Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

QuinnSlidr wrote:

Aahhh yes. RIP Dean Stockwell. sad

But with A.I., couldn't they replace Dean Stockwell's face on another actor and re-create his voice to be almost identical? We have the technology. One particular freelance Elvis impersonator on YouTube (look up Luigi Leppo) is already doing that with Elvis by creating brand-new songs that Elvis was never recorded on video performing. Done with his exact face, and his exact voice. As I said, we have the tech. We just need a TV show to implement it successfully.

There is also a mobile app that does this (the consumer-grade non-professional version) called Re-face.

I don't believe that DeepFake/ReFace can be implemented successfully for a prolonged performance, nor can Respeecher be effective for an extended scene. DeepFake tends to produce immobile faces that, even with animation, have the rigidity of photographs instead of the full versatility of human facial movement. Elvis' face in those DeepFake videos doesn't have the full emotive expressiveness of the King. It's his skin but the flesh beneath it seems as dead as the man himself.

BOOK OF BOBA FETT uses a fully DeepFaked Mark Hamill and while it's a perfect likeness of his face, the expressions convey the sense of an immobile photograph being animated; it still comes off as a still image rather than a living visage. Respeecher was also used in BOBA FETT to recreate Mark Hamill's early to mid 1980s voice. But while it sounds exactly like Hamill from that era, the simulated voice has an extremely limited range of tone that makes all of Hamill's dialogue sound neutral; he's neutral when he should be suspicious, neutral when he should be challenging, neutral when he should be heartfelt. The face and voice of Mark Hamill may be in BOBA FETT, but the acting ability is absent; there is no sense of a person giving the actual performance.

When applied to a master of the performance artform like Dean Stockwell, I can't see the technology pulling it off properly; the voice, even if there were sufficient source material for Respeecher, would never have Stockwell's charisma and humour. An impressionist would only ever be a copy. The face would only be Stockwell's reanimated likeness, it would not be his acting and his choices. DeepFake couldn't reproduce Mark Hamill's acting; it certainly can't do Stockwell.

DeepFake is great for a few individual shots. Respeecher is effective for a small number of lines. But an extended performance via DeepFake and Respeecher for a featured guest-star or a regular character? It hasn't worked so far and I think it will be a long time before it will; a CG Dean Stockwell would just be a digital mannequin of his face with a thin imitation of his voice and you'd always be aware of it.

Be careful what you wish for.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ireactions wrote:

QUANTUM LEAP 2022 is a revival. It is not a reboot. The lead character is investigating the disappearance of Sam Beckett from the 1989 show.


thank you again for the correction!

didn't realize it was a revival (although obviously who knows if we will even see sam becket.  good they didnt destroy cannon though and kept his character in the mythology).

what i was reacting to when i said reboot and being upset was mostly in reaction to it seems like the original actors were not engaged in the talks/planning and the original writer isn't  leading the new show. 

i really don't love that approach for a classic series.   i do admire though this information you've given me that sam becket is not being written out of the mythology.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I think it's pretty certain that Scott Bakula will be in QUANTUM LEAP 2022. The show would not be focused on a search for Sam if they hadn't secured the actor; whether they announce it and whether Sam is featured early or in a season finale cliffhanger is another question. Bakula may claim he is not contracted, but contracts can be a private matter where people have every right to lie in order to maintain their privacy until they're ready to publicize it.

QL series creator Donald P. Bellisario is consulting on the 2022 revival. He is named as an executive producer alongside the excellent Martin Gero (BLINDSPOT). That said, Bellisario has been retired since 2007. While he has producing credits on various shows, I don't believe he was actively contributing to them, merely available to offer advice if asked. Bellisario's name is on the show and any lack of involvement would be his own choice due to, again, retirement.

As for involving the original actors besides Bakula... the only other regular character was Al, played by Dean Stockwell, who died in 2022. I suppose you might consider the Ziggy computer a regular, and Deborah Pratt, the voice of Ziggy, is producing QL2022. Aside from Bakula (certainly contracted and not announced), Stockwell (dead) and Pratt (contracted), the only other original actor I can think of from QL would be Dennis Wolfberg (Gooshie) who died in 1994. I just checked and Stockwell and Wolfberg are still dead, so I am not sure what QUANTUM LEAP 2022 can do about it unless you have a resurrection spell to offer.

Making Scott Bakula the lead of a 2022 QUANTUM LEAP would be difficult. After the original series ended in 1993, Bakula deliberately avoided TV and film work that would keep him far from his family for too long. He said that during the 1989 - 1993 series, he barely saw his wife and children. The success of QL gave him a solid financial footing and ensured that he didn't have to take long jobs like QL ever again.

On ENTERPRISE, Bakula's contract gave him a 6 PM hard out for every shooting day, ensuring that Bakula could always have dinner with his family. ENTEPRISE, being an ensemble, didn't require that Bakula be at the center of every single scene of the episode. I don't think QUANTUM LEAP could work this way; whoever is the leading man will be in nearly every scene and Bakula doesn't want to be that leading man any more. He would not have signed on as the lead. He's happy to be a guest-star. To be in an ensemble. To be a supporting cast member.

You can rest assured that Scott Bakula will return as Dr. Sam Beckett; you can be certain that original series creator Bellasario and his former partner Pratt are as involved as much as they want to be.

The real question is whether or not Sam Beckett's inevitable return can lead to the return of Quinn Mallory, Wade Welles, Rembrandt Brown, Professor Arturo and, of course, Pavel the cab driver.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

They keep emphasizing in the press that the series seeks to solve the mystery of why Dr. Seong would step into the Quantum Leap accelerator.  Unlike Sam, Dr. Seong would know what would likely happen if he did it.

I’m thinking Sam is going to be the answer.  Dr Seong was looking for Sam, and Sam is going to find Dr Seong.

Time traveling within one’s own lifetime focused on the past during the original series, but it should also include the years you would have had but for leaping.  Scott Bakula is still alive, so odds are Sam would be too if he hadn’t leaped; and that means he could leap into Dr Seong’s time all those decades later.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ireactions wrote:

I think it's pretty certain that Scott Bakula will be in QUANTUM LEAP 2022. The show would not be focused on a search for Sam if they hadn't secured the actor; whether they announce it and whether Sam is featured early or in a season finale cliffhanger is another question. Bakula may claim he is not contracted, but contracts can be a private matter where people have every right to lie in order to maintain their privacy until they're ready to publicize it.


That would be great.  The Hollywood Reporter article did say "original star Bakula, who was previously expected to be involved in some capacity, is not currently attached to the update" and also mentioned he was working on another pilot for that season.

It would make an awful lot of sense for him to appear at some point though, even if it's in a future season.  If they show him to early that might kill the mystery of "where is he" too soon so they may want to keep that going as long as possible.  Assuming he is not dead.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

That would be great.  The Hollywood Reporter article did say "original star Bakula, who was previously expected to be involved in some capacity, is not currently attached to the update" and also mentioned he was working on another pilot for that season.

It is very common for actors to deny that contractual agreements are in place until disclosure conditions have been met. Andrew Garfield denied that he would appear in SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME. James Marsden denied that he would appear in X-MEN: DAYS OF THE FUTURE PAST. And so on.

Bakula's lack of announcement strikes me as (anti-)publicity. You don't center a series around searching for Sam Beckett if Bakula isn't ready to reprise his role; QL seems inclined to withhold Sam so that his appearance will be surprising. In addition, Bakula is never going to be too busy to do guest appearances on QUANTUM LEAP because he will never allow himself to be too busy to be out the studio door and headed home by 6 PM.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ireactions wrote:
RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

That would be great.  The Hollywood Reporter article did say "original star Bakula, who was previously expected to be involved in some capacity, is not currently attached to the update" and also mentioned he was working on another pilot for that season.

It is very common for actors to deny that contractual agreements are in place until disclosure conditions have been met. Andrew Garfield denied that he would appear in SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME. James Marsden denied that he would appear in X-MEN: DAYS OF THE FUTURE PAST. And so on.

Bakula's lack of announcement strikes me as (anti-)publicity. You don't center a series around searching for Sam Beckett if Bakula isn't ready to reprise his role; QL seems inclined to withhold Sam so that his appearance will be surprising. In addition, Bakula is never going to be too busy to do guest appearances on QUANTUM LEAP because he will never allow himself to be too busy to be out the studio door and headed home by 6 PM.

I love your insight. Oh, this is gonna be good.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Have no fear. No doubt. No disbelief. Dr. Sam Beckett will leap again.

And once he does, we must ask him to succeed where all others have failed. We must ask him to do what no one else has been able to do. We must ask him to find and rescue Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell), Wade Welles (Sabrina Lloyd), Rembrandt Brown (Cleavant Derricks) and Professor Arturo (John Rhys-Davies).

I guess if Sam has to start with saving his niece, Margaret Allison Beckett (Kari Wuhrer), that's tolerable; she is family after all. But after that, he must retrieve the other sliders. I don't care how many Kromagg battlefields he has to traverse, how many emotion-eating amusement parks he has to endure, how many rock star vampires he has to slay, how many super-intelligent snakes he has to wrangle, how many zombies he has to shoot with melted butter, how many Dream Masters he has to caffeinate, how many Desert Storms he has to weather, how many two dimensional beings he has to flatten, how many intelligent flames he has to ask for help or how many breeder parasites he has to neuter. He has to get the sliders back.

Surely, for a genius-level intellect like Sam, he could get it done before lunch.

369 (edited by QuinnSlidr 2022-07-12 17:56:42)

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Personally, I'd rather Maggie Beckett die a gruesome death before the first episode of season 6 to start, never to be seen again.

I'd much rather Sam Beckett find a way to get Colin unstuck and bring him back.

Maggie always rubbed me the wrong way and I hated the character.

Obviously, since Sabrina isn't acting anymore, that leaves us with having to find a new lead woman actress. I'd rather she be at least somewhat tolerable moreso than Kari.

I think Xochitl Gomez would make an excellent alternative (America Chavez in Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness). Picture this: She accidentally gets stuck between universes, in a slide, and joins the Sliders. Something prevents her from using her powers (perhaps her and the timer are on the same frequency, so she can't use her powers while in the same universe as the timer, so she can't user her powers and must join the sliders until they return her home).

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I definitely agree Maggie Beckett is Related to Sam.

There's also the Sabrina the Teenage Witch connection (I think from Into the Mystic). 

Without a doubt these worlds are connected. 

Unfortunately, I feel like those who fancy quantum leap in some ways can turn up their nose at SLIDERS, looking at it as a B version.  Even though we know, while spiritually connected, it is its own thing and not to be confused.

My guess is the showrunners on this new Quantum Leap (revivial) will want nothing to do with SLIDERS even though Universal would be smart to think about an integration.

I do think X-Files/Sliders is probably the most fitting crossover (even though rights holders are different).  I mean, Jerry was playing basketball with Gillian and David.   Tracy gave advice to Chris.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

That would be great.  The Hollywood Reporter article did say "original star Bakula, who was previously expected to be involved in some capacity, is not currently attached to the update" and also mentioned he was working on another pilot for that season.

It would make an awful lot of sense for him to appear at some point though, even if it's in a future season.  If they show him to early that might kill the mystery of "where is he" too soon so they may want to keep that going as long as possible.  Assuming he is not dead.

Perfect take on that, definitely can't "solve" his mystery right away.  However, the series may not last very long if Peacock's nascent track record is any indication, and they could "run out of time."

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Grizzlor wrote:

However, the series may not last very long if Peacock's nascent track record is any indication, and they could "run out of time."

Peacock's track record is... not exactly relevant to the QUANTUM LEAP 2022 revival.

QUANTUM LEAP is airing on NBC broadcast television with a premiere date of September 19.

https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/quantum … -this-fall

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Something really interesting I consumed today was a short story called "Pilot" that was part of The Truth Is out There: The X-Files Series, Book 2, edited by Jonathon Mayberry.

Apparently a SLIDERS and X-Files crossover are entirely plausible as doubles and the multiverse are part of the X-Files mythology.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

The plot of "Pilot", by David Liss, has Mulder and Scully encountering a visitor from a parallel universe in which THE X-FILES is a TV show. This visitor offers Mulder and Scully VHS cassettes of the "12" seasons of the show so that they can watch them and learn "the truth". Scully protests that a fictionalized version of their lives from a parallel reality may not offer any answers; Mulder counters that surely a TV version of their lives would have "narrative coherence" and a conclusion (hahahahaahahahahahahhahaah). The argument is rendered moot when the visitor and the tapes are blown up.

I guess it was okay.

**

If I had my way, there would be numerous anthologies of SLIDERS stories. However, the stories would all be written by Nigel Mitchell and edited by Temporal Flux. I guess then it wouldn't be an anthology if only one writer writes all the stories. But... I'd still rather all the stories be written by Nigel Mitchell and edited by Temporal Flux.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Quantum Leap pilot episode replaced.  The original pilot will now be dropped later in the season as a regular episode

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/qua … 22040.html

Not entirely unusual (even Star Trek had a second pilot), but it does show there were problems

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

It's interesting that the first episode they made and originally planned to start with was not an origin story that introduced the series and characters but was, instead, a story that could come later in the run.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

So very interesting the showrunners were replaced.  Martin Gero is one of the top network tv showrunners and so I think the show will be at least a solid effort

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Martin Gero's work on the Stargate franchise alone makes me hopeful for Quantum Leap!

JWSlider3

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

JWSlider3 wrote:

Martin Gero's work on the Stargate franchise alone makes me hopeful for Quantum Leap!

JWSlider3

Which episodes did he write? This I must see!

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Writer
Stargate SG-1

SG-1 Season 9
"The Powers That Be"

SG-1 Season 10
"Bad Guys" (story) (teleplay) (co-wrote with Ben Browder)

Stargate: Atlantis

Atlantis Season 1
"Childhood's End"
"The Storm" (teleplay) (co-wrote with Jill Blotelvogel)
"The Eye"
"Hot Zone"
"The Brotherhood"
"Letters from Pegasus" (excerpts)
"The Gift" (story) (co-wrote with Robert C. Cooper)
"The Siege, Part 1"

Atlantis Season 2
"The Siege, Part 3"
"Duet"
"Conversion" (story) (teleplay) (co-wrote with Robert C. Cooper)
"The Lost Boys"
"Grace Under Pressure"
"Coup D'etat"
"Allies"

Atlantis Season 3
"No Man's Land"
"McKay and Mrs. Miller"
"The Return, Part 1"
"The Return, Part 2"
"Sunday"
"First Strike"

Atlantis Season 4
"Adrift"
"Miller's Crossing"
"Be All My Sins Remember'd"
"Spoils of War" (excerpts)
"Harmony"
"Trio"

Atlantis Season 5
"Search and Rescue"
"Ghost in the Machine" (excerpts)
"First Contact"
"The Lost Tribe"
"Inquisition" (excerpts)
"Brain Storm"

Stargate Universe

Universe Season 1
"Earth" (story) (teleplay) (co-wrote with Robert C. Cooper & Brad Wright)
"Lost"

Director

Stargate: Atlantis

Atlantis Season 5
"Brain Storm"

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

JWSlider3 wrote:

Writer
Stargate SG-1

SG-1 Season 9
"The Powers That Be"

SG-1 Season 10
"Bad Guys" (story) (teleplay) (co-wrote with Ben Browder)

Stargate: Atlantis

Atlantis Season 1
"Childhood's End"
"The Storm" (teleplay) (co-wrote with Jill Blotelvogel)
"The Eye"
"Hot Zone"
"The Brotherhood"
"Letters from Pegasus" (excerpts)
"The Gift" (story) (co-wrote with Robert C. Cooper)
"The Siege, Part 1"

Atlantis Season 2
"The Siege, Part 3"
"Duet"
"Conversion" (story) (teleplay) (co-wrote with Robert C. Cooper)
"The Lost Boys"
"Grace Under Pressure"
"Coup D'etat"
"Allies"

Atlantis Season 3
"No Man's Land"
"McKay and Mrs. Miller"
"The Return, Part 1"
"The Return, Part 2"
"Sunday"
"First Strike"

Atlantis Season 4
"Adrift"
"Miller's Crossing"
"Be All My Sins Remember'd"
"Spoils of War" (excerpts)
"Harmony"
"Trio"

Atlantis Season 5
"Search and Rescue"
"Ghost in the Machine" (excerpts)
"First Contact"
"The Lost Tribe"
"Inquisition" (excerpts)
"Brain Storm"

Stargate Universe

Universe Season 1
"Earth" (story) (teleplay) (co-wrote with Robert C. Cooper & Brad Wright)
"Lost"

Director

Stargate: Atlantis

Atlantis Season 5
"Brain Storm"

Thank you!! Never did get into Atlantis. But I was a heavy watcher of Stargate SG-1, and those two were good episodes. I really wish Sliders would have become just as popular. Maybe we would have had the treatment of the show that it deserved and there would have been no departure of the original cast.

One can dream...

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I haven't watched as much STARGATE as I'd like to, but Martin Gero created and ran BLINDSPOT for five seasons and I was really impressed by his ability to create and manage a formula, maintain running arcs, create variations with each season to prevent story elements from becoming tiresome, manage an ongoing mythology with climaxes and resolutions and stories after arcs were concluded, and handling budget cuts while ensuring that the series finale was still an event-sized story.

BLINDSPOT is about a woman (Jaime Alexander, Sif from the THOR movies) who wakes up naked in Times Square. She has amnesia, she is covered in tattoos, she is taken into protective custody by an FBI team. They discover: each tattoo on her body leads to information about a crime committed by a corrupt government official and indicates a larger conspiracy to an unknown and cataclysmic endgame. Furthermore, the woman, dubbed Jane Doe, realizes she has advanced fighting skills and weapons training that would outclass the most seasoned soldiers. Each episode of BLINDSPOT investigates a tattoo and a crime while trying to get to the bottom of who Jane Doe is and where she came from.

BLINDSPOT did a great job in its first two seasons of creating a myth-arc and then revealing it wholly by the Season 2 finale. Season 3 then created a new mythology from the remnants of the old one. Season 4 explored Jane's original identity being at odds with who she is now. BLINDSPOT boasted astonishing fight scenes, enticing puzzles a dark sense of humour, excellent use of procedural tropes, and Jaime Alexander was grippingly compelling as the lead. Martin Gero completely understood the appeal of his show and when his dark stories found lighter moments in guest-stars and unexpected onscreen chemistry, Gero capitalized on it, bringing a comic relief guest-star in as a regular and deepening some of the unplanned partnerships.

BLINDSPOT was hit with a serious budget cut for its final season. While the location filming and fight scenes fell away, Gero did a good job of having such intense character-oriented storytelling that the show remained strong even if the budget was clearly low. Gero was unfortunately forced to kill off a character to cut actor costs, but Gero made sure to bring that actor back for some special guest appearances to pay tribute to the performer. Gero did numerous bottle episodes to save money which allowed the BLINDSPOT series finale to have a big budget production with lavish location filming in New York City with guest-stars from every previous season and an elaborate and extensive final fight scene for Jane Doe.

Gero was strategic and smart with his writing and his money even when that money was running low. Gero never allowed his disappointment with the lack of network support or studio funding stop him from giving his show his full effort. Gero ensured that Jaime Alexander was always filmed as an athlete and a warrior rather than as a pinup girl or a BAYWATCH lifeguard. Gero wrote detective stories with wit, humour and a genuine love for each character on the show. Basically, Gero was the exact opposite of David Peckinpah and Bill Dial and he would be an excellent choice to run any TV show.

QUANTUM LEAP fans have a lot to look forward to with Martin Gero as their showrunner.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ireactions wrote:

I haven't watched as much STARGATE as I'd like to, but Martin Gero created and ran BLINDSPOT for five seasons and I was really impressed by his ability to create and manage a formula, maintain running arcs, create variations with each season to prevent story elements from becoming tiresome, manage an ongoing mythology with climaxes and resolutions and stories after arcs were concluded, and handling budget cuts while ensuring that the series finale was still an event-sized story.

BLINDSPOT is about a woman (Jaime Alexander, Sif from the THOR movies) who wakes up naked in Times Square. She has amnesia, she is covered in tattoos, she is taken into protective custody by an FBI team. They discover: each tattoo on her body leads to information about a crime committed by a corrupt government official and indicates a larger conspiracy to an unknown and cataclysmic endgame. Furthermore, the woman, dubbed Jane Doe, realizes she has advanced fighting skills and weapons training that would outclass the most seasoned soldiers. Each episode of BLINDSPOT investigates a tattoo and a crime while trying to get to the bottom of who Jane Doe is and where she came from.

BLINDSPOT did a great job in its first two seasons of creating a myth-arc and then revealing it wholly by the Season 2 finale. Season 3 then created a new mythology from the remnants of the old one. Season 4 explored Jane's original identity being at odds with who she is now. BLINDSPOT boasted astonishing fight scenes, enticing puzzles a dark sense of humour, excellent use of procedural tropes, and Jaime Alexander was grippingly compelling as the lead. Martin Gero completely understood the appeal of his show and when his dark stories found lighter moments in guest-stars and unexpected onscreen chemistry, Gero capitalized on it, bringing a comic relief guest-star in as a regular and deepening some of the unplanned partnerships.

BLINDSPOT was hit with a serious budget cut for its final season. While the location filming and fight scenes fell away, Gero did a good job of having such intense character-oriented storytelling that the show remained strong even if the budget was clearly low. Gero was unfortunately forced to kill off a character to cut actor costs, but Gero made sure to bring that actor back for some special guest appearances to pay tribute to the performer. Gero did numerous bottle episodes to save money which allowed the BLINDSPOT series finale to have a big budget production with lavish location filming in New York City with guest-stars from every previous season and an elaborate and extensive final fight scene for Jane Doe.

Gero was strategic and smart with his writing and his money even when that money was running low. Gero never allowed his disappointment with the lack of network support or studio funding stop him from giving his show his full effort. Gero ensured that Jaime Alexander was always filmed as an athlete and a warrior rather than as a pinup girl or a BAYWATCH lifeguard. Gero wrote detective stories with wit, humour and a genuine love for each character on the show. Basically, Gero was the exact opposite of David Peckinpah and Bill Dial and he would be an excellent choice to run any TV show.

QUANTUM LEAP fans have a lot to look forward to with Martin Gero as their showrunner.

This is all really fantastic news, ireactions. I can't wait to watch the new Quantum Leap!!!

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

New Quantum Leap teaser:

https://youtu.be/O5U_94xP1oM

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

And another:

https://www.eonline.com/amp/news/134416 … sert-storm

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Looks like the mirror effects are really well done (as usual). But these look like they are on another level.

I am thoroughly enjoying what Raymond Lee brings to the role. Looks like he is really making it his own.

Can't wait to see much more on September 19th.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I never watched the original QUANTUM LEAP aside from the Pilot, but I listened to all of REWATCH PODCAST with Tom and Cory covering QL, so I feel well-equipped to watch the new show and I'll follow Martin Gero anywhere. A great showrunner.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ireactions wrote:

I never watched the original QUANTUM LEAP aside from the Pilot, but I listened to all of REWATCH PODCAST with Tom and Cory covering QL, so I feel well-equipped to watch the new show and I'll follow Martin Gero anywhere. A great showrunner.

Cool! I've seen every episode of the original Quantum Leap.

I would highly recommend committing to a weekend binge of the original show at some point. There are many great moments and stories from the original that are so well done that a podcast can't replace.

I am currently working my way through a full binge of this great series myself before September 19th.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

QUANTUM LEAP is... not really my thing. The pilot didn't interest me and the lack of ongoing continuity (understandable for a late 80s show) didn't and doesn't appeal to me.

However, as a SLIDERS fan, I feel I have a duty to be happy for QUANTUM LEAP fans where a show that had its height in the 90s is getting a well-deserved revival that follows the continuity of the original and includes the original creators (and probably the original star), to cheer it on and to wish it well. And, of course, to hope that maybe one of those QL revival episodes will feature a graduate student in physics named Quinn Mallory and serve as a backdoor pilot to a series about parallel universes.

As an Asian man, I also feel I should watch anything Raymond Lee does so long as Lee never does anything bigoted or indefensibly violent.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

From the Sliders perspective, Quantum Leap is interesting because Al was essentially a Slider.

Because of his link with Sam, Al was the only person in the future who remembered the original timeline.  Al witnessed the results of every change Sam made as reality shifted around him.

In one example, a Congressional committee was in the process of killing the Quantum Leap project when Al sees the committee chair suddenly change into another person.  Sam’s current leap had led him to change history where someone else was elected to Congress in the future, and that committee chair voted to save the Quantum Leap project.

This is the basic idea I would have pitched for a Sliders / Quantum Leap crossover.  A Slider misses the vortex and is left behind, but Sam’s changes in history causes one reality to shift into another thus reuniting the Sliders.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

if the new quantum leap is a hit, the way MacGyver kinda was, universal will look at their ip and strongly think, "what next?"

392 (edited by QuinnSlidr 2022-09-04 20:03:44)

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ireactions wrote:

QUANTUM LEAP is... not really my thing. The pilot didn't interest me and the lack of ongoing continuity (understandable for a late 80s show) didn't and doesn't appeal to me.

However, as a SLIDERS fan, I feel I have a duty to be happy for QUANTUM LEAP fans where a show that had its height in the 90s is getting a well-deserved revival that follows the continuity of the original and includes the original creators (and probably the original star), to cheer it on and to wish it well. And, of course, to hope that maybe one of those QL revival episodes will feature a graduate student in physics named Quinn Mallory and serve as a backdoor pilot to a series about parallel universes.

As an Asian man, I also feel I should watch anything Raymond Lee does so long as Lee never does anything bigoted or indefensibly violent.

I wasn't all that much interested in the pilot myself, but there is the historical significance of Sam's leap during the pilot taking place during the technological achievement of airplanes hitting the speed of Mach 3 (which was a very very very major technological achievement at the time). I stuck with it and I am glad I did. Because there are interesting historical significance leaps as well.

There is still some ongoing continuity, however, this doesn't really hit its stride until season 3. Examples:

Bits and pieces of Sam's brain and memory/identity continue to come back from being swiss cheesed during the leaps with almost each episode, although admittedly this does fade as Sam becomes more of who he is with every leap.
He remembers his dad from his real life and gives him a call while he was still alive in the past (thanks to Al's prompting).
Season 5 finally has some major continuing story arcs featuring the evil leaper, Alia.
Sam revisits at least one prior leap during the evil leaper story arc who is following Sam around and working to destroy what he had done.
Most of the major story arc continuity though happens on the bookends to the seasons, in the season openers and season finale, mostly between seasons 3, season 4, and season 5.

I can understand why that may not be your thing, however. Quantum Leap is really the only show I enjoy (besides Sliders) that doesn't have at least some major story arc throughout the seasons.

In the end, we all enjoy what we enjoy... smile

Interesting factoid: I was able to attend LeapCon '96 and met some actors from the show in person. I got to meet Richard Herd (Moe Stein from the episode "Future Boy") and John D'Aquino (Frank, Jimmy's brother from the episode "Jimmy"), and Scott Bakula answered a question I asked during his Q&A session from the stage. Although for the life of me I can't seem to remember exactly what that was...

I only wish they had similar Sliders conventions back then...

Every time I watch the trailer I love Raymond Lee in Quantum Leap more and more. I can see him becoming a fan favorite in the latest iteration.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

TemporalFlux wrote:

From the Sliders perspective, Quantum Leap is interesting because Al was essentially a Slider.

Because of his link with Sam, Al was the only person in the future who remembered the original timeline.  Al witnessed the results of every change Sam made as reality shifted around him.

In one example, a Congressional committee was in the process of killing the Quantum Leap project when Al sees the committee chair suddenly change into another person.  Sam’s current leap had led him to change history where someone else was elected to Congress in the future, and that committee chair voted to save the Quantum Leap project.

This is the basic idea I would have pitched for a Sliders / Quantum Leap crossover.  A Slider misses the vortex and is left behind, but Sam’s changes in history causes one reality to shift into another thus reuniting the Sliders.

You are right, TemporalFlux. Al is essentially a Slider, although his mechanism was the door to the hologram chamber in his own time, rather than a real wormhole.

I love your idea of a premise for a Sliders/Quantum Leap crossover!! Wouldn't that be something?

394 (edited by QuinnSlidr 2022-09-05 17:53:15)

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

if the new quantum leap is a hit, the way MacGyver kinda was, universal will look at their ip and strongly think, "what next?"

One can only hope that their next thought would be Sliders, because of how often it was compared to Quantum Leap in TV Guide reviews. TV Guide reviews (and online reviews of episodes back then) always irked me a little because they would compare Sliders to Quantum Leap, even though they were entirely different shows with an entirely different premise.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

QuinnSlidr wrote:
RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

if the new quantum leap is a hit, the way MacGyver kinda was, universal will look at their ip and strongly think, "what next?"

One can only hope that their next thought would be Sliders, because of how often it was compared to Quantum Leap in TV Guide reviews. TV Guide reviews (and online reviews of episodes back then) always irked me a little because they would compare Sliders to Quantum Leap, even though they were entirely different shows with an entirely different premise.

Agree on both points..

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I've been watching the iCARLY revival to see if a potential SLIDERS revival could learn anything. iCARLY was a 2007 - 2012 show about two Seattle high school girls (Carly and Sam) and their friend Freddie who start a webcast of absurd sketch comedy while growing up together. It was a lively, low-budget Nickelodeon multicamera sitcom with mostly interior filming but a highly colourful and dynamic visual style.

iCARLY was a national phenomenon in its popularity with the 8 - 13 year old audience, a show that children and parents enjoyed together. iCARLY ended somewhat suddenly and somewhat appropriately in 2012 when, out of nowhere, Carly decides to move to Italy to be with her father, her departure from Seattle ending her webcast.

In the years that followed, iCARLY fell under a cloud of scandal and infamy: the original creator, Dan Schneider, was exposed as emotionally abusive towards child actors, effectively the David Peckinpah of kids TV. Meanwhile, Jennette McCurdy, the actress who played Sam revealed that she had been anorexic and bulimic to maintain her character's childlike body throughout the show, having warped and damaged her health for a man's idea of what a little girl should look like, effectively the Kari Wuhrer of kids TV.

Nickelodeon and the cast severed all ties with Schneider; Nickelodeon also bought out Schneider's percentage of the iCARLY property and in 2021, iCARLY came back to TV with a revival series and original actress Miranda Cosgrove (Carly) as series lead and associate showrunner. While McCurdy declined to return, the actors who played Spencer (Carly's older brother) and Freddie (Carly's technical producer and love interest) signed on as regulars, and iCARLY made a bold return as a return as a twentysomething single camera drama. The first season featured numerous guest-stars from the original series returning to develop their original arcs and explore how Carly had sadly fallen short of her dreams and potential but still had hope and new battles to fight.

The revival season relied upon the audience to have full familiarity with the original series -- but given the massive popularity of iCARLY, the revival could count on that familiarity. The revival season had to sum up what had happened in the almost-decade between the old show and the new one in a fast and hurried fashion -- but since the original series had ended with a closing note of farewell and a bittersweetly happy ending without any unresolved endings or massive cliffhangers, that wasn't a problem.

The revival season had to address how all the actors were significantly older than in 2012, but since the premise of the show is a webcast as opposed to living the life of renegade rebel nomads in the interdimension and the actors had been teenagers when we'd last saw them in iCARLY, that wasn't much of a hurdle.

What can SLIDERS learn from iCARLY? Well, I guess... I guess SLIDERS really screwed up by not being more popular from 1995 - 2000. And I guess... I guess SLIDERS was stupid to accumulate so many dead characters and unfinished plotlines from 1996 to 2000 that would make it functionally difficult to pull off an iCARLY where iCARLY could simply show (most of) the original characters alive and well in the present day with no need to explain why everyone was alive and together (since no one on iCARLY died and there was no reason why they couldn't all be back in Seattle again by the time of the revival). And.. I guess SLIDERS really should have made sure that more people actually watched the show to remember its back catalog of plots and characters.

As lessons go, none of these are winners. However, I will say: there is something wonderful about seeing the faces of Miranda Cosgrove and Nathan Kress (Freddie) again, having seen them as little kids in the original iCARLY and now seeing these faces in their late twenties in the revival, knowing that Carly and Freddie, two cultural icons, were not trapped in the amber of the 2012 finale. They grew and lived and carried on; they lived through the Obama and Trump presidencies, through COVID, through the internet's pivot to video. Carly worked in new media and had disastrous boyfriend after boyfriend; Freddie is twice-divorced and has an adopted daughter. They lived with us. They aged with us. And as they cope with numerous failures in life, they turn back to something that always gave them comfort and joy: their start their webcast anew and the adventure begins again.

I don't think SLIDERS can do this, not in the way we'd all hope. I think, if SLIDERS did this story... well, it would be my fanfic, SLIDERS REBORN, which most people who've read it seem to really like, but everyone (including me, who wrote it) agrees that SLIDERS REBORN only works for diehard SLIDERS fans. iCARLY REBORN also only works for diehard iCARLY fans, but apparently, most people living in the United States of America are fans of iCARLY, so that lack of entry-level accessibility isn't a problem for iCARLY. It would be for SLIDERS.

The only entry-level, mass-audience SLIDERS story I can imagine featuring the original cast in their original roles would be Temporal Flux's idea where a new SLIDERS starts on a parallel Earth separate from the Pilot where Quinn discovers sliding *today* instead of in 1994 and accidentally brings *today*'s Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo sliding.

The lesson of iCARLY's revival success is to be more popular... which, again, I'm not sure is actually a very healthy lesson.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Battlestar Galactica is probably a more suitable model.  The original Battlestar Galactica, like Sliders, was a low rated Sci-Fi show that developed a small but devoted following.  It was successfully rebooted about 25 years after its original run with none of the original cast returning.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Be like BATTLESTAR GALACTICA...

I don't like saying this, but that does appear to be the lesson at hand because the only lesson iCARLY has for SLIDERS is that becoming a cultural phenomenon is rare, difficult, often due to chance, but also very much depends capitalizing on those lucky chances on holding your cast members to their ironclad contracts rather than firing them one by one and killing off their characters in convoluted, confusion storylines that make it difficult if not impossible to do a revival-reunion series years later.

THE X-FILES' mythology was arguably as muddled as SLIDERS by the 2002 finale, but at least the characters were still alive and revivable.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ICarly and X-Files were far more successful on their first run and had revivals much sooner after their original airing.  ICarly was reborn less than a decade after it left the air and Nickelodeon reran it often during those years.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

pilight wrote:

Battlestar Galactica is probably a more suitable model.  The original Battlestar Galactica, like Sliders, was a low rated Sci-Fi show that developed a small but devoted following.  It was successfully rebooted about 25 years after its original run with none of the original cast returning.

I think Battlestar is a great example because of cult status, size of the following, original success, and a "champion" that is willing to fight for the show.  BSG had Richard Hatch, Sliders has Jerry O'Connell.

The differences being that Hatch spent years working diligently to get some sort of BSG revival.  Jerry seems like he's interested, but he's not willing to fully commit the way Hatch did.  At the same time, I think Jerry is a bigger star and could probably get it done easier if he really wanted (I'm just assuming, I have no idea how popular Hatch was or how popular Jerry currently is).

And that's why I've always assumed that if we got anything, it'd be an entirely new cast.  I'm hesitant to say "full reboot" because there's essentially no such thing in a Sliders context.  They could make a "full reboot" of the show with different actors playing Quinn/Wade/Arturo/Rembrandt with all four gender/raceswapped, and they could still have Jerry appear as the original version of Quinn without breaking any rules of the show.  Any new show is a continuation of the old show no matter how they do it.

And if Jerry signs on, he'd be whatever the Sliders version of Tom Zarek is.  Tom Zarek appeared in 23 of 76 episodes, so he was a consistent but not major player.  I think the issue is that Jerry might fight to get the show made, but he'd want to star.  I don't think he'd be willing to do what Hatch did and take a smaller role.  Maybe I'm wrong - but I think the incentive for Jerry to do Sliders again would be as a vehicle for him to star.  Not to be a guy in 23 of 76 episodes.

And that's why I think we're nowhere.  I think if Jerry truly championed a Sliders reboot, between him and his wife, they have enough juice to get that done.  And I think the studio would probably go for it if they could redo the whole thing separate from any other continuity and separate from a cast of people in their 50s and 70s.  But I don't think Jerry wants that badly enough to fight for it.

Or maybe he does and the studio doesn't care.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

The Official Full Trailer for the new Quantum Leap is now out.

Man I cannot wait.

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

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Now this is interesting:

https://quantumleap.fandom.com/wiki/Her … 2_Williams

In the new series, Ernie Hudson is playing a character that Sam leapt into during season three of the original series.  His character is likely where he is because Sam changed his life

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

TemporalFlux wrote:

Now this is interesting:

https://quantumleap.fandom.com/wiki/Her … 2_Williams

In the new series, Ernie Hudson is playing a character that Sam leapt into during season three of the original series.  His character is likely where he is because Sam changed his life

Very, very interesting indeed...

This is beginning to look better than originally anticipated.

404 (edited by ireactions 2022-09-09 20:00:58)

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Slider_Quinn21 wonders why SLIDERS hasn't been revived or rebooted and wonders if Jerry O'Connell isn't willing to do what's needed to make it happen. I've wondered if Torme's pitch is too insular and dependent on audiences having any memory of SLIDERS.

But... I think the simple reason that studios revived or rebooted SAVED BY THE BELL and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and PUNKY BREWSTER and THE X-FILES and iCARLY and MACGYVER and GILMORE GIRLS and WILL AND GRACE and ROSEANNE and MURPHY BROWN and FULLER HOUSE: those shows were wildly successful on their original airings and in syndication. (Yes, BSG was cancelled, but because of its cost, not its ratings.)

SLIDERS in its original airing was a weird and embarrassing bus crash. 70 per cent of the show seemed to be produced by amateur and volatile high school students rather than serious professionals doing professional work. SLIDERS was managed so poorly by its network that it took two years to complete its first 22 episode run of episodes.

SLIDERS was produced so incompetently that it killed an actor in its third season and somehow used up most of its Season 3 budget by the 17th episode despite having eight episodes left to film. It lost its most seasoned actor and female lead by its fourth season and lost its lead actor by the fifth. SLIDERS somehow ended on a cliffhanger despite advance notice that their fifth season was the last.

SLIDERS in syndication is... I can't speak to its financial details, but it's not an enjoyable product once you get through the first handful of Season 3 episodes, so I can't imagine it does very well. In terms of home video sales, SLIDERS' fifth season is nearly impossible to find on DVD, meaning Seasons 3 and 4 sold so poorly that Universal didn't bother to produce more than a minimal quantity of Season 5 discs and gave up. SLIDERS' most 'successful' home video release is the bottom-barrel $60 Mill Creek set, likely kept in print only because it costs so little to make.

I can't help but think that an accountant at NBCUniversal looks at the SLIDERS file in horror, blanching at the scandals, the cost-overruns, the lackluster syndication and home video sales.

I can't help but imagine that an NBCU creative director looks at SLIDERS and feels repelled by SLIDERS' brand identity -- not as a daring, clever, witty, charming comedy-drama with a science fiction foundation, but instead as a property defined by ineptitude, unwatchable episodes, absent cast members, scandal, remembered for "The Breeder" and "This Slide of Paradise", for shabby and slapdash movie ripoffs.

I can't help but speculate that both accountant and creative director would understandably flee in terror and dive towards the relative safety of the QUANTUM LEAP folder instead.

I can't blame them.

Edited to Add:
DOCTOR WHO on BBC was in a similar situation too in the 90s, remembered not for being an imaginative, daring science fiction adventure as it had been in the 60s or a joyfully comedic science fiction show in the 70s -- but instead thought of as the cheap, incompetent, poorly produced, badly executed self-parody it became in the 1980s and was unceremoniously put on a permanent 'hiatus' despite a creative rebound in its last two years.

Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, the BBC steadfastly refused to greenlight a new DOCTOR WHO television show, declaring that they couldn't see it being a decent show given BBC budgets and confessing that they were embarrassed by DOCTOR WHO's brand identity as a poorly made series.

In 2003, there was a wildly successful British mini-series, THE SECOND COMING, about the return of Jesus Christ in modern day Manchester. THE SECOND COMING was created by Russell T. Davies and was so successful that the BBC entered a development deal with him, agreeing to greenlight any project he wanted, certain that anything Davies made would be a blockbuster hit. Davies chose his next project: DOCTOR WHO. The BBC protested, but Davies made it clear that if they wanted to work with him, they would work with him on DOCTOR WHO.

Who will be SLIDERS' own Russell T. Davies?

405 (edited by QuinnSlidr 2022-09-11 09:11:43)

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Word on the street is that Tracy Torme` is Sliders' own Russell T. Davies, working to resurrect the show. And has spoken to the fact that a Sliders reboot is not a rumor and is in the process of actually happening.

What this actually means and where it is now is anyone's guess, however...

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

That may have been true when this thread first started in March 2021. It's now September 2022 and I think we have to conclude that Tracy Torme's noble and brilliant efforts have stalled. The last report he gave was that NBCUniversal asked him for a SLIDERS revival pitch, he provided one and NBCUniversal asked: "What makes this the right time for a SLIDERS reboot?"

The question flummoxed Torme as they'd asked him for one and were then asking him to explain why he was pitching a project at their own request. NBCUniversal suggested they meet again at a later date to further explore a SLIDERS revival. The nuance suggested by SLIDERS commentator Annie Fish which may or may not be true: NBCUniversal was politely refusing Torme's pitch for any number of reasons: that Torme has a reputation for being "difficult", that only two of the original four sliders are currently pursuing acting projects, that NBCU is in no financial position to revive a television series that probably just broke even the first time, that Torme's pitch was not the clean-MACGYVER style reboot they expected but instead a QUANTUM LEAP/X-FILES style continuity revival that would, fairly or fairly, make the general audience think it was a product strictly for existing SLIDERS fans.

Fish remarked that in Hollywood, "Let's discuss this again at a later date" is a polite way to say, "Stay the hell away from me I never want to see you again I will call security if you don't leave the premises right now restraining orders are being drawn up." Is Fish right? I dunno.

I have all the love and respect in the world for Tracy Torme being insistent on reviving SLIDERS with *the* sliders; it's clearly the only version of SLIDERS he really wanted to write and someone else can always pitch the reboot-recast version of the show. SLIDERS is Tracy Torme's show and it's up to him how he wants to pitch it and it's not for me or anyone, really, to tell him that he shouldn't. I feel the same way about Chris Carter's incomprehensible X-FILES revival: it was his right to pitch a nonsensically incoherent two season X-FILES relaunch, it was FOX's right to greenlight it, and it's my right to watch the actual episodes and find them to be shockingly incompetent -- but until something actually airs, it's not for me to tell Torme he was wrong to handle his own property as he saw fit.

I can only say that a revival with Jerry O'Connell and Cleavant Derricks with Sabrina Lloyd and John Rhys-Davies likely only to guest-star and Torme's continuity being selective in what is and isn't canon to end the show around "The Guardian" -- well, it ran the risk of being confusing to the general audience and possibly to NBCU executives. In contrast, QUANTUM LEAP was a really successful show that was widely seen and remembered and the revival is being presented as something that requires no previous knowledge of QUANTUM LEAP; even if the REWATCH PODCAST hadn't given me a complete and near-total comprehension of the QL mythology, I would still feel the Raymond Lee relaunch would allow me to understand it.

_______________________
From 1989 to about 1999, DOCTOR WHO was primarily developed in novels as the BBC show was off the air. (1999 was when the audioplays started with the original actors at which point novels and audioplays became equal but separate contenders.)

There is a DOCTOR WHO novelist named Lance Parkin who wrote some very good and occasionally great DOCTOR WHO novels: "Just War" is about a war between a parallel universe where Rome never fell and a parallel universe where the Nazis won WWII, "Father Time" is about the immortal and galaxy-trotting Doctor trapped on Earth in the 1980s and adopting a little girl, "The Infinity Doctors" explores what would have been if the Doctor had never left his home planet, "Trading Futures" is the pacifist Doctor finding himself in a Bond-movie plot, "The Gallifrey Chronicles" is about the Doctor suffering from amnesia and discovering that he may have destroyed his home planet. Parkin's prose was terrific and he did a great job of writing the eccentric Doctor, but... his stories could sometimes devolve into a conventional action climax.

There is another DOCTOR WHO novelist named Lawrence Miles who sought to push the DW novel mythology to a new level, creating  bold new ideas for time travel with highly conceptual-metatextual ideas for how the DW universe of overlapping timelines and realities functioned or didn't. While Miles' novels were excellent ("Alien Bodies" has the Doctor discovering a future war between the Time Lords and an unknown Enemy, "Interference" has the Doctor struggling with his inability to change real world injustices), he had a marked disinterest in writing the Doctor in DOCTOR WHO and instead seemed more interested in his original characters despite his obvious brilliance. Miles would later start his own spinoff series, FACTION PARADOX.

There was another DOCTOR WHO novelist, the late Craig Hinton who coined the term "fanwank" because he wrote the novel "The Quantum Archangel" which was written as a sequel to 12 different DOCTOR WHO TV episodes and novels, deliberately to see how many pieces of DW he could link together and how many continuity errors he could explain in a media tie-in novel. "The Quantum Archangel" wasn't the only novel Hinton wrote, but it is the most prominent because it represents fan continuity obsession at its peak, presented in the form of a mass market paperback published by the BBC. Some mocked it for being overly insular, but given the nature of media tie-ins is to tie into other media, this may be unreasonable.

However, at a time when Lance Parkin and Lawrence Miles were producing books that were excellent literature and excellent DOCTOR WHO novels, a DOCTOR WHO novel that was 'only' a DOCTOR WHO novel seemed a little pale by comparison.
_______________________

In SLIDERS, I think all fanfic writers have tried to be Lance Parkin and Lawrence Miles at some point. I would say that Nigel Mitchell and Mike Truman are the Lance Parkins of SLIDERS and I wanted to be Lawrence Miles, but my obsession with continuity and pastiching the voices of the actors meant I just ended up Craig Hinton. Most SLIDERS fan writers are Craig Hintons.

Ultimately, Lance Parkin, Lawrence Miles and Craig Hinton were only producing DOCTOR WHO stories that could reach already-existing DOCTOR WHO fans. Who is SLIDERS' version of Russell T. Davies? Who can bring SLIDERS into the mainstream? Who can make SLIDERS as beloved by the public as iCARLY?

Davies wrote and produced a lot of TV; he had written one DOCTOR WHO novel ("Damaged Goods"), but he made the bulk of his career outside DW in TV before coming to DW.

Who is a powerful creator with whom studios want to work? A creator who is a fan of SLIDERS, a creator who would accept lower pay for shepherding someone else's property instead of creating and selling his own? It would have to be someone with a profile like Tina Fey (MEAN GIRLS) or the Duffer Brothers (STRANGER THINGS) or Ryan Murphy (AMERICAN HORROR STORY). Does this person exist? And if this person doesn't exist, can we create them?

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I think Seth MacFarlane and David Goodman are the best hope. 

They are both familiar with Sliders - having made a Family Guy episode that was so close to concept that the episode was titled “Sliders” throughout development.

Seth has a production deal with Universal

Seth has no problem adapting other people’s work.  He’s currently working on projects for Universal that adapt the novels “All Our Wrong Todays” and “Winds of War”

As shown by Orville, Seth and Goodman are happy to make their own version of an idea while still integrating the original actors and creators (such as producer Ronald Moore and guest starring roles of actors like Robert Picardo)

Sliders also fits their humor and ideology - a way to explore funny takes on pop culture along with praise and warnings of how sociological ideas can affect the world.

McFarlane and Goodman are the best fit I can think of in the current landscape.  The pieces are there; it’s just a matter of getting them to see it

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ireactions wrote:

SLIDERS in its original airing was a weird and embarrassing bus crash. 70 per cent of the show seemed to be produced by amateur and volatile high school students rather than serious professionals doing professional work. SLIDERS was managed so poorly by its network that it took two years to complete its first 22 episode run of episodes.

I think this is true.  But at the same time, I think Sliders exists in the public consciousness.  For whatever reason, people (and I don't just mean sci-fi fans) remember the show.  It had enough of a following to get that Kickstart or Die video made.

I still think that if Jerry went out of his way to crusade for the show.  Essentially do all the work, agree to either put some of his own money up (for a chance at more if it's successful), star in and produce the show, maybe see if he and his wife can recruit some celebrity starpower to guest star or co-star in it...I don't see how that couldn't appear as a Peacock original series or something.  There's a lot of room on streaming for passion projects, and I don't even think Sliders needs to be a big-budget show.

But I also have no idea how this stuff works so it's very likely I'm wrong.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Jerry O'Connell betrayed me. Jerry O'Connell betrayed the sliders. Jerry O'Connell disgraced SLIDERS. Jerry O'Connell turned his back on SLIDERS. He lied when he quit, making up an excuse about a non-existent budget cut as his reason for leaving. He lied about how he was cast on SLIDERS, making SLIDERS a pitiful low rung in his career and diminishing the show. I have tremendous disdain and rage towards Jerry O'Connell and sometimes, my hatred for Jerry O'Connell has made it difficult to look at him and made it painful to write fan fiction about the character he played on SLIDERS.

However. Even with all of that, I do not think there is *anything* else Jerry could have done at this point to save SLIDERS, having clearly regretted his behaviour in the 1999 - 2002 era. In 2012, he called Tracy Torme, having not spoken to him in years. He asked if SLIDERS could be revived and pledged to do what he could to help. Together, they contracted NBCUniversal and tried to get some meetings booked. In 2013, Jerry did the Funny or Die spoof.

Beginning in 2014, Jerry made every effort to get SLIDERS in the press again with tell-all interviews and articles. In 2018, he and Torme began reaching out to John Rhys-Davies, Cleavant Derricks and Sabrina Lloyd and tried to identify who exactly owned SLIDERS with St. Clare Entertainment having dissolved. In 2019, Jerry repeatedly voiced his willingness to perform in a SLIDERS revival whether playing Quinn Mallory or playing Quinn's father with a younger actor playing Quinn.

There comes a point when the lead actor of a TV show from 1995 has simply hit the limit of what he can do in service of a property that was cancelled in 2000 and that upper limit was probably in 2021 when Torme had meetings with NBCUniversal and could assure NBCUniversal that his lead actor Jerry O'Connell would absolutely perform in a revival. It is not for Jerry O'Connell to put his own money into funding a revival of a television property owned by a multinational conglomerate corporation when that corporation has billions of dollars and Jerry's net worth at my personal estimate is about 20 million USD.

(I had a similar reaction when I was fixing interlacing errors on SLIDERS DVDs and a fan told me I should call NBCUniversal's home video department and provide them with my solutions -- as though it is my job to work for NBCUniversal's video archives and do it unpaid and on my own time as their slave.)

SLIDERS belongs to Tracy Torme as a concept in that he did most of the work to create and shepherd it to air and it's up to him what he wants to pitch when he gets a chance to pitch. But in terms of assets, brand names, copyrights and intellectual property: SLIDERS is owned by NBCUniversal, not by Jerry and not by Torme; it's up to NBCU to seek pitches, to fund it, to arrange it, to produce it -- at which point it would be up to Jerry and Torme to work on it (if asked).

Jerry O'Connell should absolutely not be funding a property he does not own; that is well beyond the scope of his responsibilities as the star of SLIDERS. And I say that as someone who feels that for far too long, Jerry did not live up to his responsibilities to Quinn Mallory, Wade Welles, Rembrandt Brown and Professor Arturo.

I am glad that Jerry turned his perspective around after losing out on SPIDER-MAN and realizing that his path to cultural immortality was not Peter Parker but Quinn Mallory. I am touched that Jerry has done everything that he has for SLIDERS from 2012 and onward. If he'd done all of that in 1999, maybe we wouldn't have to have the conversation we're having right now. But time doesn't run backwards and in my own life, there are a lot of things I wish I had done differently or better or not at all when I was in my early 20s. With great reluctance and grudging respect for our Mr. O'Connell, I feel Jerry has done as much as he can for SLIDERS at this point. We have all done as much as we can for SLIDERS at this point.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I'll give QL a shot, loved the original, and it's really what led me into Sliders.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Scott Bakula says that he has no connection with the QUANTUM LEAP revival, that the original script for the revival had a role for the character of Sam Beckett, but that he declined to be involved for reasons unstated.
https://bleedingcool.com/tv/scott-bakul … hatsoever/

If you believe any of this, I have a bridge to sell you. :-)

Keep the faith, friends.

(I cannot stress enough in the name of Quinn's glasses, Wade's teddy bear, Rembrandt's cab fare and Arturo's chalkboard that the opinions of ireactions do not represent the opinions or any consensus of Sliders.TV as a whole.)

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I do recall him taking a pilot.. which didn't get picked up.

413 (edited by QuinnSlidr 2022-09-15 21:19:51)

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ireactions wrote:

Scott Bakula says that he has no connection with the QUANTUM LEAP revival, that the original script for the revival had a role for the character of Sam Beckett, but that he declined to be involved for reasons unstated.
https://bleedingcool.com/tv/scott-bakul … hatsoever/

If you believe any of this, I have a bridge to sell you. :-)

Keep the faith, friends.

(I cannot stress enough in the name of Quinn's glasses, Wade's teddy bear, Rembrandt's cab fare and Arturo's chalkboard that the opinions of ireactions do not represent the opinions or any consensus of Sliders.TV as a whole.)

I really think there may be a reveal a la the Spider Man No Way Home Reveal. Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield were dead silent and said the same things until the final night that the movie was shown in theaters and everyone cheered at that scene.

It's very likely something similar will happen with Quantum Leap. There's no way they made it this far without Scott Bakula, IMO.

Maybe he will appear in the season 1 finale?

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

Scott Bakula has been talking about a QUANTUM LEAP revival since 1994. Are we really to believe that NBC greenlit a revival, sent Bakula a script, and that for reasons unspecified and vague and non-existent, he just "passed"?

That sounds to me like the flimsiest denial ever from a QUANTUM LEAP actor who is contracted to appear in the QUANTUM LEAP revival and it sounds to me like the only thing Bakula passed on was staying on set past 6 PM and doing any 'official' promotion for the new show.

This sounds to me like James Marsden saying he wasn't going to be in X-MEN: DAYS OF THE FUTURE PAST, like Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield denying they would be in a Spider-Man movie together, like Manu Bennett insisting he wasn't reprising the role of Deathstroke on ARROW and that all those photos of him on set were old publicity stills.

But if I am wrong, then I will write SLIDERS REBORN: Part 9 and I will owe QuinnSldr a cola.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I want our sliders back.  Bad.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

I want our sliders back.  Bad.

You and me both, RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan. You and me both.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

QuinnSlidr wrote:
RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

I want our sliders back.  Bad.

You and me both, RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan. You and me both.

there's no place like home...

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

The new Quantum Leap is so good. Raymond Lee is exceptional and I can't wait to watch him more in new episodes. And both Sam and Al "make an appearance." But not in the traditional sense. Think Will Smith in ID4: Resurgence.

Quite a few other things are also linked to the old Quantum Leap.

I won't spoil anything else.

It's truly a continuation and could be considered a season 6. Not a reboot.

I sure hope if Tracy Torme` ever succeeds in rebooting Sliders that it is even better.

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

I'd like to change the title of this thread to "Reboots: The Return of Sliders and Other Properties" if that's alright. That way, we can talk about any and all reboots even when there isn't any SLIDERS news.

Alternatively, I can shift all the QUANTUM LEAP posts to a new thread. What would we prefer? A new thread containing all the previous QL posts? Or keeping them all here with a thread title change?

Re: Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties

ireactions wrote:

I'd like to change the title of this thread to "Reboots: The Return of Sliders and Other Properties" if that's alright. That way, we can talk about any and all reboots even when there isn't any SLIDERS news.

Alternatively, I can shift all the QUANTUM LEAP posts to a new thread. What would we prefer? A new thread containing all the previous QL posts? Or keeping them all here with a thread title change?

Sure!!! The title change is just fine with me.

I don't think there will be any Sliders reboot news for some time... sad