Rewatch Podcast (Page 3 of 6)

I am still behind on the Rewatch Podcast so here are my thoughts on season three.

“Double Cross”- It seems highly unlikely that Quinn hooked up with Logan. Although they were in sync he specifically said things were moving too fast and he also felt like something was off. It’s like Back to the Future when Lorraine tells Marty, who she’s been chasing the whole movie, that kissing him is like kissing her brother. It’s not like “Love Gods” where it DEFINITELY happened.

Also, Logan kind of had to be Quinn’s double. It opens up another set of possibilities (even if they are not explored) and reminds Quinn, once again, that he doesn’t know everything. It also allows everybody to have a double on this world.

“The Dream Masters”- Dumbest episode ever. Aside from the fact that someone (an angry relative) would have shot up the Dream Master den long ago, how the hell do they get the drugs into their hand without it leaching into their own systems? This the FIRST problem.

“The Prince of Slides”- Women can’t ascend to the throne? Also, if professor is a guru for all knowledge that falls under the umbrella of science, then he really is under appreciated on his home world and has every right to a pompous ass!

“Paradise Lost”- People drink urine to lose weight, smear bird poop on their face to get rid of wrinkles and were reported to lick toads to get high. In light of this, is worm turd eating for youth really THAT outrageous?

Also, why is Quinn mad at Wade when they are in the cave? She didn't say anything about not wanting to carrying the dynamite, yet he gives her attitude about being uncomfortable carrying it. I guess he could be jealous because she was getting close to Parker? He has been jealous before, but at this point that seems like an incredible stretch. It just seems like a moment of unnecessary meanness.

"The Last of Eden"- So Wade never knew the professor was sick, but the other two did. No wonder she was more upset than Rembrandt and Quinn; she had no opportunity to prepare for a time when he wouldn't be there.

“The Other Slide of Darkness”- Rickman’s face changing is not that stupid. On his home world, Rickman was very selective about who he stole brain fluid from. On his slides he wasn’t always able to be. Because it was less pure, he needed more, more often and this was the cause for the change. Of course this doesn’t hold up by “This Slide of Paradise” when they should have gotten a third actor to make this explanation work.

“Dinoslide”- If you return to a world where you’ve already been, shouldn’t you be stuck there? The dimensional window for that world already came and you took it. You can return, but you should be there for 29.7 years minus the time you were gone.

“Slither”- I didn’t really think of it as Quinn leaving the group for Kira so much as leaving sliding- she was an excuse. Also, we (me included) assume that Wade and Maggie spent their “vacation” together. They could have spent their time alone and met up at the airport to wait for the guys. As for them splitting up: I understand their need for space, but nothing about this planet said it was safe enough for them to even go down the street without staying together, much less put a plane’s worth of distance between them.

I don’t understand why the idea of putting Quinn and Maggie together seemed like a good idea. Aside from the backstory they created for Maggie making her completely unsuited to Quinn, I thought Fox “broke up” Quinn and Wade so that they could have random hook ups with guest stars. But now, instead of the slow, sweet buildup of friendship turning into something more, we get virtual strangers supposedly lusting after each other.

Hmm. Apples and oranges?

I honestly can't figure the Quinn/Maggie thing out. Jerry O'Connell, in his youth, was a girl-crazy, skirt-chasing, ridiculously horny young man with a long, long, long, long, long list of sexual conquests. He was constantly bragging about his hookups to reporters. From an armchair psychology standpoint, it's clear he was compensating for his youth where he was overweight and unattractive. In Season 3, Jerry played Quinn as ridiculously flirtatious.

But for whatever reason, Jerry seems totally incapable of conveying interest in Kari Wuhrer. Which is very odd, considering she's just his type -- although a bit older. Jerry would have been 22 - 23 while Kari was 29 - 30 -- is it that Kari was (theoretically) an adult while Jerry was, mentally, about 16? Is it that Jerry was attracted to girls as opposed to women? And he saw Kari as an adult as opposed to someone at his level?

Not sure. It's just very, very strange. You'd think sexual attraction would be pretty easy for Jerry to play or fake, but he can't seem to do it in late Season 3. There is no heat or tension between Jerry and Kari; Jerry can't even pretend to be attracted to her.

Hear Hear!

On the Timer, Home World Machine and Window/Portals.....

I have some theories.

Earth 00: The original Quartets Home.
Tech is Early 90's.
Power Generation and Storage is not very developed.
Computation Power was improving but nothing like what we have now.

I think the Original Machine not only brute forced a connection to tbe place between Realities allowing Portal Creation, Mathematical models to calculate patterns in flux and also Power Aqcuisition/Leeching/Recharging.

The Timer has a Capacitor which needs something BIG like his Basement Device but once that first Tear/Portal is made the Capacitor can Tap into that Layer of Reality/Multi-Reality/Inter-Reality?

Something analogous to Tesla Wireless Power Transfer or on the Fictional Side maybe akin to Babylon 5's Hyperspace Energy Taps like the Vorlons and Shadows used?

I feel this theory is a little like a Syphon. You apply force/Power initially to kickstart the process of drawing water but once started Gravity and Inertia do the rest for you. Theoretical Fusion Power is based on gaining a similar Stability and Positive Equation that generates more Power than invested into it's ignition.

I think the Invasion version of a Manta supports this theory.
The Timer and the Manta draw on the same Multiversal Energy to Tap and so can interfere with eachother.
The Manta itself suggests Quinn's Father's theories of Anti Grav based on similar theories and applications of Physics are correct also.
And Anti Grav if possible would be very power hungry as would be those Invasion Episode Energy Weapons.
These Technologies are all tied together in a Sliding related Tech Tree.

And what do we see in Invasion? Bio-Mechanical Craft. Living Technology with Multiversal Transition capability, Energy Weaponry, Anti Gravity Lift and Inertialess Drive Systems that are potentially applicable foe Extra Planetary operation and again I point out Bio-Technology in Material Science for Strength, Self Repair/Healing, Adaptation potentially but crucially and lastly the biggie....

Bio-Computing..... BIO-COMPUTING!!

I cannot stress that enough. If Quinn can calculate a natural Weakness in the Multiversal Barrier with Early 90's Tech... Imagine what could be done with a Modern OTL Touch Pad.... Or.... A Bio Computer?

29 Years? More like 15? Or 10? Or 5? Or....... 1!?

Scary thoughts huh?

Now this is obviously speculation based on what is seen on the shiw but I believe it is likely.

Also this theory promptly Debunks Smarter Quinn's claims in "Other Slide of Darkness" as the Invasion Manta is the Product of a Mature Technology and Society which has pushed it's applications and implementations very far.

If he did provide the Sliding Equations to a Kromagg Earth it was NOT Season 2's Kromagg Homeworld.

Season 2's Kromaggs will always be a very different Group, Society and maybe even Species to the Abominations and Parodies of later Seasons.

Season three post Arturo Quinn and episodes.

I don’t think Quinn's characterization was too awful. It was after “The Guardian” that we really start seeing the shift. Real world answer is less Torme more Peckinpah. In universe answer is this is how Quinn deals with the impending death of Arturo- the knowledge of which he had to carry alone for quite some time.

This group has been through everything: Quinn’s been shot, sentence to death three times (including being strapped into the electric chair), almost had his psyche transferred to a robot body, as well as being killed and revived; Wade has survived the Q, been put on a death list, almost overdosed, and nearly drowned; Rembrandt’s been sentenced to death twice, tortured by a psycho, and almost suffocated while carrying another man’s child; and the professor has survived the Q, a political assassination attempt, Logan's faulty wormhole calculations, and uranium enhanced worm cacooning. Not to mention that they were all doomed to die in a world ending event.  Somehow, they all made it through.

The truth is Quinn loved sliding and had everything he could want (except his mom) right there with him: A dad/mentor/intellectual equal; a buddy/potential girlfriend/socio-political equal; and a friend/brother/masculine equal. But when Arturo died, the party was over.

The death of a person you depend on has got to take its toll. Regardless of the Earths they visit or who is along for the ride, the rest of season three would have to be a downer. Although Quinn got the credit, Arturo accomplished the big saves: Arturo created penicillin, Arturo created the atom bomb, Arturo even suggested the Helix Spiral that ultimately allowed the sliders to keep going. Woe be to them without the professor and woe be to us. Not only that, they must all be carrying a lot of survivor’s guilt.

The sort of aimlessness and lack of care that went into the scripts could be interpreted as the grief of the characters- viewers don’t get strong back stories and alt-history because the sliders don’t really care to discover it. They just lost their anchor, their rock. Yeah, they want to get home but while the happy homecoming envisioned at the end of the pilot and the beginning of PTSS was never reality, now it’s not even a dream.

Don't get me wrong, Quinn's change was too far, too fast and more effort could have gone into alt-history especially when an effort was made. How hard would it have been to give the vampires of “Stoker” a real life illness like Xeroderma Pigmentosum (ultra-sensitivity to light) or one of a host of blood diseases that require constant transfusions and create a scenario around that? Dracula could have still been worked in.

Finally, I know that Rembrandt was suppose be the comic relief, but the professor was the one with the funniest lines! Another reason post Professor episodes are no fun.

Incoming not outgoing.

Brute Force to allow Timer to link through Portal.

Also I pretty much ignore all that poor script/story.

While many, many fans have tried to wrangle Jerry's performances and the clumsy characterization into some kind of logical arc, it's never made sense to me in an in-universe perspective. I don't think it ever will.

We've seen what Quinn Mallory is like when he's depressed and... well, it's not like late Season 3 or Season 4. I think Quinn, when depressed, actually hides it with efforts to ride the momentum of desperation. The Torme/Weiss Quinn faces the horror of discovering the Professor will die by trying to mentor his younger self. The Torme/Weiss Quinn reacts to Wade's apparent death by grimly accepting he'll have to carry on without her. And while losing Arturo would have been tough -- we *already* had an example of how Quinn reacted to losing his (real) father and it wasn't like "Slither." Which is not to in any way diminish how awful Quinn can and will feel -- I'm just saying that depression and grief are a little more subtle if this character is written correctly.

In real-life, Jerry O'Connell is super-charming and winning and endearing. In SLIDERS, the Jerry O'Connell megawatt smile is a falsehood. Jerry O'Connell is simply what Quinn allows you to see of him. I guess what I'm trying to say is that even a depressed Quinn puts on a pretty good show. The abrasive loon of late Season 3 and the emotionless weirdo of Season 4 aren't Quinn at all -- just the actor playing a different role that happens to have the same name.

Hunnh. I found that outline that a poster, KerrAvon (not sliders5125) wrote as a follow-up to Season 3's cliffhanger where Arturo stars in a sequel to "This Slide of Paradise"! But first:

There was one poster on this Bboard, awhile back -- his posts have most definitely been deleted from existence. Let's call him Jensen. Jensen declared that he was going to save SLIDERS because he had the magic words -- more specifically, Jensen had the magic numbers. Numbers that, in a specific sequence, formed Tracy Torme's phone number. He proclaimed that he would be contacting Torme to do something about a SLIDERS revival.

He followed up by posting his shocking, heartbreaking, tragic discovery that phoning Tracy Torme and telling him to revive SLIDERS wouldn't actually bring about that happy outcome as Torme doesn't control the rights to SLIDERS. (I think, as creator, he shares about 10 per cent with Robert K. Weiss.) Jensen, in the course of this phone call, attempted to pitch his ideas to Torme. Jensen told Torme that the best way to revive SLIDERS would be:

• To do a new version of Season 4 set in 1998

• To follow up on the Season 3 cliffhanger with a remake of the Kromagg Invasion of Earth and the sliders' search for a superweapon

• Also explain why the Season 4 Kromaggs looked different from "Invasion" by saying the Season 4 Kromaggs were the foot soldiers

• To have Wade return to Season 4 a quarter of the way in as a brainwashed villain for the rest of the season

• To then reveal that the Earth in "Genesis" wasn't the Earth in the Pilot

• To have a huge Kromagg War blowout to end the series.

Try to imagine Tracy sitting through this phone call.

Jensen proceeded to lament that Tracy seemed resistant to hearing anymore of these ideas and that it was a real shame and did anyone on this message board have an agent so they could properly pitch these ideas? Torme, said Jensen, declined to hear more without an agent involved. Jensen then declared that clearly, SLIDERS was on its way back and Torme was clearly keen to do some SLIDERS stories if only someone would please get Jensen an agent.

Message board posters had many questions for Jensen. Why did he want to have a 2014 revival of SLIDERS set in 1998? Why did he wish to explain plot holes in Season 4 if his story was designed to replace Season 4 with his own version? Why did he want to revive a series loved for its characters and make one of them an evil villain? How did he expect the 2014-era actors to play their 1998 characters? Why was his pitch for SLIDERS devoid of any ideas for parallel Earths? Why did he want Tracy Torme to write this story when Torme has not even seen Season 4 and couldn't write a Season 4 Kromagg war epic even if he were forced to? If he didn't have any interest in the characters or parallel Earths, why was he trying to revive SLIDERS?

At this point, the web host crashed and the conversation ended. Let's move on.

Okay. I remember it being a lot longer -- but maybe what I mis-remembered (besides the poster) was the idea that this... outline... be executed over the course of eight episodes. I also mis-remembered the content; I thought there were scenes of Arturo fighting animal human hybrids. There aren't. I feel like this outline really tries to convert hammering the CTRL+Z on the keyboard into a logical sequence of events. It's trying to play fair.

It is also weirdly obsessed with continuity. I think there are three ways to use continuity. One is to seek to use continuity to try to make multiple stories feel like one big story by highlighting their connections and telling sequels. Another way is to feel the need to address previously established plot points individually in an effort to follow-up or reverse them. And then there's using continuity in an effort to create a sense of shared experience for both characters and the audience.

There is something completely derivative and unimaginative and crushingly dull about doing a sequel to "This Slide of Paradise" -- but that's not what this author is trying to do here, not really. This writer is, instead, seeking to confront the horror of that episode and expel it, leaving the sliders purified and renewed at the end of this exercise. And I kind of admire that. There's genuine interest and respect for the characters in this outline. There's a real desire to put the characters in difficult situations -- like being forced to wander through "This Slide of Paradise."

Anyway. Arturo is totally going to fight animal human hybrids in SLIDERS REBORN. I know it's crazy. I've been warned that this is not going to turn out well. But -- I really think I can pull this off AND make it feel like a Season 1/2 episode. And if I can't -- Tom and Cory will give a detailed account how it all went so horribly wrong in their podcast! :-D

This Slide of Paradise was a bad episode but the real shame is that if you break it up into parts there are interesting premises for Alternate Earths that could have been good.... Just not in this Episode.

Western US Coast a series of Archipeligo's and Island Chains.
That could be interesting. From our worlds Galapagos Islands we know such places can be great sources of Species Diversifivation and Specialisation.
Also Travel if you want to get around is less running around per usual Sliders schtick but instead swimming, boats and aircraft.

Ethics
1: Slavery, Caste Systems, Dehumanisation.
2: Transgenic Research with No Limits.
3: Engineered Sapient Life Creation and it's impacts.

These could have been far better explored.

Regarding "Genesis" and "Mother and Child" -- I think Quinn and Rembrandt would have relentlessly hammered the Kromagg facilities with attacks on their computer systems until they had a trail on Wade. They would not have stopped until they died. As for the Kromaggs wiping the sliders' memories of the virus or the Slidecage equations not working -- I honestly think that once you're left with making up unwritten and unaired scenes to justify the story, it's pretty clear that the story is broken. As for Quinn being selfish, not in a hurry to go home or to catch his mentor's killer, being a bad person -- dear God.

WARNING: The following post contains ANGER because I am absolutely furious. However. Please be aware that my fury is directed towards someone's opinions and thoughts as opposed to the someone who is opining and thinking them. I mean, you can be pissed off with a person's opinion while still liking the person, right?

I get very upset -- I get incredibly angry -- when fans portray Quinn as a sociopathic monster. I'm not sure which one makes me angrier; the show doing this or the fans doing it afterwards -- Ian's blog of "Revelations" where he describes Quinn as a bad person who isn't worth your time infuriated me almost as much as the episode.

I'm also torqued about this because I asked a fellow fan, recently, if he had any opinion on whether Quinn and Wade might be a couple in 2015 and he responded with a response similar to what's above: declaring that Quinn Mallory is a piece of trash and of course Wade wouldn't want him. It pissed me off. I think what he really meant was that Wade wouldn't want to marry Jerry O'Connell.

The reason I get so upset: Quinn is an icon of genre fiction, an analytical science hero who can stand next to Mr. Spock, Sherlock Holmes, Dr. House, Spider-Man, Indiana Jones, Batman and the Fourth Doctor. He is one of the greatest fictional characters created in the twentieth century. Quinn Mallory is a superhero -- his superpower is his superbrain, his ability to improvise absurd and efficient solutions on-the-spot in moments of crisis. A character who is driven by tragedy and loss but emerges from his trials not only intact but renewed and inspired and possesses a revolutionary spirit and a sense of wanderlust and is guided by an impeccable sense of morality and compassion.

And he created sliding. You can do anything with this character, put him in any kind of story in any kind of role. He can be a bystander or a hero, a catalyst or a leading figure, a background element or an icon who inspires.

These efforts to declare that the Season 3 - 4 character is the same as the Season 1 - 2 character simply emphasize his character flaws -- his myopia, his impulsive nature, his recklessness -- but declare them to be the whole of his character, seeking to rationalize periods where the character was being written badly as explorations of his darker side, ultimately ending with the conclusion that Quinn is a selfish, hateful, uncaring villain.

This strikes me as astonishingly pointless in the extreme: attempting to rationalize poorly-considered screenwriting for a superb figure of science fiction by saying he was never a hero at all. You've justified Quinn's incoherent trajectory by replacing him with a completely different character.

If Quinn Mallory is so unworthy of our respect, if he is not a force for good, then SLIDERS is and always has been a pointless waste of time and so is this Bboard, the websites, the fanfics, the screenplays, the essays, the blogs and the reviews. Yet, many fans -- in fact, I would say most fans -- take this view of Quinn because it lets them maintain the in-universe perspective. NDJ. Ian McDuffie. Slider_Quinn21. Informant. I list their names not to demonize them, but to observe that I am in a minority (probably of one) when I express my distaste for their rationalizations.

From the in-character perspective, these rationalizations don't build Quinn up as a multifaceted character; they just take away what make him unique and powerful and immortal. In trying to insist that the post-Torme Quinn is the same character that Torme and Weiss created, all you end up doing is destroying what Torme and Weiss created.

And it just infuriates me. Because Quinn is one of the greatest science heroes of television. You can do anything with this character. He does not need to be a refugee from an advanced parallel Earth and a pivotal figure of an interdimensional war. He does not need to be a vengeful hunter pursuing a fugitive, he does not need to be a gunslinging warrior, he does not need to be a callous cowboy, he does not need to be paired up with a Baywatch babe, he does not need a convoluted origin story.

And he most definitely does not need to be a man who refuses to let his friends go home and isn't interested in bringing his mentor's killer to justice and is indifferent to his friend being raped and is unconcerned about everyone he knew back home being enslaved and murdered. None of that deepens the Quinn Mallory character at all. None of that touches upon what makes him special. That's just drug addiction, alcoholism, family tragedy and depression talking, most of it David Peckinpah's.

In fact, it's not even deliberate. All of that is entirely *accidental*, filmed and aired because the actor was hungover that day. Because the scripts weren't properly reviewed. Because rehearsals were slapdash. Because the writers saw screenwriting as something to do between Solitaire binges. (That's not an exaggeration.)

Quinn is a very simple character to use. All Quinn needs is to be put in crazy, bizarre, ludicrous situations of intense risk and danger to life and sanity and to come up with clever, on-the-spot solutions to save the day. That's it. That's all you have to do. If you are having trouble coming up with plausible ways for the characters to advance the plot, use Quinn's genius to fast-forward the process. That's what this character was built to do. He cuts through narrative like a knife cuts through butter.

There's also the fact that all of these efforts to demonize Quinn both onscreen and after the fact make no sense whatsoever. Because if Quinn were really selfish and lazy and uncaring, he would not be a slider. He would find some paradise world and retire. That's what Jerry O'Connell would do with sliding, and the constant inability of fans to distinguish between actor and character is absolutely maddening and infuriating for me. That's what I see here, in these rationalizations. In these attempts to explain the inexplicable. A conflation of actor and character.

In ireactions-world -- which you need not take seriously and where absolutely nobody but me lives -- there is Quinn Mallory as created by Torme and Weiss. And then there is a second role with the same name and actor but written with little thought and care by David Peckinpah, Bill Dial, Keith Damron, Steven Stoliar.

One is an icon of genre fiction, an analytical science hero. And the other is a character also played by Jerry O'Connell, an actor who has played many roles, including Woody Hoyt, Andrew Clemens, Charlie Corbone and Phil Ohlmyer.

Jerry O'Connell is not Quinn Mallory. Jerry is just the mask that Quinn wears.

In my mind, to argue that the Season 3 - 4 character is the same as Season 1 - 2 is the equivalent of claiming that Jerry's CROSSING JORDAN and CAMP WILDER characters are the same person as well, except this is far more destructive. And if these analyses serve only to tear Quinn down, then they're pointless and useless. Admittedly, I say this as someone trying to write Quinn and therefore have a vested interest in seeing the character as a going concern. Which, as a goal in itself, is completely insane, so feel free not to take any of this into account.

I have really, really, really tried -- on two separate occasions -- to rationalize S1-2 Quinn with S3  - 4 Quinn. When writing Quinn Mallory in stories, I have always left myself open to the possibility that the post-Torme characterization can be rationalized. When writing "Slide Effects," I wrote that Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo would witness the moment in "Mother and Child" where Rembrandt says they have to go find Wade and Jerry delivers, "I don't know if we have enough time" with absolutely no emotion.

I wrote in _______________ in the outline for Quinn's reaction. I decided: when actually scripting that scene, Quinn would say whatever came naturally. He could explain himself. He could justify himself. I left it up to the character. And when I got to that page of the script, Quinn's explanation was that the scenario was part of a Kromagg mental simulation and he was subconsciously aware that the events he was experiencing weren't real and that was the point where he no longer believed in the situations he was living. I didn't plan that. I put Quinn in that scene, and that was what he had to say for himself. When writing REBORN, I again put Quinn in the same situation and got largely the same answer; he didn't recognize what he was seeing. Wasn't him.

Again. This is just my personal opinion and you will, of course, note that this entire post is almost like I'm trying to defend Quinn as though he's a personal acquaintance. As though he's my loved and treasured friend. From reading this post, you might think that I have a relationship with Quinn in the way some people have relationships with Jesus. You'd be right.

OF COURSE NOT WANTING TO KILL RICKMAN WOULD MAKE QUINN A BAD PERSON.

Rickman is a serial killer. He's travelling to worlds where no one knows of him and no one can be prepared for him. Every moment the sliders don't take him down is a moment where he's going to kill someone. So, yes -- the sliders not pursuing him or even considering giving up on tracking him down is indeed a moral crisis point -- Rickman's an interdimensional serial killer and they're the only ones who can follow him. If Quinn considers abandoning the pursuit for Rickman, then he is responsible for Rickman's subsequent victims -- every single one -- because he decided to quit trying to take this lunatic down. There is absolutely no moral quandary about killing Rickman -- he's an unrepentant murderer. That and having an English accent are his only character traits.

If you know that someone is a murderer and you decide it's not your problem and let them go off to kill more people, then yes, you are a bad person. The legalities are fuzzy; failure to report a crime is a misdemeanor in some states while a felony in states with mandatory reporting laws. But do the vagaries of the law absolve anyone from an incredibly obvious moral responsibility? Is this seriously up for debate? Is this even a question?

Failing to report a murder is wrong. Knowing in advance that someone will be murdered and declining to make efforts to prevent it is wrong. This is something I never thought I'd have to say on a SLIDERS message board.

And if Quinn knows that someone is going to be murdered and decides it's not his problem because he could hang out with Kyra, then YES, he is a bad person and I have been wasting my time with him.

My friend Val, when she was 12, discovered that this college guy she was friends with had been raping girls. Not her, of course -- she was a little too old for his tastes. Val proceeded to beat the rapist senseless with a toaster, locked him in a bathroom and fled for a police station. I have never been prouder of her. If she had shrugged it off and gone home to watch MY LITTLE PONY, she would have been responsible for every victim that man went on to rape.

Holy shit. I really never thought I'd have to have this discussion with anyone, anywhere, ever. Well. Thanks for that.

"The Exodus" makes no sense whatsoever no matter how you twist Quinn's character into knots. Let's say that Quinn has, for reasons that are incomprehensible, decided he's not going to let Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo get home. Arturo would have knocked Quinn unconscious or sat on him while Wade and Rembrandt tied him up, then they'd roll him into the vortex home. Furthermore, Rickman is, throughout the story, hostile and paranoid about the sliders because they threaten his command and his control of the situation; the story provides no motive for Rickman to want to keep the sliders around after they've found a suitable Earth as a settlement. Quinn's behaviour warps the entire story for no reason other than to have the other sliders get angry at him for contrived reasons.

"Wiping memories" / "messed with people's minds" -- hair-splitting. You declare that Kromagg telepathy must be why the sliders didn't try to secure the anti-Kromagg virus in "Mother and Child" -- there is absolutely nothing onscreen to support that assertion. It's not a piece of information subtly communicated; it's not hinted at -- it's not there. At all. The sliders are searching for a weapon to free their home Earth of Kromaggs. They found one in "Mother and Child." And then they leave it. The failure to address this in any fashion is not subtle storytelling that feels little details can be filled in by the viewer's common sense; this is a massive gaping hole in the story that renders the rest of the season incoherent.

There is no reason for the sliders to keep searching for the Kromagg Prime superweapon when a perfectly serviceable countermeasure exists on an Earth that's stored in the timer's coordinates. If the Kromagg erased the sliders' memories/messed with their minds, this absolutely has to be present onscreen or it leaves a glaringly unanswered question that undermines every story that follows.

Oh, and not to go off on a tangent, but if anyone reading this knows of any murderers out there or murders about to take place, CALL THE POLICE. If you don't, you are a horrible person and I will not want to write fanfics about you. Jesus.

You're sorry? You are indeed sorry. I am not sorry.

I am not sorry to tell you that there is NO SCENE in "Mother and Child" where the Kromagg telepathically removes knowledge of the anti-Kromagg virus. It is not in the script. First, you raised the telepathy as a possibility; now you declare it is a certainty. It is not. You just made that up.

I am not sorry to refuse to follow you in your tortured logic where I am somehow at fault for declining to take into account a scene that does not exist outside your imagination. Perhaps you have your own version of "Mother and Child" in your head; I am not obligated to review it, only the version that aired. At least 29.7 had a deleted script page; what have you got? Nothing whatsoever.

I am also extremely not sorry to declare that it is a moral tipping point for Quinn to be blissfully unconcerned with ALL THE PEOPLE Rickman will kill.

I'm not sorry to point out that you defending Quinn for refusing to let his friends go home in "The Exodus" is you declaring that  kidnapping and unlawful imprisonment is okay by you!

I never likened Quinn to Superman. As for Batman, he never needs to kill as demonstrated in an issue of DETECTIVE COMICS Batman put R'as Al Ghul in a mental hospital with faked paperwork to keep the man in a permanent coma.

Superman has superstrength/heat vision/invulnerability/flight/a fortress in the Arctic. Batman has infinite money and over 20 sidekicks and a limitless utility belt of plot convenient gadgets. Quinn had a god-damn TV remote. Of course Rickman should have been killed. If they didn't have the stomach to do it personally, they could have sent him to Earth Prime (where he'd suffocate) or send him back to the military settlement (where his own people would have executed him) or they could have stranded him on some wasteland world where the lack of fresh brain fluid would have seen him die.

Once again -- I am astonished that stopping murderers is any sort of moral conundrum for anyone with even a splinter of conscience, responsibility or concern for their fellow human being.

I congratulate you -- you've achieved three firsts in the SLIDERS community. Lots of posters have said that Quinn's arc across four seasons make sense because he's a bad person -- but you're the first to do that while expressing that you're totally cool with Quinn holding innocent people prisoner and letting murderers run free, and that your dream-journal version of "Mother and Child" is canon.

There are, sadly, people in this world who think it's okay to strip others of their freedom and self-determination. People who see injustice done and choose to turn a blind eye. And people who would rather fabricate scenes in TV episodes rather than admit their argument has some gaping holes. It's a defect of humanity to be concerned with only one's self and to be indifferent to the suffering of others. And to rationalize it, saying we'd all be twisted and mutilated by bad experiences and so too would Quinn.

We shouldn't do that to Quinn. We should not make the sliders more like us. We should be more like them. We should regard the unknown with curiosity and wonder and confront problems with knowledge, strategy and confidence in the power of ideas.

I suspect the reason most fans see no issue with tearing Quinn down is because few, if any, have ever regarded him an iconic superhero; they don't see the precious creation that is being destroyed. And that's fine. That's just a difference of opinion -- but this is the first time I've ever seen anyone declare that kidnapping and enabling of a serial killer is in any way sympathetic or morally defensible.

That's delusional, deranged and diseased -- and you demonstrate precisely why I object so strongly to rationalizing Quinn's Season 3 - 4 behaviour as in-character.

Personally, I think Quinn had gotten as action-oriented as he needed to in "As Time Goes By" and "Double Cross" in his multiple fight scenes and physical confrontations. But I don't really think that the willingness to fight or engage in hand to hand combat or gun battles is a sign of progression; the more meaningful growth would be to see Quinn use his intelligence to bypass the need to threaten or attack others. I think Quinn's maturity as the seasons passed should have been shown in higher levels of responsibility and ability -- not in fighting, but rather with sliding technology.

How would he use his knowledge and scientific skills to better the multiverse? To create interdimensional relationships between worlds? To take on larger-scale problems? I think, had Tracy Torme stayed on the show and brought in Marc Scott Zicree, there would have been more variants on the sliding technology: the slidewave, the slidecage, maybe the Combine and other aspects. "Into the Mystic" touched upon interdimensional economics; Zicree approached interdimensional politics.

I also think that part of Quinn's maturity would have been mentoring new characters; as the show progressed, I think new sliders should have been introduced with the originals serving as teachers to the next wave of sliders.

I don't disagree, of course. Two of my favourite moments for Rembrandt: his shotgun slinging in "Into the Mystic" and his intimidating the secretary in "Murder Most Foul."

I just think that there is more to being a hero than beating people up. Force and violence are easy. Fists and guns, knives and bombs -- I imagine that there are plenty of potential SLIDERS stories where Quinn would have to use such things. But I would never want to be the default-setting for Quinn. I would never measure a person's worth or competence by how many people he can hurt.

There are times in the series when Quinn's physical inabilities have been nonsensical, most notably in "El Sid" and "The Young and the Relentless." I get that Sid is tough, but it's ludicrous that Quinn is completely unable to defend himself. And Kyle Beck intimidating Quinn and withholding the timer when Quinn is muscled and toned and towers over Kyle -- absurd. I just don't think fighting is particularly interesting as a solution or resolution. Any TV hero can shoot a gun or punch a villain; it's a science hero who can think his way to victory and that's what makes Quinn great.

I'm not saying you can't have Quinn punch and kick and shoot his way out; I'm just saying it doesn't really speak to Quinn Mallory. It's generic. And I don't know how much more you can really showcase Quinn's physicality beyond "As Time Goes By" and "Double Cross."

I found myself thinking about this quite heavily when writing SLIDERS REBORN. Jerry is like Tom Cruise in the MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movies. Tom Cruise is jumping onto planes that are taking off, leaping off rooftops, diving out of skyscrapers, and I imagine Quinn being as superhuman if not moreso. But I found it more important, in the fight scenes here and there, to emphasize how Quinn is skillful rather than how Quinn is strong. When captured by two police officers, he slips out of his handcuffs, handcuffs one to a bikerack and knocks the other one unconscious and proceeds to steal their car -- but it's the police radio that's really useful because it helps him dodge the manhunt. That's how I see it -- the physicality is a component, but it's not the defining trait.

Note: Please don't feel obligated to consider REBORN as supporting evidence in our discussions.

How would Quinn have time to develop and nurture sliding technology when they were constantly on the run? With the exception of The Weaker Sex, the timer gave them at most a week before moving on to the next port of call.

I was just thinking of “Seasons Greedings” and “the Last of Eden” and it struck me: Where are the fathers?  We can logically assume the “The Last of Eden” guy fell during an earthquake some months ago (we’ve seen how these people just shrug their shoulders and walk away), but where is the other guy? I mean this woman was putting her baby in the hands of strangers (in a scene reminiscent of Three Men and A Baby).  There’s no deadly situation for viewers to assume the husband/boyfriend fell prey to and the world itself is not dangerous.

To be fair NDJ agreed Rickman needed to be stopped.
The thing is though.... Violence is not Quinn's go to option unless pushed into it.
You point this out yourself in your newer posts quite succinctly when discussing his Mind and Problem solving being a core quality and more impressive asset than brawling alone.
I believe Quinn would aim to immobilise and capture Rickman if given a choice.
Rickmans medical condition is likely to kill him without additional victims anyway so Death is likely, but an execution? No.

I do not believe Quinn would have ever stopped pursuing Rickman. But I also don't believe Quinn would have killed Rickman, at least not if he were written correctly.

I think Quinn would have found some way to strand Rickman in a state of quantum suspension, imprisoned and 'frozen' inside the interdimensional tunnel -- with the intention to one day find a cure for Rickman's condition, release him from limbo and repair his damaged body and mind.

Anyway. I thought NDJ raised an interesting approach to Season 4. "Mother and Child" has a plothole: why don't Quinn and Rembrandt try to use the anti-Kromagg virus on their home Earth? NDJ suggested a missing scene / plot where their memories were erased.

It makes me think: Season 4 is filled with awkward beats and characterization that were could have been made reasonable with some added scenes.

What if "Mother and Child" in addition to the Kromagg mindwipe, there was also another scene? A scene where Quinn abruptly separates himself from Colin, Maggie and Rembrandt -- making some flimsy excuse that doesn't fool Rembrandt. Rembrandt finds Quinn  Quinn is crying. The failure to find Wade again has hit him hard, and Quinn rages over how they've broken into 15 Kromagg bases trying to find Wade and "we never have time." He wonders if this is pointless, if they should give up. Maggie calls for Quinn and Quinn suddenly pulls himself together, his face resuming the cold stoicism he had before.

And maybe the final scene is Quinn staring blankly at wall in the Chandler and then Rembrandt drags him outside and down the street. Rembrandt points across the street. We see, at a distance, a slender redhead with an apron waiting on a table at an outdoor restaurant. Rembrandt says that on a lot of worlds, Kelly Welles and Wade opened a chain of Internet cafes; any time Rembrandt sees a Turing Treats in the phone book, he knows Wade's around.

Rembrandt tells Quinn: watch her. Go up to her and talk to her and take her to the movies, or walk by once and then walk away. He tells Quinn to do whatever he has to do, but he can't give up. They have to keep searching for the superweapon. They can't give up. And we'd end on Quinn alone, looking at the Wade-double. Does he approach? Does he leave? Fade out.

Another major sticking point is "Revelations" where Quinn is apparently not going to accompany Rembrandt back to Earth Prime to liberate it from the Kromaggs. I would probably imagine a missing scene where Colin confronts Quinn about this: and Quinn reveals that now that they have the weapon, they can free their home Earth, but Wade and Amanda Mallory are still out there. Rembrandt and Quinn had an agreement: Rembrandt would take the weapon home. Quinn would go search for Wade and his mom.

It would add weight to Jerry's half-hearted performance in the final scene when Maggie tells Quinn she hopes he gets home someday and Quinn says he does too -- but what he's really thinking about is how his search for Wade is once again on hold.

That said, I think the whole Kromagg Prime arc of Season 4 was awful awful awful no matter how many tweaks might have been made. But "Commander Wade Welles" and Quinn putting on a brave face for the others while crying over Wade when nobody's looking would have helped a little. (A little.)

The Rickman Situation
I see Quinn as a man (a boy still in many ways) who is being crushed under the weight of responsibility, guilt, and grief. My interpretation of the Rickman scenario does not include him ever giving up- remember I don’t think that Quinn is in any rush to give up sliding. I think Quinn both understands and accepts his responsibility to stop Rickman (killing him if necessary but not wanting to)- but it is this same realization that is weighing him down. Add to that the immediate situation with Kyra (since when hasn’t a beautiful woman been Quinn’s weakness?) and Rembrandt, and the fact that Wade and Maggie aren’t there and you get a “f*** this- I quit” outburst. Do I think that if the timer ran down and Maggie and Wade were there, Quinn would have stayed with Kyra? No, not even you remove the whole Carlos situation.   

This is how I see “Mother and Child”
You are about to leave your house for work and your plan is to stop by the store to buy some bread. Your manipulative, horrible, dangerous neighbor, who you HATE, is also going to the store to get medicine for his kid. This is the type of guy that will rob the store but you know that his kid really is sick so you go to the store with him. He talks to you, none of which you want to hear (you just want to make sure he doesn’t do anything illegal), talks up the store clerk, and even talks the pharmacists into giving him the medicine for less than he should have paid. You get back to the house without incident and DAMN IT- you forgot the bread and now you have to go to work!

Did the neighbor wipe your memory or did he manipulate you into momentarily forgetting your own goals? I have nothing to base memory wipe on, but messing with your mind, making you focus on ‘A’ so that you forget you were after ‘B’- that is what Kromaggs do. Overly simplistic but I wanted to demonstrate that for me, “memory wipe” and “messing with your mind” are two different things.

Also, we all assume that the Kromagg virus is at the same facility as the human cure. It makes sense but we don’t know it for sure- The only information we ever get is that the anti-virus is at the military facility and that comes from the Kromagg who got that my reading Christina’s father’s mind. If the virus was there, he wasn’t telling!

I think this a middling episode for the season. I think they did miss an opportunity to really talk about Wade instead of just using her as a plot device. Either Rembrandt or Quinn could have talked about Wade to Colin and it would not have felt contrived. They could have even talked to each other about what Christina’s situation meant for Wade (if Christina could get away with a baby why didn’t Wade try to escape? Is she pregnant? Does she have a baby?) and larger issues in general (what would happen if they did get the Kromagg killing virus and women with Humagg children wanted to bring their babies home?). Of course this is a can of worms nobody really wanted to open.

I agree that the Kromagg arc was awful. I see where they were going and it did make sense that a few of the worlds would have differently evolved humans. After all, there was actually another humanoid species on this Earth that homo sapiens beat out for dominance. This means their existence is still in keeping with the spirit of the show, but I watch Star Trek for constant alien human/ interaction- Sliders was suppose to be something different.

Yep we made a gaffe! We actually noticed it before this episode even went up and made the correction in the By The Way section which you'll hear in Monday's episode. Blame it on skimming and not reading fully!

Tom and Cory, in the recent podcast, said that the SLIDERS comics aren't canon. The canonicity of the SLIDERS comics was an amusing debate in a Sliderscast:

Mr. Stargate: "The comics are not canon!"
The Savior: "They are canon."
Mr. Stargate: "How the fuck can they be canon?"
The Savior: "Tracy Torme said they're canon."
Mr. Stargate: "God damn it! Fuck! Fine! Whatever!"

That said, the comics became irreconcilable with the TV show; "Darkest Hour" has the sliders make it home and leave again and "Deadly Secrets" offers an account of Wade's parents contrary to "Season's Greedings" -- so I think the comics have to feature doubles of the sliders -- which means they are technically canon within the SLIDERS multiverse if not canon for the specific versions of the sliders we saw on television.

"But ireactions! If that's your opinion, why does one of your SLIDERS REBORN scripts have Rembrandt talking about how he once had to fight two-dimensional beings in ARMADA?!!"

..........

Whoops.

New Rewatch Podcast ep is up. This week we discuss "Slidecage" and "Asylum" http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 2_12-08_00

The impressions are indeed hilarious -- they're so random and bizarre -- taking the scripts and reading them in the voices of Sean Connery and Christopher Walken. I don't understand why you would do this -- I just know that it's absurd and memorable.

Oh wow. ireactions, care to share that dissection with the rest of us at some point? I'd love to read it.

...*actually laughed out loud*

I loved that voicemail. Nice little ending there.

Looking forward to what the three of you have/will come up with, in that case.

I'm glad I was prepared for The Scene when I saw it... very recently, in fact. By this time I've come to accept that anything past season 3, and large parts of season 3 itself, just isn't my show any more. It's a lot easier to look at it from that detached perspective than to actually try to reconcile a Quinn who would say that about one of his best friends.

I'm noticing a running theme with the female Kromagg Victims of the Week in these episodes. Namely: it's actually pretty rare to see a character on TV with a haircut like Wade's. Between "Mother and Child" and "Common Ground", we've had two plucky, tiny girls with pixie cuts in quick succession, like they're not even trying to be subtle. It's like they've realized what they've lost and are trying desperately to replace her. (And it's got to be killing Rembrandt.)

I notice this more generally throughout the rest of the series. As Tom and Cory mentioned, it's like the show is constantly trying to recreate the dynamic it previously had with the foursome. I've only seen one episode of season 5, but by the time we get to Requiem, we've got Diana as the Professor skeptic figure, Maggie as... Wade(!) with some of the leadership aspects of Quinn, Rembrandt as Rembrandt (thank God), and Mallory as, well, honestly I don't know what he's supposed to be, but I spent the entire episode hating him. Never have I seen anyone so completely constructed of cardboard and smarm.

But they were trying. And the fact that Maggie ends up in the nurturing Wade role of all places is some kind of mix of hilarious and sad... that they had to stretch her character this far to make her feasible, and to keep the show going.

I have sent Tom and Cory my fifth and final E-mail on "Mother and Child." I think I may have hit some record; surely nobody on the old Sci-Fi Bboard or the newsgroup ever wrote as much as this regarding the episode.

They really should break it down into a two-parter: one discussing the episode and one discussing Ib's descent into MADNESS over its execution.

...you're going to absolutely destroy "Requiem," aren't you.

Please say you're going to.

Hey Rewatchers!

New episode is up now! "California Reich" and "The Dying Fields.' http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 6_13-08_00

Loved the Sean Connery / Christopher Walken "Instant Impressions" segment in a recent podcast. Very funny stuff!

The podcast is on fire.