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Quantum Leap is on the far end of the bubble for a third season.  Universal Television's head just did an interview and they are basically waiting to see what NBC says, and NBC is going to weight it against other shows they want to maybe bring on fresh.     The ratings are slightly under the broadcast average for its time slot but not far off NBC's fall drama average. If it doesn't get a third season, I think it will be safe to say the reboot will be viewed as a moderate success at best (if that).

"What's going to happen to you if you do something brave"

I'm not arguing with her idea of making brave decisions, I do think Dakota is failing to acknowledge most of these creative execs are working in an industry with not a ton of roles, and they don't necessarily have a pretty face (or a one of a kind skill, necessarily) to cushion themselves.  Yes, they are making defensive decisions, which ultimately leads to poor art.  I just think she could have acknowledged a lot of these execs are scared because its their livelihood and it's hard to stick in that industry with clear misfires or controversies or bad press.  So yea, a lot of them just try to hang on as long as they can make the ride last.

well this is super interesting
https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/wy … ce-special

This is interesting:

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/george … 235895233/

At the 1hr25m mark of the podcast dieselmickey posted, Tracy talks about a pretty interesting episode he outlined for next generation.  I think it went unproduced?

https://trekmovie.com/2024/01/24/michel … s-want-it/

I think that was the issue for her.  The contracts I guess put a hold on the actors to ensure their availability, which basically means the actors can't work other gigs because the schedules may conflict then once the orville needs them.  To go into production, it's a lot of moving parts (and uncertain shooting schedules) and the contracts want to ensure availability from the actors.

I am not sure though if I misinterpreted your post.

This is really just the perfect finale and wrap up.  You know the travels continue on; it reinforces the bond the four have; and it allows the interesting "What Ifs" not just of altered worlds but worlds they altered.

Yes, I should maybe put "alternative version" of I Am Legend, but then maybe that doesn't belong since he has a lot of different versions of whatever he got made.   The final contribution I think he estimated was 20 percent or so in what made it in.

The Picard thing, I am pretty sure he said he actually wrote something.   Maybe it was just a pitch, but I think he had a full outline/treatment or even script rather than just an idea in his head.   I believe he talked about it twice (so any details you have from Cardinal Sin's episode with more specifiity would be great).

My memory is jogging now but I believe the Tracy episode idea on an obscure website related to nicotine being illegal or something, or nicotine in general.  Does that ring a bell for anyone?

I've added Sliders Lost Episodes DOC link to the oriignal post, and can integrate later tracy's actual episodes.

Wow, a lot there.

And some pretty interesting stuff. To say the least.

I will incorporate in the original post.

It's really unacceptable that the Peacock technical team has Sliders, a title only available to its paid subscribers, a premium level of the service, from the same studio that owns the property, looking worse and inferior to XUMO Play, a free service that is simply licensing the content.  There's a measurable difference.   Even if Peacock's might be better than Roku channel's version.

At least now, it's easy to point to something better, so perhaps Peacock can be shamed over it.  I wrote their care team.  I have a family member who has an active subscription so was able to check the quality again.

Wow..   bar codes leaving us is kinda nuts.

I had some more thoughts this morning on Tracy, some stuff I didn't get out in my original post.

First, it's absolutely bonkers nuts to me that in addition to all the luminaries of science fiction this man engaged with, that Ray Bradberry was among the ones he tussled with on the subject of UFOs.   Or that the guy who runs SETI (featured in the movie CONTACT), Seth Shostak, was another.

Or that when he wanted to do an interview with Bill Clinton for his UFO documentay, he had a friend in Clinton's inner circle, and he was able to get to him... and apparently, Clinton wanted to do it but they wanted to keep him some distance from the subject, and so they offered Hillary Clinton instead (then running for president).  Tracy declined the alterative.

It's nuts to me that he was able to have a conversation on the subject with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who was a believer.   Tracy's aunt was a friend of Harry's.

It's nuts to me that someone who was connected to so many prominent, diverse, influential people, also as a footnote in his career, once collaborated on a project with Howard Stern.   That is how far ranging Tracy's life was.   It's nuts to me that he actually wrote a story (that ultimately wasn't a good fit) for the recent Picard series (I believe season 1).  I don't know if it was on spec or paid, but it seems as if he was asked.  According to him, he forgot how old Picard's character would have been, so the relationship he had set up in the episode never would have worked.

It's nuts to me that a man who was so talented and accomplished in so many ways had not an *once* of pretentiousness  in his body.   He never acted above anyone.   He always listened to all.  Probably part of the reason why he was such a great observer is he was a great listener.  I believe singers and actors are good at that particular skill -- and well, Tracy could sing, and though he didn't like jazz, he once in high school thought he'd be a rocker.

It's also nuts to me that unlike many screenwriters, he was apparently a very good athlete.  I believe he may have dabbled in baseball in college and he also I believe played football (I think QB?) in high school.   And unlike many of this fellow Beverly Hills High School graduates, he wasn't embarrassed to say he went there.  He was different.

His kindness extended to how he engaged with fans and all of us know at this point how often he was open to connecting with people, and didn't treat others with the sort of hierarchal view that many do.   He respected others as being equal to himself.   He just had no pretentious what so ever and really treated others with a classyness.

He was proud of his wife, who he would be sure to mention her own accomplishments, as one of the  best women's surfers ever.     I just think he was really exceptional and unique in a lot of ways, and I wish we all had some of his more admirable traits, even if I think there's a cost to the individual to carrying that out.   Tracy just had some great qualities to him.

I am devastated.   I feel as if Tracy leaving us is a huge loss.   I thought of him as a brilliant man, even if I did not always   share his view on everything he said.   The point is, he pushed the boundries.   Tracy did not enjoy being muzzled by the networks.   He used black comedy and science fiction to share his observations and convey possible outcomes.   He made light of the peculiarities we have.   He warned of dangers.   His creative literature was his work, his path to do this.  In later years, he grew frustrated with the muzzling of discussion in society.   He didn't distain people for holding opposite views -- what he disdained was not being able to have the conversation in the first place.

I feel like Tracy was a kean observer of human behavior, and systems, and personalities, and he knew how to create a  linear thread to help illustrate what he witnessed.  Even the tone of his voice made it more pleasant to hear him share these narratives.   I believe he was ahead on the curve on a lot of things -- he saw things before others did and so we at times can naturally recoil at this views or discard them when he's further along in understanding something than us.   Tracy of course was no god -- he could be wrong or extremely wrong about things at times -- but what I got out of his work and his interviews was he always made me think.   At times it could frustrate me in the moment but because of his gift, of course it was interesting to listen to, so how could I not?   At other times, his thoughts immediately resonated with me or just were enjoyable to take in.   And I loved hearing about his background.   This man really in the thick of everything from the entertainment business and UFO research perspective.  The guy knew and worked with Carl Sagan, Gale Anne Hurd (and James Cameron),  Gene Roddenbery, Joe Stefano, Harlan Ellison, J. Allen Hyneck, Jacques Valles, SNL's team, Travis Walton, Jerry O'Connell, John Rhys Davis, did projects for FOX, HBO, Showtime, network tv, had plenty of exposure to legendary musicians through his father.  He rescued dogs.  He survived health bouts.  He got back into the business after being out of it for so long.   He became friendly with Lue Elizondo.  He even had something going on with Marvel and Paramount in the last decade of his career (projects that did not go).   His UFO documentary which he splitted ways on (because he wanted it to be part non-fiction, theatrical type of fare) ended up becoming the most mainstream UFO documentary of all time.   

His show SLIDERS is still being viewed today and is on a premium streaming service and is in the top 92.4% of all tv titles in the U.S. ever produced as far as current streaming demand.  6.7x the market average.   There have been 6 or 7 podcasts about the show.  Countless websites that still exist.   The thing about Tracy is, he impacted culture.   Through SLIDERS, through elevating the Travis Walton case and popularizing it, through I AM LEGEND, which he was the first to jump on.   The man made his mark.   The man, who was ahead of most all of us in how he observed us, who did not want to just go with the status quo, who used his work and his voice to elevate, propose new ideas or introduce concepts, or share his thoughts, who wanted to have the conversation about things that were on his mind, made his mark.  The world is a different one without Tracy Torme.  How many of us can say we made as large of an impact.

I'm not building him up to be a lion.  But for me, he was my lion.   He was the artist / writer who I resonated with most.   Between him and Bob Weiss, I found a lot of things they were involved with that I did not originally know they were involved with but I was drawn to.  SLIDERS, Oddessy 5, Naked Gun, Kentucky Fried Movie, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Outer Limits, Contact.  My brother even worked on I AM LEGEND as a PA.  He was on the bridge that day with the seen with the dog that tracy had to walk out of the theater on because he could not take.  I never got to tell him that thought I did tell him he had worked on that movie.

Many, many years ago when Tracy started working on 701: The Movie (which became "The Phenomenon"), I paid attention because it was a Tracy Torme project.   They had a wealthy backer who made a lot of money off these prime mortage things, something the government cracked down on.  The investor was a believer.  They were offering $100k for anyone with great video as proof, and publicized it.   That never materialized, but I did follow along the projects development, which had twists & turns and turned out to be a bit of a nightmare for both of the creators.   On their youtube channel, they had uploaded some footage that was BBC archival footage I had never previously seen.   I had considered the possibility of UFOs as real when I was super young but basically shut it down in the decades that followed because the entire subject went away, and it "felt" like there was really no compelling arguments for it.   When I saw that BBC footage, which featured a bunch of school kids in South Africa, well.  I could not turn away.  I could never get out of my head, since it's not hard to tell when kids are lying, and so many of them were speaking honestly, I could not get out of my head, 'What if what those kids were saying was real?"   And so, for me, the door could no longer be shut.   Even if I don't know what to believe now.

In recent years, even though Tracy was a guy who didn't use cell phones or email much, or was rather late, and was still old school in making actual phone calls, we were blessed to get to hear from him again through the rise of creator work on youtube and podcasts.  He sorta figured out how to do video streaming, he was burdened by the bad internet connection in moving to a more rural area of California (to get away from the traffic).   And, after a huge gap in hearing from him, we got to enjoy him more.   Dark Matters with Don Ecker (and later Gerry Kissell), Cardinal Sin's channel, where we were blessed with many episodes thanks to Gil, a wondeful man himself, and finally Awake Nation, where he became a weekly guest contributor for some time.

Now of course Awake Nation had/has some off the rocker batshit crazy stuff.  But g*d damn we got Tracy every week.  And even if it could be maddening some of the discussion, we got plenty of good stuff, and the maddening stuff could force you to challenge your thinking.  Because even if you didn't always like what was being said, it doesn't mean you are always right.  Or that things are black and white.   On the show, Tracy also did a bunch of entertainment related things.   He brought back Bob Weiss.  He had a reunion with Cleavant which was a huge, huge gift to the fan base that we never were otherwise going to likely get and now, as long as the video is preserved, we will always have.   We saw the love those two had for each other, and we saw the pure love that was in Cleavant's heart for tracy, and for life.  In spite of Cleavant's own challenges with the health of his brother.

I was so looking forward to his return to Awake Nation on Jan. 10.   Or Slidecage's upcoming interview, which was spoken about just five days before Tracy passed.   Tracy had no idea that he would be passing.  He was going back to his normal routine after a couple of months of bad health.  He was feeling better. 

In some ways, that he was feeling better before his passing, is a relief.   I believe Thomas at Slidecage was fortunate enough to have that last phone call with Tracy, or that Tracy even felt better shortly before he passed, because some phenomenon that we don't know about, or don't understand, in a realm that we can't see, wanted to give him the proper exit before moving onto the next world.   Where he could be with this father once again.   That phone call Thomas had was a last chance for Sliders fans to convey how important to Tracy what he created was.  How it lives in us, now almost 30 years later, and how he has impacted us.   It was also a chance for Tracy to tell us sliders fans, he was OK.  And how Sliders was still something he hadn't given up hope on.  Whether it be a revivial or some sort of reunion fan event.

When Tracy first passed, I was sad, but also immediately angry. Because selfishly, I wanted more of his words and content, and now I don't get to have it.  I was also mad, because I had seen this coming for a long time, and my fear was realized, at least in part.   That before everyone got to get together again, the main cast and tracy, or some creative work from Tracy, that it would be too late.   I had always wanted at minimum Tracy's "works" in that world to be recorded, so once his work on earth was done, we'd have them.  I wanted novels and/or audio dramas, something lower level aimed at the fans.  That didn't need to be explosively successful, but at least the fans would have.  So when he passed, time ran out and just getting what should have been the simple things, was not realized.   I always found doing a full on TV revival both an awesome goal but as years went on, maybe more ambitious than we needed.

I just wanted more of Tracy's words, whether they be in book form, or Cleavant reading them in an audio book, or Jerry speaking them in a tv event.  It didn't matter.   Because what I was interested most in was Tracy.   He is the writer, author, observer, creator that has most resonated with me in my lifetime, and I feel like we lost a gift to the world.   Someone the networks never really let run free.  And I wanted him to get that shot, through SLIDERS, in whatever medium possible.

But, we were lucky to have him for all the time we did, and all the work he put out.  At this point, I feel most for his wife, Robin, who he was very close with and who won't have his immediate companionship for the time being.  I feel for his family.  I feel like all Sliders fans lost a "friend", too.   That's what upsets me most, more than just losing any of his future work.

I'm diving into it today (have it on in the background on the NBC app) based on your positive words though I needed to catch up on it anyway.

oh god.

There hasn't been much talk on Quantum Leap season 2 but apparently it's been airing new episodes in Q4 of last year and now apparently Season 3 is coming soon.

Has anyone kept up with s2?  I hope that the ratings are good enough in S3 for it to continue.  Whatever little hope sliders has may be somewhat tied to that.  If they get 4 seasons out of quantum leap, they may be willing to move onto sliders (probably rebooting but you never know if they do a next-gen approach) once leap concludes its run.

That's interesting SD scenes are making it into these releases.   I am sure some fans complain but in the end making something that patched up is better than nothing at all.

Pretty scary thing they talked about on the podcast was that film prints (or was it negatives?  I think prints) start getting "vinegar syndrome" after 15 years and by 30-to-40 years they all have it.   The film goes from blue, the greenish to yellow.  Yellow becomes unsalveagable, at blue you can deal with it but have to move and with greenish you better freeze it at 32 degrees and act fast.   The chemicals in the film over time continually interact.  He said most studios do a pretty good job at preserving their stuff but it's expensive and not all.   I guess the lesson is that the shelf life is not eternal.

No problem!

I'm still worried about this.

Sliders should have came back as a Thanksgiving special.  Sigh.

Tracy hasn't appeared at his regular weekly appearance on the awake nation show for some time now (idk -- six weeks, two months?).  I have concerns.  It's not like he "departed" the show.  Obviously, he has had some health issues over the years.

I didn't watch the show but this is great to see. 

Paramount Plus just wasn't going to succeed as a platform for kids. 

netflix must be to tv for the younger generation as what kleenex is to us for tissues.

Paramount Plus just didn't register nor count to them.  And the costs to make it so are just too great.

It's good to see that a viable show didn't die just because the platform wasn't right for it.  It's a similar idea with Girls5Eva moving from peacock to netflix.  New half hour comedies really weren't working well enough on peacock.

That really sucks to hear TF.

Public Safety is the most undervalued asset of local government.  It's one of the core functions.

I am sure the governor is so divorced from the vital work, he shouldn't be making an efficiency optimization like that as he disrupts your work and seems to be draining the institutional knowledge around it.   Another sign of the dysfunction of the current times. Sigh.

This is why I am always pro "the more IP, the better" (generally speaking, if a universe is really suffering from a lack of new on-going content). 

If there are misfires, some of it can usually be chalked up to making the numbers work.   I don't expect studios or distributors to take big bets to hope it reaches some breakout status or at least passes some critical threshold where more consumers discover it.   I think they need to do the best they can, while making reasonable bets and sometimes making sacrifices.   

For example, I would take a poor SLIDERS story narrated by any of the original four main actors and be happy just to have any of them doing the character again.  I'd still see it as a net gain.

I do think there can be a point of over-saturation though.  I can see a fan not being happy with a new introduction if they feel like they've already had their "fill" from other works and any new addition should only come into the picture if it won't dilute or harm the universe.

I can also see how it can be a bit disappointing to have something that doesn't hold up or you can't re-engage with because it just becomes bothersome to tolerate.

I'll always though have sympathy for the budgetary constraints in these situations because I think a lot of times we don't get new works from old properties because distributors or studios don't want to spend any money at all.

Former FOX and NBC executive on reboots:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t … 0633336542