SPOILERS
"Reunion" starts with all the sliders separated and distant. The reason: I have two wishes for the sliders: to know that they made it home and that the 1995 series ended happily, and to see them sliding again. The two are mutually exclusive; sliding, while fun to watch for me, was hellish for them. So I started with 3/4 of the characters retired from sliding. The Laurel Hills character was a plotting necessity; her situation forces the sliders to reluctantly get the band back together and step back into the vortex.
If you read only 50 pages, then you missed all of this.
There is no way, in my mind, that a Rembrandt in his 60s and an Arturo in his 70s would resume the kind of random sliding that drove the 1995 show. But random sliding is SLIDERS' storytelling engine, so that's where I needed them to end up. If a story requires characters to agree to something they very much don't want to do, the story must construct reasons and situations to justify it. Therefore, REBORN doesn't have the sliders back together until its final pages, and they only start sliding again on its last page. I had to earn it and Laurel was a plotting necessity to make that happen.
As for Quinn's situation -- I don't really know what you're talking about. I do not understand how to apply your comments to my scripts. But on that subject: REBORN has a serious problem at the outset; if Quinn has full control of sliding, then the character is vastly too powerful and impossible to write. However, if after 20 years, Quinn doesn't have full control, then he's incompetent. "Reunion" has Quinn saying he has to be careful with sliding, that he can't make waves, that caution is why he isn't saving the world with slide-tech, and the narrative clearly and unambiguously establishes that he is lying. It's stated outright in the dialogue. All is explained in "Revelation."
If you only read 50 pages, then you missed this as well.
In terms of patterns of feedback, the response to "Reunion" has been uniformly good, the response to "Reminiscence" has been good aside from one area of confusion (fixed). The response to "Revelation" has been more varied -- the main criticism is that the plot is extremely unwieldy and haphazard. Because it's presented entirely in terms of the sliders sitting around talking and the character voices are vivid, it's enjoyable and satisfying as an experience, but troubled and inconsistent as a work of science fiction. It doesn't explore the ideas enough; it's more interested in treating the SLIDERS like sitcom characters where listening to them talk is an end in itself.
Complaints have also been that some "Revelation" scenes are *extremely* long -- although given that REBORN is all about spending time with the characters again, 10 - 15 page scenes of the sliders chattering may not be excessive but instead going above and beyond in giving the readers their reunion.
I would say the most problematic aspect of "Revelation"'s plot is the universal key card that works as a credit card and key with any lock or banking system in any universe. That's ridiculous. At the same time -- Smarter-Quinn is a genius; I don't see how he could function interdimensionally without something like this universal key. I have no idea how it would work; I just know that it's something Smarter-Quinn would have.
The first half of the climax is a long, long, long speech from Smarter-Quinn delivering a massive infodump. But -- it's the voice of Smarter-Quinn, which, to me, is interesting because it's the voice of Smarter-Quinn and a darker pastiche of Jerry O'Connell. Your mileage may vary.
My personal dis-satisfaction with "Revelation" -- the world-building's fine, but there's not enough of the little incidental, minor details of alt-history that Tracy Torme always peppered into his scripts. Tracy's comedic voice is present in the characters; his sense of social satire is not as strongly in evidence.
The most critical complaint with "Revelation," in my view: while all the characters have lively and distinctive voices, Professor Arturo and Wade suffer from the overstuffed plot. While they both have lots of funny moments and neat things to say, they do not have personal goals that are fulfilled by the narrative and it's hard to say who they are as people based on SLIDERS REBORN. Arturo is the wise Professor, Wade is.................................................. funny. But all the characters are funny. I'm going to see if I can't give Wade a good finale in the final script.
I certainly don't think my work is perfect, but I feel like the flaws you point out aren't flaws as much as they are different choices. I chose A. You would choose B.
I hope you will not take this remark harshly given our long friendship, but I firmly believe that good, reasonable criticism is accompanied by specific examples and a proposed solution and not based on a mere 18.12 per cent of the existing material.
