It's stupid, and even with the X-FILES revival, FOX still couldn't air the episodes in order.

Do TV shows have handfuls of episodes in the can before they air?

I think it depends on the show. Network shows that air in the fall tend to start filming in July or August for a late September or even October start. They tend to catch up to the filming, which is one reason there are breaks between new episodes during the season. If there's a particular set that's needed for an arc, I'd guess all filming on that set is done at once. Common practice now may not match common practice in the 60's (there were 30+ episodes in TOS season 3, and many scripts were written without the writer ever having been able to see an episode) or 90's (22-26 episodes were common). Remember, Sliders S1 and S2 were both supposed to be a single, 22-episode season, but the network stopped production after S1E9 to force changes on the show. No, you couldn't have aired the Flash's season finale before its season premiere, but that also wasn't a goal.

Streaming is a different story. Mid-season replacements also might finish filming before airing. Strange New Worlds S3 finished filming in May, 2024, and still hasn't started airing.

I don't know how far in advance Sliders was filming, but remember, "Summer of Love" was filmed second (if you count both hours of the pilot as single episode), but aired fifth. Not at all uncommon before season-long or even series-long arcs were a thing.

Have no idea if that's the case with network shows, however I do get the sense that they are more organized than they were in the past, like if they're paying $ for a filming location or having a big celeb as a guest star, they'll film all of those scenes at once, even if they are spread out over the season, probably with alternate scenes we never see, just so the film editor has options.

Grant Gustin's last day filming on the Flash was March 4, 2023.  They'd already aired the first four episodes before he was done filming the season.  That episode didn't air for another two months, which I assume was filled with post-production.  So when are episodes in the can, and how long do networks hold them?

I promise I'm not arguing.  I legit do not know and am asking

I don't understand the need/want to air episodes out of order.

It gives the network the ability to chose which episodes to air during sweeps or other important parts of the year. Star Trek's first aired episode was "The Man Trap," the 5th episode to be filmed (6th if you count "The Cage"). The horrid "Charlie X" was filmed two episodes after "The Man Trap," but aired second. Network execs have long felt they were better at choosing which episodes would be most popular than the people who made the shows. They were wrong about that then and wrong about it now.

I don't understand the need/want to air episodes out of order.  Maybe I don't understand enough about how television production works, but they usually produce episodes in a certain order.  So shows will write and film the premiere first and the finale last.  They don't usually start filming the finale until the premiere has already aired.

So if they filmed Summer of Love before Prince of Wails, I don't understand why Fox would hold a finished Summer of Love for weeks when they could've just aired it.  In later seasons with larger episode orders, I figure you'd air completed episodes as soon as you can, and airing out of order would mean completing episodes out of order.  Which doesn't make sense to me unless it's an FX/post production thing.  But wouldn't Torme control that?

It wasn't necessary, but if you happen to be a coked-out FOX exec with a short-attention span AND it's the 90's, you're going to have a predilection for meddling and trying to fix things that aren't broken.

At that time, FOX was still new to TV and was trying to cater to the Neilsen ratings.

In the grand scheme of things, had FOX just let the episodes air in sequential order, it probably wouldn't have made a huge difference, however there'd have been less strife behind the scenes and the morale would've been higher, so who knows?  That may've made a diffeence and been a tipping point in the right direction.

EDIT: Also, they were competing with new syndicated networks like The WB and the UPN channel.

So if they filmed Summer of Love before Prince of Wails, I don't understand why Fox would hold a finished Summer of Love for weeks when they could've just aired it.  In later seasons with larger episode orders, I figure you'd air completed episodes as soon as you can, and airing out of order would mean completing episodes out of order.  Which doesn't make sense to me unless it's an FX/post production thing.  But wouldn't Torme control that?

Torme absolutely did not mind having Charlie O'Connell in small roles and as a body double, but he wasn't going to give make Charlie a regular cast member. He may have cast Charlie as an alt-world brother of Quinn's for a guest appearance.

The Kromagg 'plotline' was never meant to be some season-dominating story-arc, just one recurring thread in the anthology format of the show with maybe 1 - 2 Kromagg episodes a year.

FOX did not like the Kromaggs for a variety of reasons. First: Torme had been shot down about Kromaggs repeatedly, and he proceeded to go over his FOX network liaison to the network head to get approval. This led to a lot of bad feelings at FOX, who now wanted no more Kromaggs shows just to keep Torme in line.

The second: while Torme didn't want a season of Kromagg episodes, he did want to do story arcs where episodes ended with cliffhangers that led into the next, or where threads like Arturo's illness or his son would carry across multiple episodes. Kromaggs were one such arc. FOX said they did not want this: they wanted episodes that they could air in any order, and they disliked how Kromaggs could lock them into an airing order.

Of course, I think this was probably just an excuse: one Kromagg episode a year could air at any point. And on their watch, they approved the Rickman character appearing in multiple episodes, albeit in a fashion that those could be seen in any order. The main reason was internal anger at Torme going over management's heads and to their boss.

It sounds to me like the Kromaggs were just supposed to appear a couple of times and be a mind-bending villain to the heroes.  Torme never watched any of season 4, and I don't think Sliders was planned that far in advance so it's not like they could've taken his notes and made any of it.

Reason I ask is that whole storyline pretty much heavily ties Kromags to the show.

I can't imagine a Tormé-led season of Sliders being Kromag-centered. There's an infinite number of Earths (Also an infinite number of Kromag-invaded worlds, eventually, but still fewer that aren't). Maybe they run into them once a season. Maybe even twice. Just as a matter of not wanting to get too repetitious, though, there are too many more interesting ways to go.

It wouldn't fit into the show, but I'd love to see what happens when the Kromags invade an Earth whose timeline forked off from their own. It's not unthinkable that the Kromag Earths would eventually all wipe each other out.

I completely agree, actually.  But I think once you open that door, it's open.  And I think the natural evolution of "There's a group of humanoid monsters invading parallel Earths" is "humans form some sort of defense network."  There have to be advanced sliding humans who would form networks with each other to track Kromaggs or rescue Earths or whatever.  Which of course means some kind of multiversal war.  To keep with the Star Trek metaphor, there would be some sort of Mirror universe (an evil human earth that is doing the same thing the Kromaggs were doing).  I assume there would be Earths that would strip other Earths for parts for profit.  I assume there would be sliding tourism.  Who wouldn't want to slide and see worlds where history or entertainment went another direction?

My point is that the Kromaggs opened up the idea that there are advanced societies with control of sliding that are out there messing with other Earths.  Until that point, it seemed like only Quinn had access to sliding.  It changed the game.

And as far as the odds of running into the Kromaggs ever again, I think you're right but the show was really inconsistent with how the multiverse worked.  Quinn says in Summer of Love that there might only be six parallel Earths (which as ridiculous because I think Quinn had already seen or knew about more than that at that point).  It seemed like the way they slid wasn't 100% random as they interacted with related worlds a handful of times.  I've always kinda thought of it as sliding in "neighborhoods" in a city.  They stayed in a single "city" of the multiverse (the "human-led" city of the Multiverse).  And some neighborhoods look different from others, but sometimes you run into the same exact house design that just looks slightly different inside.  I think Quinn's timer wasn't powerful enough to get to the stranger parts of the multiverse where life evolved differently or whatever.

And I think the only reason I'd think the chances they'd run into Kromaggs more was the fact that one of them was being tracked.  If they didn't have the tracking device, I'd probably say that it's unlikely they'd ever see them again.  But if the Kromaggs are tracking them, they'd eventually come back.  And if they came back, would the sliders get drawn into that bigger world that was implied?

Not saying they should have.  But the door was opened.

To me, the most interesting thing about the Kromags is how they (and Peckinpah) ruined the show; as recurring villains, they're basically just warmed-over Klingons with vaguely defined super powers and, oh yeah, they're also serial-rapists.

Kinda surprised that FOX didn't want the Kromags; on a YouTube video, they talk about how FOX was pushing for the show to be more action-oriented.

Having said that, would not be at all surprised if the (probably coked-out) FOX execs were sending Torme contradictory notes about the show.

Thanks, but that story is a fan-made extrapolation of Torme's idea. Maybe.

Robert Floyd is mentioned on the first page.

Is he really? How parochial! ;-)

Anyway, if you are a purist and want Torme and only Torme:

Torme's idea was to simply pitch, "Quinn wakes up to find himself home," and not tell FOX, who hated the Kromaggs, that the Kromaggs were in the story, and to not let them find out until after the pitch was approved and the story was bought and the script was written.

I imagine this would have been a potential end for any Kromagg stories as FOX wouldn't fall for the same trick twice. Torme would likely have taken the opportunity to do away with the tracking device and clear Kromaggs off the board that way. But they could still be out there for a third Kromagg episode someday, however unlikely.

I don't think the Kromaggs were ever meant to be more than one episode every once in awhile.

It wouldn't fit into the show, but I'd love to see what happens when the Kromags invade an Earth whose timeline forked off from their own. It's not unthinkable that the Kromag Earths would eventually all wipe each other out.