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Nobody test this theory.

This is the study:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101 … 21262158v1

This is a web article on the study:
https://www.deseret.com/coronavirus/202 … ious-covid

The upshot of the study is that while vaccinated and infected people were contagious, their viral particle count dropped within three days. In contrast, an unvaccinated and infected patient is contagious for 10 - 20 days.

I don't know anything about this at all, but I'd like to believe it. I don't know if it's true. But I'll march my mother to get a third dose as soon as she's eligible. In the meantime, I'm carrying extra boat shaped ASTM3 masks in my bag and restocking on hand sanitizer and watching BLACK WIDOW in VR at home.

The actual study: https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0057100

The study's review of surgical masks is extremely concerning to me: 47 per cent filtration when the material was wrapped around an outlet pipe is shockingly poor. However, the study specifies that N95 and KN95 masks have electrostatic filtration -- and then equates surgical masks with cloth masks as lacking that filtration. This indicates they used a surgical without electrostatic layers, so their study doesn't review surgical masks that do have the filtration.

I've seen electrostatic surgical mask tests with Collins and Duke University where the material itself filtered 90 to 98 per cent. As I've said earlier, every time I buy a new quantity of surgical masks, I'll cut one open to make sure it has an electrostatic filter. I've found one brand that lacked the electrostatic layer and simply don't buy it any more.

The study rates KN95 inhalation filtration at 95 per cent and N95 filtration (referred to as R95 in the study) at 96 per cent protection for the wearer. Their exhalation filtration is rated at 46 per cent for KN95 and 60 per cent for KN95 -- which is protection for those around the wearer. The study does not review KF94 masks (thankfully, we've had Aaron Collins for that) and those masks are rated at 98 per cent filtration for the Kleannara.

The study also doesn't account for how KN95 masks have extremely poor quality control with over 70 per cent of them filtering less than 95 per cent; some as low as 40 although some hover in the 93 - 94 per cent range.

Anyway. As Grizzlor says, N95 masks are excellent.

KN95 masks are a gamble. KF94 is great. And surgical -- if you can make sure that the filter is present by cutting one open to check and if you can put on some cord locks to tighten up the fit, those are also good. I would just go with KF94: affordable in high quantities for a rotation, no modifications needed, widely available, stringently reviewed before export from Korea.

My personal choice of an ASTM3 mask is more for my specific face than it is a general recommendation and my ASTM3s are sold out anyway.

I've been watching LOIS AND CLARK: THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN (1993 - 1997) on HBO Max. It's been remastered to high definition -- mostly. It looks like Warner Bros. took the original film on which LOIS AND CLARK was shot, rescanned the film to 1080p (in 4:3) and rebuilt every episode digitally. However, any time a shot has any kind of post production effect, a composite, a greenscreen background -- those shots are clearly taken from the master tapes (480p video) and stretched to 1080p.

As a result, Lois and Clark walking the streets of Metropolis or through the Daily Planet bullpen is rendered in crisp, hyperdetailed clarity, but Superman flying through the sky or firing heat vision suddenly looks like a fuzzy, dull, faded VHS cassette stretched to a larger screen. I've tried running these shots through an AI upscaler and the results look... ah, pretty much the same.

I think that is something to contemplate.

**

This is not about masks or Afghanistan but, oddly, is about SLIDERS and Trumpism.

In 2018, I had an episode of blackout rage where on a SLIDERS Facebook group, a person I'll call Francisco Herrera called Temporal Flux a liar because Temporal Flux shared so much anecdotal behind the scenes information about SLIDERS that Herrera couldn't imagine anyone being able to find and therefore, Temporal Flux had to be making it all up. Herrera told people to go to EarthPrime.com for "the real story" which is hilarious because EarthPrime.com's behind the scenes information doesn't contradict Temporal Flux in any area.

I was furious that my friend was being attacked with EP.COM as a cudgel especially when I'd spent a lot of time converting a box of Sci-Fi Channel press clippings to EP.COM content. I proceeded to post 10 separate links in the Facebook group linking to EP.COM where TF had gotten the info first, each time tagging Herrera. Herrera proceeded to reply, "I have been tagged with at least TEN NOTIFICATIONS today," he wrote. "Nobody needs this on Christmas Day! If you want to keep posting links to EarthPrime, LEAVE ME OUT OF IT!"

The moderator told me to desist and I agreed. Later, I decided I had to get the hell out of this ridiculous Facebook group because posters kept slut-shaming Kari Wuhrer for having performed nude scenes (nonsensically insulting her for producing the material they clearly sought out and enjoyed). Also, the posters there inexplicably rallied behind some scam artist claiming that he was pitching a revival of SLIDERS (an NBCUniversal property) to the Canadian Broadcasting Company (which has no tie to NBCUniversal) and that he was sure he could convince the Canadian Broadcasting Company to buy the rights to SLIDERS. This person didn't have so much as a TV commercial to their name and also bragged that he was going to be contacting David Peckinpah and Kari Weir to return as their characters.

Anyway. Recently, Hererra showed up in the SLIDERS Discord. While civil at first, he remarked on my psychotic episode against him and I confirmed that his account was accurate and that he'd upset me. Then abruptly, Herrera stopped being civil when I said I had been talking to a SLIDERS crew member who shall be nameless, but I had stopped talking to them and become uncomfortable when this crew member had been retweeting pro-Trump posts.

"I'm sick of people demonizing Trump voters," Hererra said. "Your president did good things for your country. You have to accept it."

I said it was interesting that Herrera assumed he could only be talking to Americans in an internet forum when the SLIDERS Discord is actually run by a Canadian and a Scotswoman and defined a failure to support Donald Trump as treason. I also remarked that Donald Trump supporters were largely composed of abusive, harrassing liars.

Herrera proceeded to call me a "virtue signaler" and "an elitist." I promptly blocked him, but I noticed that he was responding to my every comment afterwards which I would read 4 - 6 hours later.

I commented on DOCTOR WHO having recently recast the First Doctor. Herrera shrieked at me that the Doctor had been recast in 1966, not recently, and said I should get my facts right. I guess his hurried Google search missed how David Bradley had played the First Doctor in 2017.

I remarked that Allison Mack had left SMALLVILLE in Season 9; Hererra told me that Allison Mack had "completed" all 10 seasons of SMALLVILLE, clearly having never watched the show and unaware that Mack only did six episodes out of 22 in Season 10.

I commented that Jerry O'Connell didn't seem too picky about projects these days having done lots of pilots and voicework and web videos and he shrieked at me that Jerry O'Connell was worth millions. "He gets paid more than YOU!" A very odd attempt at an insult as the vast majority of people in the world have less than 20 million dollars.

I didn't respond to him. The moderator asked Herrera to desist and I also apologized to Herrera for my behaviour on Facebook in 2018, then put him on mute again, reading his comments hours after he'd send them.

I commented later that David Peckinpah's concern for safety standards on SLIDERS had been shockingly poor, hiring a non-union stunt worker in Season 5 despite poor safety having already gotten Ken Steadman killed in Season 3. Hererra told me that it was outrageous for me to criticize David Peckinpah in any way because Peckinpah had built an excellent career before SLIDERS.

I remarked that "The Exodus" had been essentially a two week rock concert for the cast and crew to enjoy Roger Daltrey's band (The Who) with filming episodes done between binge drinking and spoke to Peckinpah's addiction issues; Herrera told me that it was ridiculous for me to speak poorly of Peckinpah given Peckinpah's mental health.

I noted that Peckinpah writing rape fantasies about Sabrina Lloyd into "Genesis" was shockingly unprofessional; Herrera declared that I had no right to evaluate Peckinpah's writing at all because Peckinpah was dead.

I didn't respond to him. The moderator informed Herrera that criticism of David Peckinpah was not in any way unreasonable or off limits.

I was later talking about how the Season 5 team had known SLIDERS would be cancelled and Herrera called me a liar, saying that Bill Dial had not known about the cancellation until after filming "The Seer."

I didn't respond to him. The moderator pointed Herrera to Keith Damron's blog posts citing that Season 5 had 18 episodes simply to reach syndication and end it, that a series finale story had been plotted, and also pointed to actor interviews where they themselves said Bill Dial believed Season 5 would be the final season. Herrera replied that Dial had wanted the show to come back, not addressing how Dial had known full well that it wouldn't.

The moderator proceeded to kick Herrera off the SLIDERS Discord for posting blatant falsehoods about SLIDERS.

Let's take a moment to appreciate how a Trumpist became angry about being described as an abusive, harassing liar and so proceeded to engage in a campaign of abuse, harassment and lies. This Trumpist declared that anyone who is worth less than $20 million is a target to be attacked. This Trumpist decreed that David Peckinpah's stewardship of SLIDERS should never, ever, ever be criticized in any way shape or form and that David Peckinpah writing rape fantasies about Sabrina Lloyd into SLIDERS scripts isn't something to be judged harshly.

Anyway. I apologized to the Discord moderator, saying that this situation was entirely my fault because I'd antagonized a crazy person in 2018 and they came after me in 2021 and did it on the SLIDERS Discord. And I gave the moderator my word that I would stop creating enemies this way because they apparently show up later on her server.

Since then, I've been dealing with the Herreras of the world by speaking to moderators and administrators and not making myself a target that they'll pursue to the ends of the SLIDERS community.

*petulant tone* Sabrina Lloyd says she'd be happy to return to SLIDERS and if Sabrina says she's in, then she's in. Sabrina wouldn't lie to me!

The most important thing in SLIDERS to me is the specific relationships and pairings that the show used. I wonder how Quinn and Arturo relate to each other as Quinn has become more seasoned and Arturo has become less insecure, and I wonder what kind of friendship Rembrandt and Wade have today.

And it'd be wonderful to see them in the basement lab again.

I am sorry, Greg. I will try harder. I've been trying to get present day photos of the actors in-character and at their current ages since 2015. Six years later, the technology to upscale the old photos to building-size resolution and to digitally age their faces has become available. Perhaps in the next six years, I can amend the outfits as well, but looking at the Season 1 - 2 versions of the characters, I feel like Quinn would always be in sweaters and flannel, Wade would always be in casual wear with one formal item (jacket or a blouse), and the Professor and Rembrandt would always be in suits.

However, I think Quinn would probably have switched from jeans to flexible golf pants at this point (less restrictive for running away from danger), Wade would have spun into blazers and dress pants (like her look in "Prince of Wails"). Rembrandt and Arturo -- they strike me as suit people. Admittedly, suits are now cut a lot closer to the skin in the 2020s whereas suits in the 90s were looser and at times baggy -- but as Cleavant and John have put on moderate levels of weight, they would probably stick to the looser fit anyway.

I hope SLIDERS will return with the sliders.

I've been converting my SLIDERS stories to ebooks in ePub format. My SLIDERS stories feature the sliders in 2015, alive and well, somehow resurrected after 2000. I've been making covers that take the old publicity photos and digitally age the faces to feature Rembrandt in his 60s, Wade in her 40s, the Professor in his 70s and Quinn in his 40s.

It'd be good to see them all again.

I have been rewatching ALIAS on Disney Plus. It's a JJ Abrams project (LOST fans should check it out) and it's streaming in high definition. Interestingly, the image, while detailed and clear, is extremely grainy. It looks like it was filmed on 16mm film. The grain likely didn't register on the CRT televisions that everyone would have been watching ALIAS on (2001 - 2006), but on an HDTV, the higher resolution scan of the film inflates the grain as well.

It's interesting, ALIAS is a big budget JJ Abrams project on ABC -- and yet, it has a final image that looks closer to Seasons 4 and 5 of SLIDERS. It looks like 16mm film (again, due to the increased grain level). The grain of Seasons 4 - 5 doesn't really register due to DVD compression, and I wouldn't want the ALIAS grain totally stripped out as everything would look like a wax dummy, but a mild reduction of 10 - 15 per cent be less distracting on an HDTV.

Another show that was filmed on 16mm film was NBC's CHUCK, a series that is extremely, extremely grainy on high definition blu-ray and also resembles Seasons 4 - 5 of SLIDERS in that respect. Modern TV shows are shot digitally but have film grain added in post -- but only to the degree of resembling 35mm film as opposed to 16mm.

I'm afraid that my ASTM Level 3 masks are a Canadian product delivered within Canada only (and they seem to have sold out anyway at present on innolifecare.com). However, the mask that I have my mother wear is the Kleannara KF94 and Kleannara has an Amazon store.

https://www.amazon.com/stores/KLEANNARA … C97B9972D?

I've taken apart my ASTM3 mask and taken apart the Kleannara mask and the Kleannara mask is actually a bit better. Under the Kleannara's outer layer of water resistant non-woven layer is a high density filtration layer on top of the electrostatic layer followed by the soft-on-skin layer. In contrast, my ASTM3 mask has the water resistant material on as the first and third layer with the electrostatic filter in the middle. But my ASTM3 mask has a closer fit on my nose, so I use those instead.

Aaron Collins, the mechanical engineer whose videos provide me with all knowledge of masks, has reviewed the Kleannara as well with his equipment and he measured filtration at 98.7 per cent, so it is a very fine mask. https://youtu.be/Z93BoeCuIE4?t=1992

My mother says she can't wear the Kleannara right now as it's very hot outside and she is struggling to breathe through the four layer mask. I have put her back on three-layer surgicals with cord locks. If you already have surgical masks and just want to close the gaps, you could try spending $7 on 100 cord locks.

https://www.amazon.com/Adjuster-Silicon … ref=sr_1_2

The only quote I can find from Osterholm on the subject is his appearance on CNN saying that cloth masks are ineffective and N95 masks are his preference; I see no comments on surgical masks from him, although all the search results are inundated with anti-maskers citing Osterholm to bolster their lies that all masks are useless. https://thehill.com/changing-america/we … rotect-you

Regardless, Duke University's tests have shown that surgical mask materials have nearly the same filtration as N95s. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabd3083 However, surgical masks require either a second cloth mask on top to ensure a firm fit or cord locks to tighten up the earloops for the individual wearer.

Why would someone buy something other than an N95? They can be costly. In my city, N95 masks cost about $1.88 USD per mask. In contrast, a KF94 costs $1.04 USD per mask, and my mask of choice costs $0.77 USD each. My mother, in the hot summer air, cannot breathe through any of these masks and can only stand to wear a $0.40 USD surgical mask. I have added cord locks to each of the earloops ($0.12 USD a pair) to ensure a tight seal to her face for those masks.

Masks aren't infinitely reusable; they'll endure about 40 hours of wearing before the filtration diminishes. People may need to buy masks in high quantities at lower price points and my 77 cent ASTM3 mask with a 360 seal is equal to any N95. Also in my case, I find that most duckbill style masks like KN95s and even the N95 leave some slight gaps whereas the boat style mask I have chosen leaves no gaps at all and the ASTM Level 3 protection boasts splendid filtration.

ASTM Level 3 filters 98 per cent of particles down to 0.1 microns whereas N95 is rated for 95 per cent of particles down to 0.3 microns (although N95 certification tests fit and ASTM does not, but these ASTM3 masks fit my face better than any alternatives I've tried and I've tried a lot).

N95 is an excellent standard. But N95 is only one manufacturing standard of certification from the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. NIOSH does not review every mask in existence. Numerous countries have their own certification standards. Countries that aren't America are perfectly capable of manufacturing and certifying masks with electrostatic filtration. Americans don't have a monopoly on meltblown polypropylene.

Other certification standards for electrostatic filtration include the international ASTM (formerly American), the European Union's FFP2, the KF94 of South Korea and the Chinese KN95. Each standard and testing process is slightly different and the KN95 has proven lax, but mask standards are not the sole domain of the United States or NIOSH or China.

Mechanical engineer Aaron Collins has tested KF94 masks and found that they match and exceed N95 standards. https://news.yahoo.com/one-man-is-on-a- … 56926.html

NIOSH has not reviewed KF94s. But mask filtration is not affected by whether or not one American body put their stamp on the box.

Now, to be clear: Grizzlor's preference for only wearing N95 masks is safe and sets a high target for protection. Anyone who adopted it would be well-protected. N95 masks are an industry standard of high performance. It is the most resilient and most stringently tested respirator technology on the market. Nobody should ever perceive an N95 mask to be anything less than excellent. And Grizzlor is entirely correct to present Osterholm as a source of knowledge as Osterholm has warned that cloth masks are pretty much useless.

However, there is also excellence to be found in ASTM Level 3 masks, KF94 masks, and properly fitted electrostatic surgical masks as well. Once the filtration is good, the key concern is fit.

I hope you're right about the vaccines versus the Delta. They definitely keep you out of the hospital and out of the grave, but the reports of contagion among the vaccinated have rattled me a bit.

You seem to equate cloth masks with surgical masks. That simply isn't true.

Cloth is indeed near-useless as a filtration medium, but surgical masks are made from meltblown polypropylene. They have a water-resistant filter, an electrostatic layer and an inner layer for skin comfort can filter viral particles. But to protect, a mask with these layers must firmly adhere to the face and leave no gaps around the nose and mouth. Masks with these filters fail to protect not because of the filtration but because of the fit, and fit can be amended.

I have reviewed and personally taken apart N95 masks, KN95 masks, KF94 masks and surgical masks. The N95 is the gold standard because it wraps around the back of the head and clamps to the face to seal off the nose and mouth -- but aside from that, the filtration, while heavily layered (five layers), is ultimately acting on the same principle of the KN95s, KF94s and surgical masks: a water resistant layer to block droplets and an electrostatic layer to ensnare viral particles.

KN95s have the same number of layers and the same filtration, but Chinese manufacturers have had a lot of trouble meeting N95 filtration standards because many of these plants were previously making T-shirts and socks. These masks often break easily or have massive gaps in the electrostatic filtering or don't have all the layers of an N95.

KF94s have four layers and the same filtration, they seal firmly to the face, and they are extremely reliable because South Korea actively inspects manufacturers and fines any business with substandard output and poor quality masks never make it out of the country. However, the filtration rates have proven to be the same; the extra layers of an N95 make it harder and more resilient to wear and tear but adding a fourth and fifth layer only provides diminishing returns.

The material used in surgical masks have nearly the same filtration levels as N95 masks despite only three filters. They have an outer water resistant layer, an inner electrostatic layer and a layer for facial comfort. The problem is not the material; it's that surgicals are shaped like flat rectangles and can't align to the three dimensional shape of a human face. They don't seal firmly, at least not out of the box, and because they leave gaps at the sides, their filtration is estimated at 60 - 80 per cent depending on the face.

However, a surgical can be amended with putting cord locks on the earloops to tighten the surgical mask's grip against the face. They can be further augmented by adding an additional PM2.5 filter inside the mask which can be firmly pressed against the mouth and nose by a tightly fitting surgical.

Totally agree with Temporal Flux about restraints, restrictions and the creativity it inspires, except... I'd argue that we should also be aware of all the advantages that come when limits are surpassed. Compare the singing flowers of the original STAR TREK pilot to their CG augmented counterparts in "If Memory Serves"; compare the slow submarine battles of the original STAR TREK with the hyperkinetic action of the third season of ENTERPRISE. Note the episodic constraints of THE NEXT GENERATION matched with ENTERPRISE doing three parters -- effectively feature films -- on its fourth season.

Extended length is a tool and I agree that it can be a crutch, but I'd also argue that it can be a springboard once the tool is mastered. That mastery is not apparent yet, but perhaps it will be soon.

I thought LOKI was great! THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER was trying to be political but took a vague, wishy-washy non-position of nothing. LOKI is trying to be psychological and humour-oriented and so it can take a very firm position that Loki, for all his flair and charisma and talent and power, is a loser and will always lose: he can't build trust, he's a narcissist who falls in love with himself, and this is beautifully portrayed in the sequence where a small team of Loki-doubles betray each other in turn.

**

My niece banned me from seeing BLACK WIDOW, saying that the Delta variant is way too scary even if I'm double-vaccinated because other audience members might not be. I will see it when I don't have to pay money for it in addition to what I'm already paying for Disney+.

Scarlett Johansson is undoubtedly in the right in her lawsuit and I don't even like Johansson as a person, a privileged, entitled, snotty and cruel person who accepts roles that should go to Japanese and transgendered individuals (although she apologized for the last one). However, Disney has historically treated its workers with contemptuous abusiveness: laying off its theme park staff while its executives pocketed millions even when Disney's pathetic wages were leaving three-quarters of their theme park workforce perpetually on the verge of homelessness and starving even when they could afford a roof over their heads. They reopened Disney World at the height of their pandemic, for God's sake.

There is no doubt in my mind that Disney felt they could stiff Johansson on her fee, not bother to come to an alternate arrangement with her for moving BLACK WIDOW to streaming, and settle any lawsuit for pennies on the dollar. However, I will note that actors seem to constantly have to sue studios for what they're owed. David Boreanaz and Emily Deschanel and David Duchovny have had to sue FOX for underpaid residuals. Creators have had to do the same: Chris Carter had to sue FOX, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar had to sue Warner Bros. It's pretty ridiculous.

I've also read that Kevin Feige is outraged at Johansson's treatment: that he urged Disney to make a new payment arrangement with her before they took BLACK WIDOW to streaming and they declined.

What a lovely thing to say. Thank you very much. And I'm sure TF and Slider_Quinn21 appreciate you enjoying their ideas too!

I liked the FLASH finale up to a point -- that point being when the Flash and the Reverse Flash and Godspeed began fighting with lightsabers.

...

I'm all for repurposing and drawing on other people's ideas for inspirations -- such as in one story where I copied Chris Chibnall's mystery cubes from the DOCTOR WHO story "The Power of Three" and presented the Doomsday Clocks, chronometers counting down to doomsday. But the image of people fighting with laser swords is so firmly, fundamentally identified with STAR WARS that I think it's absurd to try to co-opt it or present it in a way that isn't very obvious and clumsy in being a ripoff. SMALLVILLE often ran into similar problems in Seasons 8 : they would devote an episode to pastiching a movie and there were many in each season: SAW, RESIDENT EVIL, CLOVERFIELD, SAW again, THE MATRIX, SPARTACUS, THE HANGOVER -- but there was at least a shift into that specific genre: the horror-trap movie, the zombie film, found footage, cyberpunk, gladiator trials, bachelor parties.

When Barry and Thawne and Godspeed become Jedi Knights, it doesn't feel like a homage to a genre. It's simply lifting the iconography from some other work instead of having THE FLASH create its own. There was no rationale -- none -- for why Barry has previously thrown lightning but now holds it in a solidified form in his hands or why one end of the energy is harmful but the end of which Barry holds it is harmless.

Bart and Nora were fun, the show is still being written as a series of characters filibustering with whiny emotional issues until somebody gives them a sappy motivational speech. It's nice that unlike SLIDERS, THE FLASH bid farewell to mainstays Carlos Valdez and Tom Cavanagh but both are happy to return for a few episodes a season and that good relationship has been maintained. But it's clear to me that THE FLASH is simply existing to fill a timeslot at this stage.

Golly! I'm actually behind SUPERMAN AND LOIS. I'm hoping to catch up at the end of this week.

It's strange -- on a technical level, I like the Pilot a lot as a cinematic piece of filmmaking from director Andy Tennant. However, my favourite directors on the show are Adam Nimoy and Richard Compton ("Into the Mystic," "As Time Goes By," "Invasion" and more) -- because Nimoy and Compton took a totally different route than Tennant. Where Tennant's direction was very methodical and let you live and breathe in prolonged shots of Quinn's world and sliding, Nimoy and Compton aimed for immediacy and urgency and economy, sharing the most information in the least amount of time.

The Professor's fight with the Professor in "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome," Quinn racing into the Sorcerer's private chambers in "Mystic" -- it's all about keeping the shots as short as possible to convey urgency. Tennant's style does make a comeback in "Invasion" with the lengthy scenes of the sliders trapped in a Kromagg cell, when slowing the pacing now has meaning where the show was so relentlessly paced before. These days, modern TV is so fast with scenes often less than two pages of script, and Nimoy and Compton were well ahead of the curve in the 90s, speeding up the storytelling long before it was mainstream.

I remember once reading a summary on PTSS where the summarizer remarked, "Spock's son shoots the scene so confusingly I can't tell which Professor won the fight," and Temporal Flux later remarking that you can tell if you put your finger on the screen to identify which Professor came in the taxi and which Professor accompanied the sliders. Adam Nimoy is a great director.

It's interesting -- Torme declared that a SLIDERS revival with him at the helm would not be "woke" or "politically correct."

I think Torme has an unusual definition of "woke" and "politically correct," just going by his previous work and interviews where he previously called "political correctness the great lie of the left." Torme was born in 1959, and the early twentieth century definition of "political correctness" was adherence to a specific political party's dogma and having that dogma override any personal positions and by the 70s, it was a mockery of the Russian Communist Party supposedly having pre-written and pre-approved responses for any and all social situations. He seems to attach the adjective "woke" to this definition. I think he's still using "politically correct" this way.

Since then, "politically correct" has evolved into an insult to disparage any discussion of sexuality, gender, class divisions, race, and systemic inequality -- and I don't believe Torme means "politically correct" in this manner because these are subjects which I feel Torme would gladly dive into from his libertarian perspective. I think Torme rejects the idea that any political party -- Republican or Democrat -- can hold the only truths to be found in this world (although he certainly sees the US Constitution as absolutely sacred). We are talking about someone who has described himself as "a radical leftist," "a radical environmentalist" and a "radical animal rights person" and "an ex-Democrat."

Torme is capable of mocking every side of every political divide, satirizing every gender role and racial stereotype -- and he doesn't allow political fealty to any particular party or dogma to interfere with his finding faults to gently observe, invert and explore.

Just my read. I could be Wrong.

"Luck of the Draw": the ending in 720p.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Annie Fish once remarked in their review of "The Dying Fields" that "Life is cruel, and unusual, and completely unfair. So why bother? Why bother feeling? Why bother trying— why bother with anything? You shouldn’t. And this is what SLIDERS is really about. It’s the personification of cynicism. Of nihilism. Of existential horror taken to such a complete extreme as to become completely meaningless."

Part of this is seeded in "Luck of the Draw" where Annie Fish tacitly argues that the logical endpoint of SLIDERS is that all the sliders die horribly because they are interdimensional travellers, but they are interdimensional travellers with no combat training, no resources, total randomness in their journey, a makeshift piece of equipment that facilitates their journey that is unreliable and possibly unmaintainable, and that inevitably, they will slide to their deaths.

But... I don't agree with that. Sci-fi television is all about people beating the odds, not meekly submitting to them. "Luck of the Draw"'s cliffhanger was not borne of nihilism. It came out of confidence: Torme knew that SLIDERS would be back. He knew that FOX would get the last 13 episodes of the original Season 1 order on the air and get the full cost of their fee to Universal realized in ad revenue. It's also why FOX finished the second season of SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES; FOX would have lost money by not finishing out their original order even though the show's ratings were poor.

Torme knew SLIDERS' return would be delayed. That the show might return in a very different form as FOX wanted to 'retool' the show for what would be Season 2. But it would be back. And so, SLIDERS in Season 1 ends with a cliffhanger to keep the show in the viewers' minds and urges them to anticipate its return.

"Luck of the Draw"'s cliffhanger is not declaring that Quinn getting shot is the likely fate of everyone on the show; "Luck of the Draw" is declaring that SLIDERS will return. That the sliders will always come back.

When I was writing "Slide Effects," I was deliberately putting little references to someone who has been a real friend to SLIDERS and SLIDERS fans, and some of the continuity and character elements come from this person instead of coming from the show.

The statement that Quinn's work in anti-gravity is a follow-up on unfinished research from his father does not come from the series. It is actually a reference to Temporal Flux saying he observed similarities between the 2000 issue of ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #1 where writer Brian Michael Bendis showed a 15 year old Peter Parker working in a basement lab with a blackboard of complex equations, working on a revolutionary adhesive formula that his father started but didn't finish before his death. (The formula becomes Spider-Man's webbing.)

Temporal Flux remarked, "Does that setting seem familiar to you? A basement laboratory. A blackboard equation. A son continuing the work of his dead father. The first scenes of the SLIDERS pilot movie center around very similar elements as we are introduced to Quinn Mallory. Was this Ultimate Spider-Man treatment an homage to Sliders? So far an answer is not forthcoming...but one really has to wonder given how closely the situations resemble each other... "
https://web.archive.org/web/20160809214 … spidey.htm

As far as I can tell, the Pilot did not establish what Quinn's father did or didn't do for a living in the Pilot; "Gillian of the Spirits" reveals him to be a mechanical and electrical engineer and "Genesis" declares that he was indeed a slider and that he was a member of a human-and-Kromagg society. "Invasion" establishes that Mary's world was invaded by Kromaggs at age six, so the Kromaggs have been slidetech equipped for at least 15 - 20 years and probably more.

Since "Slide Effects" asserts that Seasons 3 - 5 are all in continuity and all happened and merely happened to a different set of sliders (many different sets), it seemed reasonable to say that Michael Mallory was a scientist. And it seemed reasonable to imply that Quinn's work on anti-gravity was something his father started, a way to connect with him. It draws more on Seasons 4 - 5 with Michael Mallory creating slidecages and war zones between dimensions and superweapons than it does from Torme's version of Michael Mallory.

It was also a way to bring Quinn's father up: I wanted Quinn's reunion with his mother in "Slide Effects" to be shocking and deeply emotional. I was horrified by what Season 5 did to Linda Henning's character and always cringed at what Ms. Henning might have thought of her bizarre trajectory on SLIDERS. I wanted Quinn to be so relieved and overwhelmed to find his mother not only home but untraumatized and to put Michael's presence in the scene would increase the emotion.

I also wanted to imply that Quinn and Amanda had had some sort of fight between the teaser of the Pilot and the breakfast scene that would justify Quinn's emotional reaction to the sight of her from Amanda's perspective; that she'd said something she later thought her son might take more harshly than she'd intended -- and I decided to say she'd told Quinn to stop connecting with his dad through the anti-gravity research. Why didn't they seem to still be fighting in the Pilot?

In my mind, Quinn would have apologized, used his knowhow to fix the power, and no more needed to be said of it, but in "Slide Effects," when Quinn seemed upset at the sight of her, Amanda assumed the fight was not as finished as it had seemed.

But it was a reference to Temporal Flux's ruminations, really. I liked the idea a lot, I saw no contradiction with the series, and I found it useful when having Quinn react intensely to seeing his mother but needed them to resume (relatively) normal interactions afterwards.

And there are actually two more references to Temporal Flux. When Rembrandt says, "The Cryin' Man's always got a special place in his heart for his fans," this is referring to Temporal Flux saying, "To this day, Torme holds a special place in his heart for SLIDERS and its fans."

And the last is when Arturo tells the sliders, "Remember, home isn't a place; it's the people you're with." It's something TF once said. He said that no matter how lost Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo might be, so long as they were together, they were home.

I meant there could be a proper wrap-up to the 1995 - 2000 series in spin-off media like a comic book, an audioplay, a novel, a puppet show, a popup picture book or a dramatization with fruit salad figurines.

I think that if the original cast return to play doubles of the characters we met in 1995, there could also be comic books or audioplays to address the original characters and wrap up those storylines properly.

A lot of fans remarked that Quinn's backstory was akin to Superman at the time of the original broadcast. I cracked wise that David Peckinpah had retconned Quinn into "Kal-El of ****ing Kromagg Prime." However... I believe that the whole Season 4 Kromagg arc originated with Marc Scott Zicree although what is actually onscreen appears largely against his intentions.

The plan was for the Season 4 finale, "Revelations," to reveal that the entire "Genesis" backstory and invasion was a Kromagg trick. Colin was an altered clone of Quinn planted as a sleeper agent. The Kromaggs had manipulated Quinn into shutting down the slidecage to allow the Kromaggs to retake Kromagg Prime.

Zicree is extremely well-liked among SLIDERS fans and his story idea is also very popular. I, however, am in the minority: I think Zicree is brilliant, but in my strictly personal opinion that is shared by nobody else, his Kromagg Prime story idea was a disaster from start to finish.

The idea of Kromaggs and humans having once shared a homeworld is so antithetical to the Kromagg's xenophobia -- as established in "Invasion" -- that it'd have been better to just create something new rather than use the Kromaggs.

And I think it was a mistake to even do a to-be-debunked season-long storyline in which Earth Prime is invaded and Quinn isn't one of us. SLIDERS operates on the sliders being from a world that is similar to our own so that we and the characters have a common frame of reference for parallel worlds being different. If Earth is a Kromagg Outpost, that frame of reference is altered. Even if "Revelations" was to overturn that, that's still 21 episodes where the sliders don't come from a world that is anything like ours.

Zicree wrote an episode of SUPER FRIENDS and a character in SUPER FRIENDS is actually named after Zicree (Zi-Kree). Zicree worked with writer Michael Reaves whom Zicree apparently brought into pitch ideas for SLIDERS, one of which was bought (and butchered) for Season 5. That said, even if Zicree hadn't worked on SUPER FRIENDS, it's doubtful that any American is ignorant of Superman and Krypton.

I have been cautiously staying neutral on the entire subject of Bitcoin, careful not to weigh in until Temporal Flux said something about it. Now I'm going to side with him unless new information arises.

I think the problem with THE FLASH in Season 7 is the same problem as S5 and S6: it's too slow. In Seasons 1 - 4, THE FLASH would complete in six episodes what other shows would take an entire season to do: powers were learned, secrets were revealed, identities were exposed, hidden agendas were unveilled. Season 5, however, had a new showrunner and THE FLASH spent an entire season with Barry being unable to stop one guy with a magic knife. Season 6 did something neat: it split the season into two arcs. However, the individual scripts were still extremely slow. Characters wander around; they hesitate from taking action, filibustering until a commercial break, then filibustering again until somebody gives somebody else a sappy emotional speech.

The writers are struggling to write for a speedster because a speedster demands that each episode have at least three situations that can only be solved with clever application of superspeed and the current team can come up with about ten situations per season. Superspeed is extremely hard to write and the one person who was quite good at it was also crazy abusive and rightly fired off the show and blacklisted from the industry.

I think THE FLASH needs a certain mad sci-fi inventiveness at the helm, but all the writers I can think of would not be considered by the CW or WB because they don't have any TV experience.

**

BATWOMAN is in a difficult position with its fans. After Ruby Rose quit the show, the fans cried for Wallis Day, but the showrunners felt that swapping Rose for Day would be visually nonsensical and instead found a new character to wear the Batwoman costume. A few episodes into Season 2, they decided that they would recast Rose's role after all but offer an explanation for why the face was different. But even after casting Wallis Day, BATWOMAN delayed and prevaricated: she was wearing a facial covering in a cameo and then absent for several episodes, then she was wearing a wooden mask, then she had her face restored but altered to look like Wallis Day instead of Ruby Rose, then she was possessed by Circe Sionis.

It reminded me a bit of what Slider_Quinn21 once said about HEROES where Bryan Fuller delayed until nearly the end of Season 1 before having Peter and Sylar fight and then it was just flashing lights with all the action off-camera -- a warning that there wasn't really much content there with two invincible beings fighting to a stalemate.

BATWOMAN delayed having Wallis Day play Kate Kane until the Season 2 finale -- and having seen Day play the role, I can see why. The story claims that Kate is the same person as Ruby Rose but with Wallis Day's face, but Day's performance is simply wrong. Day could be a great Kate Kane, but she can't play Ruby Rose's Kate Kane. Ruby Rose's Kate was distant, troubled, secretive, withdrawn. She was uncomfortable making eye contact with Mary. She was guarded with Luke, trusting him fully as an ally but hesitant to think of him as a friend and determined to make him subordinate when Luke considered himself her boss.

In contrast, Wallis Day's Kate Kane laughs with Luke and winks at him. She unreservedly hugs Mary and touches her face sweetly. She warmly shakes Ryan Wilder's hand. This is not Ruby Rose's Kate Kane. This is a much more tactile, friendly, open, trusting presence than Ruby was at her warmest.

I suspect that BATWOMAN's writers have never had a firm grasp on Ruby Rose's Kate Kane. As originally scripted, judging from the audition pages, Kate Kane was supposed to be a sophisticated socialite, a smooth-talking high society elite who felt she didn't belong anywhere but in the US Army which had rejected her. Rose auditioned for the role and ignored Kate's scripted sauveness, making Kate Kane an angry punk girl, a seething leather-clad rocker with two angry fists and a glowering scowl as her default expression. The BATWOMAN writers seemed content to write their Kate and let Rose interpret the scripts as she saw fit.

Wallis Day's Kate seems to be the originally scripted version of Kate without Ruby Rose rewriting her dialogue and reinterpreting the words, and I recognize this as a variation on the comic book version of Kate Kane. I do not recognize it as the Ruby Rose version of Kate Kane. And I think the BATWOMAN writers also do not recognize this version of Kate Kane, don't know what to do with this version of Kate Kane -- so they sent her away on some offscreen quest.

I don't know if Wallis Day will return. If Kate could be offscreen for half a season and then come back, then Wallis' version of Kate could work as Kate having changed after her travels. But Day recently retweeted a podcast titled, "How BATWOMAN Failed Kate Kane." This would indicate that Day is not contracted for Season 3, not happy that she isn't contracted for Season 3, and not concerned about upsetting BATWOMAN's writers and showrunner with her retweet because she doesn't believe there will ever be an offer for Season 3.

I'm sad about that. But the version of Kate Kane that Ruby Rose played is gone, has been since Rose left the show, and she can never come back. Wallis Day may have been a fan favourite, but when I saw her playing Ruby Rose's Kate Kane onscreen -- fairly or unfairly, she wasn't Ruby Rose's Kate Kane, she wasn't Wallis Day's Kate Kane. She was Ruby Rose's body double at best. It was the equivalent of body double Maria Stanton playing Wade in "Requiem"; it is an obvious mirage and utterly unconvincing.

Wallis Day auditioned to play Ryan Wilder. She was up for being the lead of BATWOMAN's second season and the writers could have brought her in as Kate Kane right away. They must have considered it. And it's clear to me why BATWOMAN's creators decided to bring in a new character instead and it's clear to me why they delayed having Day play Kate for as long as possible. They knew it wouldn't be the same.

I suspect that the situation with Bruce Wayne is that BATWOMAN's team can request clearance to use the character and their requests have been granted twice a season: once for CRISIS, once to use an imposter Bruce at the end of Season 1, once to wrap up the Hush arc and once for a dream sequence.

**

LEGENDS has been super-fun. SUPERMAN & LOIS is like a movie.

I find that in a typical animation project is pretty much like those DC animated direct to video films.

Allison Mack is a psycho. People are constantly telling me I'm crazy, sometimes on this Bboard, sometimes in the SLIDERS Discord, but even a lunatic like me draws the line at joining a cult and branding people. Three years is way too light for a sexual abuser and human trafficker, but I understand the prosecutors cutting a deal to get Raniere in jail for what's effectively a life sentence.

Grizzlor, I congratulate you on having taken Allison Mack's Wikipedia photo. Now I ask that you stay the hell away from this convicted criminal. She is dangerous and I don't want to lose our SLIDERS.tv ambassador to a creepy cult; we already lost one guy to Trumpism.

There's another thing about most TV creators: most TV creators with a property would try to reboot it with a new cast and happily alter their property into whatever would sell the most easily. MACGYVER (1985) was a show about a genius secret agent with interesting hair, MacGyver. MacGyver worked alone. MacGyver avoided violence and gunplay and declared himself a pacifist (although he had some punchouts). MacGyver had come into espionage from the civilian world as a handyman, engineer and general contractor. MacGyver worked for a non-governmental firm that consulted on crisis situations and did not work for the US government and was deeply skeptical of American intelligence services and their morals and values. (Admittedly, in the first season, MacGyver fired a gun in the Pilot and was said to be a Vietnam veteran specializing in bomb disposal; these references were expunged in Season 2.)

The creator of the show, Lee David Zlotoff, had really only been involved in the first season. When the opportunity came for Zlotoff to pitch a reboot, Zlotoff altered the 2016 version to make MacGyver a more conventional 2016 action hero: MacGyver was now a former Afghanistan-experienced bomb disposal specialist for the US Army; his organization is a front for the CIA; he works on a team which has an expert marksman and a later martial artist -- which makes MacGyver's non-violent preferences oddly meaningless because he has no problem with his partners shooting and killing and beating people to a pulp. The CIA is presented as an almost totally benevolent organization devoted to relief work through various subsidiaries. MacGyver was now played by a young man in his mid-20s rather than a man in his late-30s.

Why did Zlotoff make these changes? My guess is that it made it easier to sell and Zlotoff was less concerned about maintaining his creation and more concerned with producing a pitch that CBS would be willing to buy and air.

I feel that Torme completely rejects this approach. He is only going to work on the version of SLIDERS that is true to his vision and if a studio wouldn't want to fund it or a broadcaster wouldn't want to air it, Torme is fine with that. Torme would rather not work on SLIDERS than work on a version of SLIDERS that isn't the version he wants to make, and the version he wants to make is with the original cast that accounts for the passage of time since 1994 / 1995 / 2000. To him, a continuity reboot with a new cast is a version of SLIDERS that somebody else can try to make.

I don't know if SLIDERS needs to be an expensive show. It could be filmed in Toronto with stock footage of San Francisco intercut with studio and outdoor shots. The harbourfront could represent the coastal areas of San Francisco. SLIDERS only has one critical effect: the vortex. Alternate realities on the Torme model are best presented through set dressing, signs, costuming, news articles and segments, dialogue and performances, not computer generated special effects. Crises are addressed through conversation and negotiation. Peacock could probably do a SLIDERS reboot with a new cast, a revival with the original cast, a Disney Channel style version and might still have spent less than they did on SAVED BY THE BELL.