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I'm still not back here yet for reasons of a migraine (ow ow ow) and my building being unable to repair its air conditioning system until the end of June (some Quinn Mallory-esque thinking is in order now to avoid death should a heat wave hit).

I also have SO MUCH to say about Wallis Day on BATWOMAN -- but I'm tired. I think I was delaying my exhaustion until I finished vaccine hunting and now I need a couple days off.

I have always envied this level of certainty. I don't have this kind of confidence. The most I can say is that I will extend every possible effort and even go so far as to convince my employers that vaccine hunting for colleagues counts as appropriate use of workplace time and resources. That doesn't mean I actually think I would succeed; it's more that vaccine hunting is less stressful for someone who has already gotten his first shot and is booked for his second.

Anyway. Vaccine hunting was successful in every sense. Now it's time to resume what life is really all about -- obsessing over a TV show from 1995 when not obsessing over work.

I've watched four episodes of it so far and I think it's good. I've seen two somewhat negative reviews complaining that FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER doesn't have enough to say about what it means to be Black and doesn't have anything to say about jingoism and resistance and fascism, how FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER somehow fails to be a meaningful political text --

https://slate.com/culture/2021/04/falco … erica.html
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/the … hat-he-is/

And honestly, I think that these reviewers are asking for too much, expecting a five star meal of oyster appetizers and filet mignon and chocolate truffle cake to come out of the McDonalds takeout window. While I adore superheroes and turn to them for guidance and morality, superheroes are founded in simple action-adventure escapism. It is wonderful when superheroes offer meaningful political and social commentary, but I never expect or ask superheroes to be anything more than pleasant children's stories.

More critically: FALCON AND WINTER does something that AGENTS OF SHIELD did not do, that the Netflix shows didn't do -- this is clearly taking place in the same narrative space as the AVENGERS movies. It features actors and characters continuing storylines from the films; it's carrying on plot points from past movies and moving into future ones. It's not like AGENTS OF SHIELD referring to feature films that flatly ignore AGENTS OF SHIELD; it's not like the Netflix shows never showing the Avengers Tower in the New York City skyline or presenting a dark, street level narrative in a world lacking the sci-fi fantasy elements of IRON MAN and HULK. The Netflix and ABC shows were not maintaining the stylistic elements of the AVENGERS movies; FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER maintain all of them.

FALCON AND WINTER SOLDIER has the same crisp cinematography of WINTER SOLDIER; it has the snappy banter of AVENGERS and AGE OF ULTRON; it has the political shadings of CIVIL WAR while focusing more on characters than politics; it has the physical intensity of WINTER SOLIDER and CIVIL WAR but more of the humour of ANT MAN. It is a Marvel Cinematic Universe TV show that maintains the same tone of the films from which it emerges -- which was apparently really hard for the original TV department.

I don't feel good about getting vaccinated -- I'm very young, far younger than the threshold. I was reluctant to do it, but I spoke with two medical doctors who informed me: the city has run out of beds in the intensive care unit. New patients will have their medical data inputted into an app to determine whether or not their chances of survival make them candidates for any medical resources from an overstretched system that is about to break.

Both doctors told me that if I had any point of eligibility to be vaccinated, I had to take it because a COVID-19 infection would take not only me, but my mother and sisters as well and potentially put us all in hospitals that are currently treating patients in tents in parking lots because they've run out of indoor space.

Getting vaccinated was extremely hard work that involved being turned away repeatedly over and over again until someone finally didn't turn me away and I've decided to put that same amount of effort into getting other people their first dose.

TLDR: This post is about Superman and how a couple years ago, he had a four year storyline that resembled a sixth season of SLIDERS that also inspired the current SUPERMAN AND LOIS TV show.

I suspect that writers will sometimes need to ask themselves: what are they most passionate about writing? What do they enjoy producing most when they type? And is their story one that is focused on what they enjoy typing?

I have no idea why teenagers and people in their early 20s are watching SLIDERS even today (on Peacock) and writing new SLIDERS stories, but some are and some occasionally ask me for feedback on their pages. And I am noticing an alarming trend that we saw a lot of back in 2000: young writers producing Season 6 stories with the outlines wholly and totally focused on an interdimensional Kromagg war.

I'm not the final arbiter of taste, and I encourage anyone who really wants to do THE KROMAGG WAR CHRONICLES to write one. I'll help.

But I recently reviewed three clever outlines where three clever writers used time travel / a multiversal butterfly effect / an interdimensional system restore to erase Seasons 3 - 5 and bring back the original sliders on Page 1 of these stories (where I have only ever managed to do it by Page 3 myself).

These brilliant conceptualists then... plunged the restored sliders back into THE KROMAGG WAR CHRONICLES with storylines that insisted on resolving all unfinished plot points from Seasons 3 - 5 in the context of an interdimensional war -- even though these writers had erased Seasons 3 - 5. I asked these writers: were they actually passionate about writing THE KROMAGG WAR CHRONICLES: An Epic in 12 - 16 Parts?

The answer was always no, not really; all they really wanted to do was write SLIDERS stories of Quinn / Wade / Rembrandt / Arturo exploring parallel worlds, but they wanted to connect those original quartet stories to Season 6.

I understand that, but from 2000 to about 2007, we saw numerous brilliant writers attempt THE KROMAGG WAR CHRONICLES. I have read them all and none are complete. Some writers got to the point where Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo were back at which point the writers ran out of out of energy to keep going. Most never even made it that far. They were all clearly burnt out and demoralized by writing SLIDERS stories where the fight Kromaggs instead of SLIDERS stories where the sliders slide to parallel worlds and explore them.

The Season 6 stories that were completed were ones that focused on the sliders engaged in sliding -- and made the unresolved plots a far lesser priority.

I think that writers need to ask themselves: what do they enjoy writing? And are they pursuing a plot that's carried by material they would enjoy writing? Because if they don't enjoy it, they are unlikely to finish it, especially when they are doing their writing in their free time for no other reason than pleasure in writing it.

That said, I have read one KROMAGG WAR CHRONICLES style story that was completed -- a series of comic books called SUPERMAN: REBIRTH, ACTION COMICS: REBIRTH and DC COMICS: DOOMSDAY CLOCK. This was a two year run of Superman comics that started with Superman and DC Comics in a very bad situation: DC had rebooted Superman in 2011, abruptly changing him from a late-30s husband to Lois Lane into a single twentysomething. 

This rebooted Superman was largely alienated from the Clark Kent identity as Jonathan and Martha Kent, his adoptive parents, had died when Superman was a teenager. This Superman had none of his relationships with Supergirl and Superboy, no decades-long rapport with Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, Perry White or any of his supporting cast and so removed from humanity that he was dating Wonder Woman. At one point, Superman's identity was revealed to the world as Clark Kent and while it was a good story, the Clark Kent identity had been almost irrelevant to him anyway.

DC Comics soon came to realize: their readership was attached to the version of Superman with his friends and family and history and relationships, but they had destroyed it all, exposed Superman's secret identity to the world, changed his continuity so severely that it was unrecognizable, replaced the original character with a hollow copy -- and the road back to a recognizable status quo would be long and hard and difficult.

Superman had become as muddled and confused as SLIDERS by "The Seer."

DC started the process with an October 2015 mini-series, SUPERMAN: LOIS & CLARK which reveals that the original Superman and Lois are actually still around in this rebooted continuity, believing they are refugees from a destroyed timeline, living in this new universe under the names Clark and Lois White, and they now have a 10 year old son named Jon. They are doing their best to steer clear of this universe's Superman -- except the rebooted Superman suddenly dies of Kryptonite poisoning. The rebooted Lois Lane is also killed.

In SUPERMAN and ACTION COMICS, the original Superman attempts to fill the void by unveiling himself to the world and offering to help the Justice League. The original Lois impersonates her double, trying to investigate her double's death. Also strangely: Clark Kent reappears at the Daily Planet, declaring that Superman asked him to fake their secret identity being exposed to confuse some supervillains. This restores the secret identity -- but leaves the original Superman and Lois confused as to who this Clark Kent really is. They discover that he is Mr. Mxyztptlk, the fifth dimensional imp who has been confused and disoriented by the reboot.

Superman and Lois also discover: this is not a rebooted universe and they are not refugees; this is their home universe and has been all along, but some unknown force altered history and ripped Lois and Superman's timeline in half, creating the rebooted version and the separate original. The original Superman and Lois are able to locate their deceased counterparts who now exist outside the timestream, and they merge with them.

The result is a new timeline that fuses the rebooted Superman continuity with the original continuity -- and also writes young Jon Kent into the timeline. In this combined universe, Lois and Clark got married and had a son, and all their friends have known Jon all his life. All the reboot adventures (except for Superman dating Wonder Woman) are folded into the original timeline additively. Superman reviews his history and notes one oddity: he remembers Jonathan and Martha Kent being alive right to the present day -- but in this current continuity, his parents are still dead from a car crash when Clark was a teenager.

Superman begins to investigate who altered reality to take away his marriage, his son, his family and his parents. This leads him into the 12 part series DOOMSDAY CLOCK. The culprit is revealed to be Dr. Manhattan from WATCHMEN, a cold observer of reality who found Superman's timeline confusing and convoluted with all its revisions from 1939 onwards.

Dr. Manhattan erased the Justice Society of America (the WWII heroes), finding them unnecessary. This had the subsequent effect of erasing the inspiration for Superman's teenaged career as Superboy and erasing the Superboy adventures completely. Dr. Manhattan created a car accident in Clark's youth to kill Clark's parents, subtracting their influence to make Superman more alien. Dr. Manhattan removed Clark's family and marriage and son, finding them extraneous. And Dr. Manhattan is surprised when the original Superman restores himself to existence.

In the DOOMSDAY CLOCK finale that saw print in December 2019, Superman confronts Dr. Manhattan and pleads with him to understand that being a superhero is not about controlling the world; a superhero saves people. Dr. Manhattan is moved; he reaches back into time and restores the Justice Society. This in turn restores Superman's career as Superboy, altering the past so that Jonathan and Martha Kent were still in a car accident, but Superboy now saved their lives.

In the present day, Clark and Lois go to the Metropolis train station and welcome Jonathan and Martha Kent, the final missing pieces of the Superman family now restored to reality.

This is the only KROMAGG WAR CHRONICLES style story that I have ever seen anyone actually start and finish, taking a damaged, muddled series and restoring it point by point, character by character, piece by piece and exploring the multiverse as it did so.

It took four writers (Dan Jurgens, Peter Tomasi, Patrick Gleason and Geoff Johns) and a staff of comic book editors. It took four years to write and print it. And the reason this one was finished where all other such stories failed: it unfolded in two monthly comic book serieses and two mini-serieses, it had writers who were being paid to keep the story going. If any one writer got burnt out, DC would have simply hired you or me or Temporal Flux or SOMEBODY to keep writing it until it was done.

It is simply too much for one writer to produce anything like SUPERMAN: REBIRTH, SUPERMAN: REBORN and DOOMSDAY CLOCK, and to do it as an unpaid fanfic project on evenings and weekends. This is a project that needs a team, a group of editors and a living wage -- and trying to do this unpaid and alone is like trying to use a teacup to empty the ocean. You'll never finish it.

Oh, dear fanfic writers. If you want to write Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo, just get them back on the page by Page 5 at the latest. Then write the SLIDERS stories that you really, really want to write.

**

After I described this Superman storyline to a few fanfic writers, they got back to me and said that, on balance, they'd just focus on writing SLIDERS stories about the sliders sliding to parallel worlds and they would isolate their KROMAGG WAR CHRONICLES content to brief flashbacks to keep them contained.

I finally found the perfect mask for my mother: the Kleannara KF94, purchased from the highly prestigious and exclusive supplier that is the Korean grocery store down the street. Earlier, I'd tried KF94 masks on her (a boat style shaped mask), but they still left gaps around her nose just like the KN95 and N95 masks and even larger than the gaps left by a surgical mask (which had smaller gaps than the rest and a larger surface area to compensate). However, the KF94 masks I'd tried before were manufactured in Canada and they had a wider curve for the nosepiece.

The authentic KF94 masks I've found have a much narrower curve for the nose piece that wraps around my mother's face firmly leaving no gap at all. This is the one! Yes! Yes! Yes! And the Kleannara has been reviewed by mask expert tester Aaron Collins who found it to have a 98 per cent level of particle filtration so it's even better than advertised.

Funnily enough -- I've been buying my KN95 masks at a Canadian dollar store, Dollarama, and always had some fears that their supply might not be made to any decent standards. A lot of KN95 masks don't make the 95 per cent filtration grade. I ultimately switched to a Canadian-made InnoLifeCare mask that has a KF94 shape but uses their own filter design that was lab tested to a 98 percent level of particle filtration and also highly fluid resistant -- which isn't important for civilians except the water resistant material also resists wear and tear.

Recently, the CBC news channel reviewed KN95 masks from various retailers. Amazon and Home Depot and WalMart masks were all filtering a lot less than 95 per cent of particles. Amazon's masks ranged from 20 - 95 per cent, WalMart's masks filtered 75 per cent, Home Depot was at 93 - 94 per cent -- and Dollarama's masks (of which I have 25) ranged from 95 - 98 per cent.

I once again did not really understand very much of what was going on in THE FLASH this week except to say that Brandon McKnight is absolutely terrific as Chester. I don't really know WHY the show needs ANOTHER scientist when they have Caitlin and Cisco, but Caitlin may be off dealing with Frost this year. Chester has a terrific rapport with Cisco, the actor has a lot of heart and perfect comic timing in reacting to being transported back to the 1990s and he's game for ridiculous outfits and absurd confrontations with time warping football players. Cisco's "Coffee and a cronut" is a bit of an earworm. So, that's fine, I guess.

Side anecdote: Chester is in the comics as a supposed-supervillain named The Chunk whose body can become a black hole to consume/absorb/transport any matter. Writer Mike Baron created him as a minor supervillain, but when William Messner-Loebs took over THE FLASH, the Chunk had reformed and become a disposal specialist who handled overflowing landfills for cities and became a good friend of the Flash (who was Wally West at the time as Barry was suffering from a mild case of being dead from 1986 - 2008).

When Messner-Loebs left THE FLASH, he took The Chunk with him to WONDER WOMAN (but never had a chance to do anything with him) and The Chunk now only appears in comics for party scenes, crowd scenes, and when a writer has a plot that can only be resolved by a human black hole. Most characters like The Chunk get wheeled out for a crossover now and then and killed off to establish how frightening the new threat is; then they get resurrected at some later date so that a subsequent crossover can kill them off again. The Chunk has not suffered this, however, and with Brandan McKnight playing him on TV every week, he'll probably escape such a fate for a while longer.

**

I very much enjoyed SUPERGIRL and was thrilled to see Melissa Benoist sharing scenes with an actor like Jason Behr who has such gravity and graveness that's the perfect balance to Benoist peppy high energy. Not sure why William is still in this show, though. There's a character who could be written out with a bag over his head saying he's off to recover from an injury. The actor's good, though.

I guess the problem is the ownership as Torme, I imagine, only owns at most 10 per cent of the show.

I rewatched the Whedon cut last night and... I am really upset with Joss Whedon for being a serial abuser of women. There's no doubting that everything his ex-wife said about him was true now that Charisma Carpenter, Michelle Trachtenberg, Amber Benson, Jose Molina and ANGEL tie-in writer Jeff Mariotte have come out against him. There are horrific reports that throughout the JUSTICE LEAGUE reshoots, Whedon was mocking Snyder (who'd left to deal with his daughter's suicide) and referring to Wonder Woman as Black Widow (which suggests some serious cognitive difficulties).

Apparently, Gal Gadot refused to film the scene where Barry lands face first into her chest and Whedon threatened to destroy her career if she didn't comply. She refused and escalated it to Warner Bros. executives who told Whedon to film it with Gadot's double, Caitlin Burles. There's also Whedon clearly and deliberately having his own credit on the film come immediately before a shot of a homeless man with a sign that says, "I tried," a bit of passive-aggressiveness that was further reflected when Whedon liked a tweet calling Steppenwolf the worst DC movie villain yet.

That said... I still feel that Whedon's work itself on Snyder's footage and his own additions were strong and turned Snyder's dark, operatic material into a lightweight crowdpleaser that I concede pleased no crowds. There's this absurd myth that artists can be hurtful to others because they produce quality work; it's even more absurd when applied to Whedon whose material, on the whole, is very, very, very average and occasionally above average. By his own assessment, AVENGERS isn't a great movie, but it's a great time. I'd describe pretty much all his work that way. Whedon's products are pleasantly diverting at best.

Whedon did a great job with adding more jokes and humour to Snyder's dour sensibilities from the Flash having a panic attack before facing Steppenwolf to Aquaman confessing his fears because he sits on Wonder Woman's lasso. Whedon's Superman is a sunny joy and Henry Cavill's charisma bursts off the screen (although most viewers seem to be focused on his CG upper lip which I still don't really notice much unless I'm looking for it). Whedon did a strong pastiche of Snyder's style with the opening of racial strife, homelessness and despair set to a Leonard Cohen song that was so gripping that most viewers assumed it was Snyder's work, and gradually transitioned into a lighter style. Whedon ended his version of JUSTICE LEAGUE not with a cliffhanger that would never be resolved but a shot of the Flash and Superman racing for fun.

However, it'd be silly to call Whedon's JUSTICE LEAGUE 'better.' Whedon's JUSTICE LEAGUE, despite some voiceovers about "hope," doesn't have anything to say beyond how much fun it is to have Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, the Flash and Cyborg in the same movie. Whedon's work has never truly been about anything other than how much fun it is to have a gang of friends whether that gang of friends is headlined by Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent or Buffy and Willow or Steve Rogers and Tony Stark. While I don't like Snyder's vision a lot, Snyder's JUSTICE LEAGUE was about how power can corrupt or be corrupted. Whedon's JUSTICE LEAGUE was about two hours long.

I can see why fans coming in after BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (actual title) were thrown off by the Whedon cut and picking at the seams. Having seen the Snyder Cut now, I can tell now more than ever which Whedon shots are Whedon's: Jason Momoa is wearing a wig in the Whedon version of Aquaman declining to join Bruce, Ezra Miller's hair shifts when he starts talking about brunch -- but Whedon's sensibilities are closer to my own: unfussy storytelling, getting to the point quickly and succinctly, undercutting any grandiosity with a quip, Batman telling Barry, "Save one person. Don't talk. Don't fight. Get in. Get one out" and assuring that after that, Barry will know what to do next. "You'll know." I wish my father had talked to me that way during one of my panic attacks when I was a child.

And interestingly, the average critic responded to the movie the way I did; the average movie critic was not a Snyder-fan, not a superhero junkie and declared that JUSTICE LEAGUE was flawed but sweet and nice enough to satisfy. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/justice-league-2017 And judging from the box office, there was an audience for pleasant diversion to the sum of $660 million -- which would have been a success if JUSTICE LEAGUE had been budgeted as a $100 million film instead of a $300 million movie.

And for the future... I suspect that no one other than me will ever watch the Whedon cut of JUSTICE LEAGUE, but it also looks to me like future DC movies will have a loose connection to any version of the film. WONDER WOMAN contradicted BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE (actual title) as Wonder Woman did not sink into isolation and despair after WWI. AQUAMAN contradicts both versions of JUSTICE LEAGUE with Arthur having a totally different relationship with his mother. SHAZAM has Superman wearing the red and blue. I do expect a lot of clamour for more Zack Snyder DC movies, but DC's slate seems to be quite full. They're looking to reboot Superman in another separate continuity film, likely with a black actor.

I think it'd be cool to get a DC Animated feature for Snyder's JL2 and JL3. I'd watch it and probably consider it good without necessarily enjoying it.

Whedon's JUSTICE LEAGUE seems to be one of the most hated movies of all time and it's sort of fitting that it will be Joss Whedon's last work in film.

Yeah, I like "Prince of Wails" too. It's wonderfully charming and a pleasure. And now for an episode that is not a pleasure: "Fever" -- arguably one of the finest hours of SLIDERS ever made with an uplifting and positive ending that you can see here in HD.

https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Temporal Flux once remarked that SLIDERS was imaginative not in suggesting how things could have gone, but instead predicting what tomorrow might bring and "Fever"'s pandemic story hits so close to home that I have absolutely nothing to say about it except this: Wear a mask. Protect yourself. And your mask must be (a) water resistant on the outside to resist droplets (b) contain electrostatic filtering within the layers or with a PM2.5 filter to catch virally contaminated particles and (c) be in sufficient quantities that you can throw any mask you've worn in a paper bag to self-decontaminate over 72 hours while still having enough masks for the next three days.

**

In other news, UNIVERSAL SIGNS has apparently been available in a supposedly HD format on Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/ondemand/universalsigns UNIVERSAL SIGNS is a 2008 film starring Sabrina Lloyd. It's particularly funny because when I first started writing SLIDERS screenplays in 2011, I had trouble getting Wade's voice from watching SLIDERS itself. I saw UNIVERSAL SIGNS was for sale on DVD through the film's website, eagerly purchased a copy and anticipated playing it with my eyes shut to concentrate on Sabrina's voice -- only to discover it was a silent movie, performed entirely in sign language and had no spoken dialogue (or at least none you could hear). I eventually had to find DOPAMINE, also featuring Lloyd as a troubled schoolteacher, and that got it to work.

Anyway, it is supposedly in HD on Vimeo, but I bought and downloaded it -- and it's a shockingly poor image. It's 720p, but the bit rate is so painfully low that the video is filled with blocky artifacts and blurriness. It looks like it was filmed digitally but hypercompressed for online download.

However, I was able to run the 720p file through Topaz and deblock it entirely, smoothing out the artifacts and bringing out each strand of Sabrina Lloyd's hair and the marks and pores on her face. I emailed the company to ask if there were an AI option to also add an audio track to the movie with all of Sabrina Lloyd's dialogue made audible and they said they'd get back to me after Easter.

In a hilarious turn of events, our old friend Kyle tweeted Michelle Paradise (executive producer of STAR TREK DISCOVERY) when she posted a trailer for upcoming TREK shows. Kyle told her that what she was producing wasn't STAR TREK and didn't count as STAR TREK. Pretty much all of Kyle's tweets are replies to celebrities lambasting them for feminism or anti-racism -- or replies to Hollywood creators telling them their content isn't truly part of whatever franchise they're working on.

Most of these tend to be ignored, but this time, Kyle got 13 responses from STAR TREK fans telling him he was not STAR TREK's gatekeeper.

Kyle later encouraged people to harass women entering abortion clinics saying that to do so was to protect unborn children. He got two responses asking him if he would station himself outside vasectomy clinics to protest or try to stop men from getting vasectomies -- which I concede doesn't address Kyle's belief that life begins at conception.

Apparently, these 15 responses were too much for him; Kyle set his account to "protected" which means only followers he approves can see his tweets -- but it also means that his replies to celebrities and Hollywood creators will not be seen because none of them follow him. In addition, few of the major alt-right media personalities whom he follows can see his support and encouragement because few of them follow him either. His requests for the coffee and baking recipes of alt-right figures were previously ignored, now they will go unseen.

Before, there was a minute chance that people might spot one of Kyle's various insults and personal attacks as they scrolled through several thousand responses from fans. Now, they can't see Kyle's messages at all. And from now on, only 95 people will be able to read Kyle's messages opposing vaccination and masks.

To quote a great American: "A self-own! Those are rare."

So, THE FLASH... once again, it's okay. I mean, it's fine. There's a villain with a gimmick and they beat it.

The show just isn't *about* anything. It's not about family, teamwork or speed. It's just moving the game pieces around, sometimes splitting them in half.

Oliver once snarked that Barry couldn't make it through a day without his team giving him a motivational speech, and I fear that this exaggerated insult has become painfully true due to an overreliance on formula.

**

SUPERGIRL, on the other hand, did something effective -- it debuted its sixth season with what was effectively the Season 5 finale, complete with a soft cliffhanger and everything from Season 5 largely wrapped up in a single episode. This is probably what THE FLASH should have done, if not in one episode, then with two at the most. SUPERGIRL was wonderfully paced, had a keen sense of drama and timing and wit, is set in the Fortress of Solitude which looks nothing like what's supposedly the same Fortress of Solitude on SUPERMAN & LOIS (the crews have to stay segregated due to pandemic, so they probably can't use the same sets and S&L's set probably cost as much as one episode of SUPERGIRL) -- and it's lovely.

I was happy to see a conclusive ending to Season 5 that was quick, succinct and to the point. THE FLASH took three weeks to wrap up its previous incomplete season; SUPERGIRL took one. It's unfortunate that SUPERGIRL is so fast while THE FLASH has become lethargic.

I envy you both. I don't expect to be vaccinated until July. Until then... well, it's all about masks for me.

I've been obsessively fit-testing my mother and I've come to the conclusion that the duck-bill shaped KN95 mask, despite four layers of filtering and a 360 seal design -- well, it just doesn't fit my mother's face properly. It's always leaving gaps around her nose after she walks or speaks. Her face and cheeks have an unusual structure that just shifts any mask she wears from breathing and moving. A mask that doesn't seal is a mask that can't protect.

I got her some KF94 masks. Imagine a KN95 duck-bill mask with an unexpanded surgical mask worn on top of it. A KF94 mask is designed to have those two pieces stitched together. Unfortunately, these masks also shifted off her nose and created gaps after a few steps and a few breaths.

I have gotten my mother 25 three-ply surgical masks. The large surface area of these masks means that they can shift on her face without letting the air through. And this is the only kind of mask that firmly wraps around her face without gaps. I've put in PM2.5 filters to add to the protection.

And I myself now have 25 KN95 masks, 50 KF94 masks, and about 60 PM2.5 filters for my own use. Seventy five high filtration masks isn't the same as a vaccine, but it's what I've got.

I have watched JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE SNYDER CUT: PART 5: "All The King's Horses" (actual title).

It's good. It presents the resurrection of Superman not as a lighthearted bit of fun with an amusing fight scene, but as a moment of terrifying otherworldly power being reawakened, potentially for good or evil. Superman's heat vision is so often a lightweight laser in comic books, TV and film. Superman used it to reheat coffee in LOIS AND CLARK and vaporize glass in SUPERMAN RETURNS. In JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE SNYDER CUT: PART 5: "All The King's Horses" (actual title), it is a demonic fire that explodes cars and could conceivably melt anyone with a glance. The glimpse of a horrific future in which Darkseid somehow possesses Superman and turns him into an agent of Apokalips is, I assume, something the movie won't be able to address in full because it was a tease for a sequel that'll never be made.

I'm not sure Superman should ever be presented in such a disturbing, frightening fashion. It's fine to render the Punisher or Wolverine this way, but Zack Snyder has created a Superman that no one would ever trust or feel safe being around and I personally don't feel what this children's character is for. I can see why Warner Bros., having already tolerated MAN OF STEEL and BATMAN VS. SUPERMAN, balked at this and summoned fake feminist Joss Whedon to lighten things up.

The loss of the Mother Box was, in the Whedon cut, presented as a moment of bizarre incompetence. The heroes leave the Mother Box on top of a car and forget about it until Steppenwolf claims it. Here, they and an ally fight to protect it and the sequence ends with a terrible sacrifice. This makes a lot more sense than the Whedon cut -- but I have to admit, I miss all the jokes ("Pet Semetary!") and the Knightmare material is a road to nowhere and I see why it was removed.

I personally enjoy the Whedon cut a lot, but I see why few people did and why JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE SNYDER CUT: PART 5: "All The King's Horses" (actual title) is preferable even if I really don't want to see Superman attacking civilians and would prefer a world without that image.

TOM: "Hey, I got some bad news -- I got your package, but the envelope was ripped open and it was empty!"

IB: "Damn. I'll send you the flash drive again."

TOM: "I tell you, our post office system is really bad these days! Trump made so many cuts to it. It was rough before that too!"

IB: "I am so sorry, Tom. It is entirely my fault. I had a chance for Quinn Mallory to take Donald Trump down back in 2016 and I chose not to use it, that's on me."

"Prince of Wails"' end sequence:
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

Someone recently asked me to define the style of each of SLIDERS' five seasons. I would argue that SLIDERS arguably had eight separate periods within its five seasons.

• Season 1A: Alternate history for social satire and dramedy/horror and black comedy with an (intentional or not) emphasis on how the United States of America is the greatest nation in the world founded on principles of fairness, honour, respect and equality that are universal and from which any deviation leads to a horrific dystopia.

• Season 1B: Alternate history for social satire and dramedy/horror and black comedy with a skepticism if not outright rejection of the fairy tale that the United States of America is in any way a just or equal society or could even pretend to be a utopia.

• Season 2: Alternate history with black comedy/sci-fi technology settings with dramedy, high emphasis on chase sequences.

• Season 3A: Action adventure with magic and sci-fi technology and alternate history in equal balance, little to no social commentary.

• Season 3B: Horror, nihilism and contempt for all life.

• Season 4A: Science fiction driven by an emphasis on sliding technology.

• Season 4B: Science fiction driven by an emphasis on computers and worlds defined by advanced level of computer technology.

• Season 5: Science fiction driven by an emphasis on technology in general (computers, but also cloning, biotechnology, neurosurgery, crystaline data storage, air travel).

"Prince of Wails" is clearly still in the 1A category.

Hunnnh.

I love NARCOTICA... but I've always half-loved it, specifically loving the half that Dennis Calero drew. Someone once asked me if I would ever want my fanfics to be filmed and my answer is always absolutely not, they weren't meant to be filmed --  but I would love for Dennis Calero to draw them. And yet... I've honestly never thought of NARCOTICA as having had a failure of imagination until reading the post above and now I have to concede that it is true.

Anyway! World building is not my strength. But my random guesses would be:

Meat? Rembrandt has a sausage stick?
The sugarless sweetener in Wade's chewing gum?
The tobacco in a cigar that Arturo swiped from a double?
The paper in Wade's journal?
The polyester in Rembrandt's needlessly shiny suits?
The denim in Quinn's jeans?
The acidic components of the battery inside the timer?

Yeah, "Eggheads" almost killed me on this project. But for now! Clips from "Summer of Love": the teaser, the spider-wasp on Arturo and the ending.
https://mega.nz/folder/Ph5GBYxQ#KAHjapDSD1ReV3kWVSmNAg

"Summer of Love" is the second episode of SLIDERS. Narratively, it's a bit scatterbrained with the team split into Quinn and Arturo running around together, Rembrandt being inducted into an abusive marriage, Wade stumbling into leadership of a hippie commune and commiting herself to the role. But the sheer charisma and drive and passion of Tracy Torme's scripting allows the story to piledrive through any problems.

There's a certain artlessness to Quinn giving a massive infodump about the war with Australia (and I have staggered into doing similar things in my own scripts). The comedy of Rembrandt stumbling into his double's funeral only to discover his double had a cruel spouse and isn't even dead after all is really funny. I'm a bit worried about Torme writing black people, however, and I have been informed that Rembrandt and the portrayals of black people are indeed a racist caricature. However, the person who told me that was white. I have also been told that Rembrandt's bursts of cowardice in Season 1 are demeaning to black culture and I am simply not equipped to comment on it except to say I found it funny and a good setup for the depth Rembrandt displays in "Fever" and "Last Days" as a man of great love, spirit, care and someone who, despite his initial terror, can make tough decisions in a pinch.

Ultimately, this is the second episode and Torme still hasn't quite figured out his series yet, hasn't figured out how to balance the four characters, hasn't figured out how the sliders should get involved in each world, hasn't figured out how to smoothly integrate exposition into the stories -- but he seems to learn how to write his own show with each page and his sense of fun, wit, charm and grace is enthralling.

**

Cyberlink PowerDVD has a neat Smart Stretch function. It zooms in slightly on 4:3 video, then stretches the edges of the video, reducing the percentage of the stretch as it gets closer to the center of the frame. This converts 4:3 to 16:9 while only losing at most 5 - 6 per cent of the frame. This appears to be proprietary, however. You yourself attempted a smart stretch on your own software and found that it distorted the frame. This doesn't happen in PowerDVD.

However, I don't use PowerDVD anymore. I used it on a home theatre PC, but I've since then replaced it with an Android TV box in my living room. Alternatively, I watch videos on an Android tablet. Watching anything on a laptop is rather cumbersome now because I have to plug in an external drive. I haven't found any Android TV or mobile apps with smart stretching and I've just accepted that 4:3 video will be pillarboxed. Zach Snyder seems to be into it with his JUSTICE LEAGUE cut.

Spoilers for BATWOMAN!!!!!! (We got her!)

They have recast Kate Kane. They have cast Wallis Day, the actress that I, Temporal Flux and everybody wanted to play Kate Kane. However, they have chosen to have Kate severely injured by the plane crash and that will in time, it seems, explain why Wallis Day's Kate Kane doesn't have Ruby Rose's tattoos or Ruby Rose's face.

I think their decision here makes sense. Season 1 of BATWOMAN ended in mid-storyline. It was too visually disjointed, the creators must have felt, to have Wallis Day's Kate Kane resolve conflicts with Alice and Jacob that had originated with Ruby Rose's Kate Kane. They didn't want to ask the actors to pretend that they'd known Wallis Day for all of Season 1. They had Kate go missing, severed all her relationships with the cast through her disappearance, gave an explanation for why she won't look the same -- and when Kate fully returns to the series, the entire cast will have to rebuild their relationships with Kate just as they're building a new relationship with Wallis Day. This is an excellent situation because the real world situation and the onscreen situation will match and the performances will be enriched.

I think it's terrific that fans get the Kate Kane actress they were rooting for and I think it's terrific that the show used the opportunity to introduce Javicia Leslie as a new Batwoman. She's an amazing performer and the Ryan Wilder character has brought a whole new angle to the Batwoman persona. I'm hoping that the end result will be a Peter Parker/Miles Morales sort of situation where both characters are operating as Spider-Man/Batwoman.

Wallis Day is brilliant. She's also nothing like Ruby Rose. Rose has a certain chilly aggressiveness; Day is more cautiously aloof and sardonic in her screen presence. Rose is boiling with frustration and rage; Day's onscreen energy is friendlier and more vulnerable. Rose's onscreen fighting style is ferocious and angry; Day's physicality is calculated and precise. Rose is a reckless brawler; Day is a disciplined boxer. Rose conveys introversion; Day is an ambivert. I wouldn't have wanted Rachel Skarsten, Camrus Johnson, Nicole Kang, Dougray Scott, Christina Wolfe and Meagan Tandy to have to pretend that Wallis Day's Kate Kane was Ruby Rose's Kate Kane. It's better that Day's Kate Kane is one who has been missing and come back from a horrific (and face altering) trauma.

I watched JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE SNYDER CUT: PART 2: "The Age of Heroes" (actual title) last night. Once again, this is a very good, big budget JUSTICE LEAGUE TV mini series that surely appeals to those who enjoyed the darker fare of TITANS and WATCHMEN. It's not to my taste, but just because something isn't tailored to my obsessions (like the Flash rambling about brunch) doesn't mean it isn't well-made and well-performed and well-presented.

Mythology
JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE SNYDER CUT: PART 2: "The Age of Heroes" (actual title) is all about establishing the past mythology of the last war against Darkseid, some sort of inhuman behemoth of infinite dark power whose army of Parademons seem to combine magic and sci-fi technology into demonic abilities into singlehanded planetary scale war against all of Earth's civilizations in the distant past. "The Age of Heroes" is shown to be when the Greek gods of WONDER WOMAN, the Atlanteans of AQUAMAN, the Green Lanterns and humans joined together and successfully drove back a Darkseid and Parademon army from Earth -- not defeating them wholly, but stalling them for eons.

Scale
There isn't much superhero action here with the Justice League, but Snyder establishes a previous "age of heroes" and explicitly compares Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, the deceased Superman and the currently unrecruited Flash to be a new generation of Greek gods and demi gods except they are so divided and damaged they are unlikely to make it happen -- a situation for which Batman holds himself responsible. Compared to fake feminist Joss Whedon, I find that Snyder is really keep to establish an epic, mythological scale to the previous Darkseid incursion whereas Whedon brushed past it quickly with a fast montage and a voiceover. Whedon deconstructs the mythic scale, Snyder builds it up.

Positivity
Snyder's version of Batman in this story is guilt-ridden -- but in a very positive way. He transmutes his self-loathing and shame into action, travelling across the globe in private jets and on horseback, eschewing the luxuries of a billionaire to search for superpowered metahuman heroes, seeking to rebuild something of what he destroyed when he drove Superman to his death. He will go for weeks without shaving, allow a fisherman to mock and assault him, personally attempt to bring a failed troop carrier jet into working order and sink his fortune into this foolhardy pursuit. He is a man who will not be denied even if he has to reduce himself to begging for help -- all to bring heroes back into this cold and lonely world.

This is in stark contrast to Whedon's version where Batman's search for heroes was -- like many feats for Whedon style superheroes -- fast and effortless and barely a few minutes of screentime. Whedon is an abomination of a human being, but I'm not dismissing his approach; I'm just noting that Snyder doesn't like shortcuts.

Sliders and Snyder vs. Whedon
If Snyder were doing SLIDERS: SEASON 6, he'd probably spend an hour splitting the Quinns, an hour recovering Wade, an hour revealing that the wrong Professor slid, an hour having the sliders defeat the Kromaggs and discover that the Earth Prime in "Exodus" and "Genesis" was not their true home and Quinn is not from Kromagg Prime and that Colin is a clone -- he'd do the PVTOnline version of Season 6 where writer Michael W. Hill faced down all these situations one novella at a time. And by the time he'd gotten everyone back, he'd burned himself out and couldn't finish his series (I assume).
https://web.archive.org/web/20020312120 … seasonsix/

In contrast, Whedon's SLIDERS: SEASON 6 would just get to the endpoint and have the sliders alive and well on Page 1 and a quick explanation by Page 23 or so with the sliders back to basics and sliding and all the running arcs cleared away by Page 46 -- Whedon would do Tracy Torme's "Slide Effects" just to get the job done with a minimum of fuss. Whedon is a TV creator and he operates in a world of limited time and mandated minimalism.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/11KF … sp=sharing

Both have their merits.

Style
Zack Snyder's direction in JUSTICE LEAGUE: THE SNYDER CUT: PART 2: "The Age of Heroes" (actual title) is discoloured, dour, dark and grim, but the story and the hope of these characters is fundamentally hopeful -- and once again, I have to wonder if the cynicism and brutality and savagery identified with a Zack Snyder movie is due to truncation. When Snyder's hypervisceral violence is shown in a hurried and fast pace, it seems indifferent and more concerned with the cool visual moment than with human emotion. But in a four hour cut, that indifference is replaced with a search for empathy that Ben Affleck's Batman presents beautifully.

I continue to have absolutely no idea what the hell is happening in THE FLASH. It could be my problem. But. The Season 6 arc seems to be over, thank God. It took three weeks to resolve it, but it is (I think) resolved even if they had to finish it with Ralph Dibney wearing a bag over his head (now there's something "Unstuck Man" might have considered for Quinn). Harrison Wells seemed incredibly convenient for Team Flash, appearing in a cloud of pixie dust to provide a solution to the Speed Force and not traumatized by his last memory being the car crash where his wife died and then a supervillain sucked out his brain and stole his face and buried him next to the highway. But Tom Cavanagh gave him a sincere, gentle presence that no Wells has ever really had with Thawne being sinister, Harry being acidic, HR being goofy, Sherloque being superior and Nash being disgruntled. I assume he'll be back soon enough since Cavanagh is on contract.

I don't know what happened here, but it isn't happening any more and we can move onto something new. I don't know what else to say except I'm sorry the splendid Efrat Dor didn't get a better role in a better season at a better time.

Just looking ahead -- there is at least one Season 1 episode that doesn't seem salvageable, unfortunately, due to severe overcompression. But we can worry about that later. For now, here is, from "The Seer," Maggie's scene with Mrs. Mallory and then Mallory's scene with Mrs. Mallory followed by the cliffhanger ending.
https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

Maggie's scene with Mrs. Mallory is strongly disliked, but for me -- I have always appreciated Mrs. Mallory expressing her grief (and mine) that she will never see Quinn again. The reference to Quinn not being her biological son is discordant, a reference to a new backstory in "Genesis" that presented Quinn as Kal-El of Kromagg Prime, a story idea that Tracy Torme himself described as "pretty ridiculous." I missed Quinn a lot and it was so frustrating that the show wouldn't acknowledge his absence outside isolated episodes with this being one of them. Robert Floyd also did an excellent job with Linda Henning, conveying Mallory as delivering Quinn's love for Amanda Mallory as Quinn's proxy.

The non-ending ending was upsetting and hurtful to fans and inexcusable. However -- I have come to appreciate it. While it was simply a tantrum from Bill Dial for Sci-Fi no longer providing notes and feedback, it also left the door wide open for the fans, allowing a multitude of stories for them to conceive themselves. It left a completely open slate for what might be on the other side of Rembrandt's vortex.

Rembrandt is shown to be pocketing the broken timer before the slide. Mallory, Diana and Maggie are left on another world, excusing fans from having to deal with their characters should they prefer not to. And will SLIDERS now free of David Peckinpah, Bill Dial, Keith Damron, Peter Roth, Robert Greenblatt, FOX, Sci-Fi and even Universal, fans were free to take SLIDERS back and treat it with the love and care it deserved.

There have been so many wonderful possibilities after "The Seer" explored in SLIDERS stories written by people who actually cared about the characters. Slider_Quinn21 suggested that Rembrandt found the original Professor and received aid from the Azure Gate Bridge version of Quinn. Other writers proposed that Rembrandt discovered the nature of multiversal stacks with different rules of reality, explaining the Season 3 monsters and allowing the original sliders to return. Some writers jumped straight into hard sci-fi with exploring the rules of the interdimension and delving into a Kromagg war.

Tracy Torme belatedly suggested a story where Quinn wakes up to find time rewound to the Pilot, all his friends alive and well, followed by a revelation that the scenario is a Kromagg simulation along with all the other episodes after Torme departed. Torme also later suggested flatly ignoring Seasons 3 - 5 and picking up with the sliders immediately after the events of "Double Cross." LEGO SLIDERS ran with this, although it repositioned the rewind to just after "Murder Most Foul."

I know "The Seer" wasn't intended as a gift of any kind; it was an attack on the broadcaster with the viewers as collateral damage, but I've come to accept it as a gift nonetheless and feel grateful for the opportunity that came with it. We all have our own visions of what came after "The Seer," and in the context of SLIDERS, they are all true.

I remember, as a child, reading DC-MARVEL's ALL ACCESS #1, a crossover comic where Superman and Spider-Man team up to fight Venom. I thought it was odd that Venom could beat Superman up in a fight, having recently read SUPERMAN: FROM 30s - 70s where he was rearranging solar systems -- and would later read the John Byrne reboot where Superman's powers were lessened to the point where his superstrength didn't exceed other superhuman beings by that much and he would struggle to lift a plane. And it makes sense, I think, to allow Superman to be vulnerable to other superhumans or there's no dramatic tension.

SUPERMAN & LOIS has CW and HBO Max funding it. For the nuclear plant on THE FLASH, it would have been a stock shot of a nuclear plant and then studio interiors or a generic pipeworks location. For SUPERMAN AND LOIS, they could afford to find some industrial location and film the actors on site and populate the place with extras. SUPERGIRL could have filmed motel exteriors on location and interiors on a set, but SUPERMAN AND LOIS could actually build all sorts of stunt walls as well with Superman crashing through the room. They have a lot more money than THE FLASH or SUPERGIRL.

It's basically the difference between the location filming of Season 1 of SLIDERS and the studio bound filming of Season 5 of SLIDERS. :-) SUPERGIRL and THE FLASH and ARROW use their money effectively more effectively than the later seasons of SLIDERS, but they have very generic studio space or reused locations that they redress to be different And they have to stick to standing sets like CATCO and the DEO and STAR Labs and the Arrowcave. SUPERMAN AND LOIS has the Kent farm, but they can go to so many other places as well with location filming and they can build far more intricate sets for individual scenes.

**

I hope THE FLASH can wrap up last year's stuff next week and move forward. I really don't blame the writers for anything; they've been hit with a lot. Even before the pandemic, Andrew Kreisberg getting himself fired and banned from the industry left the FLASH team struggling to make the show work as he'd tethered it to his own existence and style. But he absolutely had to go.

I was listening to Tracy Torme's January 2021 Dark Matters podcast and he had some interesting political views.

https://www.spreaker.com/user/kgra/dmr0 … io-tracy-t

Torme said that he felt that the virus had been politicized; that now, someone's masking identifies where they stand politically. He added that his family has been split down the middle by the virus; he has a sister who is very strict and obsessive about masking and sanitizing and social distancing from all friends and family. Meanwhile, he has other family members who dismiss any precautions with the two extremes ripping them apart.

Tracy says that he himself is "in the middle" in that he "takes it seriously" but doesn't obsess. He then described how, for I AM LEGEND, he did a lot of research on pandemics: ebola, smallpox and how horrifying those pandemics were in the past. Torme also described how he recently invited an apparently homeless person to move in with him and his wife for the pandemic.

The host seemed to be a fervent Trump supporter. It was interesting: the host said Biden was ridiculous to ban referencing COVID-19 as the "China virus"; Torme remarked that the Constitution protected free speech. The host said he quit watching football after seeing football players kneeling for the national anthem; Torme said he didn't like people hating on America but could never stop watching football. The host said Alexandria Ocasio Cortez was overblowing her claim that Ted Cruz tried to murder her; Torme replied that while he grew up a Democrat, he finds that Democrats have been radicalized into a lie of wokeness, that the label racism has been vastly overexpanded, and that Democrats have stumbled into an ill-advised love affair with communism and a destructive disdain for capitalism. Torme also wondered if then-President Trump would be able to reveal the truth about UFOs.

Torme seemed to pick up points of discussion in his Trump-supporting friend where he had his own parallel opinions and points of intersection, but I couldn't entirely tell if he agreed or disagreed in his responses touching on adjacent matters and his love for America and the US Constitution. However, someone who isn't aware of Torme's Libertarian politics and healthy disdain for both sides of the political spectrum might mistake his responses as support for Trumpism, just as quotes of Torme declaring himself a radical leftist in past interviews might give the wrong impression that he's a Democrat.

He reminded me of Temporal Flux saying here that he watches both CNN and FOX and finds his answers in the middle.

I wonder if this ability to position himself in the middle is why Torme had and has such a gift for social commentary that is subtle and amusing and artful. As much as I love SOUTH PARK, SOUTH PARK only speaks to people already in agreement with SOUTH PARK. Torme's writing gives you something to think about, but it doesn't tell you what to think.

I don't know if Torme and a studio would be in a position to worry about even Seasons 1 and 2, never mind 3 to 5. A revival, I think, would have to start from the beginning again: to the audience, the sliders in a revival are the first sliders making the first slide for their first adventure.

If Torme gets his wish to see Jerry, Sabrina, Cleavant and John reunited as Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo as the leads, I think it would have to be a 47 year old Quinn discovering sliding for the first time; a 50 year old Wade struggling to assert herself in a male-dominated tech world; a 67 year old Rembrandt exasperatedly trying to earn a living in music; a 76 year old Professor Arturo stewing that he never received the recognition that his genius deserved.

Also, despite Torme being a UFO obsessive and a STAR TREK writer and Gene Roddenberry's protege, it seems clear: Torme does not like fantasy fiction in SLIDERS. He doesn't want slidetech driven stories; he doesn't want to worry about geographic spectrum stabilizers -- the Pilot is so incredibly, wholly, totally uninterested in the specific mechanics of how the sliding machine works. He is instead very focused on alternate histories, satirical comedy and social commentary. He's never going to think of SLIDERS in terms of the Colin clone arc or splitting the Quinns.

Temporal Flux wrote this guide for how to write a SLIDERS story and I'm pretty sure that it's Torme's playbook as well.
http://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php?pid=10285#p10285 

I just don't see Seasons 3 - 5's issues or characters or arcs or considerations being in Torme's playbook for this hypothetical revival and it probably wouldn't be in any hypothetical studio's playbook either. He would probably just start over. I imagine a studio would want him to start over and reboot.

And given that Torme is not insane -- maybe his idea for reuniting the original cast is to pull a STAR TREK 2009; hire younger actors to play younger versions of the original sliders, but use the original actors to play their older selves in flash-forwards or to play doubles on Van Meer Earths where time is ahead.

And regarding the original continuity: if a soft-reboot of SLIDERS in 2021 happens -- maybe it could open the door to SLIDERS audioplays set in 1996 with the original actors.

Torme could dust off his old "Slide Effects" script which resurrects the characters in one episode and rewinds the clock back to before Arturo's death. He can do an alternate Season 3, a replacement Season 3 in audioplays with the original cast and tell the stories he wanted to tell in 1997 but couldn't, write (or commission others to write) the 90s-era SLIDERS stories set in that specific period in the past -- and end his version of the show of that era in that medium on his terms.

Maybe. As Grizzlor says, lots of people pitch lots of things.

I didn't discuss this earlier, but Torme was extremely, gravely ill a few years ago and last year had heart surgery.

I didn't discuss it here because it was his private business and it would have been grossly inappropriate to reveal it -- except RussianCabbieLotteryFan informs me that Torme has discussed his health issues in a recent podcast. However, nobody was rumourmongering; someone accidentally mentioned "Torme's illness" and decided not to bring it up again. But Torme really was sick and he has, it seems, gotten through it. I did allude to it above where I remarked that Torme seems to be pursuing SLIDERS like there's no tomorrow, but only because Torme has lifted that veil.

Torme has undoubtedly seen "Rules of the Game" and "Double Cross" and "The Guardian" (haha), he definitely saw "The Fire Within" and "Season's Greedings," and probably "Dead Man Sliding" -- but he switched off eventually, apparently seeing Part 2 of "The Exodus" but not Part 1 -- although I'll note that what he said in his 1997 - 2000 interviews and chats may have changed in the years since then. But it's quite clear that as far as he's concerned, SLIDERS stops with "The Guardian."

I'll watch it if and only if you -- specifically you -- let me know whether or not it gets cancelled on a cliffhanger. You understand!

**

Syfy has sort of cancelled WYNONNA EARP. They originally renewed it for Seasons 4 - 5, but Season 4 was stalled due to studio financing issues. Syfy eventually offered additional funding for Season 4, but by that time, all the contracts had expired, much like SLIDERS in Season 5. The entire cast and creative team re-signed for the delayed Season 4 and nobody forced their brother into the show or demanded to be promoted from actor to executive producer or anything -- but this meant that Syfy was no longer obligated to air Season 5 (or fund it). Due to COVID and pandemic delays, Syfy has decided not to renew their funding for Season 5. Season 4 is conceivably the end of the show unless some other broadcaster offers to make up the funding shortfall. It could be the end. It probably is the end. There's a faint chance that due to the massive popularity of WYNONNA EARP that it isn't the end, but it's hardly certain.

Naturally, WYNONNA EARP's showrunners decided to force the show to end on a cliffhanger with the lead character's fate unknown knowing full well that no resolution will come just to make trouble for their broadcaster and to see if the broadcaster might pay more attention to them if they do something so ridiculous.

No, of course not. They've just filmed an ending that can serve as a series finale but can allow for a Season 5 if funding works out.

When I started this upscaling project, it was really just to enjoy the Golden Age of Seasons 1 - 2. I wasn't going to get into the later seasons too deeply. But... every time I try to stay out of the Season of Hell, the Season of Grief and the Season of Despair, I get pulled into 'em. And I think I can explain it now, watching "Applied Physics" in HD. Here are the Mallory scenes.
https://mega.nz/folder/5E1WnZxJ#Zgg_4d2jHZTolIin-iSevw

The thing that's consistently exasperating and captivating about SLIDERS: there's clearly a lot of talent there. "Murder Most Foul" is an excellent episode from writer David Peckinpah. "Prophets and Loss" had that gorgeous almost-in-real-time interrogation of the trio from Bill Dial. "Virtual Slide" is a lovely debut from Keith Damron. "The Alternateville Horror" and "Slide By Wire" from Chris Black are minor masterpieces. "Applied Physics," also by Chris Black, shows that SLIDERS could get a lot out of mining the loss of 3/4 of its cast for drama, tragedy, and even closure. Chris Black can do it. But Chris Black is sadly not running this show.

It's strange: SLIDERS turns Rembrandt into a war traumatized, shell shocked man -- but doesn't like to acknowledge or address it. It turns Quinn Mallory into a schizophrenic with someone else's face. It lost Arturo, the heart of the show, and tries to avoid bringing it up. But on the rare occasions of actually facing these losses, SLIDERS is powerful and stirring. The ability to tell amazing SLIDERS stories is there. But the showrunners are simply not engaged and not interested and the potential is only ever realized in what Annie Fish calls "outliers" like "World Killer" and I'd call this one an outlier too.

Most of the episodes I decided to upscale in Season 5 are "outliers." They are really really good. "Applied Physics" is really, really good. Would that every episode of Season 5 had been this strong.