop on how to prepare for job interviews by anticipating all possible questions, preparing responses and rehearsing them in advance. I imagine that today, they would educate participants in how to deal with online application forms.

This served me well for finding some entry level work in a stage theatre and in after school tutoring. Later, I had to find another employment assistance service that was able to review my work experience and education and identify the specific fields that could conceivably hire someone with my abilities and this helped me find a first step towards what would, after many years, lead to a management position.

It was a long and difficult road that, even after these sessions, required extensive effort. When I was unemployed, I was filling out 30 job applications a day, reviewing them one day later before sending them, and working on the next 30 for the day. When I was employed part time but in need of better earnings, I was filling out 10 job applications per weekday and 60 over the weekend. I would get about one response for every 20 applications.

I don't know what services are available to whoever is reading this because this geography will determine what is and isn't available and whether or not it's affordable. The assistance I received came from free services paid for by government grants or fundraising and were specific to my city, and some of them don't even exist any more.

However, the basic principle is the same: if you are experiencing difficulties, you must find expert advice from someone whose specialty is conveying the principles and practices of effective job searches and job applications. This advice may be on a limited basis if you can't afford to pay for it.

You will also need to be able to distinguish between effective and ineffective advice. Effective advice is specific, offering clear steps to well-defined results that are plausible and achievable within the present day and current circumstances. Ineffective advice is based in empty platitudes and anecdotes relevant only to the person sharing them and achievable only within a specific time period that no longer exists (if at all).