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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.

Well, if every time a show in development resulted in an actual show on the air, we'd have had seven SLIDERS revivals by now. But it really means a lot to me that Tracy Torme would still care about SLIDERS so much that he would try to bring it back with Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo as embodied by Jerry, Sabrina, Cleavant and John. And to know that this specific version of the show is the one he wants to see return. Thank you again for sharing this, JWSlider3.

So... is it offensive? Is it not offensive? I don't know what I think. Will you tell me what to think? My copy of WHITE FRAGILITY is not helping me in this matter.

"The King is Back" finale in FakeD.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Not sure what to say about this one. It is very funny, but music is not one of my strengths. Also, I don't know about Torme's writing for black characters. Some have criticized it as a racist caricature; some have seen it as based on Torme's friendships with musicians. All I can say is that Cleavant Derricks is a wonderful actor and I love how he takes Rembrandt's torment and makes it all funny.

"Eggheads:" Arturo's first scene with his late wife and Wade's reaction.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

"Eggheads" nearly killed me. For reasons beyond me, the Season 1 + 2 Dual Dimension set has Eggheads encoded at an even lower bit rate than all the other episodes in the set. I have no idea why. It's not as bad as the Mill Creek release, but it was still too blurry to upscale effectively. After four attempts, I manage to convince someone with the standalone Season 2 Universal DVD release to rip their disc and send me the file. This version of "Eggheads" was at the same level as the other Season 1 and 2 episodes on the Dual Dimension release, and this was the version I upscaled to FakeD.

Anyway. When writing SLIDERS scripts, I always come back to this scene to hear Arturo say, "Intellectual refinement's one thing. Moral refinement's something different." It helps me get his voice.

And one Nvidia graphics card reinstall later, we are back! Presenting Quinn and Wade's first (and last?) date in FakeD: https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Sadly, I won't be able to try this software. I thought about downloading it, but ultimately didn't because my gaming laptop is currently upscaling all my DUE SOUTH DVDs to 720p and I can't stop it right now to try a different software. Maybe you could take a run at some of the SLIDERS episodes.

Anyway. Get ready to see clips of Quinn and Wade's first date tonight in FakeD. :-D

I talked to a doctor in April. I had the paperwork to get vaccinated well ahead of my age group, but I wasn't sure if it were appropriate to do so. The doctor told me that every COVID-19 case was a strain on an already breaking medical system; that if I could get vaccinated and chose not to, I would risk becoming infected and would then add to that strain and conceivably infect others who would also lead to overwhelming the city's health care system. Vaccines don't just protect you, they protect those around you and prevent hospitals from running out of beds and staff and resources.

That said, I had a family member who snarled at me repeatedly for daring to get vaccinated against a deadly disease as early as possible, apparently feeling that for her approval, I should get vaccinated as late as possible. I decided to stop worrying about whether or not this person thought well of me or not, but I did throw myself into finding vaccine appointments for others.

In TV and comic books and other forms of serial fiction, serieses like MACGYVER, X-MEN and BATMAN will declare a massive change to the status quo. The X-MEN and BATMAN will become a global operation finding new ways to battle injustice and build a better world; they will step away from their usual formula of stories... but invariably, there's a return to the original, basic formula. Sometimes that return is abrupt, sometimes gradual, and sometimes it's in the middle. MACGYVER is in the middle.

Season 4 of MAGYVER has MacGyver tormented by the climate crisis and the planet becoming uninhabitable; he goes so far as to join a bioterrorist group planning to kill half of the global population in a nuclear holocaust. He stops them, but steals all their research and goes to Washington to show legislators how the world is in serious danger and how if governments and corporations don't act, the next bioterrorist group might not be stopped so fortunately. In addition, MacGyver's private spy agency, Phoenix, sees its financial head, Russ, injured in action. Russ tells MacGyver he's in charge now, and MacGyver declares that all the threats that the bioterrorists were focused on averting will become Phoenix's top priority, implying that Season 5 will see MacGyver focused on missions that are relevant to famine, global warming, shrinking landmasses and ecological catastrophe. MacGyver won't be doing the same old thing any more.

Season 5 opens with MacGyver on another generic espionage mission about infiltrating a hotel for terrorists and his next adventure is about stealing a bioweapon hidden in a painting and yes, MacGyver is indeed doing the same old thing all over again. To be fair: Season 4 ended abruptly and suddenly in mid-production. The creators had to find some way to make their mid-season finale feel conclusive, so they had MacGyver declare his commitment to battling the global carbon situation even if they were possibly promising a story direction that they wouldn't be able to deliver.

With Season 5, they felt they had to set the season premiere *after* the pandemic at some unspecified point in the future with the supporting characters saying that this is their first mission since COVID-19 led to them shutting down their spy agency for awhile. With the world in misery and with Season 4 having been extremely dark and topical, MACGYVER's creators for Season 5 wanted to offer familiar, gentle escapism and of course they went back to basics right away. There's also the fact that the creators had no way of knowing what the most relevant ecological and social justice concerns would be post-COVID-19, so they elected to not guess at that, already in a bad situation of guessing that COVID-19 would be over somehow in three to four months in their scripts.

Also, Season 5 opens with episodes that were meant to air in the previous season before the conclusion of the bioterror story arc.

And I myself don't know how interesting or broadcastable it would be if MACGYVER's fifth season consisted of MacGyver sitting in Greta Thunberg's living room making signs for her protests and marches for 46 minutes every week.

And yet, it's disappointing. BATMAN and X-MEN gradually returned to their status quo over 1 - 2 years; MACGYVER went back to basics without even one episode to transition. In the end, MacGyver's commitment to all the ills of the world ultimately consisted of making a big speech and then seemingly forgetting all about the climate emergency even though he spent most of Season 4 in tormented bleakness over it.

Episode 6 of Season 5 opens with MacGyver and his team stopping some villains in an opening dated "March 2020" with MacGyver crowing how happy he is that the bioterrorists are defeated and how he and his team are back to fighting simple bad guys. "2020 is going to be great!" he exclaims and the show smash-cuts to April 2020 where MacGyver and his friends have quarantined themselves to MacGyver's house and are not going on any missions. MacGyver is shown working on a ventilator out of a soda bottle and kitchen tongs and he is clearly losing his mind. Again, to be fair, global carbon emissions were lowered during the pandemic due to the lockdowns; maybe MacGyver felt he could take a break.

The charitable implication is that MacGyver was trying to balance social justice work with espionage missions shortly after Season 4; that he then spent about 12 to 18 months making cheap but functional medical equipment for the world -- and that post-pandemic, he's trying to get his bearings and work out what the top priorities should be. The more realistic reading, however, is that MACGYVER is an action-adventure show and that expecting MacGyver, a fictional character, to battle world hunger, was expecting far too much from a series of lightweight escapism and fantasy.

I believe it happens once, but Annie Fish (Think of Roulette) thinks that Wade had sex with Wilkins in the Pilot (as he was Commander Wade Welles' lover). But I asked Wade and Wade said she just made out with Wilkins.

(What? What are you talking about?) Someone was roleplaying as Wade here awhile ago and I asked Wade about her boyfriends and lovelife and what she'd like to be doing in 2015.

I had my second dose on Tuesday morning and experienced every flu symptom side effect possible and effectively lost a week of my life (and spent most of it watching MACGYVER). Still. I hope it bothers that anti-vaxxer I know.

Two people have told me that Quinn Mallory is not MacGyver, but I think the MACGYVER reboot in 2016 offers a very convincing presentation of a rebooted Quinn Mallory.

I sometimes think I will spend the rest of my life looking for Quinn Mallory in other TV shows, finding his dysfunctional insecurity in Chuck (CHUCK), finding his improvisational physicality in Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE). However, the character of MacGyver as played by Lucas Till in the 2016 reboot is by Season 4 of MACGYVER, in terms of performance and appearance (if not costuming) pretty much what I think Quinn would be if played by a new actor in a SLIDERS reboot.

Lucas Till's MacGyver is a scientific spy. As a science hero, he has Quinn's scientific and engineering brilliance, is actually more adept at physicality than Quinn/Jerry O'Connell and conveys the sense that MacGyver's knowledge and ideas propel his body almost as an outside force as MacGyver often seems possessed by his own knowledge and ideas. Chuck is too dysfunctional and inept to truly be Quinn; Ethan Hunt is not a scientist. And even MacGyver in Seasons 1 - 3 doesn't quite feel like Quinn because MacGyver in Seasons 1 - 3 is way too confident and has little to no dark side. MacGyver in Seasons 1 - 3 of MACGYVER has all of Quinn's strengths but lacks his soul.

Season 4, however, has MacGyver discovering that his dead mother founded a bioterrorist cult seeking to cull the global population by one half and create a nuclear winter to reverse the greenhouse effect while maintaining a select group of survivors in an underground colony.

Season 4 thoroughly questions the entire foundation of MACGYVER, pointing out that MacGyver's spy agency, the Phoenix Foundation, is a crisis response team that ultimately supports the extractivism and resource mismanagement that creates all the disasters in the first place with MacGyver putting out fires but never preventing the gas spills. Season 4 has MacGyver haunted by the realization that he doesn't disagree with the bioterrorists believing that the planet is doomed and that his adventures in Seasons 1 - 3 have not been the greatest use of his time.

Season 4 has MacGyver tormented and self-doubting and unsteady with his cocksure confidence now shaky and unravelling as MacGyver begins to distance himself from his team -- and Lucas Till does an amazing job of keeping MacGyver hypercapable but deeply troubled -- and finally, I see the full Quinn Mallory in the character: the brilliance, the cleverness, the bleak realization that something is seriously wrong with the world around him, the self-isolation.

Near the end of Season 4, MacGyver abandons the Phoenix Foundation and joins the bioterrorists, seemingly becoming a villain and his performance is more like Quinn Mallory than any point prior, especially when it turns out that MacGyver believes in the bioterrorists' cause fully but prevents them from setting off a nuclear bomb, shuts down their plans for global destruction, but then returns to Phoenix to redirect its resources towards battling climate change, overpopulation, famine, fully aware that he will probably fail but inclined give the human race a fighting chance to mend its ways.

It's striking that Season 4 accepts the argument that humans have destroyed the planet's ability to sustain human life and broadcasts it on CBS shortly before Season 4 had to shut down production due to a global pandemic. MACGYVER seems truly prescient and it's exasperating that all this narrative brilliance came from disgraced and now unhirably-blacklisted TV producer Peter Lenkov whose bullying, cruelty, abuse and contempt for others is not present in his writing and whose life does not reflect the scripts he shepherded to the screen in Season 4.

Anyway. Lucas Till is probably not who NBCUniversal would hire to play Quinn because Lucas Till is now 31 years old and a SLIDERS reboot would likely hire a 20 year old to get a long run out of him, but Lucas Till would have made a wonderful Quinn Mallory and anyone who said Quinn Mallory isn't MacGyver is... well, I wouldn't say wrong, it's subjective, but Season 4 of the MACGYVER reboot indicates they may be less than correct.

I think there's a good chance that the Marvel Cinematic Universe will use Hickman's version of X-MEN and I think it's a great idea.

I've only read the opening arcs, HOUSE OF X, POWERS OF X and DAWN OF X and it's brilliant. The X-Men form a new nation on the island of Krakoa, declare that rather than try to integrate with humans, they will leave it behind and offer humanity gifts of cures to all diseases in exchange for being left alone. Professor Xavier has given up on peaceful unification and chosen to build a mutant civilization apart from humans.

This take, if used in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, would be very effective for distinguishing the MCU X-Men from the FOX version of the characters.

In terms of the comic books themselves, however -- I applaud Hickman's vision, but I don't expect it to last. In 2001, Grant Morrison elevated the X-Men to a global operation and a publicly known school openly welcoming mutants as students, casting off the approach since the 60s of the X-Men being a covert operation that only pretended to be a school and was at most offering private tutoring. Morrison changed the civil rights metaphor of mutants as minorities to mutants instead representing revolutionary youth against establishment adults, and revealed that most newborn children in the Marvel Comics universe were mutants. Humans would cease to exist within generations.

In 2005, barely four years later, the HOUSE OF M storyline reduced the mutant population to around 200 after a mass depowering with no new mutants to be born. In 2010, mutant births would be restored in the FIVE LIGHTS storyline but at a low number, restoring the metaphor of mutants as a minority. The X-Men moved out of Westchester to San Francisco and abandoned the school, but three years later, Cyclops and Wolverine had a falling out in San Francisco and Wolverine and some of his friends returned to reopen, going back to the X-Men running a school. Cyclops was killed off in 2016, but in three years' time, he was resurrected and friends with Wolverine again. Invariably, the status quo of these properties will reassert themselves. Inevitably, the X-Men will be back to running a school out of Westchester at some point, much in the same way Clark Kent may drift into TV news but will at some point return to clocking in at the Daily Planet.

It's comforting, in a way, especially if you're a SLIDERS fan longing to believe that Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo will inevitably return.

One of SLIDERS' contemporaries is a TV series called DUE SOUTH (1994 - 1999). Like SLIDERS, DUE SOUTH featured an eccentric genius in action-adventure stories that plunged him into strangely alien urban environments. DUE SOUTH was also repeatedly cancelled by its network: cancelled after Season 1, cancelled after Season 2, retooled for syndication much as SLIDERS was retooled for cable, and also like SLIDERS, DUE SOUTH saw its lead actor make an effort to take over writing, producing and directing; DUE SOUTH also lost key cast members and the original creator. But unlike SLIDERS, DUE SOUTH was financially and creatively successful and had a strong run and a series finale.

Why did DUE SOUTH succeed and thrive where SLIDERS withered and died? It's because, unlike SLIDERS, DUE SOUTH had the full financial and creative support of the studio and a leading man who was obsessively committed to his show.

DUE SOUTH is about Constable Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, a wilderness police officer who goes to Chicago on the trail of his father's murderer and for reasons too complicated to explain here, he remains in Chicago, partnered with Chicago police detective Ray Vecchio and working for the Canadian consulate.

Every week, Fraser applies his knowledge of survivalism, biology, chemistry, physics and engineering to solve crimes with Vecchio being cynical, skeptical, loyal and supportive. Fraser is a genius, having absorbed a hundred lifetimes of knowledge during a childhood spent in his grandparents' library and an adulthood of isolation in the wild with little to do but read and fight crime and read. Fraser is unfailingly polite, thoughtful, oddly chaste, diplomatic, formal -- a cliched stereotype of Canadians except there are tragic and traumatic reasons for his duty-driven, sexless persona. Ray Vecchio is brusque, impulsive, rude and crude -- but he loves Fraser as a brother and sees Fraser as the living definition of human decency and also comes to know the fallible human behind the superhuman front.

CBS hated it. Showrunner and creator Paul Haggis noted that CBS constantly demanded that DUE SOUTH remove the humour of contrasting Canadians and Americans; that the comedy be removed entirely; that Fraser's traumatic history be stricken from the series -- but DUE SOUTH was filmed in Toronto, far from Los Angeles, and CBS couldn't control it. CBS was further appalled when Fraser's dead father rejoined the cast as a regular character in the form of a ghost and when the first season ended on a three parter that delved into Fraser's grief and dark side. In frustration, CBS cancelled DUE SOUTH after Season 1.

DUE SOUTH's studio rejected CBS' cancellation; Alliance Entertainment ordered a second season even though they had no American broadcaster. They began writing and filming; the show had been successful with overseas broadcasters and Alliance successfully sold the second season to UK and European channels and CBS itself ended up buying Season 2 as a mid-season replacement and financing the season. However, the show's continued survival came at a cost. Due a slight delay, DUE SOUTH lost its original creator, Paul Haggis, who had moved to another show. But DUE SOUTH continued and maintained its tone; Haggis had trained up his subordinate writers and his writing staff stepped up to maintain all the quirks and eccentricities of the show. Series star Paul Gross wrote two episodes of Season 2 and wrote two fan favourite episodes.

CBS pulled out of DUE SOUTH again at the end of Season 2. Over two years, Alliance sought financing and finally succeeded in bringing DUE SOUTH back but on a slightly lowered budget for two seasons of 13 episodes each and with series lead Paul Gross taking over as executive producer and showrunner as well as actor. Season 3 started out differently: due to the two year hiatus, all the sets had been lost, meaning the show had to justify burning down or altering the familiar locations of Seasons 1 - 2 to explain why everyone's homes and offices were different.

Season 3 also lost Paul Gross' supporting partner; David Marciano (Ray Vecchio) had moved back to Los Angeles and had no wish to return to Toronto. Season 3 cleverly brought in a new actor, Callum Keith Rennie, who for Reasons must pretend to be Ray Vecchio while the original Ray Vecchio is undercover and Marciano made a brief appearance to create a transition. Rennie and Gross had a sparklingly delightful chemistry that was reminiscent of the original but with its own style.

Season 3 also had a slightly different visual language. Seasons 1 - 2 had been a very quick, purposefully filmed series. Every shot conveyed immediate plot and character information. Under Paul Gross, however, the series shifted more on emphasizing actors with prolonged shots where the performers controlled the pacing of the scenes and the writing had far more digressions and tangents into the contrasts between American and Canadian culture.

DUE SOUTH wasn't precisely the same show as before, but the lead actor was the same, the lighting and music were intact, the location filming in Toronto was the same. Some fans found Season 3's more easygoing, comedic take jarring and obnoxious; some saw it as an evolution of the original. By the middle of Season 3, however, DUE SOUTH had tightened up its editing and the pacing now resembled Seasons 1 - 2 even though the writing had an different angle.

Season 4 was the same and series lead Paul Gross and the studio came to a mutual agreement that Season 4 would be the last: the financing had been hard enough to acquire; Paul Gross could only maintain showrunning and being the lead actor for so much longer before he burnt out, and Season 4 offered a grand two part finale in which David Marciano returned to say good-bye.

I wish Jerry O'Connell had loved SLIDERS as much as Paul Gross had loved DUE SOUTH. I wish Universal had cared about SLIDERS the way Alliance clearly cared about DUE SOUTH.

I honestly have never given recasting much thought. As someone who loves superhero comic books (although I don't read them religiously anymore because superheroes are in TV and film), it once jarred me when a new artist took over because Steve Ditko's Spider-Man doesn't look like John Romita's Spider-Man who is distinct from the Spider-Mans drawn by John Romita Jr., Mark Bagley, Steve Skroce, Steve McNiven, Stefano Caselli, Stuart Immonen, Mike McKone, etc..

Over time, I came to accept that Spider-Man's underarm webbing comes and goes; Spider-Man's webbing is alternative loops of spaghetti or cross-hatched netting; his eyes are thickly outlined or thinly sharp; his spider-emblem shifts in size and position and alignment; his suit goes from a dark scarlet and navy to a vivid crimson and sky blue. Each penciller, inker and colourist will emphasize different aspects of the design and adjust Spider-Man to their preferences. To me, recasting Michael and Amanda with Tom Butler and Linda Henning swapped for Jim Turner/Tom Walcutt with Deanne Henry is like changing the artist in a comic book.

That said, there is a serious oddity in "Genesis" where Linda Henning plays Amanda Mallory but Marnie McPhail plays Elizabeth Mallory, Quinn's mother on Kromagg Prime. Why wouldn't a double of Quinn's mother be Linda Henning as well? David Peckinpah clearly made a mistake and got his new/old backstory confused, thinking Quinn's new parentage meant his mother had to be someone else. To me, this strikes me as a glitch in the "Slide Effects" simulation or the result of a corrupted timeline as explained in SLIDERS REBORN -- which to me served as a blanket explanation for every SLIDERS continuity error ever.

However, I confess, I am a bit doubtful of catch-all blanket-explanations for SLIDERS despite offering one myself. Ultimately, fiction is created by flawed human beings. When humans attempt to create an entire fictional world with its own history and laws of science, they are going to make mistakes in construction due to oversights and gaps of knowledge. Trying to claim that one can explain every error in previous stories implies that future stories will have no errors at all and SLIDERS REBORN has as many errors and plotholes as any of the SLIDERS stories it's trying to explain.

There's an episode of DUE SOUTH that I love where the lead character, Constable Benton Fraser (Paul Gross), is locked inside a bank vault with his partner, Detective Ray Vecchio (David Marciano). Fraser taps the door of the vault with a tuning fork to determine from the sound and echo how thick the door is and how long it'll take for bank robbers to drill through. "Where did you get a TUNING FORK?" Vecchio sputters. Fraser casually replies, "That's not important," noting and dismissing the plothole.

There's another episode of DUE SOUTH where Fraser meets a reporter, Mackenzie King, played by Madolyn Smith-Osborne, a tall, dark haired, lean, statuesque lady, and they team up for an adventure. One season later, Fraser meets Mackenzie King again; she is played by Maria Bello who is short, blonde and full-figured. Fraser accepts it.

At the start of the third season, Fraser returns to Chicago after a prolonged absence to meet Ray Vecchio (David Marciano) only to find a stranger sitting at Ray's desk played by Callum Keith Rennie. This man insists that he is Ray Vecchio, all the police detectives in the office declare that he is Ray Vecchio, the man has identification and a badge naming him as Ray Vecchio -- at which point Fraser wonders if he's lost his mind. Fraser tricks this impostor into providing fingerprints, bite prints, shoe size, height measurements -- and then finally finds the police captain and presents his evidence to prove this man isn't Vecchio.

The captain rolls his eyes and says, "Of course he's not Ray Vecchio" and explains that Vecchio has gone undercover with the mob on a secret mission that cannot be discussed, but to maintain cover, everyone must pretend that this man is Ray Vecchio and has always been so; the man's real name is Stanley Kowalski. This explanation is completely nonsensical and doesn't explain why an undercover operation with criminals require that the undercover police officer have someone else inhabit his life. It's not meant to make sense. It's a wry commentary on recasting and how everyone pretends the actor is the same.

There was a point to this, but I can't remember what it was.

I haven't seen any of JUPITER'S LEGACY, the Netflix superhero show, but it was cancelled on a cliffhanger after one season at which point Netflix had the creator of the series, Mark Millar, express 'excitement' for how the JUPITER'S LEGACY universe was going to have a spinoff with a new series in the same universe, SUPERCROOKS, focused on supervillains instead of superheroes.

"We have cancelled our TV show on a cliffhanger, so no sensible person should invest any further emotion or interest in it. We are also doing a spinoff and can offer no reason as to why we would treat it any better than the parent show."

!?!?

Interesting news here in Canada. My mother's second dose of vaccine was originally booked for end of July; now it's been moved to 48 hours from now. My second dose was booked for the second week of August; now it's going to be in seven days' time.

I hope this annoys an anti-vaxxer somewhere out there.

I'm not sure what to say about Nadira Tucker's comments in Huffington Post. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/nadria-t … 75ac3ea433 It's not easy being a woman and black in Hollywood writers rooms. I am troubled that there's only one significant black character on the show, but Wole Parks is an amazing performer who is inhabiting John Henry Irons beautifully and the characterization for him is tender, gentle, caring and brilliant.

As a boy, I admired John Henry Irons for his humility and sense of duty to Superman having saved his life; his commitment to make sure that the second chance Superman gave him would not be wasted; his grief for seeing the weapons he designed put in the hands of street gangs. And Wole Parks and the writers gave John Henry Irons that same heartfelt humanity in SUPERMAN AND LOIS. But it's true that SUPERMAN AND LOIS is way, way, way, way, way too white. I'd say that about most TV shows.

**

Tyler Hoechlin's Superman is very interesting. It's significantly different from the Superman who appeared on SUPERGIRL and very, very different from almost every previous Superman ever. Hoechlin's Superman is angry, frustrated, pent up, anxious, uneasy and is very much capable of losing his temper. Hoechlin's Clark Kent is a bit like Tom Welling; he's an adult farm boy but with the self-assurance Welling had by Season 8 of SMALLVILLE rather than the inept juvenile Welling played from Seasons 1 - 7, but there's an undercurrent of danger and being very tightly wound that Welling never, ever put into Clark Kent.

This is completely opposed to other performers who played the role. George Reeves' Superman was a bit of a stern schoolteacher with a streak of mischief. Christopher Reeve' Superman was glowingly charismatic and warmly respectful. John Haymes Newton's Superboy was oddly indecisive; Gerard Christopher's Superboy followed the Reeve model; and Dean Cain played Clark as a goofy eccentric and Superman as a courtly knight of decency. Tom Welling and Brandon Routh played Clark Kent/Superman with gentleness and Henry Cavill gave the character might and power but with great uncertainty as to how to use it (until he went full Christopher Reeve in JUSTICE LEAGUE).

On SUPERGIRL, Tyler Hoechlin played Superman as Christopher Reeve would: he is the most relaxed, laid back, easygoing Superman ever, happily reconciled to his dual life. He was what Kara someday hoped to be. On SUPERMAN AND LOIS, Superman isn't so surefooted. He's nervous about his inability to truly connect with his sons and is shuffling awkwardly in and out of their lives. His professional life is a disaster; he's lost his day job and is wandering between football fields and farmer's fields cluelessly.

As Superman, he is perpetually and eternally enraged: enraged that the US government is locking up superpowered kids like criminals, that the US army is stockpiling Kryptonite weaponry, that Morgan Edge is creating Kryptonian powers somehow, that his life's work as a journalist has become non-existent -- and he works very hard to contain it, to manage it, to control it and to make sure it doesn't cause him to behave rashly or inappropriately.

This is the first time I've seen Superman show anger in this manner, threatening a soldier with his heat vision and telling him to "stand down," knowing full well that he can never, ever use his heat vision on another person like that, but fully intending to terrify an armed man into lowering his weapon. When Tom Welling threatened to kill a corrupt cop in SMALLVILLE's Season 1 "Rogue," it was a loss of control; when Tyler Hoechlin's Superman becomes angry, it's very controlled but also incredibly frightening.

I'm afraid of Tyler Hoechlin's Superman. He scares me and would terrify me if he didn't have scenes as Clark Kent.

There's a moment when Superman defeats John Henry Irons and Superman is furious that Irons invited him to meet as a friend and attacked him with red sun lights and a terrifying hammer. Superman's kids have hit Irons with a car, but Superman raises a fist, prepared to punch Irons in the face, probably not fatally, but to make Irons feel as hurt as Superman feels -- and Lois has to tell him that it's over and not to strike an enemy who is down. And that's followed up beautifully the next week when Superman releases Irons from custody, clearly fuming over their battle, but having made a decision to try to turn an enemy into a friend even though it's difficult.

I finally see why Superman told Kara that she was stronger than he is. Kara doesn't have to compel herself to be the sunny, goofy Supergirl. She simply is. But Tyler Hoechlin's Superman has to battle himself and his own impulses as a man in order to be Superman.

This is a Superman who struggles to be merciful, gentle, non-violent, present, peaceful and de-escalating -- everything Superman should be -- and Tyler Hoechlin shows that while Superman will never fail, it isn't a natural demeanor or an instinctive reflex. Every morning, he has to consciously wake up and decide to be Superman. It takes effort. It is hard work. This is why Hoechlin's performance as the alternate reality Superman is so disturbing because that capacity for horrific violence is present in the Earth Prime Superman -- it's simply contained and controlled.

This is such a brilliant insight from TF. I never thought about this before.

It's strange: when TF, Slider_Quinn21, Chaser9, Informant and myself were sharing ideas for a SLIDERS 2013 reboot pilot script ( http://freepdfhosting.com/ab3f9e4b78.pdf ), one of the things I did in the script was exaggerate Rembrandt's penchant for giving people nicknames. I had Rembrandt 2013 calling Wade "Tinker Bell" and addressing Arturo as "Professor Dumbledore" while maintaining Q-Ball. However, I confess, I didn't have any real insight into WHY Rembrandt was doing this. I was just mimicking what I'd seen without understanding it.

TF describing Quinn as a cueball that knocked Rembrandt into the pocket of sliding is such a revealing observation. It indicates that "Q-Ball" is, in Rembrandt's mind, an insult at the start. Quinn knocked Rembrandt into a place he did not want to be, and is perpetually throwing him into one fine mess after another.

However, by the middle of the season, "Q-Ball" is a term of endearment and by Season 2, as Quinn confides in Rembrandt about his girl problems, "Q-Ball" is a term of gratitude: Quinn knocked Rembrandt into an unexpected life of wonder that made Rembrandt discover untapped reserves of strength, resilience and loyalty. The sliders became the true band of family to Rembrandt that the Spinning Topps weren't and with the sliders, Rembrandt truly came into his own and became not just a musician but an adventurer, a social activist, a father figure, a brother and a hero, living the life that he couldn't ever achieve with the Topps or as a solo performer.

Yeah, I'm not sure what to say about Stephanie, but out of deference to the (co)creator, I put her in one scene of my SLIDERS scripts and had Quinn silently recognize her but not interact with her. Temporal Flux identified the actress who played Stephanie in the unbroadcast scenes as Melanie Bradshaw (born Melanie Pearson) and he provided a link to her reel -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbhakL4 … e=youtu.be -- and I described her based on the reel. I didn't really know what else to say about her, so I didn't highlight her.

**

In "Last Days," Quinn tells Wade as they're having dinner that he didn't know she could cook and Wade says, "They're a LOT about me you don't know" (referring to her crush) and Quinn says, "Like what?" and leans forward to kiss her. To me, this tells me that he has known all along, returns her feelings, but been unable to verbalize it, act on it or even acknowledge it for reasons deep within Quinn's psychology.

Going back to the Pilot, it's noteworthy that when Wade greets Quinn at Doppler's, Quinn's reaction to her overtures and acquiring hockey tickets for them is so deliberately avoidant: he doesn't make eye contact, he doesn't stop to really interact with her; he keeps walking; he fiddles with his name badge -- it's like he can't quite engage with Wade despite having clearly developed a friendship with her, and Wade doesn't seem offended, like she's used to Quinn being distracted and elsewhere mentally.

It's also significant: despite being athletic, charismatic, warm and looking like Jerry O'Connell, the Pilot clearly establishes that Quinn barely has any friends. He's pleasant with his classmates, but they have no idea what he's working on. Quinn's only confidant is his cat. When Wade visits Quinn's house, she looks around to take in the wallpaper; she has never been there before despite she and Quinn supposedly being "buds." Quinn seems incredibly averse and isolated and it doesn't make a lot of sense.

When Quinn comments that kissing Wade would be like "incest," it strikes me as another level of avoidance, and when he asks her, "What's with the tears?" later, it's so obvious what the tears are about that it strikes me as a deflection. When we get to "The Guardian," it's intriguing that Quinn refuses to explain why he wants to train his younger self in the art of beating people up with his bare hands. He can't bring himself to explain until the end; it's the same distance we saw of his life in the Pilot. Quinn describes being unable to relate to his classmates; he's smaller than they are and younger than they are.

Quinn strikes me as traumatized; it's why he doesn't have a lot of friends, why he locks up his feelings, why he hides his work; why he won't disclose aspects of his past. The incandescent charisma of Jerry O'Connell makes him seem well-adjusted, but the details of his life and his choices are telling and I don't think Jerry O'Connell is Quinn Mallory. I think Jerry is just the skin that Quinn Mallory wears to hide the damage.

John Vs. Tracy: This is strictly theoretical on my part: Tracy Torme strikes me as an extremely argumentative person. John Rhys-Davies strikes me as an extremely argumentative person. This is not a good combination of personalities. However, Torme and Davies are deeply passionate people who take their work personally and put their whole heart into every page and every scene, so it was a good combination of talents.

John said in a podcast this past year that he regretted being so adversarial with FOX and the producers. "I should have won hearts and minds," he said. Torme probably regrets nothing but resents everything, judging from his past remarks. I'm a big fan of both of them, but I confess -- I have had two former writing mentors, one like John and one like Torme. Both were brilliant. Both had this unfortunate attitude: if something isn't done the way they would personally do it, it's bad / stupid / poorly conceived / made by a talentless person / done for selfish and self-destructive reasons / worthless.

I don't subscribe to that personally. I believe that every creator approaches their work with their own specific interests, priorities and goals. I believe that work should be reviewed in terms of what the creator was trying to accomplish and whether or not they accomplished it. Torme's goal was character comedy and social satire ("The King is Back"). John's goal was hard science fiction and heroism (like your version of "The Exodus").

Their visions weren't 'right' or 'wrong' -- they were just different. They chose not to see that because having an argument was apparently more important than being good partners who would be mutually supportive and value what each other had to say.

Torme's vision of Arturo, if you read the Pilot script, is clearly not a strong, broad, heroic Englishman. His vision of Arturo is clearly Raul Julia (Gomez from THE ADDAMS FAMILY) playing the cowardly Dr. Smith from LOST IN SPACE. The heroic, fatherly Arturo is a part of the character, but he is buried deep and will take a lot of work to uncover. Torme's vision of Quinn, if you read the Pilot script, is clearly not a tall, handsome football player. His vision of Quinn is clearly more like Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker in SPIDER-MAN 2000 (and Jerry was desperate for that job until Maguire defeated him in auditions).

The result is that Torme was perpetually at odds with the onscreen versions of these characters versus what he had imagined in his mind. With Quinn, Torme was able to adjust things accordingly and was happy with Quinn's hair and wardrobe. With Arturo, Torme couldn't control John; Torme wanted Arturo to be 60 per cent insecure and irritable and 40 per cent fatherly. With Seasons 1 - 2, John got it to 50/50; by Season 3, it was John's preference that took hold: 95 per cent fatherly and 5 per cent grouchy.

Personal Preference: In my view, the uneasy 50/50 compromise that neither John nor Tracy liked was the correct ratio. It's hard to do ongoing character development in 90s TV of standalone episodes, so giving the character both sides in equal measure allows for the most range in each episode.

That said, I confess that in writing my own SLIDERS stories and when writing Arturo, I generally defaulted to John's preference of Arturo being 95 per cent the cuddly grandfather. The reason: "Slide Effects" is Arturo's resurrection and I wanted him to be the father figure in every sense. And SLIDERS REBORN shows Arturo 20 years after the Pilot and I decided that Arturo would be at his most assured, mature, decisive and capable and with sliding having brought out the absolute best in him.

Stephanie: Torme has a fixation on the character of Stephanie that I'm not able to explain. In 2009, Torme contacted a fan site. He wanted to write fanfic. He offered to write "The Unofficial Official Series Finale of SLIDERS" and wanted to provide a PDF screenplay. His story idea for "The Long Slide Home": the sliders, just after the events of "The Guardian," discover that the timer is malfunctioning. Slide windows are getting shorter and shorter. Their next slide could leave them stranded. The timer is soon to give out. The sliders rig the timer to send them backwards through the interdimension, revisiting every previous Earth in all previous episodes, hoping to make it home before the timer fails permanently. They revisit the outcome of every Earth they affected for better or worse. In the course of doing so, the sliders are able to dispense with the Kromaggs and Logan St. Clair in quick, throwaway plot points. The focus is on the sliders.

The ending was open to whatever Torme decided when he got to those pages in the full-length script: they might all make it back home and stay. Alternatively, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo might make it home but lose Quinn; they would return to save Quinn but lose their way home and be lost again but feel heartened to have each other and hopeful that, having found a way back once, they would again in time. Due to health issues and paid work, Torme never finished this story, but in the more detailed outline that he furnished, the sliders are having dinner with Stephanie and her husband while trying to figure out why the timer is misbehaving -- so Stephanie was clearly important to Torme.

Quinn and Wade: The relationship between Quinn and Wade is drastically different by "Luck of the Draw" where Wade seems to be done with her ongoing infatuation/flirtation with Quinn. I like to think that in between "The King is Back" and "Luck of the Draw," Wade realizes something weird about Quinn: he knew she was crushing on him the entire time, he knew she had feelings for him for the entire time they were working together at Dopplers -- and yet, he ignored it and refused to address it, and she doesn't understand why and Quinn is unwilling to explain -- and it's not until "The Guardian" that we learn that Quinn has post traumatic stress disorder that has led to a very withdrawn personality covered by the Jerry O'Connell charm.

Jerry O'Connell as an Actor: My theory about Jerry O'Connell is that he was a naturally talented actor with excellent instincts for performance, but no technique or discipline until John Rhys-Davies trained him -- and once John left the show, Jerry reverted to all of his worst habits as an actor: skimming script pages, only reading his dialogue, delivering approximations of what was on the page rather than what was actually written, not reviewing the context of his character's words, and generally undermining the character instead of inhabiting the role. One of the worst examples of this is "Slidecage": Quinn is scripted to think that Maggie has been killed and Quinn is in agony, thinking he's lost yet another friend. Jerry performs these lines with a hungover tiredness -- which implies that Quinn either does not care that Maggie is dead or somehow knows that Maggie survived when there is no onscreen reason for him to think so.

Another is "Mother and Child" where the script clearly specifies that Quinn agrees with Rembrandt that they have to rescue Wade and says warningly, "We don't have much time." But onscreen, Jerry O'Connell tells Rembrandt, "I don't know if we have enough time" and hurries off camera from Rembrandt, suggesting that Jerry isn't interested in saving Wade and doesn't care that Rembrandt is upset. Having reviewed this scene far more than is medically safe, I got the impression that Jerry was drunk when performing this scene and hurried off camera because he had to throw up.

Jerry's Ego: Why did he do this? My suspicion is that Jerry, overweight when he was a young boy, developed a drunkenly overinflated ego when he became a handsome teenager and twentysomething and became overfixated on his looks rather than his talent, and he believed that being attractive was all that mattered for his career. Most of his post-SLIDERS roles were chosen specifically because they showcased him as an attractive man; he forgot that his popularity through SLIDERS was because viewers perceived Quinn as a sensitive and empathetic man with his looks being present but secondary.

After SLIDERS, Jerry spoke of SLIDERS with contempt and disdain, calling it "very cheap," saying it was a show made "with dry ice and toothpicks" and when asked if he would ever do a SLIDERS movie, he said, "Not a possibility" and refused to discuss it further. SLIDERS was the only reason he had an adult career; he trashed the show while he was in it and he denigrated the show after he left.

Jerry's Redemption: I really like the Quinn character, and it made me really angry that Jerry did this to a character I really care about and look up to. However, as I've gotten older, I've learned more about addiction and alcoholism can be as insidious as any chemical dependency, so I try to focus on how Jerry has changed.

He didn't get fired off KANGAROO JACK, but he was nearly fired because by that point, his heavy drinking and fast food and lack of exercise had caused some serious, William Shatner-esque weight gain. He stopped drinking, devoted himself to health and fitness, and while his kangaroo movie didn't set the world on fire, Jerry returned to the life of a working TV actor, kept healthy and fit, worked steadily, got married, had children and started treating SLIDERS with respect. He did a video interview where he talked about how John was his acting mentor and taught him so much; he said he kept a photograph of the original cast in his kitchen so as to always remember the high point of his career; he said he loved playing Quinn Mallory and missed him and would gladly play him again; he said that SLIDERS was a part of him. He would always carry it proudly and hold it warmly in his heart.

He knows he screwed up. He knows he blew it. He knows that Quinn Mallory is his career-defining role, the character who would have rocketed him into pop cultural immortality. He knows that William Shatner will always be a starship captain and that Jerry O'Connell will always be a slider. He didn't care about SLIDERS before, but he cares now and he's sorry. That matters.

He also called Torme a few years ago, having not spoken to him since Season 3. He was trying to see if SLIDERS could be revived; he has continued to call Torme regularly; he has been talking with John about a revival; he mentions SLIDERS every chance he gets. He got his life back on track by the early 2000s. He's trying to get SLIDERS back now. He probably won't succeed, but he's trying. Trying counts.

This is strictly theoretical on my part.

If you read the Pilot script, written before anyone had been cast to play the characters, the scene descriptions really emphasize how frightened and terrified Arturo is when looking at the vortex or when facing down the Revolution or when impersonating his Communist alternate. The script was written with Raul Julia in mind. John refused to play this. http://freepdfhosting.com/9d9d444de9.pdf

John got his way, much to Torme's frustration, in Season 3.

And by the time John was fired, he realized what Tracy had been up against and his opinion of Tracy's work was now different.

The Pilot also has a lot of scenes of Quinn trying to flirt with a girl only for her and her friends to mock him; it's hard to imagine Jerry O'Connell being laughed at by women after he asks a girl named Stephanie out. That makes no sense visually; Stephanie would have told Jerry O'Connell: "Oh, that's so sweet, thank you, Quinn, but I have a boyfriend. You are a very cute boy, though, and I promise you there is some girl out there who sees that and is single."

(Or she would have told him, "Yeah, thanks but no thanks, Jerry; I know you're a player who never remembers anyone's name in the morning and don't get me wrong, you might have the best body I've ever seen and your hair is sexy but you're disloyal, shallow, untrustworthy, and I think you might be stupid. Like, I actually think you might have some kind of reading disability that you haven't even tried to fix because you've been coasting through life on your good looks.")

(Jerry seems to have grown the hell up, though; his recent podcast with Macaulay Culkin where he reflected on parenting and how to encourage his children speaks to a quantum leap forward in empathy and consideration.)

SLIDERS expert Temporal Flux says the Quinn/Stephanie scenes were filmed but cut. They may have been cut for time, but they may also may have been cut because they made no sense whatsoever visually.

Well, in "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome," Wade is confused by the alternate Professor wearing bifocals which we see the Professor subsequently wearing. The Professor is familiar with football in "Summer of Love" when Quinn aims a rock at the spider wasp; the Professor says Wade and Rembrandt took him to his first game ever in "The Guardian." Both scripts were written by series co-creator Tracy Torme, so is the inconsistency deliberate or did he just make a mistake? When asked about this, Torme said it could be a clue; Torme would later say he personally thought the wrong Arturo slid.

My read on the Professor is that he is a deeply isolated human being. He's lonely: his wife is dead, his son hates him, his friends lost touch with him as he fumed over never getting the recognition he deserved by his fellow scientists. As a result, he is self-involved, bitter and thinks only of himself. When surrounded by Quinn, Wade and Rembrandt, however, he regains what he failed to build or hang onto.

He has a daughter in Wade who adores his perspective and is entertained by his grandiosity. He has a true friend in Rembrandt whose loyalty and great heart is accompanied by a love for the arts that Arturo shares. He has a son and student in Quinn and Quinn recognizes the Professor's genius where the Professor's colleagues never did. When Arturo doesn't have scientific discovery, students to inspire and partners with whom to share his life and adventures, he starts to fall apart. He needs all three to stay whole and when he's whole, he cares about people besides himself.

In "Prince of Wails," he turned his back on science in favour of politics and became the Sheriff of Nottingham. In "Eggheads," he turned his back on science despite flaunting his scientific achievements; he was more interested in fame and then cheated on his wife and fled his life and marriage. In "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome," he chose not to slide, never developed the friendships he did with the sliders and sank further into his self-isolation.

There is simply no other onscreen reason for why Jane Hills has kept a photograph of Quinn Mallory. It isn't open to interpretation. Storytelling isn't ambiguous just because information isn't stated outright in dialogue or shown onscreen. Jane keeping that photo of Quinn is a shot that imparts a very specific piece of information; that she is keeping the image of the father of her child for her child to one day see.

If we dismiss non-verbal visual storytelling in a visual medium, we might as well claim that because we never see Quinn build the sliding machine, it could be a reasonable 'interpretation' that he didn't actually build it and in fact stole it from Doc Brown's junkyard.

We might as well claim that because Wade never explicitly says she has a crush on Quinn in the Pilot, we can 'interpret' it to say that she in truth hates him and is actually planning to murder him so she and Amanda can open a bed and breakfast and rent out his room.

To claim that Jane Hills and Quinn didn't have sex in "Love Gods" is not an interpretation because it's not actually interpreting the visual information onscreen. It's simply denying that the information is there at all.

To me, this doesn't say that Jane Hills and Quinn Mallory didn't have sex. It says to me that you personally don't care for the idea of Jane Hills and Quinn Mallory having sex.

There are certain things in SLIDERS that I don't care for either and which I personally don't consider 'canon.' This includes about three-quarters of Season 3 and all of Seasons 4 - 5. However, I do consider any and all fan fiction canon, up to and including all the contradictory and mutually exclusive and unfinished Season 6 fanfics.

In 1996, the TV show MISSION IMPOSSIBLE saw a feature film 'adaptation' released to theatres. MI had, since 1967, featured actor Peter Graves as Jim Phelps, a genius-spy, a man of impeccable morality and brilliance. The movie recast him with Jon Voight and revealed Phelps to be a murderous, greedy traitor who kills his own team aside from Ethan Hunt who blows Phelps up at the end.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE (1996) is a cynical, paranoid, mistrusting film that declares that heroes don't exist and no one can ever be trusted. This isn't a problem for the 1996 film, but with the five sequels (with two more to come), it has become a problem.

The next five MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movies operate on the belief that the audience should always trust Ethan Hunt, a man of limitless ability and impeccable morality whose sense of right and wrong is always absolute even when he's declared a rogue operative, an enemy of the state, a traitor to his country and a fugitive of humanity.

MI tells us that Ethan's a hero, that he's on our side and that his access, skillset, risk-taking and endangerment of friends and family is always for our benefit and safety -- except the MI movie series that started with the declaration that all heroes are ultimately corrupt in the end.

MI2 - 6 make sure that characters in the MI films have reasonable and solid rationales for doubting Ethan Hunt's loyalties and tactics, but ultimately decalre that the audience should put their faith his heroism and know that he's on our side. The original TV series did the same thing with Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) from 1967 to 1973 and 1988 to 1990.

Phelps was, like Ethan, a man of unknown origins and motives but whose mission was always to protect, defend and safeguard the world. Phelps became a legendary TV spy to multiple generations across three decades.

The original MI TV show was not a fountain of characterization. It was all about the mission and the conceit and the deceptions. We never got to know Leonard Nimoy or Lesley Ann Warren on these shows. But Phelps was fundamentally defined as the man the audience didn't always know but could always believe in. You could always trust and count on this mysterious genius who always came through.

Phelps was uniquely trained and highly motivated, a specialist without equal and immune to any countermeasures. There was no secret he couldn't extract, no security he couldn't breach, no person he couldn't become. Jim Phelps was the living manifestation of destiny -- and he was here to help us.

When the 1996 movie revealed Phelps to be a turncoat who'd engineered the deaths of his own team in exchange for money, it was a direction in which MI's usual lack of characterization couldn't be tolerated. Anyone born from the 50s to the 80s saw Phelps as a hero and would want reasons for his betrayal. The reasons made no sense.

Money? If Jim Phelps felt underpaid, surely he would find some other line of work for his immeasurable talents before turning to assassination and treason. Feeling unappreciated by incoming government administrations? Are we honestly to believe that Jim Phelps -- a brilliant and confident man -- couldn't find something meaningful to do?

Would we believe that Ethan Hunt could be a traitor? And if not, why should we believe that Jim Phelps is one?

How would Ethan Hunt's fans feel if MI7 revealed Ethan as a murderous traitor to his team and country?

Since 1996, MI has moved on from the first film. The IMF's recruitment and human resource policies have continued to be lacking as MI2 - 3 feature IMF agents who have turned traitor. MI5 refers to the first film's break-in at CIA HQ, MI6 makes mention of Max and notes that Ethan has only ever spent MI2 working for his own organization, but narratively, stylistically and morally, the MI series has left the first movie behind.

The series has moved so far from the 1996 film that the series is hypocritical. The sixth film flat-out declares that the audience should never lose faith in Hunt's fundamental decency and that he will exercise his secret agent training and resources for the common good -- except MI1, in making Jim Phelps a traitor, was declaring that there are no heroes and no one can ever be trusted, not even someone who'd been saving the day since the 60s.

Brian DePalma as the director of MI1 operated on paranoid suspicion (very apt for a spy drama) whereas the later directors have been nothing like that. John Woo and Stuart Baird, for MI2, chose ballet-esque battle choreography to convey stirring romanticism.

JJ Abrams, for MI3, presented a rousing caper of thrills. Brad Bird's MI4 offered a daring sense of adventure and trickery. And the Christopher McQuarrie films are fundamentally works of earnest idealism because McQuarrie is a very optimistic person (no one else would so relish filming blockbusters with unfinished scripts).

And yet, the central thesis of the MI film series -- trust Ethan Hunt -- is completely undermined by the original sin of the first movie.

I wonder if the franchise can ever fix it. Before Graves died, I wondered if Paramount might have him play Ethan's boss in one movie. Perhaps he might walk in and introduce himself as "Mission Commander Phelps." "Phelps?!" Ethan could sputter. "Phelps Sr.," Graves could say curtly -- and then change the subject to the mission, but that might raise too many questions.

Graves could even have been given a line like, "Jim Phelps Jr. was my treacherous sonofabitch stepson," but that could really break the flow of information for a scene. It might have happened as Graves reached out to JJ Abrams for MI4, but Graves died before anything could be made of a potential return.

Since Graves is gone, maybe someone could make a passing reference to "Admiral Phelps" and Ethan could react and then mutter, "Phelps Senior" to indicate that Jon Voight's Phelps in MI1 was a separate character. It's a small thing, but it could be too much even for the most fan-service oriented filmmaker.

Maybe it could be an Easter Egg where in the background, files of MI agents are flashing past and we see Jim Phelps (Peter Graves) followed by Jim Phelps Jr. (Voight).

Another idea: what if Ethan is Jim Phelps? Maybe in a future MI film, Ethan is hunted by Jim Phelps Jr., the vengeful son of Jon Voight's character. Ethan spends the movie trying to track down Jr. only to discover that Jr. isn't Jr. at all, but a former acolyte of Jim's who is furious that the real Jim Jr. never avenged his father's death and the Phelps' legacy.

And it's revealed: the real Jim Jr. is Ethan Hunt, born James Phelps Jr., put into hiding as a baby, taking a new name with an adopted family, but coincidentally entering espionage just as his father did, and with his father eventually taking him under his wing.

The ending could have Ethan declaring that he wants to redeem the name of Jim Phelps by taking it for himself. MI would be retroactively redeemed by declaring that Jon Voight was never playing Peter Graves' character in a sequel; instead, Tom Cruise has been playing Peter Graves' character in a reboot and all the MI movies have been the origin story of this new Phelps.

I don't think it'll ever happen. The driving force of these movies is Tom Cruise and while Tom Cruise has his faults, he doesn't look back and he does not fall asleep at night wondering how to make up for MI1. I don't think he was blind to its flaws; he just didn't dwell. He moved on.

Somewhat pastiched from this review: https://www.peterdavid.net/2011/12/19/m … mpossible/

I think the wish to see the original sliders at their current ages is something specific to people who watched the original series on its original airdates and is not one that is widely shared among newer fans.

I am deeply displeased with how Seasons 3 - 5 have strangled the imagination of SLIDERS' fans both in 2000 and in 2021. Even in 2021, new fans writing fanfic feel compelled to write a 25 - 75 part series of SLIDERS: THE KROMAGG WAR CHRONICLES in order to justify writing the simple SLIDERS stories they want to write with the sliders visiting a parallel world.

For this reason, I feel a reboot is best. However, from what I can tell, Tracy Torme has had at least two opportunities to pitch a SLIDERS revival and has, each time, refused to pitch a reboot with new actors. He is only interested in SLIDERS with the original cast and his proposal has been rejected.

And ultimately, I respect that; Torme only wants to pitch the version of SLIDERS that he is passionate about writing and producing. It seems that to him, a reboot with a new cast is somebody else's job.