I don't know if he personally filmed the event, but it would have been done on his say-so, and I think the footage is his to do with as he pleases. The TrekTrak programming was apparently so popular that there's sufficient demand for DVDs of the events. In 2010, DragonCon declined to ask him to volunteer again, and Watts started his own convention in Atlanta: www.treklanta.org

He talks a bit about DragonCon and why he left/wasn't rehired in this interview:
http://conventionfansblog.com/2010/06/2 … ta-part-1/ From what I can tell, DragonCon saw the opportunity to replace Watts with Garrett Wang (Harry Kim from VOYAGER) and decided a celebrity organizer would draw more attention.

Watts seems like a pretty decent fellow to me -- he could have easily been bitter and angry towards DragonCon, but he took the high road in his interview, saw it as an opportunity to do his volunteer organizing professionally and now his TrekLanta is about to have its sixth annual convention.

He could also just Handbrake the file and throw it up on YouTube. Although that sweet, sweet profit of $6 could buy one heck of a Subway 6" sub!

Yeah that was kind of what I was getting at.  But if this gent is the one who shot or produced the original footage, I see nothing wrong with paying for the DVD.  However, if he doesn't have the rights to it, should just throw it up on YouTube for the world to actually see.

Furthermore, transferring VHS to DVD is not that hard or time consuming, unless you're also doing editing and/or re-mastering of some kind.

I've done transfers, it still takes time.  Here's straight from the horse's mouth if you like:

Always nice to see good people who will do things out of sheer goodwill.

• The Mini Series: Twenty years after the Pilot, the sliders reunite in order to investigate a series of peculiar reality shifts centered around a -- oh God, stop me now.

I have tried. Oh, Lord, how I have tried.

We're still limiting this to the idea that Sliders was only going to go 5 seasons.  What if it was a smash hit, of the level of X-Files?  Are we really confident that all four actors would've been happy to devote a decade of their lives to the show?

I don't know if they would be happy about it. But they signed contracts. I don't know how long the contracts were for. Seven years is the standard, but it's not absolute; the cast of COMMUNITY signed for six years.

When the actors signed those papers, they were accepting the possibility that they might spend 5 - 10 years playing those roles, living in those filming locations, and missing out on other opportunities because this is the series to which they tethered their lives.

So, contractually, the only reason we didn't get five seasons of Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo is because the producers who took over in Season 3 did not appreciate the value of the cast -- or even the show. On one level, whether all four actors would be happy or not is immaterial -- it's what they agreed to.

Now, realistically -- most actors don't imagine that their show is going to last that long. THE X-FILES was expected to be cancelled within 6 - 13 episodes; Chris Carter, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were astonished to get a second season and flabbergasted to be filming a feature film.

COMMUNITY lost Chevy Chase in the middle of Season 4 because their relationship with him became unworkable, Donald Glover asked to be released because he was having mental health problems, Yvette Nicole Brown asked to be released because her father was ill. So yes, stuff happens, actors get bored -- but actors coming and going with no stability to the cast and no clarity as to who's available for what -- that's something American TV shows deliberately set out to avoid with long-term contracts.

Nevertheless, Chase, Glover and Brown had an obligation to devote six years of their lives to COMMUNITY as contracted -- but they were released because forcing them to adhere to their contract wouldn't have served the show: all the actors hated Chase, Glover was not well, Brown couldn't be away from her father and you can't get decent performances or a good work ethic out of actors if their issues make them incapable of performing well.

Chris Carter's plan -- as much as he ever had one -- was that there would be five seasons of THE X-FILES and then a resolution to the alien myth-arc in the feature film. Future X-FILES installments would be in film. However, as Season 4 began filming, FOX declared that (a) Carter was to film the movie after Season 4 (b) Season 5 would then lead up to whatever was in the movie, which would have already been filmed and (c) the movie would be followed by Season 6.

As a result, Carter couldn't do a movie that resolved the series and then shift into feature films. Carter most definitely did not have a clear plan as to how the movie would have resolved the alien invasion arc, and now he'd never come up with any resolution at all. FOX saw that THE X-FILES was a ratings hit, and was determined to get as much out of the show as possible in the realm of television.

I think there's a massive difference between how SLIDERS changed its cast and how THE X-FILES changed its cast. SLIDERS lost critical characters at abrupt times, suddenly and irrationally in terms of the story. In contrast, THE X-FILES gave its fans seven years of its lead characters with the Season 7 finale observing that Mulder and Scully had accomplished anything and everything they could have reasonably hoped to achieve. The conspiracy had been toppled (sort of, it was confusing), the alien invasion had been stalled (again, sort of), all questions had been addressed and answered (although they weren't necessarily great answers).

When Mulder left THE X-FILES, there was a massive outcry from the fans. But there was also the acknowledgement that the show had been doing the same thing for seven seasons and Mulder's absence was an opportunity to inject new life and new energy into the show. The Mulderless episodes in no way impeded enjoyment of the seven years we'd already had of Mulder and Scully.

So, if SLIDERS gave us seven seasons of Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo, then I think Torme would be wise and willing to start making some changes afterwards. In my imagined version of SLIDERS:

• Seasons 1 - 2: Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo are sliding randomly.

• Season 3: "Double Cross" has a different ending where Logan St. Clair is imprisoned and Arturo assumes his double's life, taking full control of Prototronics, giving the sliders a home base, an organization, and a chance to make sliding more stable and reliable with a headquarters. They rename Prototronics as Sliders Incorporated.

• Season 4: The sliders find that sliding and exploration are now secondary to a desperate war against the Kromagg Dynasty for the fate of all realities.

• Season 5: As the Kromagg war reaches fever pitch, the sliders lose Sliders Incorporated and their home base and become desperate to find some way to defeat the Kromaggs with what little technological advantages remain from Sliders Inc. We end on a massive cliffhanger where the sliders are thought dead.

• The Movie: In an epic, feature film finale storyline, the Kromaggs are defeated, but the sliders are reduced to wandering the interdimension with an unreliable timer in a random search for home. Once again.

• Season 6: Back to basics with Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo sliding randomly. The season ends with them getting home.

• Season 7: The sliders find that home is as much a parallel Earth to them as any other world and accept their lives are in the multiverse, using home as a base but now sliding, rebuilding Sliders Inc. and searching for a new generation of sliders.

• Season 8: The new generation of sliders take center stage and the original sliders only appear in half of the season's episodes as the administrative staff of Sliders Inc. The new sliders get lost in the multiverse at the end of Season 8.

• Season 9: The new generation of sliders explore the multiverse, searching for a way back home. In 6 - 8 episodes, they encounter doubles of Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo. The series finale involves all the sliders being captured by the Slide Rulers who put our heroes on trial for interfering in the affairs of parallel Earths, resulting in a lengthy courtroom session with narrated clipshows of previous episodes that ends with all the sliders going on the run from the Slide Rulers with their fate unknown.

• Movie Number Two: The FBI seek out Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo who are all living in peaceful retirement, needing their help with a series of murders with a psychic from "Obsession" at the center of it all.

• The Mini Series: Twenty years after the Pilot, the sliders reunite in order to investigate a series of peculiar reality shifts centered around a -- oh God, stop me now.

(I acknowledge this is a dangerous argument I'm making since you know a ton about the behind the scenes on the X Files and I'm speculating).

If Torme is to Sliders what Carter was to X-Files, then Torme would've stayed on board all ten seasons of Sliders and would've had to deal with different actors and new characters.  Or maybe he wouldn't have, and he would've decided to end the show (or walk way) instead of breaking up the band, as it were.  All I'm saying is that if Torme was going to come up with new characters, Maggie and Mallory aren't awful on paper and can be worked with.  Even Colin is an intriguing character on paper - a true fish out of water who could've brought back some of the wonder of sliding if done correctly.

Not to mention the fact that the show's longevity could've changed things.  Jared and Jensen on Supernatural, staying for over a decade, is the exception...not the rule.  Mulder and Scully both left X-Files.  Everyone but Tom Welling left Smallville. 

Maybe Jerry's movie career (which started/continued while he was still doing Sliders) could've taken off earlier.  Maybe Mission to Mars could've been a bigger success, and he'd want to get out of his contract then.  Maybe Sabrina still could've wanted to leave Sliders to go get a job working with Aaron Sorkin.  Maybe nostalgia could've forced JRD to leave and create a number of Sallah-based Indiana Jones spinoff movies.

In the case of SMALLVILLE, the entire Season 1 cast signed seven year contracts, but Eric Johnson, Sam Jones III, John Schneider and Annette O'Toole were released from their obligations at the production's behest. As for Kristin Kreuk and Michael Rosenbaum, they completed their seven year contracts.

Allison Mack signed a two year contract for Seasons 8 - 9 and once it was done, she decided to renew only for a limited number of episodes. But make no mistake: if the Season 1 - 7 team wanted to keep the entire cast, the actors would have been obligated to stay.

David Duchovny wanted to leave THE X-FILES by Season 5, but he signed a seven year contract and he was required to fulfill that seven year contract. Jerry O'Connell could have become Laurence Olivier and John could have booked any number of INDIANA JONES films and they'd still be obligated to show up on SLIDERS unless the production did not want them there. That's simply the nature of these contracts.

The fact that Seasons 3 - 5 had their lead characters locked into long-term contracts and still lost 3/4 should not be seen to indicate that you can't always count on having the actors available. The point of these multi-year contracts is to have hired them for their availability and to lose that availability would require producers determinedly trying to get rid of the actors.

And it wouldn't have happened under Torme; Torme was prepared to assuage Jerry's wishes for a movie career by writing him out of an episode now and then and John had given Torme plenty of ammunition to fire him over Seasons 1 - 2, but Torme would never do that. Torme loved Professor Arturo. Torme loved Quinn, Wade and Rembrandt. He would do whatever it took to keep them and when you have contracts in place, all that remains is maintaining good relationships.

(I know none of the actors are dead, even now, but it was possible).

Not to mention the fact that the show's longevity could've changed things.  Jared and Jensen on Supernatural, staying for over a decade, is the exception...not the rule.  Mulder and Scully both left X-Files.  Everyone but Tom Welling left Smallville. 

Maybe Jerry's movie career (which started/continued while he was still doing Sliders) could've taken off earlier.  Maybe Mission to Mars could've been a bigger success, and he'd want to get out of his contract then.  Maybe Sabrina still could've wanted to leave Sliders to go get a job working with Aaron Sorkin.  Maybe nostalgia could've forced JRD to leave and create a number of Sallah-based Indiana Jones spinoff movies.

If he hates the characters because they weren't his vision, that's fine.  But if he was in the same situation, for whatever reason, he would've had to have adjusted accordingly.  If it were me, I'd be more upset at what they did with *his* characters than what they did with creations of their own.

But that's just me.

And I think it's highly unlikely he would have done that. He described John Rhys-Davies as a "pain in the ass" who would "bitch endlessly about everything," but also described him as absolutely essential. John was making noise about quitting in Season 2, but it was clearly hot air as he didn't challenge his contract in Season 3 and while Torme made preparations for John's exit story in the event that the actor/showrunner relationship became untenable, John ultimately had to be fired off SLIDERS for him to leave.

As for Jerry O'Connell -- even if we imagine that Sci-Fi was late to pick up his contract option for Season 5, he would not have left Tracy's SLIDERS because Tracy's SLIDERS would still have had John, Sabrina, Cleavant and Jerry's fondness for working with those three people and that family situation would have kept him coming back. He might have been absent for a few episodes to film THE 60s, but he would have returned because he would know that if he were in any way negligent, John would never let him hear the end of it and he respected John too much.

So, you say that Tracy is wrong to dismiss Maggie and Mallory, but Tracy would never have let himself get into that mess in the first place because he would not have antagonized and abused his own cast or released them from their contracts in order to fire them. As for whether or not Maggie and Mallory are concepts worth exploring -- I think you ask entirely too much of Tracy in saying he should respect them.

That's like saying that we should roll out the welcome carpet and lay out the fine china whenever we have burglars break into our homes. Maggie and Mallory are unwelcome, they don't belong, and Tracy's hostility towards them is perfectly reasonable. It's a fan attitude to want to look at the entire tangled mess of SLIDERS and rework it into a beautiful tapestry, but Tracy, quite understandably, sees them as ugly complications piled on top of a very simple and straightforward storytelling platform.

Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo exploring the multiverse is hardly a limited concept, nor is it in any way restricting to stick to alternate history ideas. You've got the whole of human history, four characters ideally suited to exploring infinity -- and the absence of the other characters is not a disadvantage.