Sliders.tv → Posts by TemporalFlux
Speaking of the slightly askew homage, AppleTV is set to debut Dark Matter on May 8:
https://www.theverge.com/24127236/dark- … le-tv-plus
The first trailer looks appropriately trippy and follows a physicist played by Joel Edgerton who is “abducted into an alternate version of his life.” The show involves him trying to get home while navigating this new multiversal reality, which is powered by a big black box that he invented.
Based on a 2016 novel, there are shades of Sliders in there
Looks like we could see a return to slightly askew projects that play off nostalgia.
https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/a … uture.html
As mentioned in the article, J J Abram’s homage to Spielberg’s E.T. with his film Super 8 could be an example. Looks like Abrams may be attempting the same thing with Back to the Future.
QL2.0 cancelled
Had forgotten until Jim tweeted the pilot episode commentary from Tracy Torme. The Spinning Topps was inspired by two groups - The Spinners and The Four Tops
I don’t wade off into this often, but I had a thought exercise this morning just for fun. In the 1984 election, Reagan had a classic retort to allegations he was too old.
https://youtu.be/0RtXmnUe9s0?si=_RKGsH2w-EuDpIud
So with the same criticism against Biden, could he find a Reagan moment? I believe he could. If someone says Biden is told old, he could reply, “And Trump isn’t old enough! Grow up!”
Did you know that the Spinning Topps were based on a real life band called The Four Tops? I did not, but maybe you all did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Tops
What really gets you is when you see the signature performance style of the Four Tops on tv:
https://youtu.be/P0B0Kv7hiNo?si=GiEudjO40689pUqf
https://youtu.be/BRfpdSkDZ7E?si=FsP8bwc074YI3hfs
It’s also worth noting that this comparison may even expose another difference between Earth Prime and our own reality:
Something I could see in a Sliders story:
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/02 … cnnphotos/
But it brings up an idea I had a long time ago. We define reality by what we see; what we feel; what we know. But what if the Sliders landed in a remote area and all they had was something like these guidestones.
With no way to build further reference, would they believe those were the norms of that world? What if the perception of reality for four people was shaped by just one man acting alone in his solitary beliefs?
An interesting look at one of those mundane things in life that Sliders can play with - the UPC barcode:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo … r-AA1ncg0Q
And starting in 2027, it will be a thing of the past. Products will all sport a QR code instead
A bit inside tin-foil hat territory, but interesting for a Sliders idea if nothing else. The interesting part starts around time stamp 2:40
Some interesting alternate history to mine here:
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
Marvels wasn’t bad. The first few minutes made me wince, but stick with it. What impressed me was how much comic lore they stuffed in.
The body swapping Nega Bands idea of the Rick Jones era. The adaptation of the comics crossover Operation: Galactic Storm. The revelation of the Quantum Bands (which was handled in the surprising way the infinity stones were). I was impressed too that the bands’ “curse” of consuming everyone who wears them was there. The only people who survive are those who accept them instead of trying to harness them.
Even the quantum bands’ power of creating jump points is straight from the comics. Quasar would use them to jump to different points in space by entering and exiting the quantum zone; and during one of those “quantum jumps”, a massive surge of power sent him instead to a parallel reality (Quasar#30).
https://www.supermegamonkey.net/chronoc … 0-31.shtml
The Marvels wasn’t perfect, but this was the most MCU flavor movie I’ve seen since Endgame. No Way Home was great, but it was really just a nostalgia gimmick and not a deep dive into comics lore. The Marvels is worth the watch - just suffer through those first few minutes
The only thing that really bothered me about The Marvels was that we may not get Quasar now (one of my favorite characters); but even in the comics, there were two pair of quantum bands in the universe
How will you lose your job?
He wants to restructure the Department of Public Safety and centralize. I would need to commute two and a half hours a day (five hours total) or move. All this so that he could save nickels and dimes in relation to the budget (over 700 million of our state’s revenue wasn’t even spent last year).
But the real motivation is that he has some irrational hatred for the department. He wants to destroy it and re-make it so that it’s unrecognizable and a footnote in history.
He’s been leading up to all of this for over two years. They’ve been making it so hard that people quit and then not hiring people to replace them which makes it harder and makes more people quit, etc. He’s just been scared to pull the final trigger on the killing blow until the election was over.
So this little demonic s.o.b. won, and I’m surely about to lose my job because of it
Among the various wins, it doesn’t seem that A.I. was defeated. The provision they carved out is that A.I. can be used if the writer chooses they want to use it. A studio cannot force them to use it.
There isn’t going to be a shortage of writers who would love to “sell out” and use A.I., and the studios can make up all sorts of excuses for favoring those kinds of writers (i.e. “we hire this writer because they work faster”)
So, the idea may be that writers “won”, but that doesn’t completely match up with reality.
TemporalFlux wrote:The studios won’t be able to re-start the engine quickly. Once they run out of things already filmed, they’ll need to film more and do post production on it.
Even if the strike ended tomorrow, we could right now see months with little to no new releases in theaters or even on scripted tv. That extends further the longer this goes.
Highlighted "post" because that usually includes ADR and potentially reshoots, and such, which they cannot do with the actors.
I’m talking post-strike, though. There’s an ever widening time gap forming between what they have in the can and what they’ll need to make after.
It takes time to start from scratch and make something; and even if finished content is held back, rationed and release dates stretched, there are going to be gaps with no content while new content is being made. The longer this goes, the longer that gap is.
I see that they’re already thinking of ways to re-purpose movie theaters once they run out of content:
https://twitter.com/CultureCrave/status … 9509827706
Not coincidentally, it involves video games which SAG is now going to shut down too.
——————————
The studios won’t be able to re-start the engine quickly. Once they run out of things already filmed, they’ll need to film more and do post production on it.
Even if the strike ended tomorrow, we could right now see months with little to no new releases in theaters or even on scripted tv. That extends further the longer this goes.
CBS Overnight news had a piece on Henrietta Lacks:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/HeLa
Her “HeLa cells” have had a profound impact on medical advancement; and an interesting alternate history could be formed when thinking of a world where Henrietta ignored her symptoms and didn’t seek treatment before she died. But in the context of the current Hollywood strike, it illuminates what writers and actors are fighting against with A.I.
Henrietta died in 1951; but her, in effect, living body has been used for over 70 years to advance medicine. Her family didn’t even know for much of that time. Currently, there are more living cells from Henrietta’s culture than the cells that made up her body. Henrietta is still here. She is for all intents now immortal, but most people don’t know. The recognition isn’t given. No one is compensated for it until recently.
The shuffling, silent extra characters in the background of movies and tv? They stand to be the next immortal human commodity through A.I.; and no viewer would think twice about it just as they don’t think twice about who really made their vaccine possible.
What really bakes your noodle is when you realize that the 6 episode Secret Invasion had a 212 million dollar budget.
To compare, Captain America: The Winter Soldier had a budget of 170 million. I know there are more hours of content and inflation over ten years, but do the two even remotely compare in effects, locations and star power?
These Hollywood studios are making crazy decisions, and I think it’s all part of some grift and con game. Given how frequently it’s happening now, there has to be some significant profit in failing so obviously and publically. If it’s tax write offs, Congress needs to close the gaping loop holes.
Here’s something you would expect to see in a Sliders episode:
https://www.globalconstructionreview.co … an-living/
Coming soon to a reality near you
And meanwhile, Universal seems to be playing dirty
https://twitter.com/DiscussingFilm/stat … 9449543680
I've read that studios want to pay extras for one day's work in digitizing their bodies and likenesses for CG crowds which studios want to use indefinitely. I think that if a studio is going to get a lifetime of work out of that extra, that extra should get a lifetime of pay, but I suspect a reasonable rate would be a lifetime of full-time minimum wage pay that they could continue to earn passively while doing something else to bring in more income.
The truly despicable thing is that studios were already scanning actors and not telling them why:
Disney just did it with “Crater”. Cost $50 million to make; they let it run for seven weeks and now it’s gone.
https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a4441 … s-removed/
It’s funny how the past few years have seen us reverse so much progress. What’s happening now with streaming is like TV was when I was a kid. There was no recording or even a promise of one. You caught a show when it aired or you likely never saw it again. It would just become a legend people talked about while wondering if it actually happened or if they dreamed it.
I don't know why PRODIGY is being reported as cancelled. Season 2 was written, recorded and is in post production. It's going to be completed and shopped to another streaming service. Paramount + won't stream it to take a tax writeoff, but Season 2 is going to be released somewhere at some point.
I expect it to land on Netflix. Hard to explain, but it just has their flavor. It’s similar to how I could always tell if something was from NBC, ABC or CBS because something about the film stock looked different between the three.
Seems to be a back and forth:
https://www.the-sun.com/news/8447136/wa … oup-putin/
Wagner is a group of paid mercenaries, so they’re probably just going with the highest bidder. Wouldn’t be surprised if they’re playing all sides and will just keep everyone’s money.
Not subtle at all. Dr Franklin bluntly says that Sheridan is “sliding between parallel worlds”, and then they show Sheridan flying through the tunnel.
It is amusing that Wallace now wants others to do what he wouldn’t do himself:
One thing I didn’t realize, Allegra was created by Eric Wallace in Titans vol 2 #28:
So that would explain why she was given a regular part. Creators naturally have favor for characters they made, but it didn’t hurt that Wallace was likely getting an extra fee every time he used the character in Flash.
DC Warner has been good about paying those creator fees. Jim Starlin even noted that his fee for the appearance of KGBeast in Batman v Superman was more than he got for Thanos. What makes that even more amusing is that you couldn’t even recognize the KGBeast in that appearance; you had to know his civilian name and put two and two together.
Soon, the Sliders could land on the moon
I can say from experience that state wide law enforcement agencies will do this for a meeting. It’s left up to Sheriffs and Police departments to handle things until they get back.
I would imagine that’s what this was. Starfleet is the statewide / federal agency, so it was left to the local agencies to handle things
I don't disagree (much) with anything Grizzlor said, but here's the thing:
The fact that Tracy Torme needs Grizzlor to translate and explain Torme's thinking is precisely why Torme has a serious communications problem. A TV producer in 2023 should be able to convey his ideas and opinions without needing Grizzlor to explicate and clarify afterwards. And a TV producer in 2023 who can't make himself understood with his own words is probably unable to present his ideas to a studio in a form where they would buy and fund them to film and broadcast them.
A TV producer in 2023 who needs Grizzlor to explain everything afterwards is probably not going to be producing very much TV.
Hey, Tracy! Let me know if you need a media relations course! Of course, there is my preferred plan: just let Marc Scott Zicree do all the talking from now on.
It does make you wonder what was said in that pitch meeting.
Sliders should sell itself in today’s media landscape. Parallel realities are mainstream and attached to the biggest money making engine in Hollywood (Marvel). I think it took some effort to make Sliders *not* sell.
This reminds me of a double-take I did at Universal Hollywood in 2014. As part of the VIP pass, we had reserved seating at the live Waterworld show, so we took it in.
At the end, they introduced the cast, and the star of the show was noted to be Little Hercules. I thought it was the original actor for Young Hercules that you mentioned, but it was actually this guy:
Before Sliders, Quantum Leap was my show. In fact, it was the regret of not recording Quantum Leap as it aired that led me to start recording Sliders from day one just based on the premiere commercial. I could tell Sliders was going to be my next show, and I didn’t want to make the mistake again.
The new Quantum Leap has made great improvements as it’s progressed. They found the story formula, and they’re making a great show now. There’s a final missing piece, though. A spark that isn’t there. But in the most recent episode I think they found it.
Without giving too many spoilers, the episode featured a brief moment where Ian was the holographic guide for Ben. The banter was spot on. The chemistry was right. The look and feel was right. This was Sam and Al. It’s the final ingredient to the show. It’s something I didn’t see until it happened, but they’ve got it; and the show isn’t using it.
Addison’s alright, but the magic is with Ian. I wonder if they’ll figure it out.
A couple of random articles lately that just seem like a Sliders reality:
Rotary cell phones:
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2020/02/ … cellphone/
Ugly sweater camouflage:
A mystery has started getting some discussion:
https://www.polygon.com/23654120/blockb … ite-update
“We are working on rewinding your movie”
I honestly wonder if this is following the recent fad of going backwards. Similar to the resurgence of vinyl records, could Blockbuster be looking at a way to rewind movies by downgrading them to VHS quality? Modern movies have never been seen in that format at all.
Arcade 1UP has been working on this with their nostalgia arcade cabinets - a CRT mode that adds scan lines and re-creates the feel of tech available 30 to 40 years ago. The same could be applied to movies and tv shows.
It would definitely be a novelty that people would talk about for a time. And at the very least, it’s an idea worthy of a parallel reality.
While I've only ever seen the first two episodes of QL1.0, I understand from REWATCH PODCAST that Deborah Pratt as the voice of Ziggy is a cultural touchstone, a critical pillar of the QUANTUM LEAP iconography akin to MacGyver with his paper clip, Batman with his batarang, Spider-Man with his webbing, Xena the Warrior Princess with her chakram, and the Doctor with his police box.
I wonder why they haven't had Pratt do the voice. She is working on the show as a producer. Has her voice aged too much? Or do they want Ziggy to be gender-neutral for 2023?
In story, we only heard Ziggy’s actual voice a few times during the original series; but that was Pratt / Ziggy that gave the opening narration to every episode.
Even before last week’s episode, I’ve believed Ziggy’s silence is going to be a plot point. Something’s wrong with Ziggy. From the original series, an unintended part of Ziggy’s design is that it has an attitude problem (which is why Al was always arguing with its beeps and whines while slamming his hand on the handlink). To have Ziggy now turn into just a computer with no personality - very odd.
Michael Reaves (writer of season five’s “Requiem”) has passed away at 72.
Got to thinking about something regarding Gunn and the new cinematic DCU.
So Gunn has said that the movies take place across different time periods. One movie may be early in a hero’s career (Superman) while another may be later (Batman / Damien). We’re also getting a Booster Gold streaming series based on the Johns / Jurgens series.
What if Rip Hunter is going to be the Nick Fury of the DCU? Recruiting heroes from certain points in their lives to construct the team he needs to fight a coming threat? The Booster series would then be the connective tissue that holds the narrative together
In fact, I think for the Superman: Legacy movie, it would be fun to adapt the 90’s story “Time and Time Again”
While fighting one of Hunter’s Linear Men, an accident sends Superman bouncing around through time. He gets a turn in the strong man roots of the character; he gets a turn in the WWII era of the character; and he gets two bites at the future Legion era (the last one ending in Superman’s failure to prevent the moon from exploding 1000 years from now).
The new Quantum Leap does finally recapture the old formula, so stick with it. I’ve enjoyed it. And this Monday’s new episode guest stars Brandon Routh as a past version of Addison’s father. Given the connection, it could easily be a recurring role
https://bleedingcool.com/tv/arrowverse- … n-meeting/
So Berlanti got all the benefit, apparently
From a mechanical standpoint, the answer is that the writers wanted to go in a different direction:
https://tvline.com/2023/02/07/quantum-l … s-nbc/amp/
But from a story standpoint, I would argue there is a waiting room that’s just not being used.
A throw-away line in the Old West episode mentioned that Ben was able to go beyond his own lifetime because he turned off “the safeties” before he leaped. It was never mentioned in the old series that Quantum Leap had safety protocols; but it makes sense given that just about every modern machine has or should have those.
Part of the safeties could have been the separation of body and mind that required a waiting room. Without that separation and tether back to present day, Ben stands a greater chance of being lost - not only in time but in mind and body as well. We saw some indications of this in the original series where in extreme or unusual situations, Sam would start to just become the person he leaped into and forget he was Sam Beckett.
So that one throw-away line in the Old West episode is a pretty ingenious catch-all for differences you notice from the old series. Why doesn’t leaping work the same now? Because Ben turned off the safeties; and as a result, he’s in more danger than Sam ever was.
On an adjacent note: another example of a goodhearted TV show inadvertently trivializing climate change is MACGYVER where, in the fourth season, MacGyver has a nervous breakdown over the climate emergency, but then goes to Washington to present ecological warnings to various politicians, and MACGYVER nonsensically presents this as MacGyver having somehow solved climate change with a PowerPoint and a speech.
But he’s MacGyver! He can stop a nuclear meltdown with a chocolate bar! 
Here's a question: does Universal actually have the original negatives at this point?
From what I’m told, Universal keeps everything. They have a massive film vault on their Hollywood backlot (located just a few blocks from where the Chandler Hotel facade stood). It was feared the film vault was damaged in the fire that destroyed the Chandler, but the film was untouched. The music vault was unfortunately a different story.
edit: managed to scoop a used copy of Universal NTSC off eBay with international shipping - expected delivery date end of March. Also spotted this rare item, but not sure which release it is exactly. Probably Universal NTSC?
If I remember correctly, that’s the same original Universal release. The difference is that the season three set is single sided (unlike the original double sided release).
TemporalFlux wrote:With today’s nominations, we now we have a Sliders type movie that stands to sweep the Oscars. How much longer can Universal ignore what they’re sitting on?
They keep waiting on a prestige creator / showrunner
I guess they’re not interested, but I still think Seth McFarlane / David A. Goodman would be perfect. Seth has a development deal with Universal right now
With today’s nominations, we now we have a Sliders type movie that stands to sweep the Oscars. How much longer can Universal ignore what they’re sitting on?
Been watching some of the Paramount+ Twilight Zone reboot with Jordan Peele (also currently airing on SyFy).
The stories are kind of middling (the Apple TV Amazing Stories reboot was much better); but Jordan Peele as narrator is spot on perfect. It’s basically a Rod Serling impersonation, but Rod’s character is what gave the series its identity. Rod was in many ways the first Slider; we followed him each week as he traveled from reality to reality and encountered strange places and ideas.
That said, I was really struck by the penultimate episode of Peele’s season two, “Try, Try” starring Topher Grace. It starts slow and is a bit too wordy, but it builds into something really interesting. On reflection after the viewing, it improves more. It was a refreshing take on an old sci-fi trope.
I don’t know why it occurred to me today, but I was thinking back to something Torme said. Why did we keep watching and fighting for more Sliders after it became bad television?
The explanation is that we as an audience were almost role playing as Sliders. No matter how strange or awful the slide was, we kept jumping into the vortex each week hoping that the next slide would bring us back home to the show we used to love.
We sometimes ask why the Sliders kept sliding and didn’t just choose a world to settle down on. We should know. We kept sliding ourselves.
Quantum Leap hanging in there - renewed for season two:
This stuff just pops up in my Google feed; I don’t seek it out.
We’ll see if it pans out. There’s a long history of creators refuting a leak for it to only turn out true.
And in an attempt to be spoiler free, I’m a fan of legacy; I always believed that was the greatest strength of DC Comics in the late 80’s, 90’s and 00’s. But this alleged Indy idea ain’t that.
I like how it turned out to be the prequel for Fantasy Island
If these spoilers are true, well…
…if it turns out Temporal Flux is right again, I owe him two evenings at the Olive Garden and a copy of all the DOORWAYS comic books.
lol
Could easily be two different people; but it was hard to ignore that they both started as some kind of assistants and worked on science fiction television that filmed in Vancouver and Los Angeles. Even with a common name like Smith, that’s a pretty amazing coincidence.
you recall Jeremy's job title? Was it writer's assistant, staff writer, production assistant, etc? I am curious to how low or mid level they werel.
I think it was some kind of assistant, but it’s been a long time since I thought about it. I’m not sure, but I think this may be the guy:
I vaguely recall that someone got their @$$ fired for just copy-pasting fan sites into the Bible and clocking out for the day.
Yep. It was Jeremy Smith. That’s why there’s two authors on the season three section; Karen took over after Jeremy was dismissed.
And though not credited, the season five section of the Bible was written by Keith Damron.
After watching episode 6 myself, I am wondering the same thing. What was so terrible about it that it had to be re-worked? It looks to me like it would have been an excellent intro to the series and a good episode for both fans and non-fans alike.
Just a guess, but I’m betting the original version of this episode had less present day scenes and more Ben / Addison interaction in the past that was cut. Those scenes with Addison would have been her explaining what had happened to Ben (he’s time traveled, etc).
Under that thought, the episode would have been similar to the original Sam Beckett pilot (even down to calling his dead parent). In that case, it would have worked as well as the Sam pilot did.
I’m thinking NBC believed their audience was too dumb to follow it, so the new pilot more plainly explained it with more focus on present day scenes. Networks are often so clueless
An interesting look at what Universal’s strategy is:
After watching episode six (the re-worked original pilot), I am really wondering what was so bad about it. I would wager that most of the Ben scenes were from the original, and most of the present scenes were reshot; but the Ben portion was strong stuff. That was what I expected from a Quantum Leap series; and if it had aired first, I think viewers would have stayed around.
I am now extremely curious what it was like in its original state.
And as for the present day team, they’ve continued their development of personality, and it’s getting better. With each new episode, the production is showing how this can really work. But why did they go with that new, weaker pilot? Looking at the episode structure (and how the timing could have been set), did they feel maybe that the original pilot didn’t explain the premise well enough? Is this another example of a network thinking their audience is too stupid to follow along? This is very curious.
I guess I missed this whole thread when it first came out, but Tembi Locke was the star of a TV show for a year of her life and it wasn't important enough to be mentioned in her memoir? I'm kinda impressed.
She was on Eureka for a year as well, if I remember right
I don't think it's Sam. Why would he be telling them not to chase him? Plus Sam is still limited to his own lifetime. He couldn't be in the 1870's. So are the Evil Leapers, IIRC. It has to be Janis.
Sam did leap into the 1860’s in the original series, but the explanation given was that a “glitch” sent Sam into someone along his genetic line of ancestors. Also, the rules seemed to no longer be relevant for Sam in the original series finale. Sam was even choosing where he wanted to go at the end.
If it’s not Sam, another explanation could be a kind of pre-destination. QL never really dealt with this before, but what if the mystery person is someone who Ben hasn’t met yet but will meet? Ben may be chasing this person somewhere in Ben’s future. Kind of like how River Song and The Doctor were almost never in sync.
Sliders.tv → Posts by TemporalFlux
Powered by PunBB, supported by Informer Technologies, Inc.