Rewatch Podcast (Page 4 of 6)

I'm rewatching "Net Worth" for Sliders Rewatch to help them do some research. I don't want to say too much and I want to leave this to Sliders Rewatch to discuss -- but this episode made me so very, very sad. It doesn't work on so many levels -- and the main flaw is that there is a giant Sabrina Lloyd shaped hole in this story.

Think about it. (Not that I recommend thinking too much about "Net Worth," it's terrible.)

Wow! That's priceless!

Yeah, I think the massive gaping hole in that episode might have been overshadowed for me by the massive gaping hole in season 4 period. It seriously feels like half of those episodes were written with Wade/Sabrina in mind and they just sort of pasted Maggie in there. (Although I can see where you're coming from with "Net Worth", given it's such a hacker-focused story.)

I will admit that I feel a cringing sense of betrayal every time Quinn acts romantic towards Maggie. Not even just as a Quinn/Wade supporter, though there's that too of course - but it feels like a betrayal of Quinn's character. Sure, he's had flirtations on multiple worlds, but I can't believe that the ease and familiarity that he shows with Maggie could really exist. It's like he's forgotten all about Wade.

I mean, season 4 is like that on many levels. But I would have liked to see some grieving, some hesitation before starting a relationship because, wow, the last woman I was this close to just got abducted by the Kromaggs, I don't think I'm ready to be over that yet.

I can believe in his falling for Maggie, even if Jerry doesn't make it believable. I can't believe in him accepting her so seamlessly as a replacement for Wade.

And yeah, I know Quinn and Wade aren't a canonical "couple". It's not just that. It's the way he behaves towards her almost as if she were Wade specifically, and the way they changed her character so radically that it's practically like she is.

Anyway, looking forward to the discussions, in whatever format.

New podcast!

http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/

Cool to hear that Lester Barrie is doing well! I made sure to give him a big scene in SLIDERS REBORN showcasing all of Diggs' peculiarities -- not because I was enamoured with the character, but because Tom and Cory kept talking about him.

So, regarding "Lipschitz Live" and MacArthur Mallory, a character who is inexplicably Colin's stepfather with the same last name: I have no data on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if MacArthur Mallory were originally Michael Mallory to be played by John Walcutt, only for an unexpected unavailability to see the script awkwardly patched. I now await Matt Hutaff to blow this theory out of the water with his Bazooka of Truth. :-)

(You'll find this hilarious next week.)

I loved Tom and Cory theorizing how Will Sasso would have played Gomez Calhoun in "Lipschitz." I imagine he would have been less hostile, more distracted.

QUINN
Excuse me --

GOMEZ
(excited)
Shh!
(gesturing at the TV with delight)
Can't you see this is important! Guy's
got a psychic dog!

He laughs incredulously.

QUINN
I'd like a room --

GOMEZ
(not turning from the TV,
lightly indifferent)
We're booked up.

QUINN
Booked up!? This place is never booked
up!

GOMEZ
(cheerfully)
Big corporate wedding!

Gomez casually jabs a finger towards a sign on the desk, indicating that there's a TV corporate summit here.

QUINN
Then I'd like to leave a message for
my friends.

Gomez remains utterly fixed on the television.

GOMEZ
(dreamily)
D'you have a room?

QUINN
Not according to you!

GOMEZ
(distant)
Then you can't leave a message.

QUINN
Why not?!

GOMEZ
(lazily)
We're a full service hotel, but only for
guests -- no guests, no service.

He continues to watch the TV.

Later, when Colin approaches Calhoun --

COLIN
I'd like a --

Gomez holds up a finger, as though asking for a minute. Without turning around, he picks up a piece of paper and hurriedly reads off the sheet.

GOMEZ
(reading this prepared statement)
We've got no rooms, no suites, you can't leave
a message and I haven't seen any of your friends.

And then he returns his full attention to the TV. The boredom instantly disappears from his face, replaced with gleeful enthusiasm.

COLIN
(appreciative)
Thank you!

He walks off.

I thought Tom and Cory did a nice job this week. I sent them a bunch of script pages (that I wrote myself) so they'd have a lot of options for doing some Quinn and Rembrandt impressions if they were inclined to do them. They picked a really nice page to perform -- so below are the other ones.

But first -- Tom and Cory wondered why, in "The Dying Fields," the Kromaggs try to kill the sliders when they're counting on the sliders to help reclaim their homeworld. Tom theorizes that after Quinn got to the Slidecage and came back out, the Kromaggs felt that their plan had failed.

I don't think this makes much sense; the Kromaggs already knew about the Slidecage (indicated by Rembrandt's dialogue when under hypnosis in "Slidecage"), meaning someone who worked on the cage must have failed to get back to the homeworld before the doors closed and was captured and interrogated. As for why the Slidecage was set to contain rather than repel -- it was likely made so because the Kromagg Prime Michael Mallory was trying to imprison any soldiers who might otherwise wreak havoc on the multiverse from which he was isolating Kromagg Prime.

My theory would involve putting an additional scene at the end of "The Dying Fields":

EXT. HUMAGG HUNTING GROUNDS - DAY

Quinn nods to Colin -- and Colin raises the timer and triggers the vortex. It splits open the air with its blue and green energy, beckoning to the sliders. But Kryoptus brandishes his rifle --

KRYOPTUS
Nobody move! I'll kill you all --

And Kyra steps forward. She shields the sliders with her body --

KYRA
You won't!

She moves towards Kryoptus.

KYRA
You won't shoot me -- you have
feelings for me -- I can feel them!

And when Kryoptus hesitates, Kyra turns to the sliders.

KYRA
Go!

Maggie doesn't need telling twice. She sprints towards the gateway and leaps. Rembrandt follows --

REMBRANDT
Quinn, let's go!

With a flash, he's gone too. Colin dives in next and Kryoptus watches. Letting them leave. Kyra smiles with relief, and Quinn watches Kryoptus turn his gaze onto Kyra and only Kyra --

KRYOPTUS
You're right, Kyra -- I can't deny
who I am --

His hand traces her temple. He leans forward, kissing her. And as Kyra kisses him back, Kryoptus unsheathes his knife and STABS Kyra through the heart. She chokes. Her body stiffens with shock. Her eyes focus on nothing --

Kryoptus locks eyes with Kyra, brutally cold as Kyra slumps forward, betrayal in her face --

And Quinn casts a stunned look at Kryoptus  and Kyra's body on the ground. Disappointment flashes across Quinn's face -- disappointment and despair -- and then suddenly, there is nothing. Quinn watches Kryoptus yank his bloody knife from Kyra's corpse -- and we can see the blank finality on Quinn's face. The emptiness. Everything he tried to do for Kyra is lost. Change is worthless. It doesn’t exist. Life is cruel and bloody -- there is nothing worth feeling --

Kryoptus raises his rifle to bear on Quinn and Quinn dives out of the line of fire. Leaping into the vortex. Kryoptus fires just in time to miss the gateway as it closes. The burst of energy strikes a nearby structure and Kryoptus stands alone with Kyra's body at his feet.

Silence. For a moment.

Then a humvee rolls up. General Kronos climbs out with a small squad of Kromagg soldiers. General Kronos walks up to Kryoptus.

GENERAL KRONOS
The humans killed her?

KRYOPTUS
(numbly)
No. I did.

The General arches an eyebrow.

KRYOPTUS
(indicates Kyra)
The humans had turned her.
She was helping them escape.
I had no choice.

GENERAL KRONOS
And the humans?

KRYOPTUS
Three dead inside. Six more
escaped.

GENERAL KRONOS
Three kills. Well done. You surprise
me. Welcome to the Elites.

KRYOPTUS
(flat; stares at Kyra)
Thank you, sir.

General Kronos turns to the Kromagg soldiers. 

GENERAL KRONOS
Move out. We have humans in
the area.

Kronos turns back to Kryoptus, indicating Kyra's body.

GENERAL KRONOS
Dispose of that.

KRYOPTUS
Yes, sir.

Kronos walks off.

Kryoptus stares at Kyra's face, confusion expanding across his face. He kneels next to her prone, lifeless shape. Kryoptus begins to experience SADNESS, his confused emotions turning to PAIN and ACHING GRIEF.

Kryoptus lifts Kyra's motionless body in his arms and gently carries her off as we --

CUT TO:

INT. HUMVEE - DAY

General Kronos sits in the passenger seat of the Humvee. As his driver handles the vehicle and speeds along the path, Kronos reaches for the viewscreen controls in the dashboard before him.

GENERAL KRONOS
(to the viewscreen)
One-one-three. Connect me to
the cage.

There's a burst of static from the viewscreen speakers and on the screen itself -- and then on the screen, we can make out the vague figure of a person, cloaked in darkness and shadow.

GENERAL KRONOS
Your proposal was successful. The
humans have departed, never once
suspecting that they were permitted
to leave.

We see the figure on the screen shifting within the shadows -- as though bowing.

GENERAL KRONOS
Their easy escapes from Outposts 161
and 147 followed by the discovery of
their friend's sleeper programming
risked incurring their suspicions.

We can now make out the outline of the figure's garments -- a long, white gown.

GENERAL KRONOS
Your stratagem has re-established their
certainty that to contend with the Kromaggs
is to court their deaths. And soothed away any
skepticism towards their seeming
competence in defying the Dynasty.

We see the figure on screen raising a pair of hands -- clasping them together in a prayerful gesture of deference.

GENERAL KRONOS
Such calculated cruelty. Bringing one
of the humans to the brink of death
with a Nobelium weapon. Manuevering
our weakest link in the Humaggs towards
healing the human. And then letting them
leave thinking they'd scarcely survived --
your precision does your masters proud.

We see the figure on the screen parting hands in a serene movement.

GENERAL KRONOS
You are a rare credit to your kind. Tell
me, child -- how does a mere human
equal the crystalline clarity of the
Kromagg mind?

And then we see the figure learn forward, out of the shadows and into the light.

It's Mary.

MARY
I know their leader. I know his passions
and his fears.

Kronos nods, contemptuously impressed.

MARY
I know his bravado, his groundless
confidence, his arrogance and ego.
I know the strings within his heart,
how to pull and pluck as we see fit --

Kronos regards Mary on the screen as though she's an amusing pet.

MARY
Quinn Mallory is our soldier -- and he
shall be the Dynasty's greatest hero.

And Mary stares through the screen, at Kronos, at us --

BLACKOUT.

I feel like that's the only explanation that still upholds the original Season 4 arc. "The Dying Fields" was staged for the sliders' benefit. It wouldn't be the first time.

Tom and Cory did an great job of examining The Scene and noted that Jerry's acting throughout Season 4 is extremely poor. Here's the breakdown I sent Tom and Cory of all the problems with The Scene:

As filmed and aired:

REMBRANDT: (grabbing Quinn's arm) "If Wade is back there, we gotta do something! "
QUINN: (brushing off Remmy's arm and walking off-camera) "I don't know if we have enough time."

Points of concern:

• Jerry O'Connell conveys no emotional reaction to learning that Christina knew Wade. Jerry performs a total lack of interest or attention towards Christina despite her knowledge of Wade.

• The onscreen dialogue lacks any moment where Quinn questions Christina about Wade; he doesn't seem interested in learning more about Wade's whereabouts or well-being.

• When Rembrandt grabs Quinn's arm, declaring they must find Wade, Jerry pulls his arm away and declares, "I don't know if we have enough time" and then walks off-camera -- giving the impression that Quinn feels no empathy or concern for Rembrandt's current state of agony and feels no need to console him.

• As Quinn is walking away, Rembrandt shouts after him that he doesn't care if there's not enough time -- and Quinn does not respond and is off-camera, so we see no reaction.

• Christina then establishes that Wade has already been moved off-world -- yet Jerry inexplicably had Quinn walk away from Rembrandt after "I don't know if we have enough time," indicating that if Quinn knew Wade wasn't on this world anymore, he had no intention of giving Rembrandt this information -- or that if Quinn didn't know this information, he wasn't interested in finding out anything more from Christina. The ambiguity here is clearly not intentional; something has been severely miscommunicated.

• Cleavant Derricks plays Rembrandt in agony when hearing about Wade. Jerry O'Connell, in contrast, plays the same scene with nothing. It's impossible to discern Quinn's state of mind or motivations from Jerry's acting because Jerry is providing no information whatsoever. Jerry's same approach to acting is present in "Slidecage" when Quinn thinks Maggie is dead and Jerry takes a scene of Quinn breaking down and plays it with near-total neutrality.

• In a later scene, Quinn threatens a Kromagg with death and demands the location of Wade Welles -- which is completely at odds with Jerry performing Quinn as indifferent about Wade in the earlier scene.

And let's look at the actual script:

REMBRANDT: "If Wade's in that camp, we've got to do something!"
QUINN: "We don't have much time -- "

So first, we have Jerry changing his line. It was scripted as a risk assessment; but Jerry changed it into a refusal. It's unlikely this was on purpose; SLIDERS hasn't worried about actors delivering lines as written since Season 3. Jerry delivered an approximation of what was on paper -- but to disastrous results, turning it from Quinn acknowledging danger to Quinn shrinking from danger.

Also: the way The Scene is blocked is bizarre: why does the director have the lead character of the show declare he's not going to try to save his friend from a rape camp? Why is Jerry made to practically dive off-camera after delivering his line? Why wouldn't the director make sure to keep Jerry and Cleavant in the same frame for this critical scene? The script does not contain any of this behaviour from Quinn. The script actually contains very little scene direction, leaving it completely open to the actors how they want to play the scene.

My theory is that Jerry was drunk on set the day they filmed this. The Scene goes out of its way to get Jerry out of shot as quick as it can -- suggesting to me that Jerry was not fit to be on camera that day. Because Jerry isn't on camera when Rembrandt protests leaving without Wade, it makes it feel like Quinn doesn't care about Wade.

So, here's the direction I would have given for The Scene.

EXT. WOODS - DAY

REMBRANDT
(desperate)
If Wade's in that camp,
we've got to do something!

Quinn nods in agreement. He starts towards the path to the camp. Rembrandt is right next to him. Ready for war.

QUINN
We don't have much time --

REMBRANDT
(determined)
I don't care. We're going down
there.

CHRISTINA
It's too late for that!

Quinn and Rembrandt freeze in place. Staring at Christina in dismay.

CHRISTINA
She's gone. The Maggs shipped
out all the other prisoners yesterday
to make way for new arrivals. Wade
was with them --

Quinn's face fills with agony. Something inside him breaks. Rembrandt is forlorn, lost, helpless...

And then with subsequent scenes -- I think this episode should have been played as Quinn Mallory's descent into madness after meeting Christina. Here's a re-directed version of the scene where Quinn questions the Kromagg soldier -- again, no changes to the script dialogue, only the direction.

EXT. ROAD - DAY
The Kromagg soldiers from the Humvee are unconscious, except one. A young soldier.

CHRISTINA
Could we go to my world?

QUINN
Only if I knew the coordinates --

CHRISTINA
They would be in the
Kromagg central data bank!

Everyone looks at the conscious Kromagg -- and Quinn storms over to him. Hauling him to his feet. Grabbing him by the collar -- and then slamming him into the side of the Humvee. The Kromagg's head bashes into the glass and Quinn's face suddenly shows a cruel satisfaction.

QUINN
(nearly spitting into
the Kromagg's face)
Okay -- ! Here's the deal!!

He leans in. The Kromagg shrinks, terrified by this furious human.

QUINN
(snarling)
You help us. Or you die!

And Quinn's voice lingers on the threat -- on some level, he's hoping the Kromagg will give him an excuse. Maggie watches this, troubled by Quinn's anger -- but she joins in, moving her Kromagg gun to the Kromagg's head.

MAGGIE
Category too difficult for you?

KROMAGG SOLDIER
I'll help --

Quinn shoves the Kromagg towards the Humvee computer, making sure that the Kromagg bangs into the door by the shoulder. His face is sadistically contemptuous.

QUINN
(cruel)
Right answer.

CUT TO:

THE KROMAGG SOLIDER at the computer keyboard. Quinn leans over to BARK IN THE KROMAGG'S ear --

QUINN
Bring up the prisoner files!

KROMAGG SOLDIER
What are we looking for?

QUINN
Pull up anything on Christina
Griffin and Wade Welles -- !

It's only with the mention of Wade's name that Quinn's angry tone softens.

KROMAGG SOLIDER
I'll need their ID numbers -- we don't
keep their human names on file --

CHRISTINA
I don't know Wade's -- but mine's Jay
Kay one one two five --

QUINN
(watching the Kromagg type)
Now cross reference! To her
homeworld!

SOLDIER ONE
(typing, suddenly astonished
by the report on Christina's
world)
File says the last of our battalions withdrew
six months ago -- !?

QUINN
Withdrew?

The sliders are amazed. Christina is hopeful.

CHRISTINA
My parents! They could be
alive.

QUINN
(to the Kromagg, dangerously)
Read off the slide coordinates!
(as the Kromagg points to the screen
and mutters digits, Quinn programs the timer)
Got it --

REMBRANDT
Now for Wade!

KROMAGG SOLDIER
But without her ID number --

Quinn throws his hand into the Kromagg's head and smashes the soldier's forehead into the doorframe of the Humvee.

QUINN
We'll do it the hard way!

The Kromagg soldier winces with pain -- and Quinn furiously pushes the Kromagg at the computer.

QUINN
Pull up records as fast as
you can!

Maggie is stunned at Quinn's behaviour. She looks to Rembrandt with concern, as does Colin, but Rembrandt has eyes only for the computer as the fearful Kromagg follows Quinn's orders --

QUINN
(to the Kromagg)
When we see her picture, we'll
stop you --

The Kromagg tenses at the threat in the words. But then, from the radio --

KORINDOS (RADIO)
Unit Four! This is Base. What are
you doing? Those are classified files!

And then on the computer, an error message shows. Quinn seizes the Kromagg by the back of his collar --

QUINN
What's the matter!?

KROMAGG SOLIDER
(reading off the screen)
Network error! 807! Please notify system
administrator --

Quinn pushes the Kromagg against the computer. Panicked. Desperate.

QUINN
Try it again!!

The Kromagg urgently types away. But the error message doesn't clear --

REMBRANDT
I don't like this -- they could be onto us,
sending other units --

Quinn nods grimly --

QUINN
Right.

Then Quinn suddenly yanks the Kromagg from the Humvee computer and throws him to the ground. He looms over the Kromagg solider -- and throws a kick into the soldier's face. The Kromagg's hands raise just in time to brunt the force of the kick -- but then Quinn kicks the Kromagg in the STOMACH -- in the HEAD --

And then Maggie grabs him by the shoulder. Quinn spins around. A moment of shock, but then his face becomes stoic and he steps away from the fallen Kromagg, moving back towards the Humvee --

QUINN
(calm)
Colin! Maggie! Everybody on board!
We're getting out of here.

And he moves towards the driver's seat, this loss of control abruptly buried.

Tom and Cory didn't understand: why does the Kromagg soldier follow Quinn's instructions to pull up prisoner files? The only way to make this scene work is for Quinn to be absolutely terrifying, so enraged, so out of control that no sane person would be able to refuse him anything.

Jerry failed to play this scene correctly or apply any additional characterization to the words, resulting in a massive plot hole. One might say that that's the writer's fault -- but it's an actor's job to make the material come alive.

A subsequent scene also has a strange moment where a Kromagg says of the sliders:

KREESHAX
We were ordered not to detain them, but
things have changed. They are now
considered to be extremely dangerous
and to be taken down by whatever means
necessary.

Why do the Kromaggs suddenly want the sliders dead? And if there's now a kill-order on the sliders, why doesn't Korindos shoot them all at the end?

The answer I suggest: in "Mother and Child," the sliders went to Outpost 71 -- Christina's world on which a deadly anti-Kromagg virus was released into the atmosphere. Travel to Outpost 71 is a Kromagg capital crime as the Kromaggs are trying to contain the virus. The sliders going to Outpost 71 overrode the protective order and called for their deaths.

As far as the Dynasty's concerned, the chance of reclaiming Kromagg Prime isn't worth the risk of the sliders getting the virus.

This is clearly not the writer's intention. If it were, the line would be adjusted to: "We were ordered not to detain them, but they have travelled to Outpost 71. The protective order is countermanded; they are now considered to be extremely dangerous and to be taken down by whatever means necessary."

It explains why Korindos doesn't shoot all the sliders the second he has the antidote and the baby. If the Dynasty has a cure for the anti-Kromagg virus, then Outpost 71 will no longer under Kromagg quarantine and the Kromagg Prime plot is back in play. Korindos is risking execution by travelling to Outpost 71; he can get away with it by producing the antidote, but the Dynasty won't excuse Korindos for torpedoing their intentions to use Quinn as their unwitting agent if the antidote eliminates the risk. Tom's explanation is fine for a scene here and there, but my explanation covers everything -- because I'm an obsessive lunatic and Tom is comparatively normal.

Anyway. With the above revisions, we now have an episode entering dangerous territory; the sliders have no protection from Kromaggs on Outpost 71, Quinn is emotionally self-destructing -- and I would end Quinn's character arc in "Mother and Child" with the following sequence -- again, this is taken from the script, no dialogue altered, just the direction for the actors:

EXT. BACKYWARD - DAY
Korindos, holding the baby and the laser gun, backs into the yard. The sliders, Jonathan and Christina follow, held at bay by the gun.

Korindos hits a switch on his belt. Activating a VORTEX that opens behinds him. He starts backing towards the open vortex --

We see Quinn's watching this with icy fury, his mouth tight, his fists clenched --

But it's JONATHAN who CHARGES at Korindos. Korindos FIRES the laser pistol -- Jonathan takes a hit in the chest and KEEPS GOING. Korindos tries to leap into the vortex, but Jonathan GRABS Korindos BY HIS BIOHAZARD SUIT and pulls him back. Korindos SHOOTS Jonathan again, but Jonathan grips the suit tight, his body shielding the sliders from Korindos' gun --

And the sliders RUSH forward. All of them tag-teaming Korindos. Quinn grabs Korindos by the shoulder. Rembrandt grabs Korindos' gun-arm. Colin wrests the gun from Korindos' hand. Maggie GRABS CHRISTINA'S BABY and pulls the child away --

And then Quinn pounces on Korindos. His face is crazed with rage -- he shoves a knee straight into Korindos' stomach. Korindos gags --

Quinn grabs Korindos by the suit, then forces him backwards, farther from the sliders. He KICKS Korindos' legs out from under him. The Kromagg falls. And a split-second after Korindos' back has hit the ground, Quinn drops right on top of him, pinning the Kromagg. The disarmed commander looks up at Quinn from within his helmet. Smug even in defeat.

KORINDOS
You can't win.

Even lying flat on his back, Korindos expresses dismissive contempt.

KORINDOS
You must know that --

And then Quinn's face shows DEMENTED HATRED --

QUINN
(spitting out the words)
No! I don't know that! You see --

Quinn raises his arms, wrapping one hand around a fist and swings down STRAIGHT INTO KORINDOS' throat.

QUINN
(screaming)
I'm only human -- !!!

And then whatever he says next is lost in howling fury. It's impossible to make out Quinn's words -- it could be noise, it could be Wade's name -- he SHRIEKS with uncontrolled anger as he drives his fists into the fallen Kromagg over and over again -- you can't tell if he's shouting or crying --

From a distance, Maggie is pressing the baby into Christina's arms and then looks at Quinn's frenzied assault. She's horrified. Rembrandt and Colin are stunned but frozen --

And we go back to Quinn. He strikes Korindos in the throat once more and then stops for a moment. Seething. Shaking.

Inside the suit, Korindos has coughed up enough blood to smear the helmet visor. He's beaten and helpless. But Quinn looks down at this Kromagg, seeing Christina's rapist, Wade's captor --

And then Quinn notes the breathing hose in the front of the suit. Protecting Korindos from the lethal virus in the air of this Earth. And Quinn reaches for the hose, grips it and PULLS. The hose is TIGHTLY inserted, it resists Quinn's hand -- Korindos' mouth forms a plea for mercy --

And Quinn TEARS THE HOSE from the suit.

Korindos' face tightens into a rictus of agony. His body seizes. Convulses. From inside the suit, there's the sound of choked inhalation as Korindos struggles to breathe air that's poisoning him. And Quinn watches as Korindos unleashes a terrible, shuddering, gagging noise and is silent and still.

Quinn looks away -- looking backwards, looking at Rembrandt, at Maggie, at Colin and Christina. Horror and regret in his eyes, his body still shaking with rage -- and the sliders look at Quinn with sadness and pity.

And then Jonathan lets out a gasp. Christina runs to her fallen father, holding her child in his arms. Jonathan's eyes show the life fading from him. He looks at his daughter and grandson one last time.

JONATHAN
Take good care of him.

CHRISTINA
Oh, Daddy --

JONATHAN
Don't cry, love. Don't cry...

Christina holds the baby up so Jonathan can see him.

CHRISTINA
He has a name now. Jonathan.
After you.

But Jonathan is gone.

And Christina weeps over her father's body while Quinn remains on top of the helpless, disarmed and defeated soldier he just murdered in a fit of rage.

FADE TO:

EXT. GRIFFIN HOUSE

Colin, Maggie and Rembrandt come out of the house. Christina and the baby are with them. Quinn is standing on the grass, gazing off into the distance. Blank and lost. He can hear them coming behind him.

Quinn, not looking at Christina, addresses her.

QUINN
You know, there's no guarantee
where we'll go. We could slide
right into a Kromagg war or
some other madness --

He trails off on the last word. Madness.

CHRISTINA
There's nothing for me here.
(indicating her child)
Or for him.

Quinn finally turns. He looks at the child. The infant born from an act of violence and violation. And he looks at Christina. She cradles the child, gentle and caring. She was raped. But now she's here. Alive. Intact. Kind and loving.

There's a flicker of hope in Quinn's face. For himself. For Wade. He nods to Christina. He will take her to a new world and a new beginning.

Bible Believers Missionary Baptist Church in Lakewood CA

http://www.biblebelieversmbc.org/meet-the-pastor

Well, this is embarrassing. I have not been looking at my private messages on this forum. I will from now on.

I have been a bad moderator. As punishment, I shall watch "Data World." And also because -- I have to. I'll respond to the PMs tomorrow.

It doesn't even have to be a clone, just a real Colin brainwashed like Rembrandt and/or Rembrandt's dad. This allows for doubles while keeping the arc intact. It also removes the incredulous idea that the Kromaggs can clone humans but can't seem to do the same for Kromaggs!

Well, let me ask you this: what's a bigger priority for a Dynasty that can't have children? Solve that problem, build a series of breeding camps to create half Kromagg, half human children (ensuring the Dynasty's extinction in 2-4 generations), or master the cloning of human beings?

I suspect the problem is this: when Marc Scott Zicree laid down the Colin-clone plot, there was no concept for the Kromaggs being essentially sterilized. Then "Genesis" sent Wade to a rape camp and Zicree frantically suggested that the Kromaggs needed rape camps because they were otherwise unable to reproduce and continue their race, which contradicted the idea that Kromaggs could create clones. The Colin-double did not curtail the idea that Colin was a clone; the "Lipschitz Live" Colin could have also been a clone -- a test subject to see if the human behavioural conditioning would allow a clone to function among other humans.

Another thought on the confusing nature of McArthur Mallory being Colin's stepfather yet having the same last name -- maybe he's a cousin or brother or some other relative of Michael Mallory, whom Amanda Mallory fell for and married after Michael's death. It happens.

Tom took issue with the Earth Prime review where Lloyd Quinto, writing as a Kromagg, declares that he loved "Mother and Child" and also loved Wade Welles several times a day for months on end. To me, that is a clear critique and condemnation of David Peckinpah, "Genesis" and Kari Wuhrer. Kari Wuhrer, when asked how Sabrina would be written out, replied -- and I quote -- "With some humour! You see, she's good breeding stock!" Peckinpah also thought it was hilarious and would upset Sabrina Lloyd. Quinto's review shows how unacceptable such humour is; rape is not a laughing matter, it's not a situation that can be raised and forgotten; it haunts and lingers and is forever present. The review started out as an amusing piece of Kromagg propaganda, so transparently delusional and deceitful that it's funny -- only for the fun to be revealed as sickening and poisonous. The fact that Tom reacted the way he did is a credit to the writing.

By the way, I am really short on behind the scenes info for "Data World," but Kari Wuhrer keeps grabbing her breasts throughout the episode. I theorize that her implants leaked during this episode and were causing soreness and pain. Having little else to discuss, I am going to supply Tom and Cory with enough information to perform an oral history of Kari Wuhrer's breasts and their relevance to commodification and objectification of women in visual media. (Not that they'll be obligated to do it.)

Yeowch, poor Kari. That sounds like a horrible experience and... really just sums up the whole clusterfuck of expectations on women in the media, yeah. :(

Your use of "oral history" is not lost on me.

Unfortunately.

That is really sad and awful.

And yeah, I'd in no way meant to imply that Kari was trading sex. Just that the wording was (deliberately, I thought) slightly amusing.

But yeah, I have to agree. Like I've said before, I can hardly blame Kari; the pressures of the media and the abuses of the entertainment industry, among other things, are to blame for what she went through, all of which should never have happened.

I don't think there are many - if any - talentless bimbos in the world, really. Just an awful lot of people who want to see them, and people desperate enough or naive enough or lacking in self-esteem enough to fill the role.

Loved this week's episode - I was definitely curious to hear the exclusive scoop information on "Net Worth", and you three didn't disappoint! The episode would've been so much better that way, I think we can all agree.

I hope you'll be sharing your script with us all soon. What might have been... as Cory and Tom said, that does seem like such a popular Sliders-fan refrain, doesn't it?

Aw, dangit. Well, I'll look forward to the rewrite, in that case! I'm sure the extra time and effort will be well spent.

Seriously. The beauty of Sliders at its best was that it could make fine comedy, drama, and character development out of some pretty silly plots. I'm confident you can give this one the polishing it deserves.

Behind the Scenes Information Courtesy of Temporal Flux

I'll have the "Net Worth" redux screenplay finished in 3 - 4 days or so.

Compiling behind the scenes info on "Net Worth" was one of the most confusing experiences of my time ever since I declared myself the Sliders Rewatch researcher. Matt says that I went insane on "Mother and Child," but "Net Worth" was just weird. Back in 1999/2000, I angsted to Temporal Flux about how Wade never seemed to be a big priority and how surely she should have come up in conversation during "Net Worth" with the gang talking about old girlfriends. TF said that he'd heard "Net Worth" had originally been a Season 3 script, "Onliners," featuring Quinn and Wade doubles in an Internet fuelled ROMEO AND JULIET love story. An episode with this title had appeared on a largely accurate preliminary list of Season 3 episodes. TF believed the script had been shelved due to John Rhys-Davies' firing. It was retooled into "Net Worth" for Season 4.

When writing the notes for "Net Worth," I was reviewing the script and episode for deleted scenes. And I was struck by how scene after scene, moment after moment -- in fact, even some of the dialogue -- would only make sense if Maggie and Rick and Joanne were actually Wade, Quinn-2 and Wade-2. The most striking moment: when Joanne angsts to Maggie, "He wants to get to know me! There's no me to know!" and Maggie replies with total certainty, "Oh yes there is" despite having met Joanne exactly one scene previous (two in the script). The only way that scene could possibly work is if it's Wade asserting that Wade-2 does have an identity. There were plenty of other scenes with this problem too, and I wrote out a detailed examination of how Sabrina playing Wade-2/Joanne would have added a lot of depth to the story. I wrote up the notes and sent them off.

Matt glanced over my notes and promptly blew them to hell. "You spin a fine tale," said Matt, "but it's all horseshit." Matt had been in touch with Steve Stoliar, writer of "Net Worth." Stoliar said: "It's hard for me to remember the circumstances that led up to each script I've written for various shows, but I don't recall 'Net Worth' starting out as anything else or ending up as anything other than what it was in terms of which season and which characters were focused on."

Matt had also met with Season 3 producer Paul Jackson at one point, and Jackson had listed the scripts that had been reworked post-Arturo: "Sole Survivors," "The Breeder" and "The Other Slide of Darkness" -- and Paul had never heard of "Onliners" or any story like it being set aside due to John Rhys-Davies getting fired.

At this point, it was looking like TF was wrong and there had never been an "Onliners." Except Matt and I both noticed: "Onliners" shows up in Tracy Torme's November 1996 notes on Season 3. "More Quinn and Wade stuff; Onliners comic." However, Torme had no memory of what "Onliners" had been. The fact that he'd considered it as a comic, however, made it expressly clear: whatever "Onliners" had been, it had not been shelved due to John's departure.

The notes were dated November 1996, well before "The Exodus," and Torme had left SLIDERS very early in Season 3. Furthermore, all of Tracy's comic ideas were based on episodes that had been pitched or written but never filmed. Torme must have seen "Onliners" pitched, liked it, known that it wouldn't be filmed, but imagined it having a second life at Acclaim Comics.

Around here, Temporal Flux got back in touch. When we'd talked about "Net Worth" in 1999/2000, he had believed that "Onliners" was a script. Since then, he'd tried to locate a draft but come up empty -- and he believed it was because there was no script to find. "Onliners," TF now thinks, was at most a pitch, possibly written, but more likely pitched in the context of a conversation.

TF does think that Steve Stoliar did pitch "Onliners" Season 3 and I think that's likely; "Onliners" uses a term from "Net Worth" as the title and its concept of an Internet-fuelled ROMEO AND JULIET love story is too similar to "Net Worth" to be unrelated. Also, Stoliar was a personal friend of David Peckinpah's and leveraged that relationship to write "Paradise Lost" for Season 3 and "A Current Affair" for Season 5. Why didn't he remember? It's been over 17 years and Stoliar has written, directed and produced many projects since then. He's forgotten.

Torme would have been present for the "Onliners"' pitch for it to appear in his notes; I would speculate that Torme knew "Onliners" wouldn't make it to air in Season 3 because it didn't have any monsters in it and while Torme liked "Onliners" and would have liked to champion it, he may have been slightly preoccupied with watching his father slowly die and understandably didn't give a crap.

When Season 4 came, Stoliar re-pitched his concept, this time successfully -- but when writing the script, he no longer had the Quinn and Wade pairing to use as an entry point and a mirror within his story.

As Tom put it in the podcast, on some level, it doesn't matter if Sabrina Lloyd were originally meant to play Joanne's role in "Net Worth" or not -- because in either scenario, "Net Worth" has a giant gaping Sabrina Lloyd shaped hole in its story. Rick and Joanne are strangers to the audience; "Net Worth" is burdened with trying to construct a moving romance on the spot. It's a burden that "Net Worth" should not have had to bear.

If Sabrina Lloyd had still been on the show, it would have been insane to create Rick and Joanne and also completely unnecessary. Stoliar would have been able to use Quinn-2 and Wade-2 far more effectively than any original guest-star because the romantic tension and underlying relationship would already be in place, having been established simply via Jerry O'Connell and Sabrina Lloyd having been in many, many, many episodes of SLIDERS together. Stoliar would have been able to take that audience investment for granted rather than needing to earn it and failing to do so.

And it goes back to my overall opinion of SLIDERS; this show was a very carefully designed storytelling engine where each original character played a vital and critical role, and removing any one of them was catastrophic and disastrous and made it very difficult and often impossible to tell SLIDERS stories properly.

Anyway. We'll have "Net Worth: The Quinn and Wade Edition" in 3 - 4 days' time. Stoliar's script was *extremely* short on description; it needs to be added.

I'm not much of a music person. The only music I've felt compelled to seek out in the last 15 years is Garfunkel and Oates.

I should be asleep, but I got caught up in reading Steve Stoliar's memoirs about his time as Groucho Marx's administrative assistant. It's pretty messed up stuff. It makes you understand the kind of twisted mind that not only wrote "Paradise Lost" but successfully sold it. Interestingly, there's a small portion devoted to how Stoliar responded to Marx's fan mail for him and began engaging in correspondence with a lady pen-pal, Diane, with whom the letters became romantic and lead to a relationship.

Season 4 producer and Season 5 showrunner Bill Dial also makes a few appearances as someone Stoliar worked for as an assistant.

As the episodes get worse, clearly we loop back around to re-deconstructing the earlier episodes. Thoughts on the Pilot, anyone?

Actualy, speaking of the Pilot, that'd be an interesting thing for Tom and Cory to tackle. Not the Pilot itself per se, but the novel that was based on it. It's very faithful to the show for the most part, but with some interesting differences. I actually enjoyed it a lot, in that cheesy 90s tie-in novel way, although I could have done without trigger-happy Wade and descriptions of Alt-turo's sexual dalliances.

There was a review of it on YouTube recently, but it didn't really go into any deconstruction, just gave a synopsis of the story. I was kind of disappointed.

I'd like to see this JRD interview. And for that matter, I'm really curious about Jerry's sudden Sliders fixation.

Behind the Scenes Information Courtesy of Temporal Flux

When rewatching "The Chasm" -- I noticed it has a similar storyline to "New Gods for Old," which was originally a Season 4 episode where the sliders, one-by-one, fall prey to a force that controls their emotional states and minds -- first it's Quinn, then Rembrandt, then Maggie -- and then it's left to Colin to save the sliders. This script was eventually retooled for Season 5, but that chain of events is surprisingly similar to "The Chasm" -- Quinn, then Rembrandt, then Maggie -- and Colin is the only one left.

Coincidence?

Great!!

I've only listened to "Data World"'s segment so far. It's great!

I felt that I didn't have a lot on "Data World," so I gave Tom and Cory the secret history of Kari Wuhrer's breasts. But, to my delight and amazement, the boys mined the deleted scenes material for a ton of insight! Fantastic. Here are the full notes I gave Tom and Cory for this episode.

• This episode was written by Joel Metzger and directed by Jerry O'Connell.

• Reading the script, it's clear this was meant to be a parody of video games that was not adequately realized onscreen, although there were plenty of problems with the story even before the budgeting issues.

• During this episode, Kari Wuhrer, when playing the reconstituted Maggie, grabs her breasts to convey her relief at being in her own body.

• According to Temporal Flux of the Dimension of Continuity, Cleavant spotted this and mercilessly mocked Kari throughout the filming of his scenes as Maggie-in-Rembrandt's body.

• During numerous takes, he would come up with different ad-libbed lines to express Maggie's horror at being in Rembrandt's body, including "Eeeeeeeeeeeek! I'm black!" and "Nooooooooooooooooooo!" (grabbing his chest) "Do you know how much these things cost?!!"

• According to Temporal Flux, Cleavant and Kari did not get along well in Season 3. You can actually see this in "This Slide of Paradise" in the opening teaser; Cleavant is struggling to make it to shore in the water, Kari Wuhrer reaches out to help him and Cleavant knocks her hand away.

• By Season 4, however, Cleavant and Kari had started to get along much better. You can see more comfort in their physical interaction and Kari laughing with Cleavant. TF is not sure what changed.

• In 2000, Matt Hutaff of Earth Prime met Cleavant at a CD signing. They talked for several hours.

• (Matt wishes to inform us that his name is pronounced You-Taff with a silent H).

• Matt learned that Cleavant was friends with David Peckinpah. Cleavant and his wife and kids would have family evenings with the Peckinpah family.

• Temporal Flux is of the opinion that this was a business relationship; Cleavant used Peckinpah's influence to achieve his goals as Peckinpah, for all his faults, had a lot of connections.

• Matt disagrees, feeling that Cleavant simply found something good in Peckinpah to appreciate and befriend. God knows what it was, but he found something. And he did the same with Kari.

• Therefore, I am inclined to think that Kari was okay with people making fun of her breast implants and that this was something she and Cleavant had between them.

• However, Kari grabbing her breasts in this episode seems to be a prelude to "Way Out West" where she repeatedly grabs her breasts throughout that episode, as though she's experiencing pain and soreness.

• Breast augmentations are never a single operation; they are the start of a lifetime of surgical adjustments and upkeep.

• Breast implants can tear, harden, leak and get infected. Kari, during "Data World" and "Way out West," may have been experiencing increased sensitivity of sensory nerves or a capsular contracture where the implant tightens due to scar tissue hardening. This is treated with medication to soften the scar tissue or surgically removing the tissue.

• Kari got the surgery in 1989. This was due to the urging of her music producer at the time, Rick Rubin.

• Rubin, working with her on an album, had less interest in her music than he did in her appearance and image for marketing -- he told her it would be best if her breasts were visible even from behind.

• Kari eventually dissolved her association with Rubin and music went on the backburner as she pursued acting. Her implants were getting her a lot of acting offers for direct-to-video softcore porn.

• Kari accepted all these offers because they paid a lot for very short shoots.

• While there is little data on her surgical situation between 1989 and 2000, it is unlikely -- in fact, it is impossible -- for Kari to not have had various problems that required further medical attention and adjustments. That's simply the nature of this kind of surgery.

• I believe Kari grew to despise her body and the work she got in exchange for nudity.

• According to TF: when "The Exodus" was about to film, Maggie Beckett had yet to be cast even when it was the day before filming was to begin.

• Alan Barnette suddenly burst into the SLIDERS production office, exclaiming, "Check out the tits on this one!" He held up a photo of Kari and she was hired immediately.

• Crew members informed Temporal Flux that Alan Barnette was constantly commenting on Kari's breasts.

• Matt recently sent me a box of the Sci-Fi Channel's press files. I found a 1999 interview with Kari Wuhrer.

• In the 1999 interview, Kari confessed that she was abusive towards Sabrina Lloyd because she was jealous; she was jealous that Sabrina inspired respect for her talent while Kari was simply a masturbatory object to her hirers.

• In later interviews, Kari confessed that her breasts embarrassed her and when she was with men, she asked them not to touch her there.

• In 2000, Kari got her implants removed and replaced with smaller sized implants.

• In 2002, Kari woke up one morning preparing to shoot a sex scene for THE SPIDER's WEB and discovered her right breast implant had encapsulated -- the implant had hardened, pushing her right breast upward and making her nipple point downward. She looked deformed and lopsided.

• The director and actor were sympathetic and helped her film the scene with the right breast obscured from the camera.

• Embarrassed, Kari decided there and then that she would get the implants removed.

• Afterwards, Kari found difficulty acquiring the sex-driven movie roles she'd found before and found work in a soap opera, GENERAL HOSPITAL, in 2006.

• When she got pregnant and gained weight, GENERAL HOSPITAL fired her. Kari sued them. The case was settled out of court.

• Meanwhile, Sabrina Lloyd went back to college (Columbia University in New York), adopted a little girl from Uganda, seems to be moving between Rome and Uganda and seems pretty happy.

Behind the Scenes Information Courtesy of Temporal Flux

ME: "I think it'll be done by -- "
MATT: "STOP GIVING DATES BY WHICH YOU THINK YOU'LL BE DONE JUST RELEASE IT WHEN YOU'RE READY AND SHUT UP ABOUT IT."
ME: " ............................................................. yeah, you're right."

I don't know what happened this past weekend. I remember finishing the find and replace work and formatting, taking a short break to review "My Brother's Keeper" and "The Chasm" and got totally caught up in re-reading Slide It Yourself. Then I got my mother a new smartphone but had to set it up and suddenly it was Monday. Is that really what I did on the weekend?

Recently, I wrote to Nigel Mitchell, asking if he'd write a Christmas SLIDERS story.

NIGEL: "I don't celebrate Christmas."
ME: "Holy crap. You don't celebrate Christmas? You don't believe in the holidays? That is so weird! Because neither do I. I thought I was the only one in the world."
NIGEL: "There are more of us than you might think."

But I do treat Christmas as a series of statutory holidays during which I do all the stuff I didn't have time to do before such as transcribing articles, writing screenplays and maintaining IT in the home.

To be accurate -- that exchange had nothing to do with the "Net Worth" redux. Matt was chastising me for giving release dates for SLIDERS REBORN in advance, especially when I kept blowing them due to professional responsibilities and narrative issues that I needed to bring to Matt to resolve. (ME: "I've made a mistake. I've put the sliders in a situation I can't resolve. If the doomsday clocks are scattered across billions of parallel Earths, while would confiscating three Earths' worth stop the destruction of all reality?" MATT: "Let's think big to small -- can the clocks just be on three Earths?")

Anyway. I've reviewed my weekend activities. I got side-tracked by reading Slide It Yourself. I guess -- I was so short on information for "My Brother's Keeper" that I decided to read all the Slide It Yourself story discussions and beat sheets in order to offer the Sliders Rewatch a full account and I got completely swept away by some of the bizarre exchanges. (REALMKEEPER: "What if Mallory were to meet a double who is still in the wheelchair and Mallory has to confront his former disability?" OTHER POSTER: "That's a great idea! And what if Mallory-2 is evil and trying to steal the timer and he's only faking being crippled?")

So, Maggie's singing. I don't get it. When has Maggie ever been portrayed as someone with a penchant for musical performance? Were there a lot of karaoke nights on that military base? Yes, Kari is a singer -- but why is Maggie a singer? And, as Tom and Cory noted, why is Maggie being portrayed as someone who shrinks from a fight in "Data World"? And why was Maggie telling Rembrandt, "You're the man, act like it" in "Lipschitz Live?"

We have with "Way Out West" a script by Chris Black, who seems to be obsessed with Maggie's character. Every script he ever writes for SLIDERS in Seasons 4 - 5 are Maggie centric: "Common Ground" focuses on Maggie and Kromanus, "The Alternateville Horror" lavishes attention on the Maggie-double and Maggie's horrified reaction, "Slide By Wire" is a Maggie episode, "Way Out West" has Maggie in the lead role for half the story. Except -- looking at his work, I must come the the conclusion that Chris Black isn't interested in exploring Maggie. He's interested in giving Kari Wuhrer things to do because he enjoys her work, so she gets to face off against Kromaggs, play double roles and sing.

The end result is that there is no Maggie, there's simply a role where different aspects of Kari's skills are fed into a script. None of it adds up to a coherent character. In-universe, Maggie is a former spy and fighter pilot, but the fact that she's a military agent and soldier only occasionally informs her character. This is a Marine who cowers in a fight, defers to men in conflict, performs skillfully as a lounge singer, goes from having no human resource skills in Season 3 (what kind of spy is so incapable of getting along with people?) to being a random mess of characteristics in Season 4.

The only way to justify any of this onscreen material is if Maggie isn't actually a former spy, soldier and Pilot, but instead a Hollywood MTV hostess turned actress who somehow ended up a slider and has some fighting skills from training for roles but has little real combat experience -- and in "The Exodus," she was just job shadowing for a role but somehow got mixed up with the real Maggie Beckett in the confusion of the pulsar.

Oddly, however -- Chris Black could have sorted this out. I think the key to reconciling all this would be to highlight how Maggie was once a spy. As a female spy, playing the seductress and the harmless female would be essential. The breast implants could be something she did to make it easier to make men dismiss her or to make her more convincing in her various cover roles. The trauma of Steven's death in Season 3 caused a split personality that resolved itself during the time she slid alone with Quinn. The singing? It's from one of the undercover roles she performed on a spy mission. The cowering from fights? The truth is that much of Maggie's work was tricking people out of information; she's been combat trained but she rarely had to fight or kill anyone in the field. Maggie is constantly being written as a skin for Kari Wuhrer the actress; maybe it could've been restructured into Maggie Beckett the espionage agent.

Las Vegas is only about 270 miles from LA, well within range of the timer.

First Sliders episode of the year is in the feed now! We discuss "My Brother's Keeper" and "The Chasm"

http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 3_51-08_00

Sorry for the delay on the "Net Worth" script. I thought I would have a lot of free time during the holidays. I was wrong. And there have been some other changes in my life. I've come to realize that I won't ever be able to do the marathon approach on fanfic anymore, so instead, I just devote 30 minutes to an hour to it when I can each day and it'll get done eventually. Same with REBORN, which will be released in 2016 -- it just won't be January 2016.

I was really not expecting to have so many people request my company during the holidays, and their activities would run really late and the time I thought I'd spend doing nothing but writing, I instead spent sleeping or putting in appearances. It was really nice, but not as productive as I'd hoped.

If you want a progress report -- I am currently thirty per cent finished with the beat sheet for the last SLIDERS REBORN script (doing all my research in advance this time) and for "Net Worth" -- I finished rewriting the scenes in Joanne's apartment where I worked in a new explanation for what a digijob is and why Joanne/Wade-2 wanted to see Rick/Quinn-2 before she got 'cabled' as well as explanations for how this world has food and maintenance and raw materials and manufacturing of technological goods and other items.

The reason I thought I would have this sooner -- originally, I was just going to post my notes on what I thought "Net Worth" might have been, but then thought a script would be more fun and easy to do as it'd just be find and replace. Then Cory and Tom punched so many holes through "Net Worth" and I couldn't bring myself to post the script as-is.

Here are my notes on "My Brother's Keeper":

• In a rare development, all the trivia for this episode comes from me.

• This episode was written by Doug Molitor.

• Very interesting man: he was a 1987 JEOPARDY contestant who won four times and competed in the championship for that year.

• He also wrote for tons of shows: POLICE ACADEMY, HE-MAN, NINJA TURTLES, JAMES BOND JR., BILL AND TED, BEETLEJUICE, FREE WILLY, SINBAD THE SAILOR, CARMEN SANDIEGO, X-MEN EVOLUTION -- a lot of children's TV and animation.

• He is also one of the most despised people in SLIDERS fandom, although not for this episode, which was generally considered to be okay.

• In 1999, Sci-Fi held an online contest: Slide It Yourself. This was a contest where fans could submit ideas for a SLIDERS episode.

• Ten ideas would be chosen to be developed into a beat sheet and three ideas would be chosen to be developed into a script.

• The prize for being the best script, as decided by the judges, would be a series finale script autographed by Cleavant Derricks and a leather jacket worn by either Cleavant or Tembi Locke and signed by the star who wore it. SCIFI.COM T-shirts would also be awarded for the top three ideas chosen to be developed into scripts.

• Doug Molitor would be the one choosing the ideas to be made into beat sheets and the beat sheets to be turned into scripts. His credentials were his extensive TV writing experience and his one episode of SLIDERS. The other judge was someone named Patrice Wright who, from what I can tell, wrote for the Sci-Fi Channel's web content division.

• The Slide It Yourself contest is considered by SLIDERS fandom to be a complete and utter disaster.

• The first problem was in Stage 1: pitching brief ideas. There was a lot of blatant plagiarism: Temporal Flux of DoC submitted five ideas and two of them were simply copied by other posters. There was absolutely no moderation done; none of the submissions were held in queue for initial review, so the submissions became a pile of incoherent posts.

• Molitor and Wright were clearly unable to fully review all these submissions.

• As a result, of the ten ideas chosen to be made into Stage 2 beat sheets, two were Temporal Flux's ideas but attributed to others. One was stolen wholesale, the other mutilated.

• Stage 2 made it very clear: Molitor and Wright had exercised poor judgement in several of their choices.

• Temporal Flux had proposed a superhero story that was misattributed to a plagiarist and a story about the majority of the population being mentally ill that had been copied and altered into a world where the majority of the population had low IQs and anyone with above average intelligence was lobotomized.

• How a modern civilization of idiots could function, measure intelligence or perform lobotomies was not explained.

• One pitch was that the sliders encounter a forest fire. That's it.

• Inexplicably, this bare idea with no sense of characterization or world-building was deemed worthy of being fleshed out.

• One pitch was about a world where no black people never invented any kind of technology, so this world had no potato chips or light bulbs or blood banks -- which suggests a fundamentally unworkable perspective on technological development.

• One pitch was about how it was illegal for anyone to not be part of a rock band. It's impossible to think that Molitor and Wright were reviewing these pitches with any thought to quality.

• That said, there were some neat ideas: one where Rembrandt is living the same day over and over again (derivative but intriguing), one where Rembrandt wakes up to discover time has been rewound to the Pilot (quite good), one where Y2K has crippled all technology and Diana's double is to blame, one where copyright law has run amok, and one where Mallory meets a double who is still in a wheelchair.

• Actor Robert Floyd made his one and only message board post to say he thought this last one was a cool idea.

• In Stage 2, each of the 10 ideas had a message board thread where any poster could post on the concepts, offering feedback and ideas. Chaos resulted; the poster who'd originated the idea found themselves deluged by opposing and unrelated story ideas.

• For example, Temporal Flux, who eventually got credit for his superhero concept, had conceived a story where the sliders visit an Earth where there is a superhero who fights crime.

• The sliders observe, however, that the superhero's powers are all vortex based; this superhero's superpowers are created through repurposed sliding technology and the sliders, in trying to learn more about the superhero's tech, accidentally get involved in a plot to destroy the hero.

• The hero's identity would never be revealed, but the story would heavily hint that it was Quinn Mallory under that mask.

• TF found himself buried in comments from posters suggesting that the superhero story be changed to remove the superhero, have Dr. Geiger in the Quinn role and to turn the story into a Kromagg invasion.

• Realmkeeper's idea for Mallory meeting a double who is still crippled was buried in bizarre recommendations such as Mallory-2 being an evil villain who was faking his paralysis and planning to take over the world and the idea that Mallory-2 be replaced with Dr. Geiger.

• Matt Hutaff's idea to have Rembrandt explore what his life would be if he'd never gone sliding was buried in bizarre proposals like a teaser where the sliders see a man fall off a building and find a timer on the corpse and to bring Dr. Geiger into the plot.

• Once again, there was no moderation on these threads, so the people who'd originated these ideas were not being permitted to lead the development of their ideas and the discussions were impenetrable and totally unproductive in fleshing out these story concepts.

• For Stage 3, Molitor and Wright selected posters from each thread and assigned them to 10 different teams, one for each idea, with the poster who'd originated the idea serving as the lead writer.

• This team arrangement made little to no sense for the stronger pitches (Mallory meets a crippled double, the sliders meet a superhero who uses sliding tech to fake his powers, Rembrandt discovers time's been rewound to the Pilot).

• The people who had originated these pitches were capable of completing their own stories; forcing eight people to write one story would only create an unreadable mess.

• The team arrangement was also deeply unhelpful for the weaker pitches where the lack of a strong premise meant a lack of strong leadership. The majority of the resulting beat sheets were an incoherent mess.

• The idea had been that Slide It Yourself would let contestants feel what it was like to write for television. But in television, you rarely have eight to nine people working on a single script and overruling each other; generally, a writer does a draft and may do additional drafts or may see their material rewritten by a story editor or another writer.

• To be fair, many of the pitch leaders were pleased with the beat sheets. Matt and Temporal Flux were happy with "Legacy" and "Opportunity Cost."

• But I'd argue that Matt Hutaff and Temporal Flux are perfectly capable of writing stories without having to fight through 7 - 8 people.

• For Stage 4, three ideas were chosen to be developed into scripts and compete for the first place prize.

• Quite inexplicably, the ideas chosen for Stage 4 were the one with a world where everyone has a low IQ, the one where black inventors don't exist and so neither do indoor toilets, and the one where anyone not in a rock band is breaking the law -- the three with obvious logical errors and historical impossibilities that are glaring even from a one-sentence summary.

• It is impossible to discern any meaningful standards of quality from Molitor and Wright regarding their selections for the Stage 4 scripts.

• I can only speculate that they were not being sufficiently compensated for the time needed to fully review all the beat sheets and discussions, and so chose the story ideas where there was the least in-fighting, even though the in-fighting resulted due to the uncontrolled and poorly organized nature of the contest where strong ideas were being diluted by unrelated concepts.

• The script set on a world where the vast majority of the population is stupid won first prize.

• I've never been able to identify any further writing from Patrice Wright or find any credits to her name, which fills me with relief.

• Doug Molitor went on to write numerous scripts for children's TV shows and one can only hope he never tried to teach screenwriting again as all of his students would have to spend years unlearning his lessons.

• The entire mess is archived here. https://web.archive.org/web/20021226003 … /siy.cgi/1