The Return of Sliders? (Page 3 of 3)

I have read a lot of reasonable, negative reviews of DISCOVERY and PICARD. As a writing mentor once said to me, "We are not the final arbiters of taste." I am quite happy with both shows, but if others aren't, it's because they wanted or expected different story and character elements that I either didn't need or could do without. For example, PICARD has the Federation existing in a capitalistic system with Picard being rich and Raffi being poor and shrieking at Picard about how his chateau looked so lavish and luxurious and a pilot saying he's "very expensive." That does not work for me; in my personal vision of STAR TREK, money doesn't exist. But I'm prepared to accept that IREACTIONS' STAR TREK is not PICARD and appreciate PICARD on its own terms. Others have found that a dealbreaker and so they should.

Peckinpah is a rare instance where his professional output is the direct result of his abysmal personal conduct. Marc Scott Zicree during the podcast, at least in my view, seemed to regard Peckinpah as an object of pity, a person who suffered from terrible demons that made him a pariah on his most well-known, widely broadcast project (SLIDERS) both during his life and after his death. Zicree clearly felt no need to indict Peckinpah any further; Peckinpah's work convicted his own legacy.

**

I'm not familiar with Kirk Douglas' body of work, although his reputation in recent days is deeply disturbing. It's possible your grandfather could see something in Douglas' demeanor, body language and presence that he recognized as something shared by your great-grandfather. In Season 3 of SLIDERS, there was a moment in "Season's Greedings" where Jerry is chatting with Chase Masterson and Jerry adopts this entitled smirk and preening physicality that I found deeply out of character for Quinn and reminded me of some of the more arrogant and belittling classmates I had in high school.

I started to see more of them and less of myself in Jerry's portrayal and it deeply offended me. In Season 4, I also recognized something in Jerry that I found myself associating with a number of my classmates in his empty, deadened facial expressions on camera; I would in later years recognize that as Jerry being hungover on camera. Part of this is unquestionably because David Peckinpah created a work environment where substance abuse was the norm and being inebriated when working was acceptable because the boss came into work intoxicated.

In 2005 or so, I think, Jerry stopped drinking for health and fitness reasons and viewed going to the gym to work out as part of his job as an actor. He said, and I paraphrase, "My work day didn't end when the director said cut." Since then, Jerry has been extremely professional and reliable in all his work; his acting on CARTER is in some ways overworked to the point of being unnatural, but I'd rather have Jerry trying too hard than not trying at all. I would love for this older, matured, experienced and as talented as ever Jerry O'Connell to play Quinn Mallory again and with Tracy Torme's leadership instead of David Peckinpah's.

And, as I said, if Torme and Zicree could team up, Zicree should do all the talking.

I don't think Marc Scott Zicree and Tracy Torme should be writing the same stories, but they could certainly offer each other feedback. Zicree is a science fiction writer who is very interested in the technology of sliding, having created the Slidewave and the Slidecage. Tracy Torme is a social satirist and a comedian who is very interested in using world-building to invert and skew our perspective of the world, creating worlds where Wiccans instead of Christians are the dominant religion, where 60s counterculture lasted for three decades and counting, etc..

Torme could write the social satire episodes and Zicree could write the slidetech-focused episodes. Zicree could offer Torme his view on how sliding technology works; Torme could provide Zicree with his world-building talent. Both men have a gift for visual storytelling, but judging from the scripts, Zicree is better at writing material where plot information is conveyed visually and immediately. Meanwhile, Torme is better at conveying comedy and depth of character through banter and action. Zicree is more dramatic; Torme is funny.

Torme should be the final decisionmaker, of course. SLIDERS is his show.

But in any meeting with network and studio executives, it would probably best if Torme never, ever, ever opened his mouth. In fact, I strongly recommend that Torme never speak to anyone again; from now on, whether speaking to his barber or his wife, whether ordering a pizza or visiting his mechanic or pitching a SLIDERS reboot or revival, Torme should take a vow of silence and give all his talking points for Zicree to convey with the Marc Scott Zicree warmth, positivity, charm and grace. I would happily never speak again if Zicree would do all my talking for me as well.

I was just joking. But also not.

Tracy Torme is a genius. A brilliant visionary. A unique mind. He is the Vincent van Gogh of television. The Tesla of 90s broadcast. Unappreciated and undervalued in his time. But he's stubborn and difficult.

Marc Scott Zicree doesn't do stubborn, he does sweet. Zicree doesn't do difficult, he does deferentially sociable. Put him on Seasons 1 - 2 of SLIDERS and have him facing FOX executives and his approach would have been decidedly different from Torme's.

"Explosions? Absolutely, SLIDERS should have explosions! SLIDERS can tell any kind of story, some of those stories should have 10 - 20 nitroglycerin explosions so that you can have those in the trailers; but hey, that'll blow the budget, so how about next week, we save some money and do an episode where Rembrandt is like Elvis... "

"The People's Court scene is too silly? Well, how about this: we'll do a cut with it and a cut without it and you screen the version with it and if it gets no laughs, you cut it, but really, it's a great joke. Listen, it's a really good breather and it'll really set the mood so that we can have more of a car chase scene later, you like car chases, right? Walking here lets us drive faster here... "

"I was thinking we could do a dinosaur episode! SLIDERS does dinosaurs!! But again, very expensive, so next week, could we do this cheap story where the sliders think they've gotten home... "

"So, I don't see all these BAYWATCH extras fitting into many of our scripts after the credits. But before the credits, we always have a short world, and I think we could really make sure that all of our teaser parallel Earths can have lots of these women in those outfits you like, how about that? And we've got a world where most of the men died off and we've got this Vegas type episode where we could do that sort of casting and we could write some more recurring female doubles if there are any actresses you want to showcase."

"I know you're not sure about introducing these Kromagg characters, but that could lead to a lot of action sequences with spaceships firing lasers at the sliders and there could be lots of explosions, too. Great for trailers."

"I think for a 22 episode order, we could definitely do at least 11 action-heavy shows, but again, those are very expensive, so for the other 11, we really need to do more bargain bottle episodes like a world that prioritizes academics over athletics, where the gender divide favors women over men, where Mexicans rule America, where Wiccanism toppled Christianity, where psychics run government. The bottle episodes let us do the episodes with gunfights and car chases and explosions and foot races and motorcycle stunts and of course, those are our top priority, those take the bulk of our resources -- and these social satire episodes are really to pace our spending so we can get you the action that you want."

I just (independently/ironically) just finished watching last week's The Prisoner chat with Tracy.  I was stunned at the news!  They speak about it at the 1 hour 55 minute mark.

Tracy says there's going to be a "Sliders Convention" in Long Island, NY, in summer 2022, in the "early stages."  It's (thankfully) NOT per Tracy to be run by Creation Entertainment.  Sounds like he will reveal more information later, as it didn't sound like he had it in front of him. 

PS: Tracy later recounted a funny story about a fake Tracy Torme Facebook page doing a Q&A, which he found out about it, and showed up and was kind of turned off on social media by that.  His wife is currently putting something together for him now though.

Eggert is your favorite actress?!?  She was fairly pleasant although has also been known to party too much at cons and not answer the bell the next day, something I have witnessed ha ha.  As for the convention, I'm going to see what details I can get before giving my two cents on that.  Tracy mentioned a trip he and his wife were supposed to take to Jordan in December was going to be delayed until next June or July, so I guess that is not when such a convention would occur.

Yes, I've seen your fanfic all over FanFiction.net. It's so insulting, no one ever steals mine.

Response to Grizzlor is here:
http://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php?pid=12226#p12226

Post your fanfics here! I don't think I've ever seen them.

Numbers look good so far, but we’ll see where it ends up. This is Torme’s argument to Universal, though.  Two points:

People spend money on legacy series (where the originals hand off to their kids)

https://deadline.com/2021/11/ghostbuste … 77444/amp/

And people still remember Sliders (to the point of mega-billion Marvel Studios blatantly copying Sliders imagery)

https://sliders.tv/bboard/viewtopic.php?id=430

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.  Marvel likes Sliders, and Marvel has proven they have their finger on the pulse of what people like.

That’s the argument.

It was a very long time ago, but there was word that Kelsey Grammer was a Sliders fan.  It started with an anonymous poster on the old forums who claimed he had talked to Kelsey, but I believe it was later confirmed in an interview.  No idea where that interview would be.

Danielle Claman Gelber also fits everything Tracy has been saying:

https://www.thewrap.com/dick-wolf-danie … elevision/

She was a Fox Exec from 1995 to 2002; and before that was involved in development of Fox shows ranging from 90210 to X-Files.  She should know Sliders and it’s history pretty well.

Most recently, she’s had a big hand in the various Chicago series on NBC.  Her work on the Chicagos led to a first-look deal with Universal TV, so that’s the current connection and likely why she’s looking at Sliders.

https://m.imdb.com/name/nm1891764/bio

Her career in tv is a long one - dating all the way back to The Love Boat.

Here’s an interview from last year:

https://youtu.be/EoGldC4Oe1s

Danielle Claman was not a name that registered but appears she was a backer of Epstein and Tracy back in the day, something that Jacob revealed to EP.com (https://earthprime.com/interviews/jacob … interview/) years ago. 

If Sliders returned, I'm sure we'd have a fan or two in wherever they film who could post some stills from afar on their location shoots.