SLIDERS REBORN: EP.COM presents the series finale of SLIDERS

SLIDERS Joins Yahoo's COMMUNITY
by Jo Caplan, September 14, 2014

COMMUNITY's Dan Harmon will helm a revival of the cult 90s sci-fi series featuring Jerry O'Connell (CROSSING JORDAN) and John Rhys-Davies (LORD OF THE RINGS).

A series cancelled on its fifth season has been revived by Yahoo Screen. No, not just COMMUNITY; in addition to reviving COMMUNITY for a sixth season, Yahoo will resurrect SLIDERS, a FOX television series about four friends exploring parallel worlds of alternate histories. COMMUNITY showrunner Dan Harmon will be leading the series.

But why did Yahoo revive a show that aired its last episode in 2000 on the former Sci-Fi Channel? Especially when this show saw creative changes that led to three-quarters of the original cast departing and the final seasons being disowned by the original creators?

"I'm a fan," says Harmon. In his office, he opens a cabinet drawer to reveal a wealth of SLIDERS material: a novelization, an episode guide, a set of trading cards, a complete set of the comic books, screenplays that appear to have actors' handwritten notes, seven different DVD box sets, what looks like printouts of internet fan fiction, and two half-empty tequila bottles that he asks me not to mention only to later down the contents of both and encourage me to bring it up.

A Fan-Led Revival
"SLIDERS is the story of four people who find the gateway to parallel universes, but on their first adventure, they lose their way back home. I loved it," says Harmon. "The parallel worlds are anything that any writer can imagine. It's a multi-genre platform of infinite storytelling with four distinct and vivid voices conflicting against each other in comedically caustic and loving exchanges."

He credits it as an inspiration. "You don't get COMMUNITY without me watching SLIDERS." And when Yahoo purchased the rights to COMMUNITY from NBCUniversal, they acquired options on a small selection of NBCUniversal's properties, one of which was SLIDERS.

While SLIDERS had been out of production for 14 years, re-airings on The Hub channel and streaming on Netflix had been a ratings smash hit and the first two seasons, 22 episodes in total, had been re-presented globally as a mini-series.

The latter 66 episodes with all their cast and creative changes and grisly character deaths and clumsy scripts had enjoyed an alternate resurgence in mockingly ironic viewing parties in live and streaming events that were hugely profitable for sponsors such as Subway and Best Buy.

"The show's been cancelled for 14 years, but in the last five, it's found an audience of hundreds of millions who know the show inside out from the characters' middle names to being able to ID each of the animal human hybrids on sight," says Harmon.

"When I caught wind of Yahoo inadvertently getting SLIDERS, I asked if we could try tapping into that audience and they said go nuts. I turned in three feature length screenplays, two webisode scripts and one ebook novella under the banner of SLIDERS REBORN." Filming is underway in Vancouver, British Columbia with a planned premiere date of March 22, 2015.

Harmon's first instinct had been to hire original series creators Tracy Tormé and Robert K. Weiss, but Tormé had disappeared two years previous on an expedition to find UFOs in Burbank and Weiss was occupied with his business in robotics. Harmon decided to write the series himself and reached out to the original cast.

John Rhys-Davies, Jerry O'Connell and Sabrina Lloyd
"Quite frankly, I failed to realize that Dan Harmon and Tracy Tormé were two separate individuals until well into filming," says John Rhys-Davies, who returns to SLIDERS as the wise Professor. "I thought Tracy had simply become more inebriated and belligerent in the 18 years since our last meeting, but I appreciated his wish to return SLIDERS to its roots and its infinite possibilities. I was moved by Mr. Harmon's invitation to join the writing process and act as a coach for all the actors. And I was desperate to wear modern clothing again after playing Peter the Apostle and Eventine in THE SHANNARA CHRONICLES."

Jerry O'Connell was won over by Harmon's charisma. "I didn't know about someone replacing Tracy again, but Harmon and I had a meeting and he asked me to bring my brother!" O'Connell's brother, Charlie, had starred on the show's fourth season as an addition to the cast who was loathed and despised by message board posting fans.

"Back then, I was a kid who wanted my brother around so that making the show would be fun after [original cast members] John and Sabrina [Lloyd] were gone," says O'Connell. "Charlie and I aren't proud of how that affected the series creatively. But Harmon came up with a role for Charlie that he thought the fans would like and that would let me and Charlie be together on set and I loved that crazy man for it."

Charlie will reportedly reprise his role as Colin Mallory and also serve as his brother's on-set photo double, although Harmon is vague on details except to indicate that latter-series actors Kari Wuhrer, Robert Floyd and Tembi Locke will also make appearances.

Sabrina Lloyd (SPORTS NIGHT), who played the computer hacker Wade Welles, was hesitant to return. At their first meeting, Harmon gave Lloyd a gift -- a handwritten party invitation that she'd photocopied and passed out to cast and crew, inviting them to Rhys-Davies' farewell party after his character was shot and blown up after getting his brain sucked out. "Dan bought this off a crew member back in the 90s, and he told me that this scrap of paper had been a source of heartbreak for him because he loved and missed our characters so much, but if we came back, then Wade and the Professor would live again. I think he has very thin lines between fiction and reality and that's good for the show."

A Doubting Fandom
However, the SLIDERS fanbase expressed some uncertainty towards this creative appointment, especially after receiving preliminary script treatments and script pages from Yahoo. Matt Hutaff, webmaster of SLIDERS' premiere fan site, EarthPrime.com, criticizes not only Harmon but the original series. "Contrary to fan consensus, [series co-creator] Tracy Tormé wasn't a great writer or showrunner; his leadership was ineffectual. He constantly picked pointless fights with the FOX Network and he had this fixation on dumbass comedy at the expense of plot and story."

Hutaff points to first season installment "The King is Back," a comedy episode of musical numbers spoofing Elvis Presley. "That total waste of time is Tormé in a nutshell and Dan Harmon is just a drunker, more flamboyant Tormé except with shittier world-building skills."

He has doubts regarding Harmon's ability to lead SLIDERS creatively. "I think Harmon's less interested in finding alternate histories to comment on our society today and more into pastiching other movies and TV shows. I see SLIDERS becoming SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE instead of the sharp sci-fi adventure it should be. SLIDERS' creative successes are thanks to the other writers Tormé hired, but Dan Harmon's writing the whole mini series and his writing is completely insane -- he wrote a Claymation episode of COMMUNITY and another set in a GI JOE cartoon, for God's sake."

Yahoo recently released brief summaries of SLIDERS REBORN and Hutaff points to the synopsis for the final installment which describes itself as "the long-awaited series finale of SLIDERS and features Maggie Beckett, Colin Mallory, Mallory, Diana Davis, the rock-star vampires, the radioactive slug, the robots, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the toy-sized cars with laser cannons, the animal human hybrids, the genetically engineered scarab, the underground Morlocks, the dragon and Hurley. A 144 minute film."

Hutaff shakes his head in dismay. "How the hell can you fit all that into two hours and 14 minutes? Why does Dan Harmon want to pretend that he likes all those god-awful Season 3 monster movies of SLIDERS? Harmon's gimmick is how he's a mad and crazy writer who writes mad and crazy scripts and wants you all to know how mad and crazy he is. SLIDERS REBORN will be a trainwreck of epic proportions."

A Hopeful Stalwart
However, Cleavant Derricks (DREAMGIRLS), returning as Rembrandt and the only actor to star in all five seasons, declared his confidence in Harmon. "Dan practically has a PhD in SLIDERS." At one point, Harmon and Derricks enjoyed karaoke and sang all of the original songs written for Derricks' character in the show. "I watch COMMUNITY," says Derricks, "and I can see how he writes with a real love for characters and their friendships and I wanted SLIDERS to get a piece of that action."

Derricks also appreciates Harmon's respect for SLIDERS' past. "What he laid out to me was this: even though the show killed off three-quarters of us and my fate's unknown, Harmon doesn't want to reboot. He wants to embrace everything from the psychics to the radioactive slug, although we are back to basics with the leads of SLIDERS REBORN being Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo, same guys you met in the first episode, 20 years later, all alive and together."

Revive or Reboot?
Harmon confesses that this decision to accept SLIDERS' past was a difficult one. "Yahoo suggested a reboot, and one of their execs laid out a great method of keeping all the original actors and having them play older versions of their characters, ones who never went sliding until today."

It was tempting as an entry-level approach to SLIDERS that could reach a new audience. But then Yahoo and Harmon reviewed SLIDERS' viewing figures on the Hub, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon and concluded that they had already had an audience, one that would appreciate a follow-up rather than a restart.

"My attitude is that everything in all five seasons of SLIDERS happened," says Harmon. "Quinn, Wade and Arturo died as we saw. And the dragon and the twisters and the intelligent talking flame along with every minute of every episode as well as the comics -- it's all canon." So how will Harmon bring his lead characters back to life and handle a lengthy back catalog of unresolved plots including an alien invasion of the sliders' home Earth?

"I'm not writing SLIDERS REBORN as Season 6 of SLIDERS. It's Season 20," he explains. "It's been 15 years since the show ended on a cliffhanger with everyone dead or probably dead, so onscreen, we'll act like all the resurrections and wrap-ups happened in Seasons 6 to 19 -- which I won't ever have to write!"

However, Harmon confirms that one of his webisodes is a short film taking place within minutes of the 2000 finale. "We didn't have the budget to digitally de-age everyone back to their 2000 ages for more than a few shots," Harmon says, "so it's four minutes and it doesn't answer all the questions -- or any -- but it gives us a little closure for the old show."

The first full-length film is set in 2015 with all the once-dead sliders alive and well and home on our world -- as opposed to one that's been taken over by invaders. "You can take it that stuff happened in the last decade and a half to bring us all here, and the focus is not on what the sliders were doing in 2000, but what they're doing today and how sliding factors into it."
 
Fan Concerns
For fans who will demand a full explanation for the resurrections and restorations, however, Harmon has written an ebook to be released on the Yahoo website that will provide answers. "There's no way to plausibly hit undo on three dead cast members and an alien-dominated Earth," says Harmon, "but a novella was a way to do it artfully and isolate the continuity problems from affecting the main story in the scripts."

When Hutaff's concerns are raised, Harmon welcomes them. "I think the first full-length episode is very faithful to the original series," he says, noting that it is modelled on SLIDERS' pilot episode in terms of setting, dialogue and structure. "Tormé was a comedy guy, I'm a comedy guy -- I don't think SLIDERS fans will see a big difference because Hutaff's right, we both go for jokes and we're all about the laughs. I think Tormé's humor is actually why a show about four homeless people is so much fun. The second movie has a Tormé's joke-oriented style, but it favors science fiction concepts like the Marc Scott Zicree episodes of Season 4."

In comparing himself with the co-creator, Harmon says, "I'm not awesome at social satire or alternate realities, but I hired [veteran SLIDERS writer] Marc Scott Zicree as story editor and he's providing REBORN with its parallel concepts. The first movie has Quinn visiting nine different parallel Earths. The second movie has three alternate realities and the sliders spend about a TV episode's worth of time exploring each one and the third movie has something new for SLIDERS."

Finessing the Finale
And what about Hutaff's reaction to the synopsis for the final installment? "The finale is my tribute to Season 3," says Harmon, although he's quick to assure the fans that he is concerned with viewer enjoyment and a quality product. "Season 3 did SLIDERS as genre-pastiches, and the finale story has the sliders walking into a cop show, an espionage thriller, a father-daughter comedy, a psychological drama and a superhero movie -- and I hope it shows how Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo can turn any story into a SLIDERS story. It's the Season 3 playbook with the Season 1 style."

He also hopes to present a new approach to the show's parallel universes in the finale, although he's unspecific as to what it actually is. "I want SLIDERS to evolve. Seasons 1 - 5 were the sliders stumbling around the multiverse, and this is Season 20, so it's about how sliding has become a profession and a career."

Interestingly, the Harmon's finale was conceived in the 90s when watching the show. "I wondered where the sliders would end up and I imagined some sort of 20-years-later flash-forward," he explains."And I'm doing it now except it really is 20 years later!" He notes that previous seasons limited some of his options.

"With a finale, you can usually threaten big character deaths or life-destroying changes," says Harmon, "but given how the original show killed off three of the original four and wrecked the entire series, it was hard to come up with situations worse than what had already happened. I had to come up with a whole new level of threat."
 
Harmon also does not dispute Hutaff's criticisms of the publicity materials. "You don't put out a synopsis like that without wanting people to think you're crazy and hoping they'll check it out to see how you think you can pull it off!" Harmon laughs.

"But that's the show. Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo have lives that are completely insane, but they themselves aren't. After two decades, they're desensitized to craziness. In the face of total madness, they retain reason, rationality, trust, teamwork and friendship. These four knuckleheads can survive anything together. They all died and now they're back. They always come back. They're sliders."

YAHOO.2014

SLIDERSCAST #95 PODCAST TRANSCRIPT (Earth 207)

Description: It's the end of the world as we know it and the Sliders don't feel fine! In fact, they're so not fine with it that they're going to explore three worlds facing doomsday situations to get to the bottom of why the world is ending and find someone they need to yell at.

Intro
JIM: "Hi, everybody! I'm Jim Ford."
DAN: "And I'm Dan Kurtzke!"
JIM: "And this is the Sliderscast where we'll be talking about 'Revelation' -- didn't we already do this episode like a year and a half ago?"
DAN: "Oh, yeah. Did our new showrunner, Dan Harmon, forget someone already used this title at the end of Season 4? Wait, Season 4's finale is called 'RevelationS,' but this time the S gets dropped."
JIM: "Well, it's probably still calling back to the final book in the Bible the same way Season 4 started with 'Genesis' and ended with 'Revelation.'"
DAN: "I can just see Dan Harmon, though, going through the dictionary, looking at words starting with R-E because his gimmick is that every title in this SLIDERS REBORN starts with those letters and just not able to choose a synonym for the word that starts with RE and saying fuck it, I'll just drop the S."
JIM: "With any other showrunner, you'd think that maybe they just forgot about Season 4 the way you wish you could."
DAN: "Yeah, except this one episode alone brings back Elston Diggs, Maggie Beckett, Conrad Bennish Jr., Razor Gillette -- "
JIM: "Razor was somebody they brought back?"
DAN: "He was that bodyguard dude who worked for evil Wade back in Season 2."
JIM: "What!? Really? I didn't even notice."
DAN: "And there's no way a guy who writes a sequel to 'Love Gods' about Quinn Mallory's spawn doesn't remember a previously used title."
JIM: "We'll talk about that, we'll talk about that."

Three Earths
JIM: "So the plot is basically -- "
DAN: "Basically! Yeah right. This movie is really dense."
JIM: "The sliders visit three Earths tracking the neutrino signal that's messing up reality for Laurel on Earth Prime 'cause the signal also destroyed Remmy's house and car and could hit the whole planet and any world in reality. They want to find out where it's coming from and stop it, and tracking the signal has them going across random Earths until they get to the end of the trail. On all three Earths, there are these mysterious clocks counting down to zero from about eight hours -- and the clocks are in perfect sync across all three Earths and people think they're counting down to the end of the world."
DAN: "Isn't this the plot to the DOCTOR WHO episode except SLIDERS has clocks instead of those blue boxes?"

Derivative Dan
JIM: "The first world is one where the global water supply's been poisoned and even the water in people's bodies can contaminate if it has the toxin and it's a post apocalyptic action movie in a ruined city, basically."
DAN: "Isn't this basically the desert episode of Season 3 and the epidemic episode?"
JIM: "The second Earth's one where the entire population is totally sure doomsday will come when the clocks hit zero and they're all prepping for it."
DAN: "Didn't we already do this in 'Last Days'?"
JIM: "And the third Earth is one where global dimming's hit -- that's where the ozone layer is so polluted that sunlight can't reach the Earth."
DAN: "That seems like kind of a ripoff of all the SLIDERS episodes taking place at night."

Toxic Water
JIM: "So we start on the poisoned water Earth with all the sliders in a grocery store that's empty and the sliders are fumbling around in total darkness and it's a minute of just their voices."
DAN: "Yeah, I was listening and I was wondering if Yahoo Screen was trying to save money by doing SLIDERS the audioplay."
JIM: "They get the windows open, they see someone getting attacked by a bunch of street thugs. Remmy sees this andhe's all Season 1 Remmy, doesn't want to get involved -- "
DAN: "Then he sees it's a double of Maggie and he's like the first to run out there and start kicking ass although he gets outnumbered -- "
JIM: "But these bad guys -- they want the water in Maggie's truck -- and Quinn sees that and he throws the contains of bottled water down a hill, so the bad guys go for that and Quinn jumps into the truck and drives away."
DAN: "He also gets all the sliders in the truck before he drives away."
JIM: "What did you think of Rembrandt?"
DAN: "Well, the thing the writer seems to want to make him the supposedly funny, goofy guy he was in Season 1, but throw in some stuff here and there to say he's also the cool as ice guy who's seen it all and scared of nothing by Season 5 is still in there. It's inconsistent."
JIM: "I thought maybe the idea here was that Rembrandt has reverted to non-sliding civilian mode, but when he sees someone in trouble, the Season 5 Rembrandt comes back out."
DAN: "Stop excusing Dan Harmon for this crap."

Genius as a Plot Device
JIM: "So, Quinn says he knows they can find a World War II bunker that's undiscovered because there's a building missing from this Earth's San Francisco skyline, the Millennial Tower -- "
DAN: "I just Googled that and it's missing from our San Francisco too."
JIM: "Which means the construction workers building that building never found the bomb shelter it was linked it. That's -- I mean, it's really smart. But it's also -- it's sort of a way to move the plot along where Quinn can instantly know something about this world he's never seen before, know a safe place to go."
DAN: "It's a plot contrivance. It's like -- hmmm, I need the character to know something he has no way of knowing; I'll say he's a genius to excuse it."
JIM: "Well, it is meant to show the audience that Quinn is a genius."
DAN: "You know what it felt like? It felt like Dan Harmon listens to our podcast, knows we pick best character of the week and just wanted to rig this episode so that Quinn would win this week, you know? Like, he's just stacking the deck."
JIM: "I love how you think TV gets made based on what we say in these podcasts."

Darkness Falls
JIM: "'Reunion' was pretty lightweight and basically written like a sitcom, but 'Revelation' gets dark in this first segment. Like, Quinn says the sliders need to abandon Maggie to probably dehydrate and die in this San Francisco where people in California are basically quarantined to contain the teslanium contamination."
DAN: "The whole teslanium backstory about how it was a special kind of environmentally friendly fuel that turned out to be toxic to humans and impossible to filter out of water -- this was pretty good. I wouldn't have imagined a sitcom writer who does movie parodies and shit to come up with something like this."
JIM: "Yeah, he didn't. He said in an interview that he hired the Season 4 story editor, Marc Scott Zicree, to come up with all the alt-histories for him."
DAN: "So let me get this straight -- this Dan Harmon guy wants to do SLIDERS. He lives and breathes SLIDERS. But he needs to pay somebody else to come up with parallel Earths for a show about the multiverse?"
JIM: "That would be the case."
DAN: "Then why the fuck did he want to bring back SLIDERS? That's what I want revealed by 'Revelation'!"
JIM: "Still, no matter who came up with the idea, it's good and it creates a really tough situation where the sliders are mad at Quinn for saying they can't help Maggie and need to focus on investigating these weird clocks and following the neutrino signal. This is really serious and deadly."
DAN: "Yeah, it was weird -- in Season 1 and 2, Quinn is constantly getting involved in other people's business; now he's become even more of a callous prick than he was in Season 4."
JIM: "Well now -- the sliders tear Quinn a new one and Quinn comes up with a plan to turn Maggie's truck into a zero-point energy vehicle that won't need any fuel that she can use to get away."
DAN: "That made no sense whatsoever."

Genius as a Plot Device
DAN: "Like, how the hell can clock batteries fuel a van? A van that runs on gas? Like, they throw some technobabble about how it's impossible but the magic batteries make it possible."
JIM: "I think the explanation for how clock batteries can fuel a van is that Quinn Mallory is a genius."
DAN: "Again! The story goes in a bullshit direction and the script says no, it makes sense because Quinn is smarter than you. I just want to say right here that when you cheat this way with a character, you are disqualified from being best character of the week."
JIM: "Yeah, Quinn Mallory hasn't won character of the week in the entire run of the show and I don't see that changing now. But -- I mean, I did kind of like it. And they justified it by saying his idea is based on how the timer had a self-regenerating power chip which in itself is a reference to a deleted scene from the Pilot."
DAN: "I get it, Dan Harmon, you really like SLIDERS. But you really liking SLIDERS does not mean you know how to write for SLIDERS."
JIM: "Have you ever felt anyone knew how to write for SLIDERS?"
DAN: "No!"

Quinn and His Creepiness
JIM: "Anyway, Quinn and Laurel go out to this watchmaker's shop near the bunker to get some tools they need and some stuff happens between them."
DAN: "Yeah. Some stuff. Stuff."
JIM: "First, Quinn reveals that he was only partially interested in helping Maggie; he came out to the watchmaker's shop to take apart the weird clocks and learn more about them and Laurel acts like he's a monster for not caring about Maggie."
DAN: "That was weird. Like, he did help Maggie. It just wasn't his top priority. But I guess Laurel also finds it weird that he's lying to his friends and he has some secret agenda. Throughout this whole episode, Quinn is all shifty and clearly upset about something and for some reason, only Laurel calls him on it. Like, nobody else thinks that Quinn is hiding something. It's like the writers just really like this new girl and want her deal to be she sees through Quinn despite only knowing him for less than a day."
JIM: "And then there's that weird scene where Laurel slips and Quinn catches her and holds her in his arms and stares into her eyes and it's just -- you wonder -- what?"
DAN: "Does Quinn want to fuck Laurel is what I was wondering; I mean, the actress that plays Laurel -- she's 19 but looks 12 and Jerry O'Connell is very obviously in his forties even if he's in shape."
JIM: "Honestly, Jerry doesn't play it that way. He plays it like he's looking at Laurel through a microscope, he's not being flirty at all. It was more like a doctor examining a patient and seeing something amazing -- but scientifically amazing as opposed to romantically amazing."
DAN: "And right there and then, Laurel says she's gay like the movie wants to let us know quicklike that this isn't a romance between them."
JIM: "But even raising it makes it this hilariously distracting red herring from Laurel's true identity."

Escape on Two Fronts
JIM: "And then the bad guys storm both the watchmaker's shop AND the bunker. So the two groups are trying to escape. Laurel has this insane ninja action sequence where she beats up five bad guys who want to harvest her organs, because this world has a thriving market on uncontaminated organs."
DAN: "It scared the shit out of me. This was good. I mean, Laurel's so tiny and then suddenly she's literally crushing one guy's head with a table. And bringing a bookshelf down on another. And smashing this guy's face in with a plank."
JIM: "I think this is the first extended fight scene in SLIDERS that was actually in any way well choreographed. The gunfights and fistfights in Season 3 are adequate but not really all that gripping; Season 4's fight scenes are like jogging videos in slow motion."
DAN: "But here -- Laurel's fight scene is so intense. And the actress totally sells that she's a fighter and then it's like -- she has no idea how she did that and Quinn steps into the room and he's amazed to find her standing over three big dudes lying dead or knocked out."
JIM: "I don't think the movie is saying Laurel killed someone; it treats it like Batman taking down muggers. There's no trauma over her first kill or anything and Quinn never talks about it and you feel like he would."
DAN: "Yeah. Jerry and this actress -- Taissa Farmiga? They have this really weird relationship where Quinn has these little moments of approval where Laurel says that something moves the plot along and he smiles at her and she treats him like -- like he's a fictional character she read about and now gets to meet for real and she critiques him. I liked that because Quinn is SO terrible and she says what I'm thinking about him."
JIM: "I actually found that kind of a pain. It's so common -- the wise child who's wise because she's an adolescent being written by an adult. Well, Laurel's actually pretty immature -- but she just understands Quinn. She can read him like a book. I kept thinking, there is no reason why Quinn and Laurel are so in sync so suddenly, it hasn't even been 24 hours."
DAN: "Except it turns out THERE IS A REASON! DUNH DUNH DUNHHHH!!!!"

The Death of Maggie Beckett
JIM: "So, the bunker gets flooded, the sliders and Maggie try to escape, but Maggie drowns and Rembrandt is heartbroken."
DAN: "It was almost like watching shipper fanfic tragedy where Remmy loses his true love Maggie forever."
JIM: "To me, it was more like -- Rembrandt getting so upset over Maggie dying when he barely even  knew this Maggie is actually to show how screwed up he is after becoming the last surviving Slider. Because we don't really know what happened to Maggie and Mallory and Diana, but the Professor said in "Reunion" that there are no more sliders except them. And Quinn says Maggie is gone."

End of the World Party
JIM: "So, the Sliders move onto the next world in the trail and it's a world where the weird doomsday clocks have also appeared and their countdown speeding up during various world disasters has made the global population think they're counting down to the end of the world."
DAN: "Okay, this world -- it's definitely not as well thought out as the first one and in fact, it's kind of lazy. It's basically saying that this world's history as the same as ours -- had the same terrorist attacks and and food contaminations and heatwaves and natural disasters -- but this world's culture panicked over them a lot more where a few hot dogs with listeria led to a nationwide food shortage, where deaths get massively overreported and the people are basically counting down with the clocks to the end in a few hours' time."
JIM: "Well -- I'm actually not sure. This end of the world party is unbelievably sedate; people in this shopping mall are just sharing free food, painting, writing -- basically doing all the low-key stuff they maybe didn't have time to do before. Building model battleships, mastering magic tricks -- "
DAN: "If my world was ending, I would be downing shots and you'd be stuffing your face with brownies and it'd be more like the 'Last Days' situation where people are going nuts."
JIM: "But the thing is, there's a couple lines of dialogue about how the sliders have landed in an arts and culture zone and there's plenty of orgies and keggers -- they're just happening somewhere else. So, what we're seeing doesn't necessarily represent the whole world -- just this little piece of it."
DAN: "That strikes me as an unbelievable copout. Hey, I can't write a whole world! So I'm just going to write one shopping mall and let you fill in the blanks of the outside world yourself! I don't think this Dan Harmon knows how to write SLIDERS."

The Motionless Picture
JIM: "In your view, who does know how to write for SLIDERS?"
DAN: "No one. But what's really annoying is, the Sliders find out -- oh, the clocks from the previous Earth are on this one too! That's weird! And while Rembrandt runs off on some side adventure, the Sliders decide to confront the mystery head on -- by sitting around and talking about things! Like, seriously -- this is the middle of the story and it's just the actors wandering around in a food court talking about the plot. This is SLIDERS as a major motion picture."
JIM: "Rembrandt gets some action going."
DAN: "Yeah, it's like Rembrandt saw where the story was going and said, fuck this, nothing important's going to happen in this shopping mall, and I just saw a double of Maggie Beckett, so I'm going to go with her and hope to God it's less boring than hanging out with Quinn and Wade and the Professor and the new girl."

Rembrandt's Adventure
DAN: "Okay, so Rembrandt runs into another Maggie Beckett, this one's a spy who's investigating the doomsday clocks and she's tracked whoever scattered them across this world to this Millennial Tower building on the 75th floor. And when Rembrandt helps her fight off some goons, she sizes him up with a look and can instantly tell that Rembrandt's a former espionage agent oblique slash soldier oblique slash undercover operative -- "
JIM: "It's a nice way for Rembrandt and this Maggie to instantly team up and work together on breaking into this heavily guarded building with its own private army stationed throughout every floor and Maggie wants them to fight and shoot their way to see the doomsday clock mastermind, but Rembrandt convinces her that they can instead disguise themselves as air conditioning repairman. They get caught but use this -- this sonic taser trap that I can't even explain -- to take out all the guards. They get to the 75th floor and meet the doomsday clock boss and it's Conrad Bennish Jr."
DAN: "Except Bennish isn't the man in charge; someone named Jameson Hall set him up to keep the clocks prominent in society with money and media plans and Bennish has no idea who this Hall guy even is and just gave him this universal credit card with unlimited funds that also unlocks any electronic lock."
JIM: "Anyway, Rembrandt and Maggie have to flee the building because Bennish triggers a ton of killer drones to come kill them all and Remmy and Maggie use a window washer platform to escape because, I dunno, the writer had a flashback to 'Lipschitz Live.' Maggie and Rembrandt accept that they've failed and Remmy goes back to the mall to rejoin his friends and they slide out."

Narrative Substitution
JIM: "So, what do we make of this whole segment?"
DAN: "It's like -- it's almost like Dan Harmon wrote all these action sequences of Remmy and Maggie fighting up this building to get to Conrad Bennish Jr. and then he didn't have the money to do all the gunplay and explosions -- like, Bennish has a drone force and we never even get to see it! Everytime we're supposed to get a cool action sequence, we don't get one."
JIM: "I think that's actually the point. It's this gimmick that Dan Harmon likes to do called narrative substitution, where he sets you up to expect one kind of story -- in this case, an action flick -- but then it turns out to be an episode of GET SMART or something where our spies use trickery and ideas. I think the deal here is that Maggie was living in a blood and guts action shootout and Rembrandt's presence shifts her into a different genre."
DAN: "It doesn't scan that way to me at all, but at least it gets Rembrandt back to being his Season 5 self instead of the Season 1 version that REBORN turned him back into. But given that Remmy's plot was supposed to add some thrills to an otherwise super-boring segment where the Sliders wander around a shopping mall talking."
JIM: "It's kind of weird that Remmy gets going on finding the truth about the doomsday clocks but he doesn't come back with any new information whatsoever."

Sliderschat
JIM: "So, back at the mall, the group splits into Quinn and Arturo taking apart the clocks and Wade and Laurel looking at art exhibits and performances in the mall. Arturo figures out -- the clocks are all a single clock, but they've somehow been mapped to multiple locations in reality; and the clocks are also receiving the reality warping neutrino signal and relaying it. Meanwhile, Wade and Laurel see all these people writing all the novels and painting all the paintings and learning all the magic tricks they never had time to learn but now want to master before the world ends."
DAN: "Jesus Christ, this is the end of the world and it's boring! And these people -- they act like the end of the world is just some sort of weird thought experiment rather than something that'll actually happen, and they're sure that when the doomsday clocks hit zero, they all die somehow -- they don't even know how or why."
JIM: "Well, I think the conversation between Quinn and Arturo touches on that, where Quinn says that his world -- our world, really, is facing the end of the world too with heavy pollution, ozone layer damage, financial crisis, epidemics. And there's a neat moment where Quinn says he's been fighting to keep our world from blowing itself up and he feels like he's losing. It's cool. Quinn's dealing with the same stuff we deal with in real life."
DAN: "Again -- Dan Harmon got the original Sliders, the OG team, back together! He got Sabrina Lloyd out of retirement! He got Jerry O'Connell to wear flannel again! And this is what he does with them -- he has them wandering around having boring conversations! That's the coolest thing he could think of for Quinn and Wade and Rembrandt and Arturo! They sit around talking!"
JIM: "To be honest, I think that's the point here. SLIDERS REBORN's focus is basically on the characters and their relationships and the entire story is told with the emphasis on these characters. And I think it's a fair choice; these characters are what make the show special -- "
DAN: "No they're not! SLIDERS' characters suck! Wade's a whiny crybaby, Rembrandt's a screeching coward, Quinn is the lead character and he's never won character of the week. Of the four of them, the Professor's the only one worth a damn and he's annoying too! So if SLIDERS REBORN exists just to have these four morons hang out and shoot the shit, SLIDERS REBORN should be re-aborted."
JIM: "So, what you're saying is that it doesn't work for you that Dan Harmon wrote a SLIDERS story focusing on the Sliders."
DAN: "Damn straight."

Global Dimming
DAN: "So, the third Earth is one that's so badly polluted that sunlight no longer penetrates the outer atmosphere of the planet Earth, and because this is SLIDERS REBORN, naturally, all this is conveyed through the Sliders sitting around a coffee shop."
JIM: "That's literally true. The timer says the neutrino signal originates from this Earth, so they just need to wait for the timer to provide an exact location. They wait it out in a coffee shop and Quinn looks around and can instantly tell from the lack of milk, cream, sugar and non-artificial coffee that this world's suffering from global dimming because crops like sugar and grazing animals like dairy are no longer available."
DAN: "It's completely ridiculous! Nobody can sort out an alternate history just like that; in the old show, the sliders had to meet exposition extras, read almanacs, watch the news, hit up libraries -- "
JIM: "Okay, hold on, hold on. It's been established that Quinn's been sliding for 20 years straight, so maybe after two decades, maybe he's gotten good at being a Slider. Quinn's a genius and -- "
DAN: "Quinn's genius is just an excuse for the laziness in the writing. This is a writer saying he doesn't want to spend more than one scene explaining this parallel Earth's history, so he'll just have Quinn magically know everything and I don't buy it, I don't buy it because Quinn's too much of a jackass to ever be this cool."
JIM: "Alright. Moving on. The gang find out that the signal's originating from the 75th floor of the Millennial Tower on this Earth, and they go there and they're confronted with a Quinn-double and it's the Quinn-double from the Pilot."

Smarter Quinn
DAN: "So, once again, we have a huge moment -- Quinn confronting the very Quinn who's responsible for the doomsday clocks, who gave Quinn the secret of sliding and started this whole crazy journey -- and it's just 10 minutes of Jerry O'Connell monologing at Jerry O'Connell. Seriously -- there is NOTHING to this movie besides people standing around talking!"
JIM: "Well, sure. But it's livened up with some holographic images to serve as visual aids."
DAN: "Oh, big deal. It's a glorified PowerPoint. Anyway, the deal is this: the multiverse is completely fucked. It's dying. The Season 4 - 5 Human-Kromagg War that took up two years of the show, that was unfinished, that hasn't been spoken of once in REBORN -- it's left reality damaged and dying and the multiverse doesn't split properly anymore and all Earths have identical histories up to the day of the first slide. It's so random."
JIM: "Uh, they mentioned the Kromagg invasion in 'Reunion' and said it was erased by some kind of 'cosmic reset.'"
DAN: "Yeah, so first, the show is saying the Kromagg arc was, in the grand scheme of things, no big deal, but then it pins this new SLIDERS era as being the result of the Kromagg arc."
JIM: "Yeah, I think that's the point? It sets you up to think that the past can just be forgotten, and then not only does the past come back to haunt the Sliders, it's been around them all along."
DAN: "It's just a really weird way to write a story, Jim! Setting you up for action sequences only to not give them. Doomsday is coming, you expect panic and stuff happening -- but it's just people sitting around talking about it. You expect we're ignoring Seasons 3 - 5 aside from joking about them; but then it turns out we're in a sequel to all those plots. The whole story is just Jerry O'Connell and the old gang onscreen -- "
JIM: "So, you'd like a story that's more predictable -- the actors should never be onscreen... ?"

Doomsday Pre-Empted
DAN: "Anyway, Smarter Quinn has this plot to use the doomsday clocks to destroy reality, but Quinn plot devices his way into stopping it and all the characters tell him how smart he must be when it's just the writer giving him and only him an unlimited supply of plot devices."
JIM: "The solution Quinn has to stop Smarter Quinn from destroying the multiverse by merging all the separated doomsday clocks into a single item, ripping them out of reality, breaking cause and effect, and creating an interdimensional black hole that can be crunched down and restarted -- "
DAN: "Like, that's just 'As Time Goes By''s hole in reality from having changed the future and the Combine experiment from Season 5. So derivative!"
JIM: "I think it actually makes the plan more plausible because it's based in concepts the show's introduced before -- "
DAN: "Yeah, that's the lame part! Why not make a new concept?"
JIM: "Uh, okay. The Sliders stop Smarter Quinn from using the clocks through -- um, it involves them splitting into three groups, all three building three sliding machines and hijacking Smarter Quinn's neutrino stream to move the clocks somewhere out of Smarter Quinn's reach without damaging reality, so reality is saved. But still, you know, broken."
DAN: "I hated that, that was so stupid."
JIM: "I can see you hating the idea that Quinn had all the equipment ready before they even slid because he guessed they'd need it based on what the threat could be -- "
DAN: "No, that's fine. I'm even fine with Wade and Rembrandt being able to assemble a sliding machine based on the Professor phoning in instructions. I hate that they saved the multiverse."
JIM: "What?!"
DAN: "I liked what Smarter Quinn said about how the multiverse is damaged and all the realities within the multiverse are broken and totally beyond saving and it'd be best to put it out of its misery and restart with a new multiverse. I think he was totally right and the show should have had him succeed."
JIM: "I don't think it was ever really an option that the Sliders wouldn't save the day along with all of reality?"
DAN: "I don't want the Sliders saving reality. They shouldn't be doing that."

Collating Complaints
JIM: "Okay, let me get this straight. In the podcast up to this point, you've complained about Quinn being a genius whose smarts move the plot forward. You find the story too unpredictable and you don't like any story elements that remind you even a little of past SLIDERS episodes."
DAN: "Yeah, I remember saying that, it was like half an hour ago."
JIM: "You also have a problem with the Sliders saving all of reality because -- "
DAN: "Because they shouldn't! Their reality sucks! It turned the Kromaggs from badasses into shitty Klingon ripoffs! It has two seasons stuck in that stupid hotel set! The reality of this TV show should totally be obliterated and struck from existence and anyone who tries to save it is stupid!"
JIM: "And also, you think it's a problem whenever Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and the Professor are onscreen because you prefer not to see them -- "
DAN: "Yeah, that's right."
JIM: "So, your problem with SLIDERS REBORN is that you don't like watching SLIDERS and you will hate this show just because it exists."
DAN: "Yes."
JIM: " ..................................... "
DAN: "We were done, Jim! We were finished with SLIDERSCAST! We moved on! And then this STUPID mini-series got written and filmed! We were just starting Season 2 of STARGATE for STARGATECAST -- and then we had to stop it to do SLIDERS REBORN! God damn it! I was finally free! And then it comes back to life! And Walter's only in 'Reunion' and only for half a minute -- that was the only thing I had going for me with SLIDERS! I can't do this anymore, Jim! I can't do anymore of these podcasts, I can't watch anymore of this show when I don't even have Walter-appearances to keep me invested!"

Walter
JIM: "Hey, I just saw the synopsis for Episode 6 of this show. It has a list of returning guest-stars -- and actor Gary Jones as Michael Hurley is on the list; we'll get to see Walter again! He's coming back for the last one!"
DAN: "What?!"
JIM: "Yes! Looks like Hurley's got a big role, too."
DAN: " .............................. god-damn SLIDERS! Let's pick the character of the week."

Character of the Week
JIM: "So, even though all the characters got pretty equal screentime in this movie --
DAN: "Yeah, the movie was just wall to wall Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo talking and talking."
JIM: "It does seem like Quinn had the most to actually do -- he finds the bunker, he takes apart the doomsday clocks, although the Professor realizes they're all the same clock. Quinn also comes up with the plan that saves all of reality which counts as an achievement even if you don't like it."
DAN: "Well, Jim, on the surface, it sure looks like Quinn wins character of the week, which I don't think he ever did in Season 1 to Season 5. Except it's because of Quinn that reality's damaged -- he fucked up rebuilding the multiverse and put it back together a mess -- which means he's basically the villain of the story."
JIM: "Yeah, there is that."
DAN: "So, Quinn Mallory continues to not be character of the week. And Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo -- they were basically around to be funny, they don't do anything."
JIM: "So, it looks like we're left with Laurel Hills, the daughter Quinn had with Jane Hills in 'Love Gods,' who is actually the one to save the multiverse at the end using all the smarts that Quinn gave her and some of the stuff he taught her."
DAN: "Yeah, there's this huge moment where Quinn says that Laurel has his eyes -- which is why he was staring at her face so weird in the watchmaker's shop!"
JIM: "So, given that Laurel saved all of reality and is the reason they're all sliding again, she should be the character of the week."
DAN: "I love Laurel. My favorite thing about her is that she wasn't in the original SLIDERS."

EP.COM: ROBERT FLOYD RETURNS TO SLIDERS
As Jerry O'Connell's replacement in Season 5, Robert Floyd (or Rob as he likes to be called) played the new Quinn Mallory in the final season and played him well. But even when the show returned in 2015, Rob didn't expect to return and was astonished when the request came for him to play a hallucination of Mallory in a 45-minute SLIDERS film, "Revolution," in which he would share the screen with Jerry O'Connell. In this exclusive interview, Rob shares his experience with REBORN.

Rob, hi! I can't believe we're having this conversation!

I can't believe it either. I left the acting business 15 years ago; I never expected I'd come back to SLIDERS and I never expected there would be a 46 minute short film focused on Mallory and Quinn interacting together. Who'd want it? Who'd watch it? Who'd write it? Apparently, someone would.

How'd the offer to return to SLIDERS come about?

Well, ever since I left acting, I've been running a cocktail business that designs cocktails and events and we also have regular shows called COCKTAIL THEATER. Yahoo hired us to cater a bunch of publicity events for SLIDERS REBORN and that led to my manager -- and my wife -- getting a call asking if I'd consider doing four days of filming for REBORN. And the chance to revisit a really amazing job and a great time in my life was too good to pass up.

How'd you approach your role in REBORN?

My first appearance is just a little cameo in "Revelation."

With my full appearance in "Revolution," I wanted to balance it between my Jerry O'Connell impression and my Season 5 character because Mallory in "Revolution" is a hallucination and I think part of him is Mallory and part of him is Quinn's survival instinct.

What're the challenges of playing a hallucination?

I'd say the tough part is making sure that even though you're technically an aspect of another character's mind, you still need to differentiate yourself from the other character in the scene. So, when Jerry's fixed in one place, I'm wandering around the room. When Jerry's focused, I'm more distractable, when Jerry's commanding, I'm awkward and when Jerry's in a weakened state, I have to be stronger. I'm whatever Quinn can't be at that moment.

What was it like working with Jerry?

I was a little nervous because there was a chance he saw me as a scab after he left the show, but John Rhys-Davies was there and he encouraged us to treat it like a really neat acting challenge where we're both playing different aspects of the same character and "Revolution" is actually Quinn talking to himself the entire time.

I asked Jerry if he would mind working out what he wants Quinn to be in each segment so I could be the opposite. Jerry asked if we could just improv it. John rolled up the script, whacked him in the head with it and Jerry suddenly wanted to go through the pages with me.

The main thing John wanted me to highlight and that I tried to play is that I am Quinn's survival instinct, his desire to live, whereas Quinn has lost hope and fallen badly into depression. It was helpful having John around because he's a SLIDERS junkie and I honestly don't know the show as well as I'd like to; I studied Jerry's acting in old episodes, but I was too busy to watch it fully when I was doing Season 5 or since then.

So, when you're performing Mallory referring to all the past episodes --

I wanted to make sure that it didn't feel like I was just rattling off a shopping list, and so I asked John to give me the lowdown on what I was talking about when I was referring to the CDC and the Kromaggs and Edulearn. The Chief Oracle I knew because I'd watched that one to get Jerry's voice and mannerisms. The Zercurvians -- even John didn't know that one, and Dan Harmon lent me his copy of the comic book to explain that!

I wanted to make sure I came off as though I knew what I was saying even if I didn't.

Why did Mallory need to come back to SLIDERS?

Hunnnh. Honestly -- I have no idea. I would've been happy just to be the caterer.

Dan Harmon said that because he was hiring Tembi, Kari and Charlie, it felt wrong to leave me out. But the thing is -- I would have been okay. I worked on SLIDERS for one year over a decade ago; I loved it, I missed it, I let it go. But I got the sense that Dan never really let it go.

The amount of thought he put into justifying the scenes between the two Quinns is just unnerving -- a virtual reality afterlife machine that uses a hallucinogen that undiluted is explosive in order to create a dream state that's the subject's ideal existence -- it is a crazy amount of strain to get me and Jerry together.

I got the sense that Dan has this conflict where he loves the original Sliders -- the first four people -- but he also wanted to reconcile the second-gen actors with the first generation and that hiring me was acting out this internal psychodrama where he could finally make some sort of compromise between these two conflicting versions of SLIDERS.

I also heard that you also worked on the series finale?

Harmon asked me to do a few extra days of filming after "Revolution." My role was -- well, the finale of this mini series had Jerry O'Connell fighting his double. Most of the dialogue scenes where Jerry talks to Jerry -- that was actually Jerry working with his brother and his brother would be his body double. But for the fight scenes -- Harmon asked me to step in for Charlie. More specifically, Harmon asked me to perform all the scenes where Jerry's double is beating him up.

I'd done some boxing, so I knew how to mime punches and make it look like I've hit someone without actually hitting them. But Harmon had me go full-method on this where every time Jerry O'Connell's getting hit in the face, that's my fist doing the hitting. He had us switch roles and so any time a Quinn has the upper hand in a fight scene, it's me playing that Quinn.

It was like -- it was like Harmon was just really keen on seeing me punch Jerry O'Connell in the face over and over and over again. That's where I started to get the sense that he was acting out some deep-seated psychological issue that only this mini series could resolve.

How did Jerry handle this?

He seemed pretty pissed off, but then John was on set as his acting coach and standing there yelling at him, saying, "Quinn is losing! You must sell your defeat to the viewer! You must convince them you are losing!" and Jerry would grit his teeth and tell me to swing again. So, my main memories of SLIDERS REBORN consist of beating up its series lead knowing that my face would be digitally replaced with his in the final product.

And how did things wrap up for you with SLIDERS?

Well, I catered the launch party. I always like to be in the trenches with my staff, so I was behind the bar serving drinks and taking requests, and I was really happy to present cocktails called the Quinn, the Ms. Welles, the Cryin' Man and the Professor. Sabrina Lloyd is a really good tipper.

I was trying to avoid Jerry as much as possible because I felt so bad and at one point, I hid in a supply room to get away from him, but then Jerry came into the supply room and hid with me -- he said Tom Cruise had shown up to the party and he was scared of him and I think we mended any problems between us.

I still don't really understand why I was there -- I'm reasonably sure that Mallory is absolutely nobody's favorite character -- but I was glad to be there if only to bring one man's crazy some peace of mind.