Topic: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

It's time to revive that old chestnut: how would you bring back SLIDERS at this point?

At least one or two boards ago, we talked about bringing SLIDERS into the twenty-first century and updating it with ongoing continuity and characterization and more complex backstories. I think I messed that thread up -- basically, I declared that we should write scripts based on the thread and we managed to complete one, but it drained the fun out of the thread. It turned a laid back discussion into Work. Since then, I have learned my lesson. So. No work here! Just chatter! You have unlimited budget. Unlimited casting! How would you bring back SLIDERS?

(I have always had a secret fondness for Pete1525's story idea where John Rhys-Davies revisits the characters and locations from "This Slide of Paradise" and confronts animal human hybrids.)

2 (edited by intangirble 2015-10-24 15:56:59)

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Frankly? I wouldn't. Sliders is Jerry O' Connell, Sabrina Lloyd, Cleavant Derricks and John Rhys-Davies. Any attempt to make a "21st century Sliders" that appealed to the same audience would want younger actors, and once you do that it's not Sliders any more.

We all saw how well the series survived losing its main cast (I.e. it didn't). That's why, though I like the premise, I'm not really searching for "shows like Sliders" or "shows about dimensional travel" these days. It's the people I love, not the story.

The only way I could see to do it would be to film your (ireactions') scripts, bringing back the Fab Four and casting them as their older selves. That's the only reboot I'd tolerate.

(Also, where can I find that story? That sounds cool.)

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

SLIDERS (2013): http://freepdfhosting.com/ab3f9e4b78.pdf -- It was an interesting enterprise. Writing a reboot script for SLIDERS with all the advantages that shows like FRINGE, CHUCK and COMMUNITY enjoyed. It didn't work out for a variety of reasons. The main reason is that I think it was asking way, way, way too much of the message board posters to work together on the story.

Posters gradually stopped contributing; I posted the script and received pretty much no feedback for almost half a year from the very people who'd written the outline. Why? Because I had turned a fun discussion into Labour and Effort and it wasn't a good time for them anymore. They didn't want to form a writer's room; they wanted to banter about an imaginary reboot. My fault, everyone. I seek to atone with this thread.

At the time, this zero-budget, PDF screenplay format seemed to be the future of SLIDERS, but the project quietly faded away like a lavishly planned date that we suddenly found we couldn't afford. Except that really *did* turn out to be the future -- in format if not in content.

intangirble wrote:

The only way I could see to do it would be to film your (ireactions') scripts, bringing back the Fab Four and casting them as their older selves. That's the only reboot I'd tolerate.

Uh. Read "Revelation" and "Reminiscence" before you commit to that opinion. :-)

It's odd. Reboot used to mean restarting continuity. Now it means bringing back any series that's been away for awhile. SLIDERS REBORN is not a realistic revival. It only appeals to 15 - 20 people on the Internet. I don't think of SLIDERS REBORN as the 2015 live-action revival anyway, I think of it as the 2015 comic book. REBORN is not something that can introduce SLIDERS to a new generation of fans.

I've always liked Temporal Flux's idea for a reboot. In 2000, he told me his idea for a SLIDERS movie. It would be a new Pilot. In 2001, Quinn Mallory and his friends find the gateway to parallel worlds, but on their first adventure, they lose their way back home. These would be doubles of the original sliders on an Earth where Quinn was older when he discovered sliding. Quinn would be studying for his doctorate, Wade would be designing promotions for Doppler Computers, Rembrandt would be a music teacher and the Professor would be the same. The 1995 - 2000 sliders would be set aside.

As the years passed, I have mentally updated the characters for this reboot. So, in my 2015 approach to TF's idea: Quinn would be a tax accountant who lost his passion for science after failing to create anti-gravity in 1994. Wade would be a tech journalist who has become utterly fed up with doing laptop and smartphone reviews. Rembrandt is running a coffee bar and moderately successful, but he only truly comes alive on open mic nights when he sings for an audience. The Professor is in disgrace after proposing some theory the scientific community was not prepared to accept and is now writing scientific study guides for desperate high school students. They are all failures in some way, some more than others.

Quinn and Wade have not been friends since that strange day in 1994 when Quinn kissed her and then denied it ever happened. The Professor and Quinn lost their relationship in 1994 as well, when Quinn mocked and insulted the Professor in full view of his class. Quinn has no memory of these events and never been able to explain himself.

When Amanda Mallory dies, Quinn goes to the house to clear out his things before selling the property. He visits his old basement for the first time in years, examining his abandoned anti-gravity project. And then he accidentally triggers the vortex. After visiting a parallel Earth and returning, Quinn finally realizes what happened in 1994; he opened a gateway to parallel worlds that must have attracted a sliding double who kissed Wade and insulted the Professor. He calls Wade and the Professor and pleads for them to visit; he explains what happened and shows them the vortex. Wade is eager to explore, the Professor reluctantly agrees, and when they step into the void, they accidentally draw in a passing Rembrandt as well and the adventure begins again.

Interestingly, when Matt Hutaff and I were discussing REBORN, Matt preferred the 'older doubles discover sliding for the first time' angle to a post-"Seer" approach. But Matt had a brilliant idea to make it so that these older doubles actually *are* the 1995 characters and just don't know it. It was a very clever idea that I shall decline to share here, but it might come to something. Someday.

I was *extremely* tempted by the reboot option, especially with Matt's little twist. But I ultimately decided against it.

Part of this was because I did not want to write Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo meeting for the first time. That struck me as the wrong note for an anniversary special. It seemed more appropriate to write a Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo who'd known each other for 20 years. And there was also one other reason that I need to withhold for a little while longer. ;-)

TLDR: The REBORN project is not a realistic revival; think of it as the comic book. There are ways to 'reboot' with the original cast.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

ireactions wrote:

It's time to revive that old chestnut: how would you bring back SLIDERS at this point?

At least one or two boards ago, we talked about bringing SLIDERS into the twenty-first century and updating it with ongoing continuity and characterization and more complex backstories. I think I messed that thread up -- basically, I declared that we should write scripts based on the thread and we managed to complete one, but it drained the fun out of the thread. It turned a laid back discussion into Work. Since then, I have learned my lesson. So. No work here! Just chatter! You have unlimited budget. Unlimited casting! How would you bring back SLIDERS?

(I have always had a secret fondness for Pete1525's story idea where John Rhys-Davies revisits the characters and locations from "This Slide of Paradise" and confronts animal human hybrids.)

I loved the script that came out of that project. Felt very authentic.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I'm actually in the middle of writing about that for my blog. I'm not writing necessarily about the fine details of how the story should go, but what I'd like to see in a reboot. As intangirble said Sliders really is the original actors.

slidecage.com
Twitter @slidersfanblog
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Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

It definitely looks like I will be in the minority here, but as much as I love the original cast (and, make no mistake, I LOVE the original cast), any continuation would just end up being far too convoluted and explanation heavy, ultimately alienating any potential new target audience which it would need to survive. Looking at the attempt of Heroes Reborn it has just shown that it is clearly being dragged down by the past (as well as some pretty poor writing) when instead, it could have been a more proper soft reboot - allowing both the new characters and the story to breathe without the weight of 4 seasons crushing down on it.

If the show were to revive (and even more importantly, survive once it has been revived) I feel like it would need to be a hard reboot, starting completely afresh with new actors playing the original characters. If they can get that chemistry right, then everything else will fall into place. It's not impossible to do so again, not matter how much I love the originals.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Generally, I think that when a show premieres, the actors have about 10 years where they still look to be relatively the same age as when they started. Tracy Torme conceived a story, "Slide Effects," to undo the David Peckinpah era in a single episode and get back to basics with Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo. The story rewinds time to the Pilot, then reveals the scenario (and all the episodes from "The Exodus" onward) to be a Kromagg simulation. This story, however, depends on the actors still looking to be close to their 1995 ages. You could sort of get away with a 31-year-old Jerry pretending to be 20 again -- lengthen the hair, watch the angles -- and then, when Quinn wakes up, you could have the lines and age in his face come off as the texture of reality versus the softened look of the simulation.

"Slide Effects" was a viable one-episode solution to getting SLIDERS back on track until about 2005. It's a shame the show wasn't brought back before that point for at least a short six episode run. That was the simplest, most effective, most immediate way of creating a bridge from Seasons 3 - 5 back to the simplicity of the original concept.

After 2005, the options became more complicated.

The only viable route I can see to reviving the show today and with the original cast is having older doubles discover sliding at a later point in their lives. Possibly with some gimcrackery to subtly hint that these are the same people we met in 1995 -- it's just that, for some reason, their memories were altered or history was changed.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Why not a Combination approach?

New and Original Sliders/Original Sliders Older Doubles?

New Characters to appeal to new viewers and the Awesome Foursome for us Old Skool Fans?

Your new Stuff ireactions features A New Girl and original Sliders dabbled with Guests even if usually for a one off Slide to varying success so perhaps...?

Balancing it all might be difficult but I feel it a worthwhile endeavour.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

ireactions wrote:

Generally, I think that when a show premieres, the actors have about 10 years where they still look to be relatively the same age as when they started. Tracy Torme conceived a story, "Slide Effects," to undo the David Peckinpah era in a single episode and get back to basics with Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo. The story rewinds time to the Pilot, then reveals the scenario (and all the episodes from "The Exodus" onward) to be a Kromagg simulation. This story, however, depends on the actors still looking to be close to their 1995 ages. You could sort of get away with a 31-year-old Jerry pretending to be 20 again -- lengthen the hair, watch the angles -- and then, when Quinn wakes up, you could have the lines and age in his face come off as the texture of reality versus the softened look of the simulation.

"Slide Effects" was a viable one-episode solution to getting SLIDERS back on track until about 2005. It's a shame the show wasn't brought back before that point for at least a short six episode run. That was the simplest, most effective, most immediate way of creating a bridge from Seasons 3 - 5 back to the simplicity of the original concept.

After 2005, the options became more complicated.

Oh wow. That would have been a massive 'f - you' and had the potential to get the show back on track. A shame, though I kinda feel like the damage had been done. I wonder if it could have taken off?

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Slide Override wrote:
ireactions wrote:

Tracy Torme conceived a story, "Slide Effects," to undo the David Peckinpah era in a single episode and get back to basics with Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo. The story rewinds time to the Pilot, then reveals the scenario (and all the episodes from "The Exodus" onward) to be a Kromagg simulation.

Oh wow. That would have been a massive 'f - you' and had the potential to get the show back on track. A shame, though I kinda feel like the damage had been done. I wonder if it could have taken off?

Well, you can see one fan's version of "Slide Effects" here. That said, it is a *fan*work. The second half of the 46-page script consists almost entirely of the Season 2 sliders watching clips of Seasons 3 - 5, horrified by the future ahead of them. This would not have been how Tracy Torme would have done it.

For one thing, Torme would never have bothered to watch Seasons 3 - 5 in their entirety. For another, TV doesn't really work that way; you can't have two whole acts confined to the same location with people standing around talking. I imagine that, rather than a clipshow, Torme's story would have had the Kromaggs tempting the sliders with offering a permanent illusion of home and happiness in exchange for information that would allow them to invade the sliders home Earth.

The sliders would have the chance to live (dream) lives of life where sliding was never created. But the sliders would reject the offer, declaring that sliding has made them all the best they can be and that they would never trade their adventures and friendship for anything.

At this point, they would escape the simulation, escape the Kromaggs, and slide off to new adventures, having realized that as long as Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo are together, they're home.

I don't think it would necessarily have been spiteful and angry towards Seasons 3 - 5 -- in that I don't think Torme would have been sufficiently familiar with the episodes to say much about them.

omnimercurial wrote:

Why not a Combination approach? New and Original Sliders/Original Sliders Older Doubles? New Characters to appeal to new viewers and the Awesome Foursome for us Old Skool Fans? Your new Stuff ireactions features A New Girl and original Sliders dabbled with Guests even if usually for a one off Slide to varying success so perhaps...? Balancing it all might be difficult but I feel it a worthwhile endeavour.

I think the NEXT GENERATION approach is something you only get to do if the previous generation was a success, which SLIDERS simply wasn't. Also, I think it is a little selfish to inflict a NEXT GENERATION approach onto a modern day audience. We got to see Quinn discover sliding. Step into the vortex for the first time. Experience a parallel reality for the first time. Knowing that he was a pioneer.

I feel like if we restart SLIDERS with sliding having been around for 20 years, we are denying our fellow audience members the chance to experience the joy and wonder of discovery that we got to feel in 1995. Admittedly, the Pilot undermines this almost immediately with Smarter Quinn having discovered sliding before our Quinn, so this is *entirely* a personal opinion that you can easily dismiss.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I like the idea of a well-animated movie. Maybe because I'm an animator by hobby using Windows default programs, but an animation reintroduction sounds like fun from my standpoint. Age is no issue with animated characters--- you'd just have to get the actors to do their voices. I'm just not sure what sort of a story such a thing would take on. If I were a better animator (and could progress beyond toony-looking versions of the Sliders in my artwork) I might attempt a few animations myself. But I am hardly proficient at animating humans.

Author, artist, sci-fi nerd, rebel against the world, and self-proclaimed eccentric.

12 (edited by Slide Override 2015-10-28 02:48:43)

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

ireactions wrote:

Well, you can see one fan's version of "Slide Effects" here.

Ah, will definitely have to give that a look, but want to get around to Sliders Reborn first.

I think the NEXT GENERATION approach is something you only get to do if the previous generation was a success, which SLIDERS simply wasn't. Also, I think it is a little selfish to inflict a NEXT GENERATION approach onto a modern day audience. We got to see Quinn discover sliding. Step into the vortex for the first time. Experience a parallel reality for the first time. Knowing that he was a pioneer.

I feel like if we restart SLIDERS with sliding having been around for 20 years, we are denying our fellow audience members the chance to experience the joy and wonder of discovery that we got to feel in 1995. Admittedly, the Pilot undermines this almost immediately with Smarter Quinn having discovered sliding before our Quinn, so this is *entirely* a personal opinion that you can easily dismiss.

This is exactly my problem with Heroes Reborn. The audience have been denied all that and more, and the past actually hurts the current series.

Cyrokin wrote:

I like the idea of a well-animated movie. Maybe because I'm an animator by hobby using Windows default programs, but an animation reintroduction sounds like fun from my standpoint. Age is no issue with animated characters--- you'd just have to get the actors to do their voices. I'm just not sure what sort of a story such a thing would take on. If I were a better animator (and could progress beyond toony-looking versions of the Sliders in my artwork) I might attempt a few animations myself. But I am hardly proficient at animating humans.

My only 'concern' with an animated movie is the temptation to do completely out there stories - ala season 3 - because of the near limitless budget that animation would provide for the adventures. If it could be kept grounded, then yeah, it could be awesome. In any case a fan animated version could be cool. Has anyone attempted anything like that before? With stuff like Anime Studio Debut, some simple animated videos could be done, and could suit a Sliders story if you could find someone to do the main character artwork.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Someone recently commented that the only difference between SLIDERS REBORN and "Slide Effects" is that REBORN will likely end up about 460 pages in total while "Slide Effects" is 46 pages and pretty much the same story.

It was rather harsh and hurtful, but it had the one virtue of being arguably true. ;-)

**

I find myself pondering -- how about imagining SLIDERS for a different market and demographic? What if it were a 22-minute Disney Channel sitcom aimed at pre-teens or an edgier MTV 22-minute dramedy aimed at the teen and college-age viewing audience? Would Quinn be 13 - 15? Maybe Wade's his college-aged computer science tutor?

Or how about imagining SLIDERS as a BBC production? I guess it would resemble the original SLIDERS in that, as with most BBC shows, constant cast turnover would mean that almost none of the Season 1 characters would still be in the show by the final season.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

That Turnover issue is a more recent Beeb trend sadly.
Beeb as a whole has degraded badly since the Late 90's early Noughties.

Red Dwarf kept a Consistent cast til the end of Starbug Alone Season and the Nanite Reconstruction of the Dwarf.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I don't know enough about Red Dwarf to comment, but I will say that UK television operates on a much lower economic scale than American television. The reason American TV can have 22 - 25 episode seasons is because of the huge amount of money available to pay and maintain a large writing staff with the resources to produce and film material relentlessly. The reason American TV can keep actors for seven years is because of huge sums paid to the actors to make them contractually obligated to stay with the show for multiple seasons.

In the UK, actors are only contracted for one run of episodes at a time unless it's a huge-scale, globally popular project like DOCTOR WHO and even then, the contracts are short compared to US television. Shows like HEX, BEING HUMAN, MISFITS and others only have the budget to shoot a small number of episodes a year. The money is not enough for an actor to live off of for the year, so they have to find other jobs in the meantime. Sometimes, a new season of the show is commissioned -- but the actor is not available as they've taken another job or they have no wish to return or they've lost interest -- and so the faces change.

The TV series, MISFITS, had a carefully chosen cast with the perfect blend of actors -- and one by one, they fell through the cracks of single-season contracts. The final episode of MISFITS had absolutely nobody who'd been in the first episode and each departed character left MISFITS adrift, confused and indistinct as a show with no idea of what it was about. HEX tried to play losing its lead character as shocking, but it was just awkward. BEING HUMAN had a fairly reasonable way of removing its lead actor that worked -- but then the supporting actors decided to leave with the lead actor and it was just inane, with one character dying offscreen between seasons and the other being abruptly killed off.

The system just doesn't work. I have no idea how they can fix it.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I'd agree with that.
Did you get around to watching the Sci Fi "Humans" ireactions? Apparantly that is getting a Season 2 with all the original cast.
In the case of Misfits however the Show was a suprise success which could explain some of it.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

My only 'concern' with an animated movie is the temptation to do completely out there stories - ala season 3 - because of the near limitless budget that animation would provide for the adventures.

That is definitely something I considered when I brought up the suggestion. If they wanted it to be authentic and really good storywise they should probably pull in some of the original writers from season 1 thereabouts. Then they'd have a chance of keeping an authentically Sliders story and have some great animations with it!

There's also a pretty cool method of 3D animation in which they use actors and some sort of technology to build the 3D models and do the animations on. They can then change whatever they like on an actor-based model, such as hair, eyes, costume, etc. (Not to mention the models are nearly real-life looking!) It's a bit hard to explain since I don't quite get it myself, but it would be a cool way to do an animated Sliders feature.

Author, artist, sci-fi nerd, rebel against the world, and self-proclaimed eccentric.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

omnimercurial wrote:

Did you get around to watching the Sci Fi "Humans" ireactions? Apparantly that is getting a Season 2 with all the original cast. In the case of Misfits however the Show was a suprise success which could explain some of it.

BEING HUMAN's US remake aired its fourth and final season in 2014. I don't mean to be rude, but I have to ask -- are you from the past? In a recent post, you said you'd discovered a new show called RINGER which lasted one season between 2011 - 2012. It's like you're writing posts from 2 - 3 years behind.

**

I wonder -- how about a SLIDERS gender-flipped reboot where Quinn, Remy and Max are women and Wade is a man?

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

No. Not Being Human. HUMANS. It is about Artificial Intelligence not the Supernatural.

As to Ringer.... I'd never heard of it til recently and I think this is the first UK Broadcast of it too.

On the issue of Gender Flipping, it could be Fun but beyond a few quirks the same their differing Gender should have made them rather different People.
Biochemistry, Neurochemistry, Social Conditioning, Attraction etc would influence them. This may be fun to explore but a Whole Series in that theme would be a gamble and large commitment.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

20 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2015-10-30 07:24:39)

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

omnimercurial wrote:

No. Not Being Human. HUMANS. It is about Artificial Intelligence not the Supernatural.

As to Ringer.... I'd never heard of it til recently and I think this is the first UK Broadcast of it too.

On the issue of Gender Flipping, it could be Fun but beyond a few quirks the same their differing Gender should have made them rather different People.
Biochemistry, Neurochemistry, Social Conditioning, Attraction etc would influence them. This may be fun to explore but a Whole Series in that theme would be a gamble and large commitment.


When you mentioned Humans I had thought you were saying it was on the syfy channel when you called it a scifi.  But you werent.  So your talkng about the amc show. Saw a few episodes myself it was pretty good and entertaining though nothing groundbreaking.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Not sure what amc is?
Production Company? Abbreviation or Acronym?

But yeah, nothing visionary. Enjoyed it though.
It was on Channel 4 here in the UK.

There was the British Actress with Red Hair who was in the I.T. Crowd and the British Actor who played the Assassin in Utopia... A few other familiar faces too.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

omnimercurial wrote:

Not sure what amc is?
Production Company? Abbreviation or Acronym?

But yeah, nothing visionary. Enjoyed it though.
It was on Channel 4 here in the UK.

There was the British Actress with Red Hair who was in the I.T. Crowd and the British Actor who played the Assassin in Utopia... A few other familiar faces too.


AMC is the channel it aired in the U.S. this past year.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

ireactions wrote:

I find myself pondering -- how about imagining SLIDERS for a different market and demographic? What if it were a 22-minute Disney Channel sitcom aimed at pre-teens or an edgier MTV 22-minute dramedy aimed at the teen and college-age viewing audience? Would Quinn be 13 - 15? Maybe Wade's his college-aged computer science tutor?

Or how about imagining SLIDERS as a BBC production? I guess it would resemble the original SLIDERS in that, as with most BBC shows, constant cast turnover would mean that almost none of the Season 1 characters would still be in the show by the final season.

Disney - Could work well, I think. The cast would definitely be young.  It would probably be more character-driven and deal with human story-lines rather than be driven by the environment.

MTV College - More like "The Almanac Project" meets the typical mtv teen/college soap opera.  Definitely more female geared than what it was on Sci-Fi channel.

sliders bbc - I'd be like a cross between Primeval: New World and Dr. Who

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I'm not super-familiar with Disney or MTV's output, to be honest. I watch GIRL MEETS WORLD and I'd like to declare that I only watch a show clearly aimed at teenaged girls because I was a fan of the original BOY MEETS WORLD, but I also watch BEST FRIENDS WHENEVER, so who would I be fooling? Both shows are, by conventional standards, absolutely terrible, but if you see them as stageplays put on by grade school children seeking to amuse their friends, they're kind of brilliant. The budgets are *extremely* low with the stories almost completely confined to regular soundstages. On GIRL MEETS WORLD, Cory and Topanga set out to celebrate their wedding anniversary, planning a horse-drawn carriage and a fancy dinner and an opera -- and due to weather and power outages, their wedding anniversary is spent on the train station stage. I love it, but I can't defend it.

I also watch MTV's FAKING IT, which is about teenaged lesbians. Many of my friends are teenaged lesbians, and they refuse to watch it on the grounds that it's maudlin nonsense. FAKING IT, I can defend -- but it also relies on standing soundstages and regular locations (a house, a school, some warehouse space that can be redressed into different environments.)

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Another thought on the Sliders rebooting thing:

I've noticed that, in my generation, Sliders isn't a very well-known thing. Nobody at my school, as far as I know, even knows what Sliders is. I think a revival of any sort, be it a continuation or a full-on reboot with different cast and everything, if done correctly, would spark interest into teens like myself, especially creating interest in the original show again.

I mean, you look at a thing like Doctor Who: It ended in 1989 and was kind of forgotten (at least in America. I don't know about the UK). Then in 2005 it got rebooted--- new Doctor, new companion, all that. It not only succeeded in attracting a new audience to the reboot, it also revived interest in the classic series, even among teenagers. A reboot of any sort would doubtlessly get new fans onboard and interested in both versions of Sliders. And of course, fans of the original Doctor Who enjoy the rebooted series as well.

If they do revive Sliders any time soon, I hope it will be a win-win situation with both reboot fans and well... us. XD

But for now, I'll have to settle with dragging my classmates into Sliders so I'll at least have someone at school to talk to about it who will know what I'm talking about. XD

Author, artist, sci-fi nerd, rebel against the world, and self-proclaimed eccentric.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

... so, in addition to watching GIRL MEETS WORLD and BEST FRIENDS WHENEVER, I am also watching LIV AND MADDIE.

LAURIE: "What the ****? That's for teenaged girls."
ME: "It's intriguing."
LAURIE: "Because it asks meaningful, relevant questions that all young girls grapple with, like the pressures of being a famous actress? Holy ****, they're really in tune with youth culture."
ME: "Yeah, but -- I mean, it's like -- like every episode of SLIDERS that ever had a double."
LAURIE: " ...... I've never seen that show. What're you talking about?"
ME: "It's like ORPHAN BLACK."
LAURIE: "Wait, what?! It has one actress playing a hundred different characters and having crazy amazing chemistry with herself?"
ME: " .... well, it's one actress playing two characters. And they have lots of scenes together... but usually through a body double or an obvious splitscreen effect. And there's not much chemistry between the two characters because they don't have the budget to do actual physical interaction with both their faces in frame... And to be honest, the actress doesn't really do a very good job of distinguishing between her two roles as the tomboy and the diva -- it takes like 10 episodes because she starts giving her diva persona a higher-pitched voice."
LAURIE: "Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait -- you watched TEN EPISODES of this?"

Anyway. I don't think SLIDERS would work on Disney.

27

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

ireactions wrote:

As the years passed, I have mentally updated the characters for this reboot. So, in my 2015 approach to TF's idea: Quinn would be a tax accountant who lost his passion for science after failing to create anti-gravity in 1994. Wade would be a tech journalist who has become utterly fed up with doing laptop and smartphone reviews. Rembrandt is running a coffee bar and moderately successful, but he only truly comes alive on open mic nights when he sings for an audience. The Professor is in disgrace after proposing some theory the scientific community was not prepared to accept and is now writing scientific study guides for desperate high school students. They are all failures in some way, some more than others.

Quinn and Wade have not been friends since that strange day in 1994 when Quinn kissed her and then denied it ever happened. The Professor and Quinn lost their relationship in 1994 as well, when Quinn mocked and insulted the Professor in full view of his class. Quinn has no memory of these events and never been able to explain himself.

When Amanda Mallory dies, Quinn goes to the house to clear out his things before selling the property. He visits his old basement for the first time in years, examining his abandoned anti-gravity project. And then he accidentally triggers the vortex. After visiting a parallel Earth and returning, Quinn finally realizes what happened in 1994; he opened a gateway to parallel worlds that must have attracted a sliding double who kissed Wade and insulted the Professor. He calls Wade and the Professor and pleads for them to visit; he explains what happened and shows them the vortex. Wade is eager to explore, the Professor reluctantly agrees, and when they step into the void, they accidentally draw in a passing Rembrandt as well and the adventure begins again.

I like this- I like it a lot! Short of rewinding time, it is the best option for getting the people and characters back and making fans more receptive to a do over down the line. I read it about a week ago and I can see a whole (limited run) series of episodes. Best of all, it is totally doable!

I know I have incurred your ire, but, if I may, I'd like to offer the following suggestions:

-No tricks. These are NOT the original sliders, but a new set we have never seen before. Instead, these sliders can visit worlds their counterparts did 20 years ago (not exclusively- just one or two- the rest would be new adventures). This allows diehards to revisit worlds and see how things have changed since the original sliders intervened. For example, revisit “Feminist World” and see how Arturo’s win and subsequent disappearance may have affected gender relations. It also reestablishes the moral dilemma of interfering in a culture you don’t fully understand, then leaving someone else to have to deal with the consequences. Also, this new group could be used as a vehicle to find out what happened to the originals. Maybe they could run into a double that IS an original!

-Have the professor work at North Shore Community College. The professor’s loss of position is the result of an illness that sapped his bank account and strength (the same illness “The Guardian” professor was diagnosed with except on this Earth it was caught in time and treatable). He couldn’t work and had to resign. When he was well enough, the politics of academics had changed so much that he had to seek a position that he felt was below him. He is head of the department- so he has some standing- but he is nowhere near where he should be. This allows him to still be righteously pompous.

-Quinn works at the college too and has a strained relationship with Arturo because of an unexplained incident in 1994. His passion for science did wain when he could not make anti-grave work and he gave it up when his mother got sick (maybe that’s too convenient). He rushed through his studies so he could get a job that would provide him with a steady income and time to take care of his mother. She got better, but Quinn was relatively happy where he was and too discouraged to revisit his old work. Quinn worked at the college first and was eager to help his old prof get a position (which Arturo took out of desperation) and repair the rift he still doesn’t understand.

-I don’t know about Rembrandt running a coffee bar- a night club maybe. Maybe he already knows Wade (as a regular to the bar/club) and she sings with him on occasion. They are casual friends. Of course a coffee bar is a WAY more authentic way for all four of them to meet than any other alternative (who doesn’t go to a coffee shop and Quinn and Arturo would not go to a night club).

-Your Wade is pitch perfect. Many English lit majors end up in jobs that have nothing to do with literature and this ties in perfectly with her affinity for computers. I would add that maybe she is divorced from Ryan. It’s not malicious, it’s just another layer to her distance from Quinn (who she nods at occasionally- but never speaks to- when they happen into the coffee shop at the same time) and her failure to be where she thought she’d be in life.

-When Quinn goes to the basement after his mother’s death, he sees a paper airplane, a Rubic’s cube, and a t-rex on the floor covered in dust. This means that our original Quinn was actually behind this Quinn, but this Quinn gave up and ours didn’t. Both of them were behind the smarter Quinn from the pilot who made a habit of messing with his double’s lives (this could be the world where the Cubs won three World Series). After he triggers the vortex and realizes what happened 20 years ago, he calls Wade and Arturo. They refuse to come over but agree to meet him at the coffee shop where he is forced to activate the vortex as proof and all four are sucked in. The coffee shop is empty somehow- insert contrivance here.

Little touches like Ryan, working at North Shore, references to the Cubs, and the three objects on the floor of the basement establishes continuity with the original story but allows for new stories. They won’t require new viewers to know the old story but will give old viewers a kick!

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Lissen' ere' ya mooks!  Da Sock still sez dat dis is da best way to bring back da sliders.

http://www.slidersweb.net/otherworlds/4919/index.htm

Da Sock's way is da only way and if ya don't like it, da sock'll burn ya wit' da stogie!

Now who's gonna buy Da Sock a beer?

Ed The Sock

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

It would have to be a reboot.  Bring in Cleavant Derricks for the piilot.  Establish that Rembrandt brought the pathogen that drove the Kromaggs off the world decades ago, and have that story inspire professor Arturo's granddaughter Max to reinvent the technology.  By accident, she slides some other people with her and they're off exploring new worlds.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

The more I think about it...the easiest reboot with a link to the past would be the world where he Quinn impregnated the lady on the female ruling planet...Quinn Jr. would have the same drive knowing only that His Father is a Slider and having a picture of his Dad, could take a new group of Sliders...looking for a new home, etc.

Could visit old worlds 20 years later through fresh eyes, see if the Sliders ruined, saved, or changed the world cool for the old audience, the new audience would never know since it is a fresh take on the show...midway through the dangers of sliding with Kromags or what is left of their empire after the vicious human Rembrandt unleashed a disease to make certain worlds uninhabitable.

The old crew could be doubles on new worlds that the new crew just runs into.

If need be for a better plot, he can go back to find out his gateway to find his dad interactively lead the Kromaggs to his world, so he now much search for Rembrandt's world to  find the cure.

Myself the show becomes less family friendly once you bring in the Kromaggs...

31

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

pilight wrote:

It would have to be a reboot.  Bring in Cleavant Derricks for the piilot.  Establish that Rembrandt brought the pathogen that drove the Kromaggs off the world decades ago, and have that story inspire professor Arturo's granddaughter Max to reinvent the technology.  By accident, she slides some other people with her and they're off exploring new worlds.

I like the idea of continuing the story right where “The Seer” left off and I’d love to see Cleavant Derricks again- it's a great way to link old and new. I do have a couple of issues though.

Arturo neglected his son- why would this son turn around and name his daughter after a neglectful father? Why would she go looking for a man her father no doubt bad mouthed (or probably never mentioned)?

Why would Rembrandt’s stories inspire anyone? In the original story, Quinn was encouraged by scientific curiosity and a promise of fun and adventure by someone (a version of himself) who said it was a joyride. It was all fresh and new and unexplored.

By comparison, Rembrandt’s stories are horrific. First, they got lost with little to no hope of returning home. Second, from his point of view, he has lost three friends (Quinn, Wade, and Colin) whose deaths were the direct result of sliding (Arturo’s death was the result of sliding but since he was terminal, he was going to die anyway). Rembrandt can tell people about the planet full of women or where he was a musical icon, but mostly he would have stories about how the Kromaggs rule over multiple Earths (a lesson they would know all too well); planets on the verge of destruction through resource mismanagement or through no fault of their own; and how not knowing the simplest thing like the correct currency can get you sent to jail.

I don’t really see anybody wanting to start up something like this if all they had to go on was Rembrandt’s experiences. The military might be interested but then it ends up being more like Stargate SG-1.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

NDJ wrote:
pilight wrote:

It would have to be a reboot.  Bring in Cleavant Derricks for the piilot.  Establish that Rembrandt brought the pathogen that drove the Kromaggs off the world decades ago, and have that story inspire professor Arturo's granddaughter Max to reinvent the technology.  By accident, she slides some other people with her and they're off exploring new worlds.

I like the idea of continuing the story right where “The Seer” left off and I’d love to see Cleavant Derricks again- it's a great way to link old and new. I do have a couple of issues though.

Arturo neglected his son- why would this son turn around and name his daughter after a neglectful father? Why would she go looking for a man her father no doubt bad mouthed (or probably never mentioned)?

Why would Rembrandt’s stories inspire anyone? In the original story, Quinn was encouraged by scientific curiosity and a promise of fun and adventure by someone (a version of himself) who said it was a joyride. It was all fresh and new and unexplored.

By comparison, Rembrandt’s stories are horrific. First, they got lost with little to no hope of returning home. Second, from his point of view, he has lost three friends (Quinn, Wade, and Colin) whose deaths were the direct result of sliding (Arturo’s death was the result of sliding but since he was terminal, he was going to die anyway). Rembrandt can tell people about the planet full of women or where he was a musical icon, but mostly he would have stories about how the Kromaggs rule over multiple Earths (a lesson they would know all too well); planets on the verge of destruction through resource mismanagement or through no fault of their own; and how not knowing the simplest thing like the correct currency can get you sent to jail.

I don’t really see anybody wanting to start up something like this if all they had to go on was Rembrandt’s experiences. The military might be interested but then it ends up being more like Stargate SG-1.

People have a way of hearing what they want to hear.  She could be excited about new worlds and different people.  The Kromaggs would have been eliminated from her Earth when she was a preschooler, she might assume it's the same everywhere.  Besides, she's not hearing all the details of Rembrandt sliding, she just knows he left then came back to save the world.  What could be more inspiring than that?  Maybe Rembrandt even tries to tell her and she just doesn't listen because she's hard headed like her grandfather.  Maybe she does hear some details and believes her grandfather is still alive on Azure Gate Bridge world, so she sets out to find him.

As for her being named Max, that's negotiable.  I just think it's a nice nod to the old show.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Having an Old Rembrandt preaching about the dangers of sliding to a young new crew of Sliders could work, telling them nothing good comes from that timer

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

That kid on the World with Arturo Holmes investigates could work too.

Ireactions Genderswap world could be viable too, maybe a Femme Remmy like Grace Jones?

The Android Planet could have researched Sliding after the Sliders left? But we cannot really relate to Robots....

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Earlier, I said that in pre-REBORN discussions, Matt had come up with a way to do the "older doubles make their first slide" Pilot Redux -- but with a twist to indicate that these older doubles were in fact the original sliders we met in 1995.

Recent discussions have made it clear that the REBORN finale will be the end of the road for my SLIDERS writing -- so I think I feel okay with sharing the secret twist of how the 2015 Pilot characters would have been revealed to actually be the 1995 characters.

Matt was really not onboard with the in-continuity approach I proposed for REBORN. My first draft was poor and made a lousy case for treating SLIDERS as a unified supermyth.

In response, Matt offered a simpler story for a new Pilot -- set on Earth Prime where the Kromagg invasion never happened. At first, it seems like the Pilot Redux characters are older doubles of the originals discovering sliding for the first time.

However, the Pilot Redux ends with a revelation: these aren't older doubles at all. They are the original sliders -- they lost their memories of sliding because sliding was erased from history.

Matt left it up to me to sort out the execution of this twist. My thoughts on how to do this at one point went very surreal but have now become very grounded -- it's a new version of the Pilot, a new beginning for a new audience. I would use Temporal Flux's take, but updated for 2015.

Quinn Mallory is a tax accountant who lost his passion for science after failing to create anti-gravity. Wade Welles is a tech journalist who has lost her enthusiasm for writing gadget reviews after failing to get her journalism startup to succeed. Rembrandt Brown is a coffee house owner whose only joy is singing for an audience on open mic nights (a reference to the Java Jive and, I think, more in tune with Rembrandt's jazz-and-soul background than a nightclub). And Professor Arturo is a writer of high school science study guides who failed to keep his tenure after a scientific theory for which the world was not prepared.

Quinn is estranged from Wade and the Professor after a strange incident in 1994 that he has never been able to explain. When Amanda Mallory dies, Quinn goes home to clean out his stuff and sell the house. He encounters his anti-gravity machine but also finds something that wasn't there before -- videotapes he doesn't recognize. A video journal he never made, featuring a 1994-Quinn who did discover sliding. Quinn follows what he sees in the video journal and opens a vortex for the first time.

In terms of the plot, the video diaries would serve the role that Smarter-Quinn played in the Pilot: explaining sliding to our Quinn.

Throughout the Pilot Redux, the 2015 Quinn would be watching these videos to try to benefit from his double's experience. In addition to the 1994 video diaries, there'd also be video diaries from 2001 where 2001 Quinn apologizes for his lengthy absence. Subsequent diaries would have 2001 Quinn describing a terrible cataclysm on the horizon; an interdimensional war on all fronts and how all his friends are dead.

The final entry would be 2001 Quinn addressing 2015 Quinn -- saying that he has been forced to take drastic measures. He's found a way to retroactively alter reality so sliding never existed -- meaning everyone will live the lives they would without sliding. The only remnant of a multiverse with sliding will be these videotapes.

2001 Quinn says that he will take measures to prevent his amnesiac self from ever reconstructing the technology. But, he confesses -- he doesn't believe he can stop his future self from creating sliding -- his best hope is to slow the process down so that when he does rediscover sliding, he'll be older, wiser and more prepared for the responsibility.

So, the 2015 Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo would be validated as the 1995 characters, but they wouldn't remember the 1995 TV series outside of the video journals. It would just be background; the fact that this has happened before would be a subtle, low-key note in an otherwise new beginning.

Good? Bad? Too subtle? Too much? I don't know. I really liked Matt's idea, I really liked Temporal Flux's reboot idea. I decided not to do it, but now it's here. Someone else can use it.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I like it for what it's worth. Retcons usually irk me put it works. It acknowledges te past but reduces it's shadow over possible future options.
Have to admit though I'm sad to know you will no longer continue with Sliders Written Work/Scripts/Fics etc as I've always felt you had a real Talent for capturing the Awesome Foursomes "Voices".

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Ireactions, the above works, but would work better if Rembrandt is the key to hiding everything and he purposely has found away to stay busy in Quinn s life so that every time Quinn is talking about antigravity machine etc. Rembrandt eyes lite up in terror and he suggests other scientific endeavors ....Rembrandt and the proffessor could be the key to distracting Quinn over the years up to the point where he does start sliding again ....instead of a 2001 Quinn hiding sliding it was a Rembrandt that somehow met up with the proffessor in 2001 after the kromagg cure of the finale and they had developed this magic machine to go back in time and stop Quinn from presuming sliding past the initial test the hid the tapes and all evidence leading to sliding from Quinn to keep our Earth from going through all of the awful events sliding had brought.

Rembrandt would be a tortured soul and the guy with the experience knowing that he eliminated both the good and the bad that sliding had accomplished. ..telling himself more bad than good happened over the 5 year journey...and now that the team is forced to slide again hoping they don't make the same mistakes trying to find home...or a safe supstitite for home.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

sliders5125 wrote:

Ireactions, the above works, but would work better if Rembrandt is the key to hiding everything and he purposely has found away to stay busy in Quinn s life so that every time Quinn is talking about antigravity machine etc. Rembrandt eyes lite up in terror and he suggests other scientific endeavors ....Rembrandt and the proffessor could be the key to distracting Quinn over the years up to the point where he does start sliding again ....instead of a 2001 Quinn hiding sliding it was a Rembrandt that somehow met up with the proffessor in 2001 after the kromagg cure of the finale and they had developed this magic machine to go back in time and stop Quinn from presuming sliding past the initial test the hid the tapes and all evidence leading to sliding from Quinn to keep our Earth from going through all of the awful events sliding had brought.

Rembrandt would be a tortured soul and the guy with the experience knowing that he eliminated both the good and the bad that sliding had accomplished. ..telling himself more bad than good happened over the 5 year journey...and now that the team is forced to slide again hoping they don't make the same mistakes trying to find home...or a safe supstitite for home.

You have completely missed the point of the story proposal.

Story Element: Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo discover sliding in 2015 instead of 1994.

Purpose: This gives SLIDERS a new start but with the original actors; we have the original chemistry, the original faces -- but we can start the show again and do it right this time without being encumbered by having to resolve plots like Logan St. Clair, the Professor's illness and which one slid, liberating Earth Prime, saving Wade, splitting the Quinns, recovering Colin, overturning the Quinn from Kromagg Prime backstory.

Your Revision: Rembrandt and the Professor have been hiding sliding from Quinn.

Your Result: The fresh start is lost, because your version has Rembrandt and the Professor, for whatever reason, still remembering sliding and the 1995 show. Meaning that this Pilot Redux would once again be forced to deal with the anti-Kromagg virus and all the other debris of Seasons 3 - 5. The result would be a story that is completely alienating to an audience who hasn't seen those episodes and it would distract from the point of SLIDERS, which is to have them exploring at least one new parallel world every week.

That's what a mass media, broadcast version of SLIDERS has to be about. Every episode features at least one new parallel Earth. It's not about Kromaggs. It's not about saving Colin. It's not about following up on Quinn's offspring. That is just noise. Debris. If a revival of SLIDERS on TV doesn't create a new series that can reach a new audience, it is pointless to make one.

                                                                                           

Story Element: Sliding was erased from history due to unknown means that are mysterious and never fully explained, allowing everyone in reality to live the lives they would have lived had slide-tech never existed.

Purpose: This clears the slate, allowing a new audience to begin the journey with the sliders on the ground floor with nobody remembering the 1995 show. They can discover the multiverse for the first time.

Your Revision: Rembrandt remembers everything and is traumatized by it.

Your Result: Sliding isn't new, it's old and tired and the characters are actually bored and irritated by it -- which are not the emotions I'd want to provoke in a potential new audience.

                                                                                           

Story Element: The videotaped journals from 1994 are the only aspect of the original timeline.

Purpose: This isolates any continuity references to one specific area -- the videotapes. They might be incomplete. They might be out of order. They might be damaged or unintelligible in places. This controls how much continuity the show has to deal with and allows the show to focus on creating new stories rather than being obligated to rehash and resolve old stories.

Your Revision: Rembrandt would constantly bring up the past.

Your Result: The show is incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't seen those episodes.

                                                                                           

?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

TF suggested a way to restart the series with the same old faces discovering sliding, which I updated for 2015. Matt suggested a story direction that would make it so they aren't just the same faces; they're the same people. And I found a way to bring in the past that would be controlled and isolated in this Pilot Redux so we could focus on new worlds and new stories. Each of these ideas made the Pilot Redux "better" by widening its appeal to fans and newcomers.

One would think that to make this story "better," as others have, you would look at the story's goals of providing a simple, welcoming, accessible introduction to SLIDERS and find ways to make it even more so.

When your 'improvements' take the simple, welcoming and accessible and render it convoluted, alienating and confusing, then you haven't made it "better" -- you have made it worse.

I find you delusionally arrogant. Temporal Flux and Matt Hutaff may be at odds, but they're two of the most imaginative and creative people in this fandom, and when I combined their concepts, the results were magnificent. You are seriously punching above your weight to declare that you will make their ideas better by replacing them with your own -- especially when your ideas are empty rehashes of Season 4 - 5 plots which are devoid of parallel worlds concepts, originality or creativity.

When these are the ideas you have to offer, you've no business telling anyone how to make their story "better."

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I have to say, I am a little sad by how this thread has turned out.

I don't understand the obsession with Kromaggs and the invasion of Earth and the cliffhanger of "The Seer." Why do you want to extend stories you clearly didn't like? Why would you want a SLIDERS reboot meant for a new audience to deal with episodes this new audience likely hasn't seen?

In my view, the main challenges of a SLIDERS revival are coming up with cool parallel Earth ideas, one per episode and creating a show that will never run out of ideas and also using the more serialized approach of modern TV. What would a SLIDERS with ongoing character development and running plots be like? What would a SLIDERS with detailed character backstories revealed over multiple seasons be like? What would parallel Earths be like with modern day filming and special effects where digital cameras, background composition and CG augmentation be like?

What would the timer look like?

Don't let me prevent you from enjoying the show however you like, of course. :-)

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

ireactions wrote:

I have to say, I am a little sad by how this thread has turned out.

I don't understand the obsession with Kromaggs and the invasion of Earth and the cliffhanger of "The Seer." Why do you want to extend stories you clearly didn't like? Why would you want a SLIDERS reboot meant for a new audience to deal with episodes this new audience likely hasn't seen?

In my view, the main challenges of a SLIDERS revival are coming up with cool parallel Earth ideas, one per episode and creating a show that will never run out of ideas and also using the more serialized approach of modern TV. What would a SLIDERS with ongoing character development and running plots be like? What would a SLIDERS with detailed character backstories revealed over multiple seasons be like? What would parallel Earths be like with modern day filming and special effects where digital cameras, background composition and CG augmentation be like?

What would the timer look like?

Don't let me prevent you from enjoying the show however you like, of course. :-)

It's not about extending bad story lines, it's about closure.

Once a season would be plenty of Kromaggs.  You could still use them as plot devices when they're not in the episode, like in Asylum.

The timer would look like smartphone.  Heck, it might just be an app.  Today's phones have more computing power than Quinn's entire basement setup from 1995.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I have to side with ireactions.

I want that sense of wonder and spirit of adventure that was so integral to Season 1&2.

New Earths, New Geographies, New Paradigms, New Cultures etc etc.

The big Questions..... What If. How. Why. smile

I too would like to see different variations of Timers. Not just Quinn's but those made by other Sliders with different Tech Levels and Design Priorities/Aesthetic Values.

Give me a Diesel Punk or Atom Punk Timer chock full of Vacuum Tubes made by a Soviet Research Bureau or Scientist.

A Sleek Star Trek type Timer by a Priveledged Utopian Visionary.

A Clock Punk or Steam Punk Timer that is mostly Backpack and Wand or a Troey on Wheels a H.G. Wells figure has to wear or drag behind him.

A Organic Symbiotic Timer could be very interesting. Bio Punk! Oh Yes!

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

P.S. Sorry my spelling and such is so bad. I'm on a phone typing so.... Yeah.

Stupid ancient Galaxy Ace. sad

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

The fact that you are typing all your posts on a Galaxy Ace is AMAZING.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

A Clock Punk or Steam Punk Timer that is mostly Backpack and Wand or a Troey on Wheels a H.G. Wells figure has to wear or drag behind him.

Now I want to dabble with the idea of a steampunk Sliders. I have enough Sliders fanfiction ideas written down to last me a long time, but this idea is too interesting to let go...

Author, artist, sci-fi nerd, rebel against the world, and self-proclaimed eccentric.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

ireactions wrote:

I don't understand the obsession with Kromaggs and the invasion of Earth and the cliffhanger of "The Seer." Why do you want to extend stories you clearly didn't like? Why would you want a SLIDERS reboot meant for a new audience to deal with episodes this new audience likely hasn't seen?

I guess I misunderstood what you were looking for.  I was thinking about what the pilot for a new series would look like.  The natural thing for fans of the show to want would be to have a reunion show of the original sliders.  I could see a that concept being used as a springboard for a new version with new characters.  Maybe keep one of the old characters if the actor is willing.  If Tembi Locke would rather play Diana than do more State Farm commercials and TV walkons I'm not going to tell her no.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I'm not looking for anything -- you guys are free to post whatever you want and so am I. If your ideas are Season 6, Episode 1, then post away and with my blessing and enthusiasm! I mean, I'm writing SLIDERS REBORN; who am I to declare that the only good SLIDERS stories are entry-level stories?

I just got really torqued when I presented an entry-level story and someone with zero-imagination told me the entry-level story could be made "better" by making it as alienating as possible to a new audience. It's not a crime to lack creativity, but I find it offensive to declare that someone else's work on the grounds would be "better" if any new ideas were removed.

It's not a secret that the creator of Earth Prime and the creator of Sliders.tv/Dimension of Continuity are at odds. I was so proud, so very pleased to take Temporal Flux (DoC)'s reboot idea and Matt Hutaff (Earth Prime)'s "sliding was erased from history and reality" idea and combine them into something welcoming, accessible and new. It was the product of two people who were once friends but aren't anymore -- and putting that Pilot Redux pitch together was my little tribute to what they once were and what they both did for SLIDERS.

I have no problem with people saying they don't like the "history was altered" plot and would prefer that it just be no doubles. I have no problem with NDJ critiquing my suggestion that Rembrandt run a coffee bar. I have no issue with someone saying, "Ehh. I'd rather see Season 6, Episode 1."

But it pissed me off to see someone who has never had a single original idea for SLIDERS ever declare that he can make the Pilot Redux better by replacing its creativity with regurgitated leftovers from Season 5. That's arrogance with nothing to back it up. And I got really angry about that. But *only* that.

I find it really sad that Seasons 3 - 5 have such a stranglehold on the imagination in this thread. When I wonder what a new SLIDERS would be, I think I would want to see:

  • An episode on a world where all copyright laws have become unenforceable and nothing new is being created or sold

  • An episode where the impoverished can earn a living wage by signing up for experimental drug trials that can be life-threatening and deadly

  • An episode where America is the sweatshop labour capital of the world

  • A reality-TV episode where TV producers spotted the sliders' entry and are now following them around 24/7

  • A silent movie episode on an Earth where spoken communication is considered a gross violation of propriety as texting was created much earlier in history

  • An episode where it's become impossible to verify whether anything is true due to advanced imaging techniques and the ability to plant false information with multiple layers of sourcing on the Internet

  • A mumblecore episode

  • A found footage episode

  • A procedural episode in which the sliders try to find answers for an unsolved murder that happened back home but not here

  • An episode from the point of view of a guest-star on a parallel Earth who encounters the sliders and is forever changed

But the majority of the ideas in this thread are how to pick up after "The Seer" and I think that's really unfortunate because it shows how SLIDERS really damaged its fans, sapped them of their creativity and imagination and confined them to only ever imagining sequels, remakes, extensions and revivals of the back catalog of unresolved plots. The fact that these stories were not only upsetting but incomplete has created permanent scar tissue on the fans that they are constantly picking at. I feel really bad for all of us.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Like I said, people want closure.  They want to finish one story before they start another.  Never mind that the series we're talking about was notorious for not doing that.  That's why people are focused on following up on the cliffhanger that ended The Seer.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

In terms of a follow-up on "The Seer" -- I think the only realistic option is distance. In the Pilot Redux arc, 2015-Quinn would find the video journals from 1994 with some additional videos from 2001-Quinn. 2001-Quinn could, in very general terms, indicate what happened after "The Seer."

"Sorry for the long hiatus between diaries -- the last few years have been like an out-of-body experience. Quite literally, in one case. I'm sorry to skip to the end of the story, but here's what's going on -- we're looking at an interdimensional war on all fronts and it's going to destroy all of reality. The Kromaggs, the Zercurvians, the Reticulans, Prototronics, Geiger Applied Research, the Slide Rulers -- it's war and all my friends are dead.

"I have only one option left. I can kill sliding. I have access to a set of cross-dimensional machines. I can rewrite universal constants and remap them so that sliding can retroactively cease to exist in any dimension anywhere. We'll all live the lives we'd have lived if sliding never came to be.

"But I have a feeling this would only be a temporary delay of a decade or two. I know me -- and I know you. Even amnesia, discouragement and a vastly different set of dimensional barriers wouldn't stop me forever. So I'm leaving this message for me -- for you.

"These video journals are an account of everything I did before I removed sliding from the equation. If you're watching this -- I hope you've had a good life up to this point -- that you've been happy. Fulfilled. Maybe you're married to Wade and the Professor's the godfather to your kids and Rembrandt's their music teacher. Maybe you built that flying car after all! I just hope the years have given you some of the wisdom and perspective I lacked before stepping through that gateway.

"Good luck. This message will self-destruct in 10 seconds.

"Kidding."

**

If you wanted a direct follow-up -- what happens next -- I think this would be your only real option given how the actors have aged:

http://www.earthprime.com/content/rebor … eprise.pdf

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I like the idea of a Multiversal Bonsai Concave Cutter like Trance uses in.Andromeda to trim away a multiple branching of possible worlds.

But like Quinn says.... It wouldnt be permanent. The multiverse would continue branching even if not on the removed branches.

New ones will always form.

Also, even if Quinn achieved his Trim Job.... The Multiversal Nature of Branching would mean a World Divergence point where he did not make the Cut would come to be.

Effectively this would mean Quinn has created a Cluster of Worlds more distant and hard to travel to from the Cluster where his clipping did not occur.

Isolation. Not perfect isolation but good for his purposes.

I kind of see these two branches of possibilities like Tree Limbs growing away from each other.

I always thought that the Reason the Sliders ended up on so many similar worlds that were predominantly Historical divergences was due to this issue I describe eg: Closer Worlds are easier to slide to than worlds where Pangea never broke into the continents we know today. The further back the divergence the harder it is to reach. You may still get there because of the random part of sliding but statistically the odds of getting there at all versus a closer more familiar/recent divergent Earth are low.... Very low.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Let's take a different approach and start with some fundamentals.

If it's a reboot, are the characters still sliding with no preparation at all?  I get that the show works better if they're sliding randomly.  The question is whether they took the initial slide on a lark like Quinn and company or had an actual objective in mind and planned accordingly.

Who are the characters?  If it's a planned expedition, what sort of people would you want on your slide?  What equipment would they carry?

Is it a government run operation?  What would they be trying to do?  Just recon and exploration?  Cultural and technological exchange?  Exploitation?  Conquest?

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

If it was a Govt or Corporation in an open and public capacity then you are looking at Probes, Drones, Automated Sample Collection and Recon etc.

If it is a Secret off the Books Operation then we might see probes initially but then they will probably throw People in as it can be cheaper/increased options.

Imagining something like Apature Science or the Umbrella Corporation with a Sliding R&D and Implementation program as refined or more so than Quinns own level is a pretty terrifying thought really.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Realistically, an organization developing sliding is far more likely than a college kid accidentally inventing it in his basement.  It could be a government operation, a private group, or even an NGO.  I suppose you could make the show about a team from an organization that gets lost.  That would still mean a more prepared and equipped group than the original gang.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

If you ask me, organizations like that are much too cliche in television, and pretty far removed from what Sliders is supposed to be. It would work well for another series about parallel universes, but it doesn't really suit Sliders. To me, Sliders is much more fun when it runs on the accidental rather than the intentional, and creating organized groups of sliders would almost take away the fun of it.

Basically, it would definitely work in an entirely new series about dimension travel, but it's not the best fit for Sliders.

Author, artist, sci-fi nerd, rebel against the world, and self-proclaimed eccentric.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

This is a bit embarrassing for me -- I would be reluctant to change anything for SLIDERS that didn't need changing and I don't feel you need to change much. The structure of the original series was perfect: the sliders are under-equipped and untrained misfits adrift in the multiverse. That's what made them so easy to relate to. The premise of SLIDERS is very straightforward. They're lost in the multiverse, trying to find a way back home. Simple. Elegant. Beautiful. The random sliding situation is also perfect: it creates a dramatic ticking clock while imposing limits on the sliders, yet it can also be an advantage as they can escape consequences. The random sliding situation also makes the show accessible to an audience: continuity is never an issue because every world is a new story with a beginning, middle and end.

The only thing I would really change about SLIDERS in a 2015 reboot whether with the original cast or new actors -- I would give the characters *much* more detailed backstories and constantly have LOST-style flashbacks to their lives back home in order to play up the homesickness. Other updates would simply come with engaging with the present day: cellular communication, social media, economic crisis, scientific skepticism, political and religious fundamentalism, environmental catastrophe, etc..

The random sliding setup with zero preparation or predictive ability is SLIDERS' greatest asset. The fact that SLIDERS ended up incomprehensible and opaque to the general audience is tragic and unfortunate.

This isn't in response to pliight -- but incomprehensibility is why I don't like the Season 6 style pitches. I find such stories fail to understand SLIDERS on a very basic and fundamental level. SLIDERS is about four homeless people. Everyone can relate to wanting to go back home.

Nobody can relate to being the last surviving member of a group of four people who originated from an Earth that's now been invaded by aliens and needing to fight an invasion by finding a superweapon while in the meantime hanging out with a fighter pilot-spygirl, a science fiction scientist and a car-thief-con-artist-lab-assistant-and-test-subject. Nobody can relate to finding a long-lost friend who was replaced by an alternate version while discovering the friend whom you thought dead was merely a clone and the other friend you thought lost is now separated from the man with whom he merged while learning that the home you thought invaded was actually a parallel world and your friend's unstuck brother is a Kromagg clone and also Logan St. Clair.

If people think that's the way to revive SLIDERS, they are wrong and I can prove it with charts.

As for a more military-styled SLIDERS -- I dunno, I can't say I relate to it, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be good and accessible.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I'm not saying Sliders should be remade with a more prepared or equipped group, just that it's worth discussing the possibility.

As for equipment, it never made any sense to me that the group kept sliding empty handed.  Any normal person, once they accepted they would be sliding into unknown worlds for indeterminate periods of time on a regular basis, would pretty quickly acquire a backpack and fill it with clothes, food and water, small tools, spare parts for the timer, and other handy items.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Yeah. I don't know! I don't know if I would like that or not. Just because it would be different from the 1995 show doesn't mean it would be bad. I am averse to changing anything other than the changes needed for setting the show in 2015, but I imagine we'd all have very different views on what even qualifies as changes of necessity.

Matt Hutaff and I were chatting about life in general, but as with all things, we ended up back at SLIDERS. Matt was poking fun at my conversations with Wade Welles where I asked her what clothes Quinn might wear and what she thought of the leather jacket and hoodie and short hair of Season 3 and Wade thought poorly of them, saying Quinn would never remember to get haircuts often enough to keep it short and that the leather jacket was silly; who did Quinn think he was, Marlon Brando?

Matt pointed out that the outfits on SLIDERS never made any god-damn sense. Ever. Arturo always had a perfectly tailored and fitted suit complete with coat, tie and shoes. Wade inexplicably had a diary despite the lack of luggage of any kind. Wade and Quinn kept going between multiple outfits; where were they keeping this closet of clothes? For people who didn't appear to be carrying supplies of any kind, they looked like they had access to, well, a studio wardrobe. Even if the sliders weren't lugging around bags and knapsacks, the show acted like they were.

Temporal Flux liked to joke that the Professor apparently had an almanac stuffed in his underwear.

So -- it could be argued that the sliders were never sliding empty-handed as far as the costumers were concerned, even though the writers had them doing so. The on-set reason for this -- it's always preferable to avoid weighing actors down with bags and suitcases when doing take after take after take, especially when actors need to act with body language.

Temporal Flux and I were also fans of SMALLVILLE which started after SLIDERS ended. Actor Tom Welling played Clark Kent and his Season 1 clothes were much like Quinn's Season 1 - 2 outfits (brown coat, flannel shirts, jeans) -- Tom Welling even had Quinn's Season 2 hair. (Season 2, however, gave Tom a red jacket to mimic the colours of Superman's cape, but he still wore flannel and jeans until Season 8 when he started wearing business suits.) Anyway -- what was hilarious was that despite Clark Kent being poor, the flannel and jeans were always high-priced designer items that made absolutely no sense for Clark to be able to afford.

Ah, television.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

On the Leather issue....

For Fashion? No. Wade is Right. Our Quinn would not even think of it.... But.... As a Practical choice I can see it. Not so much the thin leather junk on screen but something more akun to Biker Leathers.

Tough, Weather Resistant/Proof, Warm, Lots of Pockets, maybe even padded or armoured either as a Safety Feature for Bikers in case of accident or even in a home made kit bash manner ala Mad Max etc with Chainmail or Kevlar Plates etc sewn in.

Sports Bike Leathers are usually the most padded over the counter for Trousers and Jackets/Body Suits etc but they are crap for pockets.

Traditional Biker Gear though is less supple, tougher, has more pockets and can look more casual to blend in where as Sports Bike Leathers can look out of place away from the Bike.

You can get Chain Mail for Scuba Diving which could be interesting or useful perhaps.

Admittedly though this sort of gear is what you pick up over time as a veteran Slider as you are forced to learn about preparedness without lookin too conspicuous.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

I have to agree that it always irked me that the group never brought at least one backpack with some serious supplies, since they never knew what they could be sliding into. You can't be prepared for every world, but some basics just in case would have been nice. Clothing I didn't mind too much, but yeah, the suits and such should have gone, lol.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Well, at one point, me and Slider_Quinn21 and Informant and Chaser9 were going to do a reboot of SLIDERS. Not to be filmed; they were filling the former version of this thread with ideas and I offered to write scripts for them. I was thinking we could do 3 - 4 movie-length scripts per season and do 5 - 6 seasons of SLIDERS (2013). It never worked out. We only completed one script. but I really liked the approach -- basically, we looked at it like this: if Tracy Torme and Robert K. Weiss had all the advantages of modern showrunners and were making the show in 2015, what would it be like?

We didn't really change the show. SLIDERS (2013) was the same as the 1995 show in characters, concept, random sliding -- the only difference was the presentation. All four sliders now had detailed backstories and tangled relationships before they even started sliding, with these histories coming out in the course of their adventures. All the stories would have running plots that would carry from episode to episode with ongoing characterization.

I had a new backstory for Quinn: as an adolescent and a teenager, he was a bully. A lazy, selfish jerk, smart enough to get by without ever doing any work, cruel to a smart but socially awkward classmate named Brady Oaks, and Quinn thought Michael Mallory was a loser, slaving away in R&D engineering instead of making a killing and blackjack. Basically, Young!Quinn was an evil Jerry O'Connell. Then Michael died in a car accident.

At the funeral, Quinn was astonished to see collaborators and colleagues speak of how Michael inspired them, helped them, played critical roles in creating so many successful patents -- and later, it'd be revealed that Michael's slaving away at R&D had left Quinn and Amanda Mallory financially secure. In the weeks that followed, Quinn forgot about Brady, but Brady didn't forget him, and seeing Quinn weak, Brady attacked him in a stairwell one day. Quinn pushed away and Brady fell down a flight of stairs and was crippled for life.

By the end of it, Quinn's inheritance was lost to the lawsuits and medical bills and he and his mother barely kept the house. Quinn was ashamed; ashamed of how he'd misjudged his father, how his cruelty had destroyed what his father had left him and his mother -- and by age 20, Quinn was reformed but isolated and withdrawn, friendless and alone, disgusted by his past and no decent university would touch him. A genius enrolled at community college (with a few classes at Berkeley), Quinn desperately tried to create something to turn his life around and redeem himself.

So, the Quinn of this reboot is exactly like the 1995 Quinn in temperament and behaviour -- but I wanted to explain how someone as attractive as Jerry O'Connell could be so isolated. I had this idea that Young!Quinn wore leather jackets and hoodies and had styled short hair while Modern!Quinn would wear flannel and jeans -- his father's clothes -- and he'd neglect haircuts.

Slider_Quinn21 had this idea that Arturo was a widower who took on Wade as his assistant years ago, only for misplaced feelings to create an awkward situation with Wade fleeing the sciences for humanities. Wade would be Quinn's online friend, but they wouldn't meet in person until the Pilot. All this would create a lot of interpersonal confusion during sliding.

Chaser9 advised that Rembrandt in 2013 remain an R&B singer, but with the idea that one night before a performance, Rembrandt's girlfriend dumped him and he went onstage crying, creating an unforgettable performance that saw him dubbed the Crying Man. His attempt to shed this image destroyed his career.

I suggested that we copy the original SLIDERS' character progression but in reverse: Series 1 would have the sliders constantly arguing and sniping and fighting only to discover that they are all incredibly talented at sliding and enjoy each other's company, leading to a Series 2 where they are the best of friends. Informant suggested that Series 2 end with Rembrandt accidentally left behind while the sliders leave only to discover on the next world that Rembrandt didn't make it.

Series 3 would have the first movie about Quinn, Wade and Arturo shattered by Rembrandt's loss and choosing to stop sliding and focus on their dealing with a single parallel world over the course of a year. The second movie would be about Rembrandt doing the same -- and he would meet Maggie Beckett and Diana Davis, who would eventually help him reunite with his friends in the third movie of the series.

Series 4 would then have the sliders now equipped with a home base and a team and a larger organization, and having adventures in a more prepared and calculated form. Series 5 would feature an interdimensional war that would end with the sliders finally making it home only to find that home was as strange as any other parallel dimension, and the series would end with the sliders deciding that their home is now the multiverse.

Another approach I proposed was for each series to have a movie-length episode, then an episode composed entirely of mini-episode short films, then a movie-length episode to close things out.

It never happened for a variety of reasons I still don't fully understand but can guess at. It doesn't matter, though -- I'm pretty happy writing what I'm writing now.

Re: Reviving Sliders in the Twenty-First Century

Another thing on the abandoned SLIDERS (2013) project -- Temporal Flux proposed a backstory for Wade Welles that we ended up using. TF based the new backstory on his brother, Braniac 5, presenting Wade as someone who spent her childhood constantly sick due to a weak immune system and a horrific range of allergies, at one point collapsing due to an allergy to the glue in her shoes. She spent her youth in bed, isolated to her room, engaging with fantasy fiction for escapism and developing a fascination with computers.

In her late teens, however, Wade's health improved; she developed the immunities she'd lacked, her allergies were reduced in severity and she became a thrill-seeking adventuress but remained socially immature in areas such as romance. We ended up using all of of this. It was really good -- and what struck me as significant: TF didn't suggest this for a reboot. He thought this was probably the 1995-Wade's backstory, albeit never dramatized onscreen. Which is the approach I would want to see in a reboot.

As for why this project never came to pass -- hmmm. I've been going through E-mails. I wrote the Pilot script and posted it. For whatever reason, nobody in the thread read it. For whatever reason, discussions seemed completely stuck on what the Pilot episode would be even though the script was written, proposing scenes and dialogue that was often already in the script that nobody would read. Having little to no talent for alt-history, I was completely dependent on the thread activity for subsequent scripts, and the lack of feedback and activity pretty much killed the project, although I think I was hopelessly in denial. Eventually, Informant and Slider_Quinn21 read the script -- I think about a year after it was posted. Informant had some minor suggestions but was busy with his next novel.

Slider_Quinn21 seemed to take issue with various story elements, but outside of his distaste for a Wade-double being a celebrity, I couldn't understand what his criticisms were and found his thoughts to be incomprehensible, unintelligible and therefore impossible to act upon. Which may be why we didn't work together after that. I don't actually think Slider_Quinn21 is an incomprehensible, impossible person. As a 'writer,' I think of stories in very specific terms -- plot, action, event -- while Slider_Quinn21 thinks in a more general and emotional sense that generally and emotionally left me perplexed and baffled.

I think that's where I lost all hope for this thing.

Looking at my own end and at the script I wrote -- it's pretty clear that I wanted to write a pastiche of the actors' onscreen performances. This doesn't really make a lot of sense; why was I asking the reader to imagine a 20-year-old Jerry O'Connell in a 2013 SLIDERS reboot? And for something meant to be a new start, it seemed very fixated on the *past*.

Pretty much every scene had a reference to or a character from a previous episode of SLIDERS, albeit with the presentation making it so that a newcomer wouldn't notice these references at all while the fans would pick up on them.

Looking at the pages, it is plainly obvious to me that I didn't want to do SLIDERS 2.0, I didn't want to do a reboot -- I wanted a revival. I wanted a quick follow-up to "The Seer" where Rembrandt comes out of the vortex to find Quinn, Wade and Arturo waiting for him, vaguely implying a happy ending to a troubled TV series -- and then to move into 2015 and see what the characters we met in 1995 would be doing today.

I wasn't happy with the material I was producing independent of Slider_Quinn21 and Informant. Ultimately, I found SLIDERS REBORN much easier to write because there were tighter parameters and clear goals and the characters and issues had already been established by the TV show. It's easier to do a sequel than a new beginning -- which is a pretty damning indictment of my skills! :-D

In the end, the SLIDERS (2013) experience, despite being incomplete and unsatisfactory and a massive disappointment, was a good thing -- it made me organize subsequent SLIDERS projects with less dependency on others while leaving the door wide open for outside input. And in retrospect, the idea of doing 15 - 20 screenplays was probably far too much for me to script or others to plot. Matt Hutaff regularly tells me he thinks SLIDERS REBORN is insane at five installments.