Sliders: A Retrospective
by Slider_Quinn21
Sliders is a truly unique show. The premise is amazing. People I talk to who don't like the show agree that the premise was great. The "what if" facet of Sliders is fascinating. Everyone dreams of what could have happened if things were different. That's what made Quinn make that first slide. Even without Sliders, the "what if" question continues to circulate throughout television and movies.
Sliders survived multiple cancellations. What other shows can claim that? Sliders survived cast change after cast change after cast change after cast change. What other show can claim to keep good ratings after losing 75 per cent of its original cast, including two fan favorites? When you watched the pilot, would you think that Rembrandt would be the one to survive if someone had to? Rembrandt, the comic relief?
Sliders has spawned several websites and fan fiction. How many shows have entire sites like the Otherworlds, filled with fan fiction? How many shows have sites like The Dimension of Continuity that break down every facet of the show? Fans have stuck with the show through the good, the bad and the really bad. Many despise most of the show. How many shows can claim to keep a stable fanbase when most of the fanbase only like about 20 of the episodes?
This is a show the network didn't want. FOX cancelled it every single year, and it was saved every year. The Sci-Fi Channel took advantage of the fans and tried to cancel it to no avail. Even with no actors, no budget, and no interest, a sixth season almost happened. It really shows the power of fans. The fans kept a show on the air for five years that should've been on for 20 episodes. Probably less. And all because of how it started.
Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo
If there had been four different characters, played by four different actors, the show might not have been as special. There was something about Jerry's Quinn, who seemed both amazingly confident and extremely shy. You see him act so proud and energetic in the basement and so shy and out-of-place everywhere else. He brought a lot of humanity to Quinn which makes his later performances so sad.
There's something about Sabrina as Wade. She's beautiful, but she plays that girl next door so well. It was endearing, and her relationship with Quinn was so real. She wasn't a bombshell and he wasn't dashing. But they were both attractive and they seemed to have real chemistry.
Arturo was exactly the way he needed to be played. He's mystified by what he's able to see, proud that he's a part of it but seemingly jealous at the same time. He played the patriarch of the group: stern when he needed to be but loving at other times. If not for John Rhys-Davies, the show wouldn't have been half the show it was -- which explains the immediate drop off as soon as he left in both acting performances and story quality. I don't think John would've accepted some of the crap that came out in Seasons 4 or 5. In fact, I'm surprised he put up with as much as he did in Season 3.
And Cleavant. Not only was he great for the show, he was great for the fans. He stayed when he was on a sinking ship and he's always said he did it for the fans. Imagine a Season 5 with Maggie, Mallory, Diana and someone else. It would've been a disaster. Cleavant brought soul and humanity to the series and his performance never dropped. You cheered for him even when the story quality died.
Most of us understand that TV shows were often a paycheck for the actors. But whether it was Star Trek or Batman or Power Rangers or whatever, these shows and their performers made us happy at various times in our lives. Times when we were looking for answers in a world that was sorely lacking them. Times when we wanted to give up.
Shows like these and the actors in them taught us to move forward, to live free, to fight the good fight, and these four people made Sliders great.
But I think their story is done. Whether it's unfair or not, Sliders is more muddled than Star Trek ever was, with most of the characters ending up in some sort of horrible death: Quinn, merged with Mallory and lost; Wade, sent to a rape camp, forgotten and then turned into the fortune teller machine from Big; Arturo, shot and blown up after having his brain sucked out, Rembrandt, fate unknown.
The goal in Seasons 1 - 3 was to get home. Did they get home? The goal in Season 4 was to find Kromagg Prime and Quinn's parents? Did they do this? The goal in Season 5 was to separate Mallory and find Colin. Did they do this? So, in retrospect, nothing that Sliders set out to do was accomplished. Countless threads were left untied. We never found out what happened to Bennish or Logan or the Professor or Wade or even Colin. And to make things worse, we were denied a resolution. The show ended on a cliffhanger twice and we will never get a resolution to "The Seer."
Surgery could be done to remove all the tumors, but it would probably end up killing the patient. It's probably best to just amputate that segment of Sliders and move on.
If they ever end up doing a Sliders: The Next Generation with new characters, I'd like to see some sort of comic book to tie up loose ends, like how Star Trek (2009) released a comic tying the Next Generation-era movies to the new universe. But I just don't know how you'd do it. You can split Mallory and save Quinn. You can reveal that the Kromagg Prime stuff was a trick. You can do a "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome" reveal and 'save' the original Arturo. But what about Wade?
It'd be a mess just to get everyone back on the same page, let alone give any proper closure to anyone. Let it stay dead, as much as we used to love it.
On Season 4
I think the difference between Sliders and any normal television series is the sheer number of different people that were in charge along the way. Sliders changed producers, executive producers, showrunners, and networks.
Outside of Cleavant, I don't think anyone that was with the show for episode one was with the show for episode 88. There was no one there to guide the show from point A to point Z. And there was no consistency for any of the characters.
With Season 4, there were so many emotional issues that they could've run with, but they ignored almost everything. It ran on a "oh well" system, like a sitcom, where nothing ever carries over into the next episode. Quinn never deals with the death of his mentor, the capture/rape of his best friend, or the destruction of his homeworld (adopted or not). Rembrandt never really deals with Wade's abduction or the invasion of Earth Prime. Maggie never deals with the destruction of her world, the death of her husband, or the relief of killing Rickman.
And while the show didn't have to turn into Gilmore Girls and have everyone discuss their feelings, it could've easily addressed some of these major concerns. Because, while the third season was insane, it did set up a lot of potential drama in season four. And on a new network, they had a chance to have a completely clean slate, something that most shows don't get a chance to do.
Think about how Sliders would be done in today's world, and where it could've gone creatively. You start season four with the following: Quinn has lost his mentor, and his quest for revenge never really allowed him to mourn.
With no Arturo, Quinn has been forced to take up definitive leadership in the role. Quinn has seen several versions of himself, most of them having invented sliding. Earth Prime has been taken over by Kromaggs, completely altering the sliders' original goals.
Quinn finds out that he's a central figure in the war between humans and Kromaggs. Wade has been captured and taken away by the Kromaggs. Rembrandt has been living in a prison camp. Maggie is forced to bond in a group now that her own quest for revenge is over. She also didn't mourn the loss of her husband. Or, consequently, her entire world.
Given the writers of Sliders season four, most of that wasn't considered. But put the writers of Fringe on that? Or Supernatural? Or Lost? Or one of the other brilliant genre shows today?And I think you have a lot to work with.
Consider Quinn. Here he is, having travelled around the multiverse for three years. It's started to be fun, and Quinn's starting to learn that he is important on several worlds. Creating sliding wasn't unique to himself on one world -- he's important on a lot of worlds.
Written correctly, Quinn could've easily developed a god complex -- he's really special. Throw in the whole Kromagg Prime arc, and it becomes even easier to tip him over the edge. As far as the shift in his character goes, it's not necessarily out of the blue that he'd go from nerdy science geek to superhero. He was already an athletic high school quarterback and he was already heroic. Sliding had trained him on weapons of all kinds.
Then there's the whole shift in focus. Sliding was originally about exploration. Getting lost in the multiverse changed that and the quest became to get home. Then it became about getting Rickman. But finding Earth Prime invaded changed all that. Now it isn't about finding home or science or exploration. It's about survival. And, if they decide to go that direction, it would become about liberation. Which would, of course, require a superhero.
And they could've easily gone with the "Kromagg Spy" plan. They want to destroy Quinn, and they come up with this plan. They see a guy who's already convinced that he's important, and they play to that. Make him think he's supremely important. Fill the void of his own mentor with his own ego. Build him up and when he's at his most vulnerable, destroy him.
You also have Maggie moving in to Wade's spot. She'd fill the void in Quinn's heart, but she wouldn't fill the hole in Rembrandt's. And it'd be a completely different dynamic in the group. That, plus Rembrandt's experience as a POW, would probably make the Cryin' Man darker. Losing Arturo, Wade,and the loveable Rembrandt would completely change that the way the group functions. Throw in a more action-oriented leader Quinn and a militaristic Maggie and the group would start to function in a more military-oriented way.
Then, there's Colin. Make him a Kromagg Spy, but I like the idea that it's subliminal or subconscious. Because I do actually like the idea of Colin, coming from an "Amish" world as a slider. It's a big enough moment of excitement to have our sliders seeing alternate worlds, but the wonder and amazement that Colin would have experienced would have been monumental. I think it could have been fascinating. And much like Castiel/Jimmy from Supernatural, it could've been an interesting subplot to have the "Colin" personality trapped when the "Kromagg Spy" personality emerges. Could he be saved?
There was so much that they could've done. They could've done just about anything with this premise. If they wanted to do a one-man show with Jerry, they could have. If they wanted to turn the show on it's ear, they could have. But what they did instead with Seasons 4 - 5 was make a cheap copy of the first couple of seasons.
The casting stuff was bad, but it was salvageable. The budget was low, but it isn't the kind of show that demands a lot of spending. And even some of the story ideas (Kromaggs as a primary villain, Earth Prime invaded, Quinn from another Earth) could be worked with. It could've worked, despite all of that. And they just dropped the ball. It's just a shame.
On a Sliders feature film
If we got a Sliders movie, I think reboot is the only way to go. As many fans as there are of Sliders still, I think our opinions are all but irrelevant to the discussion. I don't think anything from the show would be referenced. Nothing.
Pretend, as you easily can with this premise, that the TV show and the movie are different sets of sliders. Quinn Mallory discovers sliding, and he and friends go on a journey. Anything outside of that would boggle things up way too much.
If you want, do a reboot with new actors. If you want the original actors, it could still work. You just write Quinn as a scientist-at-heart that lost track of time and grew up before he could make his scientific breakthrough. Make Wade his wife. Arturo and Rembrandt could just as easily be 15 years older than they were when the show premiered without changing much of anything.
This isn't the same situation as Star Trek, where they had to fill in the gaps to the show's fans. They could show very early that this isn't Quinn from the TV show. This is an entirely new Quinn Mallory and the premise allows this to be no big deal. And if they wanted, like Star Trek (2009) did, they can release a comic book to provide an in-canon explanation to explain what happened to the TV show characters.
But, at the end of the day, I don't think the fans are worried about Mallory or Diana or Maggie. I don't even think they're worried about Rembrandt. Give us a new movie and I think we'll be fine.
The execution for Sliders was awful for a large majority of the show. Even the sacred first season isn't devoid of major issues and it's less than ten episodes long. It's the idea that kept the show going for five years, and it is what should be able to bring the show back in some form. Sliders doesn't have the fan base of Star Trek, but it also wouldn't require the same kind of budget.
You can make a Sliders movie on very small percentage of the budget of a Trek movie. If done correctly, it wouldn't require much CGI, and none of the actors would demand a high salary. If you reboot with younger actors, you might even make it cheaper.
On new characters or recasting?
Is Sliders simply the original four people? If so, why does Maggie (49 episodes) appear in more episodes over the course of the series than Arturo (41)? Is Sliders only the first 41 episodes, and is the second half of the series simply a spin-off with the same name? Or is Sliders simply a group of people going from one parallel universe to another? The show survived without all but one of the original characters. I realize it wasn't great survival, but it did survive. And, at times, it was able to tell a good story or two, even without Quinn or Wade or Arturo.
If a Sliders movie came out with all-new actors and all-new characters, I think it would still be Sliders. It would probably, at least to me, still be Sliders without many references to the original series.
If they followed the path of Tommy, Professor Knight, Jack, and Jill but the story works, I think it would be easily accepted as part of the canon in the same way that Star Trek fans accepted Picard and Sisko after Kirk. Like Star Trek, Sliders has a simple goal. Star Trek explores the stars. Sliders explores parallel universes where anything is possible. And as much as I like the original four characters, I think I love the premise so much more.