Search options (Page 77 of 78)

I wondered if a low-contrast, low-colour, low-resolution screen was really an impediment to getting work done. The answer is, apparently, yes. I gave up and put the laptop back in its desktop dock and then switched to my iPad with a stand and Bluetooth keyboard.

The screen definitely encouraged me to produce more pages, but I found it really slow -- keystrokes would be missed or repeated, the keyboard would periodically lose touch with the tablet and I would get really annoyed. Then I wondered if a better Bluetooth keyboard would work better as I noticed the same keys (G, comma, B, E) kept getting needed repeated keystrokes to make it to the screen.

I bought a more expensive Bluetooth keyboard and the results are good. The multitasking is a little cumbersome and I can't compare two files side by side on the tablet, but I can use my phone. I'm finding that I'm producing a lot of pages on the tablet but go back to the desktop to do all the formatting. That's fine.

So. I guess this is my new laptop!

http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2015/08/18/ … on-kinberg

Well. This explains what happened with FANTASTIC FOUR. Looks like FOX really screwed things up -- but Trank proceeded to use FOX as an excuse for extremely unprofessional behaviour when he should have simply quit.

I'm kind of tempted by this $700 ultrabook, the ASUS UX305 -- but I am also tempted by the new version of the T100TAM -- a 10.1-inch 32GB netbook going for $200! Same specs as this much-loathed T100TA -- but the new one has much improved build quality! It's made of aluminium! And a 128GB microSD card can easily make up for the low-storage!

But I can't help but see what you mean when you say that buying cheap only sees you spending more money to replace the cheap and ultimately unsatisfying item you chose for its low cost.

Lifehacker says that when you are torn between two options, choose neither. Or maybe choose the cheap one and try it for 10 days and then return it if it's crap.

The 1960s idea is pretty cool to me.

Regarding FF's essentials? I guess the sense that the FF are a weird family thrown together by circumstance and they explore the unknown is all that's really essential. The ULTIMATE FF comics were a great read for me and they recast Sue and Reed as teen geniuses working for a secret government thinktank in weapons development. It was fantastic! (Actually, I seem to recall the reviews being pretty terrible, but I enjoyed them lots.)

In comics, time is fluid and floating. Captain America was frozen in the 1945s and then woke up in 1964. Reed Richards and Ben Grimm were WWII army buddies. The Black Widow first met Iron Man when she was a Communist spy. As time progresses, Cap's defrosting is referred as having happened 10 - 15 years ago, and flashbacks always reflect whatever that is relative to the present. Reed and Ben refer to meeting in the army but don't refer to the conflict. The Black Widow is still a former Communist spy and her youth is explained as potion that froze her age, but references to her first meeting with Iron Man make no reference to her original employers. There's occasionally a retcon or two with Marvel, but for the most part, readers somehow shrug and accept that Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive spider in 1963 but only ten years have passed for him despite it being 2015. However, the X-Men of ten years ago time travel to the modern era and are amazed at how 2015 technology is far ahead of the 1960s. Basically, it's a joke. It's not supposed to make sense.

The problem is not the source material -- just that there are more challenges in adapting it, meaning more risks need to be taken, but also meaning that there's more room for error. Josh Trank and FOX made bold choices in adapting the 1960s concept -- and then FOX got cold feet and wanted to change their minds, Trank disagreed, conflicts were heightened and the film ended up in an awkward middle ground that didn't commit to any choices at all.

Dan Harmon and the Russo brothers would do a great job on FANTASTIC FOUR. :-)

CHRONICLE was a very good film, at least in my view. I'm not going to let FANTASTIC FOUR affect my opinion of Trank's talent too much as Trank has publicly disowned the film. There seems plenty of blame to go around for the new F4 movie.

While the complaints against Trank seem to vastly outweigh the complaints against FOX, FOX should have simply left Trank to do the movie he wanted. Maybe Trank's F4 would have been terrible, but stepping into somebody else's film to finish it only creates a terrible of a different kind; at least F4 would have been Trank's F4 as opposed to some mismatched, misbegotten mismash.

FANTASTIC FOUR is a *very* challenging concept compared to IRON MAN or SPIDER-MAN or X-MEN, simply because those concepts are *easily* transplanted from the 1960s to today while F4's origins are *completely* intertwined with the space race and the fight against Communism. Rewriting the origin is a necessity for a mainstream movie in 2015; it's understandable if it doesn't work out.

The buzz seems to be that FOX is moving ahead with a sequel regardless of the box office failure. Why? Their thinking is, it seems: somebody, someday, will make money off an F4 movie, so it might as well be them even if they're currently doing it at a loss.

I'd say that the main problem with the new FANTASTIC FOUR movie is that the people behind the movie couldn't work together, for whatever reason. They worked against each other, pulling in different directions, making 2 - 3 different movies and awkwardly editing them into a single film. Weird how AMAZING SPIDER-MAN had people working together, but also making 2 - 3 different movies and awkwardly editing them into a single film. Andrew Garfield's complaint with ASM2, I think, was that the main plot was Peter uncovering Richard Parker's legacy (the secret research, the hidden base in the subway station). The Sinister Six and the Green Goblin were meant to be reflections of that main plot: Peter's search for his father. The end would have Peter seemingly defeated by the Green Goblin in every way that counted, for Peter to break down by Gwen's grave -- and then for Richard Parker to appear, telling Peter he'd been watching Peter all his life, that he believed in him, and that "with great power comes great responsibility." The movie was the end with Peter having lost everything but reuniting with his father.

They cut that and the whole thing fell apart. It'd be interesting to find out where this happened with F4.

I haven't seen the movie. But I love Michael B. Jordan and am thrilled to see him in any role.

The whole FANTASTIC FOUR 2015 situation strikes me as downright SLIDERS-esque, especially with studio interference and various personality conflicts.

Season 1

• FOX wanted to retain the F4 rights but didn't care to invest strongly in the film. As with SLIDERS, their interference was random, sudden and last-minute. Just as production was about to begin, FOX mandated a tens of millions budget cut and the removal of three action sequences.

• As Tracy Torme with SLIDERS, Josh Trank had a strong vision for F4 as a grounded, low-key, hard-sci-fi reboot of the property as the 60s origin was based in the space race of the era.
  FOX and Trank agreed on Michael B. Jordan's casting as Johnny Storm.

• FOX and Trank disagreed on casting Miles Teller, but Trank won that battle.

• Trank did not want Kate Mara as Sue Storm, but FOX won that battle.

Season 2

• There were reports of Josh Trank being indecisive and giving contradictory instructions to set builders, prop designers and other crew.

• As with SLIDERS, there were reports of FOX giving contradictory mandates at late stages of preproduction, hence Trank's indecision.

• There were reports of Josh Trank making himself unavailable to communicate with cast, producers and crew throughout filming, much like David Peckinpah and Bill Dial ducking out on writers' meetings during their seasons of SLIDERS.

• Like Tracy Torme, Josh Trank was reported as being combative, antagonistic and abrasive towards studio executives and producers.

• Like David Peckinpah and Bill Dial, Trank was reported as being abusive towards cast members, specifically Miles Teller and Kate Mara.

• Like various Season 3 - 5 producers, Josh Trank was reported as going to set inebriated to the point of being unable to give direction.

• After the initial filming, reshoots took place, as they do on most films. However, these reshoots were reportedly done with little Trank marginally involved and producer Simon Kinberg leading production at this point.

• Josh Trank did not have final cut ]of F4.

Season 3

• Marvel Studios' head Ike Perlmutter was furious at FOX's refusal to work with Marvel on an F4 film. Marvel publishing, seeing Perlmutter's anger towards the F4 property and FOX, barred any F4 merchandise from being produced and cancelled the comic book series to avoid any enterprises that could be viewed as supporting the FOX production. (The comic had not been a high seller in years anyway and Marvel tends to publish to low profits anyway, seeing the comics as R&D for film and TV.)

• Josh Trank was reported as causing hundreds of thousands of dollars to the rented house he lived in during F4's filming.

Season 4

• During F4 filming, Trank was set to later direct a STAR WARS spin-off film.

• Disney, hearing of Trank's conduct on set, held meetings with Simon Kinberg, asking for his opinion of Trank. Following these meetings, Josh Trank was fired from STAR WARS.

• In the weeks leading up to F4's release, Trank E-mailed cast and crew congratulating them on having made a good film.

• As negative reviews of F4 were published, Trank posted on Twitter that F4 was not his film and that the studio had interefered. He quickly deleted the Tweet, but screenshots were taken.

Season 5

• F4 was a box office failure.

• FOX is now unsure of whether they will proceed with a sequel, another reboot, a crossover with X-MEN or a licensing deal with Marvel Studios.

• Trank has at this point alienated Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Simon Kinberg, Fox, Disney, Lucasfilm and his landlord.

THE SARAH JANE SMITH ADVENTURES is like the anti-TORCHWOOD in many ways. It is, inexplicably, produced by the same team that does TORCHWOOD.

http://www.veoh.com/watch/v20281225bpyhaYN2

There was this horrible, horrible summer in my life where I was unemployed and severely depressed. Naturally, I watched 2 seasons of TORCHWOOD and they were TERRIBLE. I'm told that the third season, CHILDREN OF EARTH, was a massive improvement -- but my fortunes and overall mood had improved by then, so I never got around to seeing it or the following series, MIRACLE DAY, which I also heard was okay.

I read most of these when you first started posting here. Neat stuff. Also reading your gaming blog.

**

I expect to have a near-final draft SLIDERS REBORN: "Revelation" ready by Sunday or Monday. Nigel strongly advised on the alt-histories, but things shifted a bit as I went from writing an outline to writing a script. Some things were shortened and compressed; other ideas didn't fit the screenplay format and were dropped. So, I think I'm going to delay Part 2 to August 16 and send Nigel the script and let him work through it and see what he'd amend.

I did some writing today at a library and a coffee shop and then a restaurant and then a bar. And I discovered, to my horror, that while I can work effectively in a library, I am unable to write dialogue in eateries with music and background chatter. I have, however, been able to get a lot of writing done on my Bluetooth keyboard and tablet. There's something about only having one app at a time to work on that forces me to focus.

I want to hear the story of how Temporal Flux saved Christmas!

It's fitting how you say that SLIDERS REBORN so far *feels* right to you. I think a part of it is that nothing I've written is physically impossible to film with the actors at their current ages. But also, REBORN's Part 1 was plotted intuitively rather than logically, and it exasperated my poor editors in some ways.

Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo are my friends. What would I want for my friends in 2015?

I'd want them to be alive and well and home. I'd want home to be normal. I'd want to know that after "Paradise Lost" and "The Exodus" and "Genesis" and "The Chasm" and "The Unstuck Man" and "Requiem" and "The Seer," everyone was reunited (somehow) and the Kromagg invasion of Earth was erased (somehow) and everyone got home (somehow).

At the same time, nothing has ever felt more false to me than those earnest fanfics where Rembrandt comes out of the vortex in "The Seer" and Professor Arturo is waiting for him and they find Wade somewhere, go back to "The Seer"'s Earths, split the Quinns, retrieve Colin, liberate Earth Prime or reveal it wasn't home after all, send Diana and Mallory home, find Maggie a happy ending, reveal the Kromagg Prime backstory was a sham, resolve Colin and get the original sliders home.

The problem with those stories, in my view: they're the equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of a hat while narrating how the hat will be placed on a table with a hidden compartment in which the rabbit will enter the hat. The rabbit coming out of the hat/the sliders being reunited -- that's the only part of the trick that should be shown to the audience.

The challenge is not to attempt to make the impossible seem plausible. Instead, it's to make the emotion of the reunion so stirringly joyful that any explanation is nearly irrelevant. To show that if you will swallow the brick-sized contrivance that Wade is somehow alive, Quinn has somehow been restored and they have somehow found Arturo and now located Rembrandt, you will be be rewarded. You will be reunited with four delightful characters who bounce off each other beautifully. If an explanation does come, it mustn't be for its own sake, but serve whatever post-reunion story is told.

I think that's part of how "Reunion" feels right; there is a desire to know that the Season 3 - 5 plots were resolved, but with the knowledge that a point-by-point account would be a convoluted mess. "Reunion" also serves two mutually exclusive wishes: to know that our four friends are happy -- and to see them sliding randomly again. Random sliding is SLIDERS' storytelling engine. It lets you plug the characters into any kind of story and sets up a ticking clock and an exit for each adventure.

But Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo are in their 40s, 60s and 70s. They wouldn't return to sliding without screaming in protest. Yet, it's what they were built to do and to fail to put them back to doing what they do best is a dis-service to the characters.

Which necessitates another contrivance -- Laurel Hills as a catalyst to reunite the cast and justify sending them back into random sliding. Again, my editors were not in favour of a lot of this, specifically because I allowed intuition to override sense and logic.

That said, intuitive writing tends to serve characters effectively while failing to do the same for plots, or at least SLIDERS plots. The unfortunate truth is that any SLIDERS story requires a certain degree of historical and scientific knowledge that I just can't muster the energy to research when it comes to fanfic.

If I were getting paid, then absolutely, I would spend months on that. But SLIDERS fanfic is something I'm cranking out over weekends and if it becomes unpaid labour, it stops being fun and it doesn't get done. Which is why I was really grateful that Nigel is willing to review my stuff and suggest changes, and, in some cases, outright replacements. History is not my strength. Science is not my strength. These are serious liabilities when writing SLIDERS stories, and we must also remember that Nigel is a magician, not a wizard. So, we'll see.

Hey, you can install non Apple keyboards on their devices now! Glad to have Swype typing back.

I enjoyed the podcast. Couldn't really hear the buzzing unless I turned up the sound louder than necessary. But even then, it blended in with the sound of traffic during my drive.

I really enjoyed hearing Cory and Tom dissect Quinn's manifestation on the astral plane. They speak of the laws of physics being violated -- I would say the problem is more that the rules seem totally inconsistent; Quinn is intangible to people yet interacts with furniture. That scene with Gillian would have benefited greatly from Quinn sitting on the floor with her. But at the end of the day, I just can't get too worked up over such issues. It's an emotional and heartfelt episode; the flaws are acceptable to me. I laughed at Cory and Tom noting that sixty seconds in SLIDERS seems to be a pretty stretched out period of time and how the vortex has never been consistent in duration.

Also enjoyed their take on "Obsession," especially the dream/flashback sequences. Period acting isn't every actor's strength and it was most definitely not Sabrina's. Also adored them noting Derek's subtle reference to Quinn's jealousy with the polite, "You have your own reasons for doubting me" without specifying the actual reasons. I thought the episode was a really great exploration of how complicated Quinn and Wade have become without pairing them up or not pairing them up.

Regarding Derek Bond's vision -- it's entirely possible that Derek's vision was not of "Invasion" at all or the subsequent destination of the vortex. I mean, "Invasion" starts with Rembrandt having acquired hockey pads and a helmet on a previous Earth; surely Derek wasn't horrified by an image of Rembrandt at a sporting goods store. Derek's vision may have been of something farther in the future (therefore well past whatever episode aired after "Obsession"). Perhaps "Invasion." Perhaps "Paradise Lost." Perhaps "The Exodus" or "This Slide of Paradise" or "Genesis" or "The Chasm" or "The Great Work" or "Please Press One" or "Requiem." Or perhaps he had a vision of Jerry O'Connell's career immediately following SLIDERS.

While I'm flattered to be called a god of this Bboard, I'm going to have to reject such claims. I am in no way a deity even in this tiny realm. My likes and dislikes for SLIDERS are eccentric; even my fanfic isn't really reflective of SLIDERS as much as it's reflective of COMMUNITY with SLIDERS characters. I can speak with some authority on many SLIDERS subjects, but only because Temporal Flux was so very generous in public and private; anything I know about SLIDERS' behind the scenes stuff came from him.

The iPad Mini 2 is beautifully built. I definitely don't feel like the screen is going to fall out, unlike that Tab S 8.4's disturbingly loose and creaky screen. I was worried about the lack of a microSD card slot, but 23 GB of available storage after installing all my apps has proven sufficient so long as I choose books, comics and documents I plan to read over a month as opposed to over a year.

I find irksome to work with sandboxed apps. I want to load all my ePubs and PDFs into the memory and then have each app work with the same files. Instead, I need to copy my stuff into a file manager app. Then open the file in the file manager, which will claim it can't open the file but offer to copy it into the sandbox of the ebook reader / PDF annotator / etc... It's rather crude. The function of apps is simple to the point of being somewhat handicapping.

At the same time, the OS itself is a polished piece of work. There's edge-touch detection: I can rest my fingers on the side of the screen to hold the tablet without the tablet registering that as a touch. I don't need to install apps to hibernate apps in the background. The screen rotates instantly as opposed to a 1 - 2 second pause. I definitely made sure to download all the apps I want and turn off all the updates, however. I have no doubt that any iOS update will move the user experience from smooth responsiveness to stuttering and freezing to encourage me to buy a newer iPad.

I miss how super-customizable and open Android is -- but I've still got that on the S3 phone.

To compensate me for more trouble and/or make sure I never ever returned to the store, the Staples manager gave me some store credit and applied it to buying Applecare+ insurance, meaning I'll have to go to the Apple Store if I have anymore issues. I think it'll be fine. It's kind of a shame about the Tab S, however. I don't know if I was having a lot of bad luck with the screen falling out and the battery going dead and the creaky replacements on offer or if something is wrong with the workmanship across the board.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That's pretty cool. I can't see myself going out of my way to get a smartwatch, but I shall monitor the technology with interest.

I recently got a super-cheap Bluetooth keyboard and attempted to write some of Part 2 of the SLIDERS REBORN script on it. It was actually helpful to be able to use only one app at a time and have to focus completely on the Google Docs app. Also, it was a lot easier to carry a lightweight tablet instead of 2.5 pound laptop along with all the other stuff I carry in my bag. I found I got a bit stuck at times in scenes, forgetting what was supposed to happen next, so I had to have the outline on my phone. I'm copy-pasting the Google Docs text into Final Draft later to do the formatting.

But I'm wondering, if a 2.5 pound laptop is annoying to carry around is an indication that I really need to start carrying fewer items in my bag.

The answers are not case sensitive.

Did this really worry you?

omnimercurial is referring to my "Slide Effects" script. I'm flattered. But to be frank, none of my SLIDERS stuff is meant to be a 'realistic' portrait of a SLIDERS revival. Neither "Slide Effects" nor REBORN were written to be filmed, only written to be *conceivably* filmed. By that, I mean for "Slide Effects," I wrote scenes that you could have physically filmed in 2000. And if it were 2000 and Tracy Torme returned for a Season 6, then sure, you could do "Slide Effects." But writing in years later, the idea was more to create a script where the reader could imagine these images in their heads without thinking it impossible to have been made or too distant from what SLIDERS was like as a TV show.

It's the same thing with SLIDERS REBORN (I'm 1/3 finished Part 2 and 2B is done). It's not meant to be a realistic picture of how to revive SLIDERS as a going concern in 2015 -- but I'm hoping that fans will read it and feel like the images described are *possible* even if it would never actually be filmed.

A realistic SLIDERS revival does not bother with Seasons 3 - 5 or even Seasons 1 - 2. A realistic SLIDERS revival is introducing the concept to the audience for the first time.

In terms of updating SLIDERS -- I don't see that anything has to be updated beyond what comes naturally with moving a 20-year-old Quinn into 2015. You could update the topical references and timeframe in the Pilot, film it today and it'd be great -- the differences would come in the form of how *different* TV filming and editing have become. Scenes are shorter. Dialogue is faster. More happens in less time. I think modern production alone would make SLIDERS seem more modern. As for updating the characterization -- it was already there in the original series, it just wasn't always capitalized upon.

So, some moody lighting and grimly intoned statements are all it takes to win you over, huh? :-)

In 1997, Quinn was 23 - 24 (as he was born in 1973). Kari Wuhrer, born in 1967, would have been 30 - 31. Within the context of the show, Jerry and Maggie were being treated like they were pretty much the same age. Which is ridiculous.

Quinn was a grad student (having skipped several grades) while Maggie had been a spy, a fighter pilot and had an extensive career in espionage. So, I would have put Maggie in her late thirties or early forties and let Kari play an older character. I think she should have seen herself as the practical, experienced woman of action who considers Quinn to be a reckless child in need of care. And I like to think of Wade learning from Maggie and maybe crushing on her. (Would Sabrina Lloyd have been able to play that?)

Rembrandt, I think, would find Maggie somewhat disturbing and terrifying in her ruthlessness while Maggie would consider Rembrandt to be her favourite because he's very pleasant and goodhearted.

I miss Brand_S. And WrongArturo. And rafproductions. I've done my part in bringing the Bboard back! You people bring them back!

Wow. Can he be my brother too?

What do you do with a smartwatch, anyway?

On my gadget front -- I found my T100TA netbook/tablet/convertible a little slow when I first bought it. I thought it'd be fine for data entry and typing, especially with its 10 hours of battery life. But Chrome kept crashing when I was typing E-mails and I had to switch to browsers that wouldn't crash but would be laggy and slow and I grew to despise this thing. However, after a few recent updates, Chrome is crash-free and suddenly this computer feels like the perfect little laptop. It's weird how one app running well vastly elevated my opinion of this machine. It's still hopeless as a tablet, however. The Windows tablet app store is terrible.

Hmm, that's neat. Untold stories! I've always wondered how Marty met Doc.

CHUD.com has a pretty great retrospective on every installment on BACK TO THE FUTURE. Hopefully, the comic will be a worthy addition. The retrospective did a nice job of pointing something out: BTTF isn't really built as a series and the sequels had to tie themselves in knots to wring more story out of the concept. The comics, doing untold stories, seem to be cautiously steering around those difficulties.

http://www.chud.com/119028/franchise-me … he-future/
http://www.chud.com/121291/franchise-me … future-ii/
http://www.chud.com/122429/franchise-me … uture-iii/
http://www.chud.com/123059/franchise-me … tv-series/
http://www.chud.com/124087/franchise-me … -the-game/

To be honest, I actually found PARALLELS a little more plausible than SLIDERS in some ways -- or rather, it presented the implausibilities more effectively than SLIDERS' pilot. The nature of the building is a mystery; as a result, I didn't find its creation or existence or discovery unlikely because there is no information for me to consider plausible or implausible. In a fairly realistic world where punches hurts and families fall apart, the building is a peculiar mystery box of delightful impossibility.

It's just one abandoned building on one Earth as far as the inhabitants are concerned.

The Pilot, in contrast, explains *everything* about sliding and piles upon endless unlikely plot points. The idea that Quinn was trying to build anti-gravity and created something else is plausible, but then you have a ridiculous coincidence: a double just happened to visit Quinn's Earth at the very same time Quinn slid out and was absent, a double uniquely suited to explain the sliding concept to Quinn. In an infinity of Earths, how likely is it that a Quinn-double would just happen to stumble across an Earth in such a plot-convenient fashion?

PARALLELS, quite smartly, cloaks its absurdities in mystery to avoid having to justify them at all or failing to.

It was so weird. It is weirdly common in many blockbusters -- GI JOE RETALIATION had London, England destroyed entirely and nobody even mentioned it afterwards.

Well. Maybe you're right.

I rewatched PARALLELS just now and I realized that RussianCabbie's idea of a next-gen approach is creatively full of potential. Imagine:

Two new characters, Ronan and Beatrix, are searching for their missing father. Their last names are not mentioned. The father's face is not shown in any photos or security cam footage. They stumble into a building, the address of which they found in "Dad"'s things. They find the building that is a rift between parallel universes.

They have two crazy adventures and flee back into the building. A villain follows them. Threatens to blow up the building unless the creator comes out to face him. The elevator dings. The doors open to reveal Ronan and Beatrix's father -- Quinn Mallory. That's PARALLELS (minus the Quinn reveal), but I guess the next-gen route isn't a dead end. However, at that point, one still has to wonder why sequelize SLIDERS instead of making an original work, and I'm not seeing the advantages.

And the rebootquel approach could be neat: Quinn is in his mid-forties. He failed to create anti-gravity in his 20s. Blacked out the house. Gave up on science and went to work as an accountant. Twenty years later, Quinn is a miserable loner nursing a crush on one of his clients (Wade) and plays chess his other one (Arturo). After Quinn's mother dies, he goes back to the old house. Wade and Arturo go to help him pack. Quinn starts rooting through the basement. Accidentally triggers the vortex. It accidentally sucks in Rembrandt, who is driving by for Reasons. And the adventure begins again?

But a reboot is probably best.

I find it really hard to read tom2point0's posts now without imagining his podcast voice reading every line.

I didn't mind Season 3? I enjoyed the individual episodes and I didn't find the flaws as grating as some. But it added up to a rather limp and awkward season-long arc overall. Nice ending, though.