Sliders Worlds

It's strange for me to say this as a SLIDERS 'writer' -- but I am not good at world-building. I've written "Slide Effects," "Net Worth: The Quinn and Wade Edition" and SLIDERS REBORN ("Reprise," "Reunion," "Revelation," "Reminiscence," "Revolution" and "Regenesis") -- and the world-building in REBORN is actually quite solid with many throwaway worlds in "Reunion," three brilliant concepts in "Revelation" and a clever presentation of a merged reality in "Regenesis." None of that was mine; I paid SLIDERS fanfic writer Nigel Mitchell to come up with all the alt-worlds in REBORN. (Well. He wouldn't take any money. So I bought all of his books on Amazon and will buy any book he ever releases for the rest of our lives.)

However! I have a Theory of SLIDERS. Specifically, it's David Peckinpah's Theory of SLIDERS. His theory is that SLIDERS is a TV show where every week, the sliders slide into a different genre of film or TV. They slide into Westerns, Victorian murder mysteries, Christmas comedies, game shows, horror movies, monster movies... it's at this point that Peckinpah's cocaine and heroin addiction seemed to take hold and he got stuck doing horror and monster movies.

However! I maintain that the idea itself -- that the sliders could slide into different formats, genres and different kinds of stories every week -- is not inherently bad but in fact a very effective formula for SLIDERS.

I would have liked:

• A mumblecore episode

• A spy thriller episode

• An improv episode

• A film noir episode

• A scripted episode filmed live

• A single-person storyteller episode

• An episode where the four sliders recount four contradictory perspectives of an adventure

• An episode from the perspective of inhabitants on a parallel world with the four sliders only appearing at a distance or in one scene

• A standup comedy episode

• A mockumentary episode

• A martial arts movie episode

• A superhero episode (where all the 'superpowers' are vortex technology)

• A musical episode

• A sketch comedy episode