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Hey guys, we're just sitting down to record the new ep on "Desert Storm" and "Dragonslide" so feel free to give any feedback. We won't get to it now because we're recording but the next ep we are discussing “The Fire Within” and “The Prince of Slides”

Cheers,
Cory

So, one thing I am struggling with in SLIDERS REBORN: five characters. Five lead characters for a 120 page script is too many, and absolutely none of them can be dropped. I mean, a SLIDERS without Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo is false advertising. And the Laurel character was designed as a plot device to reunite the original sliders, but dismissing her after that feels artificial. And I do not have the energy to write 3 - 4 episodes of SLIDERS; three feature-length scripts and a novella are taxing enough.

The unfortunate result is that the characters are carried along by the momentum of the plot. Their actions do not define them. I seriously hit a point of irritation when Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo spent two scenes working on opening a door. And it also means that the parallel Earths aren't particularly well-defined -- which, quite frankly, is a blessing in disguise because world-building is not one of my strengths.

I'm trying to compensate for this by focusing on pastiching the actors. Making sure that while they may not do anything superbly definitive, every line resonates. And at times, I find myself swapping lines and rewriting them to avoid the reader forgetting that the character is in the room. So, maybe Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo spend a lot of time working that door, but they have a hilarious argument as they work it. This results in scripting where Matt Hutaff once exclaimed in dismay, "Everyone's comic relief!" And yes. This is my peculiar impression of Dan Harmon's SLIDERS only with a lot less ability, talent and literacy.

Back on the old Bboard, Informant remarked that no work is flawless and no piece of art excels in every area. That writers must have a vision and then decide what the priorities are in serving that vision. I'm okay with SLIDERS REBORN being less about sliding and more about the sliders, but it makes me feel a bit like Tim Kring -- in that it would probably work better if I paid Bryan Fuller to turn my scribblings and ramblings into finished content.

Another weird thing that happened: Laurie (whom the Laurel Hills character is based on, although the resulting character is actually nothing like Laurie) finally finished her box set of FIREFLY. And she hated "Objects in Space" because the evil and sadistic bounty hunter threatened to rape Kaylee. I said I didn't understand why a villain being a rapist was a problem. Laurie said that it triggered feelings of fear and vulnerability and powerlessness that FIREFLY had no business triggering unless it was really going to explore the subject of rape -- and that Kaylee whimpered pathetically when all the men got to fight the bounty hunter. I pointed out that River defeats the bounty hunter and Laurie said that I couldn't possibly understand how it feels to be a woman watching a show where rape is raised so casually.

After that, I went home and went back to a scene in Part 2 of REBORN where Laurel Hills is cornered by three thugs who claim they have uses for "fresh, young flesh" -- presumably, to force her into sexual slavery. I changed this to the thugs wanting Laurel for "fresh young kidneys" and "virgin lungs" and "mint condition eyes" and rewrote some of the earlier bits of Nigel Mitchell's world-building to include a huge demand for black market organs. I asked Laurie if this was acceptable and she said sure. I don't understand at all, but I found forced organ harvesting to be equally threatening and therefore an acceptable rewrite.

Anyway. I have finished 1/3 of Part 2, which, because of the darkness and misery, was really slow-going. The final 2/3 are more the oddball bantering and lunacy I prefer to write, so I expect I'll have a rough draft done by the end of the weekend. And spend the rest of the month adding setups to my payoffs as well as more jokes.

If Sabrina isn't part of the reunion, what exactly is being reunited? What's the point of doing it at all?

I also can't say I'm too keen on a NEXT GENERATION approach considering the first generation was a complete and utter disaster in the end. I still remember the delight and joy of knowing that Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo were the first to discover sliding and we were along for the ride on this very first outing into the multiverse. Why deprive a new generation of viewers of feeling like they too, are discovering sliding with Quinn Mallory? Why would we instead tell them that sliding has been done before in some other series they would have to grudgingly endure in order to appreciate the current series?

It'd be cool, though, if Jerry played Michael Mallory to the new Quinn Mallory. (Jerry's a bit young, but Michael Mallory's also a bit dead.)

My black lab, Rocky is going on two years without a spleen. He has some arthritis, but is in pretty good health otherwise. I think he and my other dog, Boo, are going to be depressed more than anything else since Buster is gone.

And typing that last part just about set me off again... It sucks.
But drowning my sorrows in TV shows and junk food is keeping my mind off of things for the most part.

Reddit. Hmm. That would be one of the ones that I have no idea how to use.

I do need to catch up on the rewatch

In case anyone was wondering, this was generally used as the go-to thread to discuss the podcast, SlidersCast at www.sliderscast.com -- Man, some good memories here. Ironically enough, the message board went kablooey right around the time things went off the rails for us. I had to deal with a few illnesses, a death in the family, and during all that, work was busier than it had been all year. I was slammed.

Also working against us was the fact that we had an episode recorded, the now released episode 25. We had a special guest on that episode, the very cool Ian McDuffie, who you may remember from the blog, "Think of a Roulette Wheel". Anyways, Ian had a lot to add to the episode, so it's much longer than most episodes, and we had some audio issues throughout, so it required more editing than any other episode thus far.

A perfect storm of events to cause a boatload of delays.

We're getting back into the swing of things now and should have Greatfellas up in a week or so, and we've got the Patreon bonus episodes as well. Anybody that backs us for a dollar or more gets the first bonus episode. Anybody that backs for $3 or more gets every episode we do. And in case we miss the June deadline, we'll do 2 for July. Anybody wondering what the bonus episodes are, we cover alternate universes in other shows and movies. We tackled an awesome Twilight Zone episode first, and we'll be doing that Netflix movie "Parallels" soon.

And for anyone who already watched Parallels, you might find this interesting:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2 … rector_of/