4,621

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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.

4,622

(8 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Whoa, really? When did Marina play Donna Troy? Was this an episode of WONDER WOMAN or one of the DC Animated Features?

4,623

(31 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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

4,624

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

And now for something completely different --

http://www.livingthedreamshow.com/allison-mack/

Allison Mack guested on Phil Morris' talk show (Phil played the Martian Manhunter on SMALLVILLE, among other things). It's an incredibly boring interview; Mack is, for whatever reason, extremely subdued and low-key throughout. But she said one really interesting thing. She said that she experienced a mid-life crisis during SMALLVILLE around -- judging by the numbers she was throwing out -- Season 7. She talked about how from age 4, her whole life had been acting. She was super-ambitions, grabbing every part she could. Her holy grail was to find a successful TV role that would go on indefinitely.

She got cast on SMALLVILLE. A regular role. The show kept getting renewed. Financially and professionally, Allison Mack was a success story. Internally, she felt completely blank and lost and utterly unfulfilled. Her work was hollow and meaningless and she felt detached from what she was doing and her life seemed composed of empty material achievements. She eventually found herself when she started focusing on theatre and stageplays and she realized that she wasn't happy reading other people's words; she wanted to create her own. It's a fairly dull podcast, to be blunt, but Mack drops these snippets here and there while being incredibly guarded and withdrawn -- and so now I'm going to engage in theoretical armchair psychology.

I think Mack was delighted to find success on SMALLVILLE, but as seasons passed, she realized that Chloe Sullivan was a completely irrelevant character. SMALLVILLE, for better or worse, was about Clark, Lex and Lana. Chloe was totally unnecessary as far as the show was concerned. She was a regular character who had about as much material as a guest-star; she was scripted like an extra. Because the cast and crew and creators liked her, as they did John Glover, they kept her around even though they really didn't know what to do with her.

In the clumsy teen soap of SMALLVILLE, Chloe was Clark's secondary love interest. And the creators had no intention of ever advancing that, so Chloe was trapped as Clark's secondary love interest, perpetually weepy and whiny and her character contorted into bizarre shapes like her nonsensical healing powers. When Lois Lane was introduced, Chloe's journalistic skills became even more surplus to requirements. The material for Chloe was ghastly ghastly ghastly from Seasons 2 - 7. Allison probably thought about quitting, but she didn't -- as she says in the podcast, a long-running regular role on a successful show was everything an actor could want. Financially, it would be insane to walk away from a job most people never, ever, ever get to have.

So she took the money and did her job. Allison Mack's acting was always superb no matter how bad the material. She was a professional and she did a professional's job and Allison Mack is always incandescent onscreen even when the role is beneath her. But the result was that Mack became emotionally distant from Chloe and SMALLVILLE. It became a job. A job she did for money. A job she excelled at, but just a job. A chore.

And by the time Season 8 made her the female lead of the show, it was too late. Allison Mack cared about doing a good job, she cared about the fans, but she didn't care about *Chloe.* How could she? The writers didn't. Mack was offered a truckload of money and increased screentime for a two-year extension on her contract that took her through to Season 9 and she accepted. But after Seasons 2 - 7, Mack was beginning to wear out.

The vast improvement of Seasons 8 - 9 just came too late. SMALLVILLE and its fans were, to Allison Mack, a professional commitment. But not a personal one. SMALLVILLE was simply a job now. Had been for years. By the end of Season 9, I think Allison Mack was *completely* burnt out on acting professionally without any kind of personal investment.

She quit the show. She desperately needed a break. But, again, professionalism: she signed to do a small number of episodes so as to avoid abandoning the series. And she made sure to be free for the series finale.

SMALLVILLE's tenth season floundered badly. And while Mack's absence doesn't explain all of it, the sad truth is that even a detached and emotionally distanced Allison Mack is still a brilliant actress. Without Allison Mack, SMALLVILLE lost its very best performer who endeared herself to the audience. As charming as Lois and Clark were by Season 10, it just wasn't as compelling without Chloe and Mack's screen presence. If Chloe had been written in Seasons 2 - 7 as well as she'd been written in Seasons 8 - 9, maybe Mack would have felt differently.

Make no mistake, this is total theoretical armchair psychology from a boring podcast. Don't take it seriously.

4,625

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

intangirble wrote:

the screenplay format and the way you've written it feels... right. What I've read so far feels like the script for a really top-tier episode of Sliders, and it's exciting to feel like I have more of that to come.

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.

4,626

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

SLIDERS REBORN may be delayed by another couple weeks. The reason: Nigel Mitchell, possibly the best SLIDERS writer ever, E-mailed me yesterday saying he has some more alt-history material to send my way. This, for me, is the equivalent of Tracy Torme and Robert K. Weiss knocking on my door to say they want to help me write my story. Naturally, I'll make time for them -- after Nigel's had his say.

I am nearly done the first draft of SLIDERS REBORN Part 2. I am going to spend the weekend punching up the scenes for a July 30 release -- but if Nigel's feedback requires more time to implement, then I will take that time.

That's all for now on this subject except to say that Maggie is in Part 2 of SLIDERS REBORN. :-)

**

I enjoyed your Tumblr posts on SLIDERS. It's weird to realize that SLIDERS pre-dated the multimedia-capable approach that modern fandom has with GIFs and fanvids and fan-films and manipulated images. SLIDERS is so old that you can't even find decent resolution photos of the cast in their 90s clothes and hairstyles.

I can assure you that every detail of my account of Kari Wuhrer's post SLIDERS career is true, right down to the breast implant encapsulation and getting fired from a soap opera for getting pregnant. Kari's plastic surgery nightmare was the feature of many articles including one she wrote herself. The pregnancy-firing was another public affair; there was a nasty lawsuit that followed. You can easily find confirmation of these biographical details via Google.

4,627

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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

4,628

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

It's entirely possible that Staples was selling me open box items (at the same price as the sealed box items). Staples does not reduce the price of open box sales. Maybe they were returned for a reason. They did not have any unopened Tab S 8.4s in stock -- the whole city seemed to be out. And by then, I was so soured on the whole Samsung tablet experience that I went crawling back to Apple.

4,629

(354 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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.

4,630

(55 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

So, downloaded the HEROES REBORN app and it's kind of crappy. The 'files' on each character are, instead, a series of clips from Seasons 1- 4. It's acceptable but rather artless and unengaging. Wikia does a better job. There are webisodes, but they're awkwardly played off YouTube (with ads before the actual video plays). The first webisode of DARK MATTERS, however, is intriguing. It's shot like a vlog and features a new character discovering her power. It really captures the wonder and joy of Season 1 and the down-to-earth sense of ordinary people experiencing the extraordinary. You don't need the app to watch it, however.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV-dcDqmzkc

Skip the app, check out the web series.

4,631

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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.

4,632

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

May Informant have mercy on my soul -- I bought an iPad Mini 2.

My Samsung Tab S 8.4 went dead last night. Just stopped turning on completely. I went to the store and asked for an exchange. They offered me a refurbished model that creaked noisily no matter how I held it. I refused to accept it and they asked me what I wanted to do. I asked for a non-creaky Tab S and they didn't have any. I had a poke around the store and regretfully decided to transfer the cost of the Tab S and an additional ten bucks to buying a 32 GB iPad Mini 2. For all of Apple's many, many sins, it never feels like the screens are going to fall out of their tablets. I'll just turn off all the OS updates.

On the bright side, this means I can download the iOS exclusive HEROES REBORN app and tell you all about it.

4,633

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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.

4,634

(55 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

SPOILERS


















I have some issue with people with powers being hunted. This storyline was done in the very strong Volume 4 ("Fugitives"). Well. I thought it was strong. The plotting wasn't any more sensible than Volume 3, I'll admit. But Bryan Fuller was back. Fuller refocused the plot developments on characterization. The individual episodes were very focused on the characters' internal conflicts and relationships even as they moved through the plot points. Volume 5, sadly, lost this focus and became all about the plot points with characterization awkwardly grafted on top (resulting in characters talking about seeking redemption rather than pursuing it).

I think HEROES REBORN has an interesting new take in that this isn't a shadow war. The evolved humans, Evos, have been exposed to the public as of the Season 4 finale and are experiencing persecution and prejudice. This is a new way of merging the extraordinary with the mundane and hopefully, the writers can explore this new world for HEROES.

I'm also intrigued by certain decisions: Hayden Panettiere was never approached to reprise Claire Bennet. The character has been killed offscreen. It's kind of abrupt in that she was the last thing ever onscreen for HEROES and then the next installment will indicate that she's dead. I think we've seen too many HEROES episodes where a character got a death scene and then it was undone. (Peter, Nathan, Noah, Claire, Sylar.) But given the unavailability of the actress, this death seems certain. Leads dying offscreen is never ideal. But the truth is that Claire was pretty played out as a character despite Fuller's best efforts.

It could be argued that Tim Kring was *never* able to do the show he wanted after the Season 1 finale. Now he has that opportunity. TOUCH did not reflect well on his talents, but I'm cautiously optimistic that he'll do something memorable and moving this time.

4,635

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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.

4,636

(55 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

http://www.comicbookresources.com/artic … g-and-cast

A lot of spoilers in this entry. Some news that will be saddening for some and a relief for others?

4,637

(58 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

The answers are not case sensitive.

Did this really worry you?

4,638

(55 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=183&v=4FLHB2zB_cA

New trailer.

Well, it's not a fake out!

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.

Surf Dance Chris wrote:

As many of you know, I actually watch Sliders very regularly, an episode every week or so. I kinda bounce around on the episodes though... But recently (basically 2015) I've been watching a lot of original cast episodes, keeping up with SlidersCast and started with the Sliders Rewatch. I always defend seasons 3.5 to the end, because even though the original cast is not in tact, there are some good episodes, great ideas, and a lot of great scenes, even with the "new" sliding teams. Just the other day, however, I watched Way Out West (which I claim as my second favorite episode of the series), and going from watching most of season 1-3.5 episodes to that was almost a shock. It was still enjoyable, but something was missing.

I've probably hammered this sentiment into the ground. But the inescapable truth is that when you follow a TV show regularly, you are letting specific people and faces into your home. If those faces suddenly change, it's akin to a home invasion. I didn't invite Maggie over for dinner; I invited the Professor. Who does she think she is?

There's also the fact that in Seasons 1 - 2, all the characters were from 'our' world. Therefore, they could compare our history with alternate histories and react accordingly. But with Season 4, Quinn and Rembrandt are from an Earth that was invaded by Kromaggs; Colin's from a pre-industrial Earth, Maggie's from the Pulsar world where nuclear weapons were detonated on American soil -- there's no sense of contrasting our world with this week's world. None of these characters are from our world, which makes it impossible to create the homesickness and alienation that were so prominent in Seasons 1 - 2. The show became absolutely pointless.

That's probably why I'm not overly in favour of a sequel series where sliding has existed since 1995. I'd rather see Quinn discover it today. And see him played by Gregory Smith.

4,641

(1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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

From a fan standpoint, the original cast are SLIDERS' greatest asset. You just put the four of them in a room together and let them bounce around for 95 pages. But from a general audience point of view, the cast is probably the biggest liability. I think any new SLIDERS with Jerry would be obligated to act as a sequel, and I can't see that working out well. I think it'd be best to start new.

4,643

(6 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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.

4,644

(6 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Not enough discussion here. Rankings are dull.

I'd say the original quartet was best, obviously. But why? Quinn and Wade were terrific youthful counterparts to Rembrandt and Arturo as the older generation. You had daring youths contrasting with the more conservative characters.

Also, the characters were devised in a way that any pairing of the quartet would produce an interesting combination. Pair up Wade and Rembrandt: you have Wade's curiosity and wonder and Rembrandt's astonishment and life experience. Put Arturo and Rembrandt together and you have the academic and the artist. Pair up Quinn and Arturo and you have a son and father exploring the world through science. And so on.

With Maggie replacing Arturo -- it didn't work, but that was mostly because all the characters were being very badly written. But looking at what it could have been -- Maggie could have been a terrific addition.

The key, I think, would have been to write Maggie as being about Rembrandt's age -- a woman in her mid to late forties and with all the cynicism, practicality and life experience of a master spy. I think a more realistically written Maggie would have regarded Quinn as a youth in need of a mother / older sister, to see Rembrandt as a loving but ineffective father, and to see Wade as her protege in adventuring.

The Season 4 team was an odd misfire with Cleavant's character having lost all comedy and Jerry and Charlie no longer acting.

Season 5 had a lot of potential. In many episodes, Rob, Kari, Cleavant and Tembi seem to have amazing chemistry. I don't quite know how the characters could have worked out, as they were scripted as bland non-entities for the most part. But there was definitely a lot of raw material and great talent there.

4,645

(58 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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

4,646

(1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Hmm. I wonder if BvsS might open with a reprise of the attack on Metropolis -- but from Batman's point of view.

4,647

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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.

4,648

(58 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Register and Login appear in the coloured bar -- the third line of text from the top of the page.

4,649

(3 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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/

4,650

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

What's the contradiction?

**

As for Netflix, I'm not sure. There was a recent app update and then the sign language captioning started working again. Windows tablets are still not ready for primetime.

**

My replacement (Android) tablet arrived at the shop today. I went in for the exchange and they refiled the exchange as a refund followed by a new purchase -- which means the extended warranty was repurchased as well. I'm happy about that.

The screen lift is indeed a common problem with the simple solution of getting an exchange. ;-) One interpid tablet owner levered open the tablet and jammed in bluetack to hold the screen back in place.

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.

4,652

(31 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I'm afraid I can't accept this. Temporal Flux doesn't make mistakes when it comes to SLIDERS. Therefore, tom2point0's memory is faulty and TF did indeed meet him. This is merely one of those peculiar discrepancies. Like Rembrandt suddenly having served in the Navy! Which I'm sure can be resolved in some spin-off material. Like one of the online slides on the old Sci-Fi site later revealing that Rembrandt was a *cook* on a Navy ship. Get to it, everyone! Let's fine some way to reconcile the continuity here.

4,653

(1,098 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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.

4,654

(58 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

You're a hard man to reach!

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 guess, for me, I don't see SLIDERS as a show that's remembered. I don't think anyone really remembers Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo. I don't even recommend SLIDERS to people when I talk about it ("Jesus, this show again?") and advise that they watch FRINGE and COMMUNITY instead.

I think trying to appeal to the fans through a next generation approach is only deepening existing wounds. Fans had to watch their characters replaced by strangers. Now they get to do it again in a long-delayed Season 6? And I think characters who aren't Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo are essentially a spin-off best made with a non-SLIDERS name. What's the point of a sequel that doesn't contain the original characters?

I think a reboot works if the creators really embrace the original quartet of characters. You have the adventurous geekboy, the winsome dreamer, the over-the-hill showbiz icon and the wise Professor with a dark side. These four characters are ideally suited to each other and exploring parallel Earths, and it's simply a matter of finding new actors to reinterpret those roles.

Alternatively, you could have something like PARALLELS. Personally, I would have been fine with the boxer being named Quinn, the awkward lawyer being named Remy, the adventurous sister being named Wade and the mysterious girl being named Maxine.

In terms of reaching out to the fans -- I think the only real way to do that would be to really commit to doing A) a sequel set today and after "The Seer" that B) resurrects the original cast and C) is completely incomprehensible to the general audience. Like those X-FILES comics that kindly resurrected the Lone Gunmen and put Mulder and Scully back to work at the FBI. Those were aimed at the fans. But a half-hearted next-gen overture to the fans is really no overture at all.

4,657

(1,683 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

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.

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

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

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

No network will ever commission a TV show that only makes sense to people who've watched Seasons 1 - 5. It's too insular. It's called *broad*casting for a reason.

Jerry playing a Quinn who is in his mid-forties when he first discovers sliding in a 2015 version of the Pilot with the original cast? That might function. But there is no way SLIDERS could possibly return as the long-delayed 19th episode of Season 5.

The more I think about it, the more I think the original cast is a liability to a revival. A reboot lets you start flesh and get it right the this time. A revival is constantly about tidying up the past.

I don't think it can be avoided that some of the cast are permanently Greendaled. Jeff, Britta, the Dean and Chang are probably lifers and that's fine. They're adults, they bounced around out in the world and Greendale is where they ended up. So maybe Annie is spending a year teaching a forensics class at Greendale as a working sabbatical and Troy came to campus to spend two days installing a new fire sprinkler system and never got around to leaving and Abed is on campus shooting a college romantic comedy and decides to make our new character the leading role and use that as an entry point to Greendale's craziness.

4,662

(354 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

You know, it'd be interesting to one day have a Rewatch Podcast episode edited by Jim of Sliderscast and to have a Sliderscast episode edited by Cory.

I did notice Quinn reacting with laughter to Rembrandt's jokes?

Interestingly, Jerry and Quinn were completely opposed; Jerry thought the women-only world was awesome, which goes to show how very, very talented Jerry can be.

So, shall we use this thread for that old favourite of our topics? How would we revive SLIDERS? The reboot option with a new cast is the most general audience friendly. Gregory Smith as Quinn. Allison Mack as Wade. Colin Salmon as Rembrandt. Victor Garber as Arturo. But with the original cast... ?

I think a direct sequel is out. I've experimented a bit with a quick prequel to reveal that Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo were reunited immediately after "The Seer" -- and that ultimately dooms you to addressing the S3 - S5 plots even obliquely. Also, the general audience isn't going to have any memory of all the stories being undone.

With STAR TREK and TERMINATOR, there's a new trend of rebootquels. Revisiting the original events but with the idea that events have been altered through time travel, allowing the original story to be retold with a different plot and a new outcome. So, what would SLIDERS' rebootquel be?

The thing I found neat about TREK and TERMINATOR: time travel is used to indicate that these aren't alternate versions of the original characters. It's the original characters leading alternate lives.

Would there be a way to put the original sliders in an alternate version of the Pilot in 2015? While making it clear that these are the 1995 sliders for whom reality has been rewritten?

4,664

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Hey, I need advice! My Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4, arguably the finest mini tablet ever made -- has developed a weird split between the frame and the screen. The screen is coming loose. Thankfully, I bought the extended warranty ($60 USD) and the shop says they'll let me trade in my broken tablet for a new one. However, I'll need to buy another $60 extended warranty if the new one develops a fault and I want a subsequent replacement. Would you guys take that deal or would you just take the replacement tablet and hope for the best?

4,665

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I had a weird Netflix experience. I was watching SWITCHED AT BIRTH, which has lengthy segments in sign language. I was watching it on my Windows 7 HTPC, but when moving to my Windows 8 laptop, I switched into the Netflix Windows 8 app. And all the subtitles were gone! I had no ability to understand the sign language conversations.

But when I used the browser, the subtitle graphics were back on the very same scenes in which they were absent in the app!

Peculiar.

4,666

(354 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

My God, Tom and Cory are great on this show! Faith in life restored! Whew, that was close.

They start talking SLIDERS at the 42 minute mark. Basically saying that there's no hope for SLIDERS returning.

Sad now. My life is ruined.

I did not understand anything you just wrote, so I think it must be absolutely brilliant.

I admit, having a new female character serve as an entry point to an existing property is something of a crutch for me.

But. I think COMMUNITY, after six seasons, is designed to take place on the  Greendale campus and that's probably where the movie should be set.

4,669

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Sounds like it's going well!

I went back and rewrote "Reprise" to match the filmed version of "The Seer," mostly, aside from dropping a few lines of dialogue. And then replaced the file. Ah, obsessiveness.

Slider_Quinn21 wrote:

I'm just not sure if it'd work as a movie.  Even the 3-part paintball episode run together would only be a 66-70 minute movie (at most).  Even a 90-minute movie (which is pretty short these days, even for comedies) would be a 4 or 5 part episode.  Is that too much time?  Would it be enough Community-style comedy, or would it also have to have ridiculous action/romantic subplots just to fill time?

I would probably introduce a new character. Probably a 19-year-old girl played by Anna Kendrick or Saoirse Ronan who has experienced some unspecified nervous breakdown that caused her to lose out on real college and have to settle for loser college, and set it up as being just like all those mediocre romantic comedies about college students -- except that in this case, the college turns out to be Greendale and Greendale is completely ****ing insane.

Jeff is the Dean. Craig is teaching gender studies. Britta is the school counselor. Annie washed out of the FBI and is now running school security. Shirley runs the cafeteria. Troy returned but lost all of Pierce's money investing in something stupid and is now a janitor and Abed has rebooted himself into a first-year community college student in the belief that he can start again. And our new character finds herself involved in the usual Greendale craziness.

On Jerry -- I think he was hungover on set in Season 4. I think it was the tail-end of a downward spiral. In Vancouver, Jerry lived like a normal guy. He went to work, went to the gym, went home, lived a quiet and low-key life. His attitude to acting was always been to play himself regardless of the role. He could get away with that because he had all the technical skills (memorization, hitting his marks, meeting his cues, blocking his scenes) and because he has a natural onscreen charisma. Match that with excellent scripting from S1/S2 writers and his reverence for John Rhys-Davies and John coaching him and Quinn came off as a multifaceted character.

Then Jerry moved to LA. It became all about the night life with making the show as something to do between binge drinking sessions, an attitude shared by the producers. Jerry continued to play himself and now Quinn was a smug, flirtatious, arrogant, brash screen presence and Jerry was only occasionally in character. And by Season 4, Jerry wouldn't even play that most of the time. He is clearly hungover in "Common Ground" and "My Brother's Keeper" and I think Charlie O'Connell, later revealed to be an alcoholic, was enabling him. The scripts in Season 4 were also terrible for Quinn: only in "World Killer" and "The Alternateville Horror" is Quinn scripted as an adventurous moral crusader who is delighted by big ideas; the rest portrayed Quinn as a bland action hero.

Season 5 -- I think that because the producers weren't expecting much, they also weren't asking much. So I guess it was an easy job working on that set and people were having fun making the show even if they weren't making anything good. I mean, you look at X-FILES episodes at the time and you have really ambitious direction and scripting whereas with SLIDERS, the visuals are just people jogging around beige hallways. I don't doubt it was fun to make; it just wasn't fun to watch.

I would have liked Robert Floyd to have played Quinn from the Pilot onward.

I think Season 5 had a lot of potential. Yeah, losing Jerry was a blow. But the truth is, Jerry had mentally quit the show by Season 3 anyway. The writers found a *very* interesting way to keep Quinn on the show even without Jerry. They had a really neat character arc for Diana Davis where the plan was for her to be secretly on Geiger's side for the whole season. The Season 5 cast was the best lineup for the show since Season 1/2. Rob, Tembi, Cleavant and Kari had a really terrific sense of chemistry and all four were very strong performers. The freelance scripts were also fantastic. An interdimensional library! Mind-controlled sliding machines! A mental asylum for the imaginative! A world where caffeine is illegal! A world with the customer service experience from hell!

And then, for various reasons, it was all very badly realized onscreen. The arcs for Quinn-2 and Diana were excised. All the freelance scripts were cut down for the budget, but they were cut down so *clumsily*. And the production continued to make bad choices: cutting episodic budgets to save up for an epic finale they didn't end up filming. Renting a huge hotel set that they then had to use in every episode that drained their funds for other expenses. The production kept aiming to do what was easy. And honestly, the budget isn't an excuse: DOCTOR WHO had even less money than Season 5 and generally managed to cobble things together.

Instead of maintaining a single standing set, Season 5 should have rented studio space that could be converted to different interiors -- hotels, train stations, cafes, military bases, bunkers, hallways. Episodes should have been rewritten to exist in 2 - 3 interior locations with dialogue indicating a vast world outside the studio walls. Exterior shots would need to be filmed tightly on the actors with different backgrounds wheeled in and out. The vortex should have stayed offscreen for most of the season, or they could have made a library of really close-up shots of the vortex that could be recoloured to match other shots. The sad truth is that the Season 5 writers and producers just weren't bringing their A-game.

I love Rob, but for the fans, SLIDERS was better off cancelled. And I disagree with the fans that the cliffhanger was a slap in the face. Ending on Rembrandt leaping into the vortex was the only meaningful gift the show had left to offer: the distant hope that something better would be on the other side -- something better than what the Season 5 creators could be bothered to give us.

4,673

(55 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

Hmm. It could be a tease. I was watching "Collision," where Future Hiro first appeared -- the footage of the older Hiro in the REBORN trailer actually looks like it was lifted from that episode.

Or they refilmed it for some reason.

I don't see where it was forced. Rob has expressed his willingness to impersonate Jerry, described his skillful preparation in doing so and he was clearly capable of doing it. And they had a great angle: he wouldn't just be a copy of Jerry because the dual-identity would mean he would be his own character. Jerry never argued with himself in one body; Jerry never played a split consciousness. Season 5 had a great character arc and the perfect actor and then they lost it for some reason.

4,675

(354 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

I enjoyed the "El Sid" and "Love Gods" podcast too! I wish they were longer; I love listening to Cory and Tom during my commutes.

I don't have a lot to say about "El Sid" as an episode. Cory and Tom did a great job exploring Arturo's morality in that his 'betrayal' does point to a lot of angry feelings towards Quinn. "El Sid," to me, is a well-intentioned misfire. The main problem for me, aside from too little script, is that I don't enjoy seeing the sliders at each others' throats. I understand the show wanting to vary the interaction a bit. They don't always get on. I just found it ugly and unappealing and I prefer it when sliders arguing is played for laughs.

"Love Gods" is a fun action episode with a hilarious concept, but the breeding program makes no sense whatsoever. There is no way a world this developed could fail to develop in-vitro fertilization. The only explanation I can conceive is that the virus affected even surviving men in some way that their sperm cannot retain viability in storage for some reason. God, world-building is so hard.

I'd disagree with Cory and Tom saying that Quinn was in any way enthused about being so in demand. Jerry plays Quinn as completely disgusted and repulsed throughout the episode. This is not a guy who has any patience or enjoyment for being objectified. Quinn Mallory has a sense of the big picture. This is part of why the character is so special to me. As a kid, I was really confused by girls and hormonal impulses. Quinn's frustration throughout the episode clarified things for me; he wants to be liked for the whole of who he is in body and mind. He's not exactly prudish, but losing his father as a boy makes him hesitate to produce offspring he wouldn't be there to raise. I really felt that in this absurd episode, Quinn Mallory was revealed as everything a man should be in relating to women.

Funny how in the two episodes where Quinn probably had sex (this and "Double Cross"), the show puts in some wiggle room!

The one thing I'm really pleased about -- I'm glad we finally dealt with that ridiculous message board rumour that Rob approached the producers and asked them to delete Quinn from Mallory. It was a groundless, unsourced, and in some ways malicious remark and I'm glad I was able to ask Rob about it so he could definitively declare that to be untrue.

Hmm. I'll see if I can edit it together. In other news:

From: ireactions | To: David Gerrold
Dear Mr. Gerrold. I recently interviewed Robert Floyd ("Mallory" from SLIDERS) and asked him: what was his favourite episode of SLIDERS? It was yours. Congratulations.

The audio quality isn't terrific. I loaded up Skype on my tablet and dialed Rob's number. I plugged an audio cable into the tablet's jack and connected that to the microphone input on my voice recorder. So, it sounds like a Skype-quality call with a few moments of distortion -- fine for conversation, but I don't know how much you'd enjoy hearing it. This also records only Rob's end of the conversation. I had to record my end on the only other recording device I had -- my smartphone. And again, the audio quality is acceptable for conversation but not great for listening.

In the end, I transcribed both sides and put it together in a PDF (that's at the end of the web article), so if you want to read a mostly unedited version, it's there. I moved some of Rob's answers around a bit -- for example, he talked about why he left his acting career *before* we started talking about "The Seer," but I decided to move that to after his wishes for Season 6. There were also a couple instances where I lost the audio, but could get the gist of what he was saying -- basically that there were a lot of freelance scripts for Season 5 because of the small writing staff and it put a lot of pressure on the few staff writers.

There's also a bit at the end of the transcript where I started crying a little.

ROB FLOYD: "Are you watching GAME OF THRONES?"
ME: "Hmm. It’s not really my thing. I’m more into shows like THE FLASH."
ROB FLOYD: "Oh, yeah, yeah. I have not seen that, I'm going to marathon that too."
ME: "But I’ve heard lots of great things about GAME OF THRONES!"
ROB FLOYD: "Yeah. You know -- the effects -- I marathoned a lot of it last night and the effects are unbelievable! And I read the books too. I was thinking of the battle scenes and thinking so much was never done with the Kromaggs."
ME: "Yeah. Sci-Fi Channel budget. What can you do, right? I guess, for me -- TV is like a friend. It’s comfort. It’s there for you at your best and worst. And sometimes it has a bad day. And sometimes it loses three-quarters of the cast and gets the budget cut by a third and is dragged out for season after season for syndication while losing everything that made it special and failing to give great actors like you the material they deserve and then it gets cancelled and goes away forever. And-and-and-and -- and that’s okay. Because everything has to."
ROB FLOYD: " ...  oh. Right. Right."

4,679

(759 replies, posted in Sliders Bboard)

*sigh*

Two things. First, in preparation for the Rob Floyd interview, I rewatched the closing scenes of "The Seer." And I was horrified to realize -- I messed up my SLIDERS REBORN prequel. "Reprise"'s description and dialogue of "The Seer" -- I copied it out of one of the scripts. Clearly the wrong draft. It doesn't match what was actually filmed, who said which lines, the physical action -- even the final line of dialogue is wrong. Total screw up!

That's embarrassing.

Second, I'm working on the first segment of SLIDERS REBORN's Part 2. Nigel Mitchell kindly rewrote the alt-history for me. And it's going fine, but it's so dark! So grim. I'm not having fun.

It feels like work, for God's sake. It is now more obvious than ever to me that I don't really want to write SLIDERS. I want to write episodes of COMMUNITY with Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo -- and I will totally get back to that at the 1/3 mark, but this 1/3 is so grim.

Thank God tomorrow's a holiday and I can power-drive through the whole script.

Yeah. I really didn't want this to be the last season. Week after week, I was visiting my friend Laurie, exclaiming that this week was the greatest episode of COMMUNITY ever made. The introduction of Frankie Dart. The crisis room story. The Honda episode. The giant hand episode. The spy movie spoof. COMMUNITY kept hitting new heights of experimental inventiveness. I didn't want it to ever stop. I dreaded the season finale and urgently awaited news of Season 7 --

But then the finale came and it pointed out that Abed and Annie needed lives outside Greendale. That Jeff and Britta might belong there, but Shirley and Troy having left wasn't cause for sadness -- they had to move on eventually. The fact that Jeff and Britta and the Dean and Chang were still at Greendale -- the truth is that they had settled for Greendale, but anyone who didn't have to shouldn't.

And with Jeff and Annie, the show acknowledged that yes, there is a lot holding the characters together. And the fans want to  see them stay together. But the story demands that some of them move on, and so does reality with everyone's six year contracts expiring with this season. I didn't want this to be the last episode. But the finale made me feel like it was okay.

The final hashtag made me miss SLIDERS more than ever.