Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties (Page 2 of 12)

Who knows, maybe SyFy channel or Peacock would bite.  There was a time a few years ago, when everyone was trying to chase prestige tv and mimick AMC/USA's success.  Sliders was looked down upon, seen as hoaky.  Perhaps development execs will be warmer to the franchise given all their failures in trying to create new ones.  The biggest issue is just how big Sliders is?  Too cult?  Too many years ago?  Maybe, maybe not.

Sliders cost money to do right because it's based on the premise of a different world of the week.  If Tracy has an approach that is interesting enough from a character perspective, and a network/studio thinks programming can be done at a medium range, perhaps lower end of that, budget level then maybe we get to see the gang back together?

One thing is for sure.  Tracy has always been ahead of his time from a creative perspective.  He's never been given full runway as a creator to just go with his gut.  But the man can create something interesting to people, and that's not the case for every creator in hollywood who gets an opportunity.  So I hope he is given a chance to do Sliders again -- because maybe we'll get more storytelling that lasts the test of time, at least to some audience.

I think they spent a billion dollars on programming and made like 100-150m on it last year.  So they are in the hole significantly.  A lot of key execs actually lost their jobs. 

Point being, Peacock is gonna be very careful about what they put money into now, but they have seen some success with Girls5Eva and maybe a couple of other things.  Making peacock a success is important to  the future of the company (though there's  been some rumors they may have to throw in the towel and merge with another giant if they can't see a path with it).  Something like Sliders they'd really have to be convinced of to greenlight.  They already have streaming numbers of the library to make some assumptions on consumer interest on.  I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility they could give it a shot because it is so hard to create new shows/brands now. 

We just have to also appreciate they don't have a lot of ability to greenlight many originals.  Not many bets they can take so any of these decisions are big for them but they may say we'll give it a shot.  They of course did go for nostalgia with Saved by the Bell and Punky Brewster.  I am not sure how they'd assess the success of those bets.

But in any case, either Peacock or SyFy would be a great home for it.

perhaps.  however, we saw some of that on season 4&5.   I think the show benefits from having a lot of locations to utilize, but that drives up the cost.

back in 95, i think s1 was about 1.4m per episode. s2 and 3 about 1.2.  then with syfy it got to be 600-800k.

although I do agree tracy is such a talent, you could probably do something still interesting without many locations.

The leather jackets pretty much summed up those seasons!

There were some scripts however that could have played better with a bigger budget.  The universal lot looked like a lot, so many of the episodes looked the same.  It def. had an impact on quality imo.  That said, it was also Sci-Fi's no. 2 show... almost no. 1.

Parallels was a pilot shot for fox digital five or so years ago.  They filmed in a foreign location to help drive down cost and did some amazing thing with CGI.  I got the sense it was done for like 500k to 800k.  So there certainly are ways.  If the stars are willing to go to a less than desirable location. 

The thing is, whether Sliders comes back on a SyFy or a Peacock, you don't want to set the budget too high to the point where it is unprofitable (even nbc's manifest can't find a new home despite being no. 1 on netflix for example)... but  you also don't want to set it too low where (a) it's not a strong enough (standout enough) final product where it can't attract an audience beyond hardcore fans, and (b) fails to make the network or streamer an irreplaceable part of those viewers' lives.  Because that passion is what drives cable subscription fees to the network or in the case of premium, sign-up or audience retention.   

I still think it's more challenging to have a many-worlds show moreso stuck on a lot but you are right that tracy is very clever and might be able to go with more subtle differences in worlds to create interesting situations.

Thanks JWSlider3.

I mentioned this a while ago how it’s great to know Torme still cares about the show. Most show creators would have just moved on to another project and completely forgot about it, despite ending on a bad note. It’s very kind.

ireaction’s is right on the money in what ruined the budget in those later seasons. The historical reanactments are good. It would have been better if they didn’t spend all their money on those vehicle and action chases, and spent the whole season in the Chandler Hotel...and leather jackets.

I have a feeling that if Sliders returns, it will probably be on Netflix or some big streaming platform. I know NBCUniversal has the rights to it but let’s just hope that Fox doesn’t get their mitts on it again.

I also agree, Sliders doesn’t need to be a huge expensive show. Some episodes can be more expensive then others, but then it’s good to have low budget episodes like In Dino Verates sprinkled it.

Firstly, blasphema from ireactions!!!  TORONTO!?!?!  NEVER!  Vancouver all the way!  LOL

The budget should not be our concern.  The problem which Torme will have is the same one he dealt with 25+ years ago.  Will studio execs understand the concept?  Remember, TV critics swore Sliders was a time travel show, and FOX has no use for alternate history, eventually leading to lazy movie of the week crap.  Multiverse shows/movies have come and gone for many years now, and their longevity is not great.  Why?  Well, pretty simple, not a single one of them has featured the Lost in Space, Land of the Lost, Quantum Leap like format where your cast moves through the multiverse each week.  It's what's always baffled me, but they never do it.  I think a lot has to do with the way they wish to tell stories, to have that "anchor" in one reality.  The OA, Counterpart, Fringe, The Leftovers, Lost, Arrow/Flash, The Man In the High Castle.....they all feature that anchor like Star Trek has done with it's Mirror Universe.  It's old fashioned story telling.  Sliders is an adventure story that can reset every week.  I guess studios and writers hate this concept?  That makes absolutely no sense, because if you ask any actor or writer who worked on Sliders, they can only praise the format.

The one world thing each week is probably one of the best aspects of sliders. Clean cut storytelling. You go there, have a problem, get it fixed and then slide out. End of show. Yes, Sliders can reset itself each week but it can also have the opportunity to have on going story threads like Torme wanted to do with the bringing people along and the FBI agents thread.

I feel like studio execs will have a better time understanding the concept today then they did in 1995. Since then, there has been multiverse content on the air. I don’t think there wasn’t much of it in the 90s. Especially with Rick and Morty being very popular, I have a feeling Sliders will have a chance at being put on the air again.

In the 90's was probably its best chance for success, star trek tng and xfiles made Sci fi cool, Quantum Leap had been off the air just long enough people were looking for a substitute it was a easy sell quantum leap meets twighlight zone.  Fox was the only one having trouble, they put it in Friday, it delivered OK ratings, it actually had goid ratings in yr 1 after 90210, out performing the show it replaced party of 5, but po5 was the audience fox was after.

If xfiles hadn't exploded in that Friday night then the numbers sliders and millennium were delivering would of impressed fox more, tgif on ABC was a juggernaut that would take cbs stilling its best shows 4 years later to destroy.

Saying that,
So if this reboot was to happen, Quinn 1995, displaced lives of 4 people that outside of the professor were not established and even he didn't really ever bring up the fact that Quinn destroyed his career by him dissapearing with no notice from the University.

Saying that, if using original cast, I would assume trying to continue the original show to some extent, if the show just plays it as the team has been stuck on the same world for 29.7 years, how upset will the team be that he screwed with their lives again, so they could be old men sliders, going to dangerous places?

Of course the team could be stuck on a earth with limited resources and the better choice is to slide.

VR5 featured a hot blonde, Lori Singer, that was it's only appeal.  The show stunk.  A Sliders revival would initially have the benefit of that Lost in Space angle, where the cast becomes lost in the multiverse.  From there is the question, though, because if further seasons were ordered, the network/carrier is going to expect some kind of long-term, background story arc.  That's something Torme preferred not to do, and in fact we never saw that on the show until the chase of Rickman.

I suspect the simplest route for a SLIDERS revival that meets Torme's requirements: in 2021, a 48 year-old Quinn Mallory discovers sliding for the first time and on his first adventure, he brings along his ex-wife (Wade), his former teacher (Arturo), and an over-the-hill R&B musician-turned music teacher (Rembrandt). Old fans of the show understand that these are not the same people we met in 1995; they are doubles of the originals. New fans view them as new characters and get into the show on the ground floor. Temporal Flux suggested the older-doubles approach for a new pilot in 2000; Slider_Quinn21 suggested that the present-day ages could be continually updated in each hypothetical reboot concept -- and if Torme is insistent on the original cast, this ensures the absolute minimum of continuity confusion even if the original versions of the characters are left as they were in 2000.

It would be a great opportunity to ask about Sliders return.

JWSlider3

Well the stream never went live with Tracy. It's not like this Youtuber has only done a couple of interviews either. If anything changes I'll try to remember to update here.

The Youtuber said there were issues on both ends and is going to reschedule.

It's a very effeciant solution. The only problem is, the original ones are left behind on a damper since there wasn't an explaination for them. But that's okay! We can use our current explaination for that in whatever fanfiction stories you write can be your new ending!

It all depends on what form a return takes.  If it's a streaming series, then yes, the format is kind of set, where you introduce, and build an arc that usually results in a major cliffhanger.

I think that if the original cast return to play doubles of the characters we met in 1995, there could also be comic books or audioplays to address the original characters and wrap up those storylines properly.

I'd say a proper wrap-up would resurrect Quinn, Wade and Rembrandt, reunite them with Arturo and get them safely home and to undo the Kromagg invasion and the Kromagg Prime backstory and that... thing with the forced Humagg progenitors that I wish I could forget.

I meant there could be a proper wrap-up to the 1995 - 2000 series in spin-off media like a comic book, an audioplay, a novel, a puppet show, a popup picture book or a dramatization with fruit salad figurines.

The Tracy Tormé interview I mentioned by Cardinal Sin was rescheduled to this Monday 7/12/21 at 8pm EST:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq_iXGXZGdc

The Sliders discussion begins around 1:04:03 https://youtu.be/Qq_iXGXZGdc

Actually they talk Sliders a bit around 42 mins in for like 7 mins.  The host Cardinal Sin was ROUGH.  Interrupting Tracy mid-thought over and over.  Tracy lamented that he gave up on various projects too quickly when rejected, and moved on, and felt he should have fought harder to get some of them off the ground. 

The main host is clearly displeased with DSC/PIC "ideology" but Tracy said he was going to write a script for Picard, which would have been a new Dixon Hill story.  He said he conceived a love story between Picard and a young black woman, but that he realized it wouldn't work.  Jonathan Frakes reminded Tracy that Patrick Stewart was now in his 80's, and a romance with a 30-year old wouldn't quite work!  Torme also says that industry people warned him to stay away from Picard, whatever that means.  I have to assume he may have been speaking of season 2 pre-production. 

Says he's still amazed by Sliders fans, and their continued support, loves hearing from them still.  Then went into Peckinpah, repeating his "too cerebral" infamous comment, that Fox made.  Says he left the show after writing his favorite episode, The Guardian, and being told by Peck, "That's exactly the kind of show we're not going to be doing anymore."  Gabbed about Marc Scott Zicree, asked them for his contact info, always liked him. 

Also has some cool Patrick McGoohan/Jonathan Harris/Bob Dylan stories.

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Talks to Cleavant all the time, can't imagine it without Jerry, and talked to JRD about it.  Imagines original cast with new ones.  Said this is being actively worked on.  Said everyone is hyper reactive on politics, and feels it's much worse now.  Threw ideas out, people told him NO you can't do that!  Struggle is not to be PC and safe.  He was literally about to mention Peacock network and his connection dropped, and of course these awful hosts didn't bother asking him again.  Almost sounded like they spoke to them but there was some reason they won't be a likely pairing, but again, who knows?

Of course, though I have to say he might simply be too much of a Hollywood "dinosaur" to get this off the ground.  Certainly not Tracy's fault, but the landscape has totally shifted.

If Peacock won't do it, then SyFy Network should do it.  That would be awesome, especially because their programming is linear and it would be fun to get a roll out weekly rather than a binge in one day sorta thing.

I soooo want to see these updates!

Maybe the CW? I mean it's the home of Supernatural. (They even got away with Scooby-Doo and Supernatural crossover.)

I feel like it might be kind of cringeworthy on CW. I think personally it should go on a streaming network like Netflix or Amazon or Peacock.

And to add on to Ib’s note from earlier. I’ve seen people on Reddit say they would like to see a follow up to the Seer. I don’t think Torme is going to do that. He hasn’t seen seasons 4 and 5 and what he saw of season 3 after he left, he was highly critical of. I feel like if there is any sort of explaination it will be that these are the sliders we met in 1995 and somehow down the line, we started following the wrong ones. Either that or a show focusing on a different set of sliders entirely.

CW has a history of bringing legacy actors onto a series.  Annette O’Toole had a supporting role on Smallville, and Christopher Reeve had a guest spot.  John Wesley Shipp, Helen Slater, Dean Cain and Teri Hatcher had recurring roles on the Arrowverse shows.

So it’s possible, but I couldn’t see Jerry or JRD as the stars. They would be supporting actors.  To be honest, I’m starting to wonder if Jerry would even have time to be the star of Sliders.  Jerry is now hosting The Talk, hosting Pictionary and voicing Star Trek: Lower Decks.  A supporting / recurring role on Sliders may be all Jerry could manage.

The CW would probably be more interested in be focusing on young people (played by 30 year olds). Not so much JOC and JRD. Plus, I feel like they would be more interested in a supernatural sliders, not the down to earth alt-history rooted show it was in the first two seasons.

As far as Jerry’s involvement. Well he has been trying to bring it back for years at this point so I have a feeling that he would make time for it.

It's natural for fans of the show to want a follow up to The Seer.  People want closure.  I suspect the vast majority would get on board with a reboot, especially if Jerry and/or the other Sliders are involved.