Sliders: Declassified (Page 2 of 2)

It is amazing how history comes back around:

https://dnyuz.com/2020/12/02/the-discre … f-a-flask/

This is probably one of my quirks, but I generally don't subscribe to the idea of the good old days. There were no good old days, just days where the problems were different. To look at SLIDERS: even the sacred first season was a time of episodes being aired out of order, scripts being at odds with actors (like Quinn being written as Tobey Maguire but played by Jerry O'Connell), bizarre efforts at ongoing arcs that were never going to make it to air intact in the 90s when people didn't watch every episode, and the inability to decide whether Quinn and Wade were a couple or not from week to week is frustrating.

A much-enjoyed period of DOCTOR WHO and THE X-FILES for me: it was when the properties existed as media tie-ins: novels and audioplays for DW and comic books for THE X-FILES. There was some brilliant material that really redefined the series on paper -- but it'd be foolish to see those eras as the way forward for both franchises when the material was addressing devoted fans as opposed to a general audience and would have only ever served a steadily diminishing number of devotees as the years passed. Was it fun? Yeah! Was it really a good situation for DW and TXF? No, the spin-off media was just keeping the brand on life support.

I have the same feeling about the STAR TREK novels by William Shatner which resurrected Captain Kirk in the 24th century and recreated the original trio of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in the TNG era and had some wonderful stories: nine novels and a one book prequel -- but that really only played to diehard fans despite the merits of the writing, and it was best to get Kirk, Spock and McCoy back onscreen with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban in the roles.

Even my personal golden age of SLIDERS (REBORN, which was very personal, only 24 people really participated in it) was a time of intense stress: a nervous breakdown on a roadtrip that led to an eight month delay, a very painful developmental process of exhaustion, a desperate need for it all to be over at the 22 month mark, and then a fun final two months that left me missing it all emotionally but being intellectually aware that the end needed to be the end for my own sanity and well-being. I have a lot of fun listening to the podcast about SLIDERS and re-reading the delightful correspondence over the project and it never fails to cheer me up, but I have to be selective in not reliving the nervous collapse it induced and this was fan fiction.

Another minor issue with SLIDERS in its original conception: SLIDERS often took the view that mid-90s America was the 'correct' route for society and characters acted like any divergence from that was due to a moral or social failure -- at least in the Pilot and "Prince of Wails" and "Fever." There was a certain arrogance in that and to its credit, SLIDERS soon punctured that air of self-righteousness with "The Weaker Sex" and "Luck of the Draw" where those Earths have conquered famine and war even if their methods may be offputting and at odds with the sliders.

And this may or may not be why I am so awful at alternate history (all of my efforts just become alien planets) and social satire (all my efforts just become straight commentary), but that's okay. I'm a sitcom guy, not a sci-fi guy. We all have our strengths and weaknesses as creators.

This is a really interesting storyline from TF. I have somewhat pigeonholed Temporal Flux as the social satire and comedy conceptualist, but it's an error to forget that he is just as capable with action, danger, risk, paranoia and sci-fi technology concepts. This is less Temporal Flux is Torme/Weiss mode and more TF doing Marc Scott Zicree but far darker and more dangerous than Zicree ever got. There's a certain savagery to the sliders accidentally unleashing a destructive nuclear blast in the process of escaping it. There's a bleak horror to someone missing their 29.7 window and then missing it again.

Not sure if this is where the story ends, but it's incredibly disturbing and stirring and frightening and damn it, Temporal Flux, I was about to go to bed.

So today, DC Comics hired a new Vice President:

https://bleedingcool.com/comics/dc-comi … president/

Some are joking that this now means DC Comics will be produced on hemp paper, and that may come to pass.  Hemp paper would have likely been the dominant material in newsprint except for William Randolph Hearst:

http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/pot/blunderof37.html

Just think of the differences over the past century if corporate interests had not crushed hemp.  No reliance on foreign oil.  No gas crisis in the 70’s.  The petro-dollar would never be born thus reducing America’s influence on the world.  DuPont wouldn’t have been as powerful thus reducing chemicals and plastics released into the world. Would pollution look different?  Would mental health look different?

This is where I think Narcotica failed.  It would be much more interesting to look at a modern world that never knew the word marijuana.  But corporate interests don’t fade away due to one lost battle; what would have been attacked instead to prop up an industry and world power?  That would be the key to discover and the vehicle to insert our Sliders into peril.  What innocuous item do they hold that would be demonized on this world?  That would take some thought.

Seeing your list of questions, it focused my thoughts on this.  An interesting thing about our world is why items have value.  Gold has been a standard for millennia, but why?  Because it’s pretty?  Because there’s a finite amount that can be difficult to find?

Whatever the reason, the underlying truth is that it has value because everyone believes it has value.  That’s all.  Belief.  We’re having a new examination of this right now with Bitcoin and NFTs. There is nothing physical about them; but more and more people believe they have value, so they do have value.

If we have a world where hemp oils eliminated the petro-dollar, then how would the US prop up its power?

Tweak things slightly and see the US winning World War 2 (much less credit to The Allies). Japan surrendered to us.  As pointed out to 1955 Doc Brown in Back to the Future III, Japan was the leader in technology for some time (and still is in quality if not quantity). What if the US better retained its hold on Japan and cornered technology on the global stage?  What if the dollar is pegged to technology?  The birth of the techno-dollar.

On Hemp World, technology not only has astronomical value, but it’s a status symbol.  When our Sliders land there with digital devices (like their phones and even the timer), the local population assumes they are millionaires; and the Sliders decide to use the opportunity to live the high life for a change.  Of course, they experience the pit falls of that when it starts to become clear the Sliders don’t have anything more than what’s on them.  The population starts out believing the Sliders have value, but that belief starts to fade.

I’m reluctant to do “lost timer” stories, but I do have this vision in my head of the timer components (and active digital countdown) mounted in a clear case on a big gold chain hanging around a famous rapper’s neck.  The beam emitter?  Pointed up at the rapper’s head because he nor anyone around him understand what that thing can do.  The rapper is just using it as bling.

In any case, I think this type of story could be a good examination of why we place value on things.  By extension, it would also look at the fallacy of placing value on people based on the things they hold.

[Removed]

[I was concurring with TF's post, but it seemed to me that I shouldn't put my politics in his thread. I'll find somewhere else.]

I like how you all have different ideas and a vision of what Sliding is, what Stories and Situations should be central.....

It's beautiful.

Infinite Possibilities in Infinite Combinations means that all of you are right.

Sliders offers a Medium to tell every kind of story. From personal stories, to situational stories and even more broadly impactful scenarios of a regional/national, philosophical, political or technological focus.

Different Figures in positions of influence and or power that shape a society in the past or present.

Biological varience in Flora & Fauna that can effect everything or nothing, from food and diet, to ecosystem collapse or sustainability, all the way up to atmospheric composition and oceanic PH levels.

Social Norms that run counter to the expected, or that have subtleties that can be easily missed to great cost.

Fashion that can mislead as to the Era or even shape what proffession you can or can not have, where you are allowed to visit or not and who you are allowed or not to talk to.

In Medieval Times perception of colour itself was different to now. One of the earliest still intact Chapels has paintings of the battle of Lucifer and Michael. Lucifer and Michael are depicted as Good vs Evil based upon the Colour of Clothing and Halo.... in the Modern Era Lucifer is associated with Red. Back then though, it was Lucifer clad in Blue and Michael clad in Red. Red back then was more associated with Vitality and Warmth. With Blue being associated with Death and the Cold.

Things changed in our Reality, but in AU timelines? Colour could mean the difference between many things from the unimportant, to the seriously dangerous or vital.

I started thinking about it, and it led me to an idea adjacent.

Sports like NASCAR are the more professional example, but many every day people place value in branding themselves with corporate logos.  Air Jordans.  Shirts with soft drink logos.  Underwear with super heroes.  But what if reverse psychology gave this desire a deeper meaning?

What if corporate sponsorship was used to sell a social credit system to Americans?  You want to wear Air Jordans like your favorite basketball star?  You can’t just buy it.  Improve your image.  Eat right.  Be kind to people.  Don’t lie.  Don’t cheat.  Live up to the brand.  It could create a way to differentiate people at a glance without it being forced.  What were they proudly wearing of their own decision?

I’m reluctant to do “the Sliders got arrested” stories, but this could be about survival.  The Sliders would have to explore their flaws (finding some they didn’t even realize they had); and unless they can improve themselves, they won’t get access to the resources they need to survive until the timer activates.  Some Sliders are better at this than others.  The best of them might barely scrape by or even fail at changing themselves.  The worst of them may meet the criteria by accident much to the chagrin of the group

You would have multiple opportunities for character journeys that end in change, and you could have some “helping people” scenarios that would fit more naturally into a Sliders story.  Of course, the comedy would come with the people not wanting the Sliders’ help, or the difference in culture leading the Sliders to hinder people instead of helping.

But the true beauty of this idea is from a production stand point.  If you played your cards right (pitching companies on the image they’ll get in the episode), the episode could probably pay for itself in product placement.

My co-worker passed along another one of these:

https://rumble.com/v10mnew-live-world-p … water.html

The short of it - COVID-19 is not a virus and instead cobra venom dumped into the water supply.  As most conspiracy theories do, they make some compelling arguments, but they overlook one thing.  Even in targeted areas, I can scarcely imagine the scope and scale of the operation needed to dump sufficient amounts of venom to effect this.  The entire public would have to be “in on it” and making it happen.

And that’s when it hit me, and this is the reason I look at these things.  This could be a good Sliders story.

Years ago on Turner Classic Movies, I watched a 1936 film on the life of Louis Pasteur:

https://youtu.be/zeO8ZOYTa3k

The film depicts how Pasteur was treated as a mad man for pointing out the simple reality that germs exist.  Before and after the movie, they also had commentary and shorts discussing Pasteur’s theories about intentionally poisoning the body in measured amounts to kill the illness without killing the host.  These ideas would later develop into our medical treatments today (most well known as chemotherapy for cancer).

Our medical history and advancement accepts that poison can cure.  If civilization had accepted this concept sooner and on a broader scale, how could it have been applied?  Might we have developed some form of snake venom to dump in the water supply to act as a prophylactic against certain diseases?

Our Sliders land on this world and start to get sick one after another.  They begin to be seen as patients zero of some unknown illness that can’t be explained; but the truth is that their bodies aren’t conditioned to the venom in the water.  The cure for them is to stop using the water and get away from that world; but can they do it in a world growing increasingly afraid of the “disease” they carry?

As for why civilization would have taken this path accepting snake venom?  It’s an interesting thing also mentioned in my co-worker’s video.  Many see snakes as evil, and that’s rooted in religion (The Garden of Eden).  What if there is a world where people didn’t blame the snake?  In Demonic possession stories, we see the person as the victim. Why isn’t the snake a victim?

I was recently having a discussion with a gentleman who runs the front desk of a hotel. His name is Charlie. I asked Charlie: how would the sliders go about getting hotel rooms when they have no ID and no credit cards that would function on a parallel Earth? Charlie replied that his hotel and most would likely not allow the sliders to rent a room without ID and credit or debit. Hotels require a form of payment that can be charge for "incidentals" in the event that the guest smashes up the room or steals all the furniture and has to be charged for repairs and replacements, and that no prepaid card or card without matching ID would be accepted nor would cash be suitable (because a few hundred dollars in cash might not cover the cost of potential repairs for reckless or destructive guests).

I protested: what if Charlie were hired by the writers of SLIDERS to find a loophole to get the sliders a room? Charlie replied that there is no loophole.

I asked: could Charlie be bribed with cash? Charlie replied that no amount of cash the sliders might carry on their person would induce him to risk his own job or to shoulder the cost of the potential incidentals.

I told Charlie that he was a lousy friend because if the positions were reversed, the sliders would find some way to get Charlie a room in order to progress the plot and then I wondered if there might be a DECLASSIFIED-brand solution.

I absolutely love this. LOL

Had never heard of this, but it’s a perfect background drop in a Sliders episode.  Nothing else needed but to show the DuMont logo flash on a tv as station identification:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DuMont_ … on_Network

DuMont is the forgotten fourth network partnered with Paramount Pictures.  They filmed some 20,000 episodes of television between 1942 and 1952.  That library included the first ever tv sitcom, first TV game show and the first minority focused programming (including black and Asian hosts of programs).  DuMont was also where Jackie Gleason’s Honeymooners was born (though the actual series was later greenlit by CBS).

All of the DuMont Network film library was dumped in the East River of New York City - considered garbage.  It’s still there, and a small portion has been excavated by divers.

How could you set up a nuclear holocaust world?  One of the known events:

https://amp.miamiherald.com/news/nation … 75366.html

The moon could have caused World War 3

My own answer here is not meant in any way to take away from Temporal Flux's answer which I know will be outstanding, but there is a chance that the only Spider Wasps to arrive through the portal with the Sliders are the males, thereby removing any possibility of reproduction.

Then again, there's also the nightmare scenario where an enterprising scientist on that world gets the idea to bioengineer a female version of the giant species to help propagate its reproduction...