• Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,964

Topic: Sliders (2025): A hypothetical reboot where no one wants to go home

What would SLIDERS be in 2025?

The original SLIDERS treated 1994 America as a troubled but ultimately utopian society. In the first episode, the American dollar is shown to be so available that an injured construction worker can receive some just by filing a lawsuit, Wade can turn down huge sales in favour of bigger sales later, and Quinn can create sliding from junkyard parts. In the Russian-ruled America of the parallel Earth, the Russians fear the American dollar bill, a potent symbol of resistance and revolution.

A few episodes in, the show became a bit more critical of the present, questioning society's obsession with professional sports and questioning the gender bias and questioning our attitudes to population growth. But it's merely saying that 1994 America is silly as opposed to dangerous or exploitative or evil. 1994 America is safe and comforting and stable and their home. But is that really America in 2025?

What if... ?

Rembrandt Brown is a musician facing bankruptcy and homelessness. Professor Arturo is a genius being sued into oblivion after he exposed his university as one giant scam to put students in generational debt. Wade Welles a college activist is looking at jail time after attending a protest that turned violent. And Quinn Mallory is a physics student turned fugitive after stealing medical equipment and supplies to keep his mother on dialysis after their insurance ran out.

Quinn attempts to create a zero point battery to recharge his stolen dialysis machine. It fries the San Francisco power grid, and rips a hole in reality.

Quinn barely notices because his mother suddenly seizes and dies, just as Wade, a former classmate trying to bring Quinn some supplies, enters the basement of the foreclosed home where Quinn and his mother had been living with all the medical supplies Quinn stole to try to treat his mother while holding out for a transplant that never came.

The rip in reality expands into a vortex, sucking in Quinn, Wade, and a passing car driven by Rembrandt (a rideshare driver) with Professor Arturo (Rembrandt's passenger).

On the next world, Quinn and Wade emerge from the vortex and then dodge Rembrandt's car as it flies out into a ditch. Quinn and Wade are relieved that Rembrandt and the Professor are okay as they extract them from the crashed car, the Professor is familiar with Quinn (a former student) and recognizes the vortex and Quinn is mute and in shock. Wade (a science student in this version) is explaining how Quinn's zero point battery opened what seems like an interdimensional gateway -- and then Rembrandt erupts in rage, yelling at Quinn for his carelessness, his recklessness.

REMBRANDT: "You are crazy! You knocked out power to the city! Your sci-fi sinkhole almost killed me! I almost died!"

(Quinn stares right through Rembrandt, blank.)

REMBRANDT: "What's wrong with you? Say something! Say -- "

WADE: "Stop it!"

REMBRANDT: "What?!"

WADE: "His mother just died! Stop it!"

REMBRANDT: "What... ?"

ARTURO: "Is there any chance, Ms. Welles, that Mr. Mallory's mother died peacefully many weeks or months ago surrounded by loved ones -- "

WADE: "She died two minutes ago will you shut up!"

(Quinn suddenly collapses to his knees in tears.)

REMBRANDT: "Oh, no! Kid! I'm so sorry. I love my momma too. No, not really, but oh, man. This is terrible. But no one's... hurt... no, I... "

ARTURO: "Give him some space, Mr. Brown."

(Quinn begins to weep as Wade rushes to his side.)

WADE: "Quinn. Quinn? Look at me."

QUINN: "I... couldn't make the battery work... "

WADE: "That doesn't matter -- "

QUINN: (holding up the timing mechanism) "It was all for nothing!" (screaming) "She lay there knowing I was going to fail! I couldn't power the machine! I couldn't help her! I let her die! She died knowing I was useless and worthless!"

(Wade wraps her arms around Quinn.)

WADE: "No! No! Sweetie, no. She died knowing you did everything you could. She died knowing -- that you loved her."

(Wade kisses Quinn on the forehead. Quinn cries, burying his face into Wade's shoulder.)

(Rembrandt stares at Quinn and Wade. Quinn looks up from Wade.)

QUINN: "I'm... " (through the tears) "Sorry about your car."

(Rembrandt lowers himself to sit next to Wade and Quinn and cautiously puts a hand on Quinn's shoulder.)

REMBRANDT: "It's just a car. I'm so sorry about your mom. So sorry. You're a good boy. You loved her. No way she didn't know that."

ARTURO: (looking off into the distance) "I'm going to take a look around. Stay here." (looking at Quinn briefly) "Take a moment, but we may not have many to spare." (preparing to set off) "We don't know where we are."

The new sliders have landed on a parallel where objective truth has been completely eroded. Misinformation and propaganda are rampant, and where society is fractured into warring factions based on competing narratives. The sliders pool their talents to create a timing mechanism to reopen the rift to take them home while exploring this dangerous world.

After an adventure and reopening the rift, the sliders return to their home Earth -- only to find the house surrounded by police pursuing Quinn and Wade. Meanwhile, Professor and Arturo are inundated with new voicemails from lawyers and creditors.

The sliders elect to reopen the vortex and escape to a parallel Earth rather than remain in the misbegotten situation that passes for home.

On the next Earth, Quinn and the Professor determine: Quinn's accident created a permanent tear in reality. The timer is linked to this rift back home. A rift that will pursue the sliders across all realities. The timer they've built can feed off the advance energies of that rift and create an alternate gateway a few minutes in advance of the rift. It can take the sliders to a new world in order to dodge the rift each time. The time between slides will sometimes be hours, sometimes days.

But if the sliders fail to slide, the rift will draw them back.

The sliders must continue to slide. For if they fail to slide, they'll be taken home, and home is the last place any of them ever want to be.

SLIDERS
2025

Sometimes, the only way forward is to leave it all behind.

Dear God. Is this really where we are? I think it might be.

Uh. I feel bad about this. Slider_Quinn21 once said that SLIDERS writes itself. This one... wrote itself.

Sorry.

Special thanks to Temporal Flux.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,964

Re: Sliders (2025): A hypothetical reboot where no one wants to go home

One of my Sliders games: I have a reboot document that I update every few years, based on Temporal Flux's elevator pitch, and usually assuming that this reboot will use the original actors at their current ages.

1994 (TF)

Wade Welles is a dreamer who failed to find direction in life. Rembrandt Brown is a soul singer who failed to hang onto his 15 minutes of fame. Professor Arturo is a genius who failed to gain recognition for his brilliance. And Quinn Mallory is a grad student who just failed to create anti-gravity... but may have discovered something else instead. SLIDERS: a journey through what might have been and what could be. Sometimes, getting lost is the best way to be found.

Usually, it was just a matter of changing the sliders' professions.

2012

Wade Welles is a dreamer who failed to find direction outside of selling smartphones and laptops. Rembrandt Brown is a voice coach who failed to hang onto his 15 minutes of fame. Professor Arturo is a genius who failed to gain recognition and now writes science fiction novels. And Quinn Mallory is a lab technician who just failed to create anti-gravity, but may have discovered something else instead... SLIDERS: Sometimes, getting lost is the best way to be found.

2016

Wade Welles is a dreamer who failed to find direction outside of writing smartphone reviews. Rembrandt Brown is a music teacher who failed to hang onto his 15 minutes of fame. Professor Arturo is a genius who tutors desperate college kids after failing to keep his tenure. And Quinn Mallory is a mechanic who failed to create anti-gravity, but 20 years after giving up, he realizes that he may have discovered something else instead... SLIDERS: A journey through what if and what could be.

2019

Wade Welles is a dreamer who never got out of high school and now teaches students that she hates. Rembrandt Brown is a musician who never became a star and now runs a coffee bar he hates. Professor Arturo is a genius who never got the recognition he deserved and now writes high school study guides he hates. And Quinn Mallory is a divorced accountant who hates his job and never managed to create anti-gravity... but 25 years after giving up, he realizes he may have discovered something else instead... SLIDERS: A journey through what never was and what still could be.

Somehow, I have ended up here:

2025

Wade Welles is a college activist facing serious jail time after a protest turned violent. Rembrandt Brown is a musician on the verge of becoming homeless. Professor Arturo is a genius being sued into oblivion by the scam university he exposed. And Quinn Mallory is a physics grad student on the run from the law after stealing dialysis equipment to keep his mother alive. When Quinn attempts a zero point battery to charge his mother's machine, he blows out the San Francisco power grid, his mother dies, and then he discovers his failed battery has split open the very skin of reality and he has created something else instead... SLIDERS: sometimes, the only way forward is to leave it all behind.

My God. What have we done to this world?

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,964

Re: Sliders (2025): A hypothetical reboot where no one wants to go home

In both outlines for the 2019 pilot and the 2025 pilot, Quinn's mother passes away, but the context is very different.

In the 2019 outline, Wade and Arturo pass by Quinn's office at the accounting firm and neither are happy to see him.

WADE: "You!"

ARTURO: "You!"

QUINN: "What?"

WADE: "You're asking me what? You walked out on our marriage! I woke up one morning and on your pillow was a cashier's check and the paperwork!"

QUINN: "You weren't happy, I gave you half of everything and left you alone!"

WADE: "What kind of heartless robot are you?"

ARTURO: "The unambitious kind! What are you doing here, Mr. Mallory!?"

QUINN: "Accounting... ?"

ARTURO: "The most talented graduate student in my class! The brightest of the already incandescent! And you had one failure -- your fanciful 'anti-gravity' -- and for that, you turn into a form filling automaton and throw away your potential!"

WADE: "And your marriage!"

QUINN: "I... it wasn't working! So I stopped! I -- "

(Quinn's phone rings. He picks up. He mumbles a response and hangs up, staring blankly into space.)

ARTURO: "What the  devil is the matter with you now?"

QUINN: "My mom had a heart attack. She's dead."

(There is a long, awkward silence.)

ARTURO: "But upon further consideration, Mr. Mallory, I may have been too hard on you."

WADE: "Yeah, it takes two to divorce. Quinn, I'm so sorry, let's drive you to... wherever you need us to drive you to."

ARTURO: "Indeed, indeed. We'll help."

This would lead to Quinn and Arturo and Wade cleaning out the old Mallory house after Quinn's mother has passed, and finding that the anti-gravity machine is a sliding machine.

But in the 2025 outline:

The plot has Quinn trying to recharge his mother's dialysis machine with a zero point battery that instead fries the San Francisco power grid, and rips a hole in reality. Quinn barely notices because his mother suddenly seizes and dies, just as Wade enters the basement of the foreclosed home where Quinn and his mother had been living with all the medical supplies Quinn stole to try to treat his mother while holding out for a transplant that never came. The rip in reality expands into a vortex, sucking in Quinn, Wade, and a passing car driven by Rembrandt (a rideshare driver) with Professor Arturo (Rembrandt's passenger).

On the next world, Quinn and Wade emerge from the vortex and then dodge Rembrandt's car as it flies out into a ditch. Quinn and Wade are relieved that Rembrandt and the Professor are okay as they extract them from the crashed car, the Professor is familiar with Quinn (a former student) and recognizes the vortex and Quinn is mute and in shock. Wade (a science student in this version) is explaining how Quinn's zero point battery opened what seems like an interdimensional gateway -- and then Rembrandt erupts in rage, yelling at Quinn for his carelessness, his recklessness.

REMBRANDT: "You are crazy! You knocked out power to the city! Your sci-fi sinkhole almost killed me! I almost died!"

(Quinn stares right through Rembrandt, blank.)

REMBRANDT: "What's wrong with you? Say something! Say -- "

WADE: "Stop it!"

REMBRANDT: "What?!"

WADE: "His mother just died! Stop it!"

REMBRANDT: "What... ?"

ARTURO: "Is there any chance, Ms. Welles, that Mr. Mallory's mother died peacefully many weeks or months ago surrounded by loved ones -- "

WADE: "She died two minutes ago will you shut up!"

(Quinn suddenly collapses to his knees in tears.)

REMBRANDT: "Oh, no! Kid! I'm so sorry. I love my momma too. No, not really, but oh, man. This is terrible. But no one's... hurt... no, I... "

ARTURO: "Give him some space, Mr. Brown."

(Quinn begins to weep as Wade rushes to his side.)

WADE: "Quinn. Quinn? Look at me."

QUINN: "I... couldn't make the battery work... "

WADE: "That doesn't matter -- "

QUINN: (holding up the timing mechanism) "It was all for nothing!" (screaming) "She lay there knowing I was going to fail! I couldn't power the machine! I couldn't help her! I let her die! She died knowing I was useless and worthless!"

(Wade wraps her arms around Quinn.)

WADE: "No! No! Sweetie, no. She died knowing you did everything you could. She died knowing -- that you loved her."

(Wade kisses Quinn on the forehead. Quinn cries, burying his face into Wade's shoulder.)

(Rembrandt stares at Quinn and Wade. Quinn looks up from Wade.)

QUINN: "I'm... " (through the tears) "Sorry about your car."

(Rembrandt lowers himself to sit next to Wade and Quinn and cautiously puts a hand on Quinn's shoulder.)

REMBRANDT: "It's just a car. I'm so sorry about your mom. So sorry. You're a good boy. You loved her. No way she didn't know that."

ARTURO: (looking off into the distance) "I'm going to take a look around. Stay here." (looking at Quinn briefly) "Take a moment, but we may not have many to spare." (preparing to set off) "We don't know where we are."

... this is a nightmare. We went from PARKS AND RECREATION to TRUE DETECTIVE.

I blame Slider_Quinn21 for this. He told me "SLIDERS writes itself" and I can't seem to look away.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
  • Posts: 4,964

Re: Sliders (2025): A hypothetical reboot where no one wants to go home

I think Episode 2 would probably need to start lightening the mood a little, and strike some balance between goofy comedy and misery-horror.

(Restaurant.)

REMBRANDT: "I cannot believe US greenbacks were thrown all over the streets of the last world. Like, why?"

ARTURO: "Inflationary crisis? A shift to digital currency? Regardless, we were all wise to stuff our pockets and bags and shirts and trousers."

QUINN: (examining the timer) "Good news, I've got the chronometer synced for the quantum gravimetric transvibrational respositioning process. We'll have a to-the-millisecond countdown of how long the timer needs to recharge using exotic matter in advance of the rift to keep us one step ahead of being dragged home to jail and jail and... all the other stuff we're running from that I won't say outright because it's awkward." 

REMBRANDT: "Sorry. The what process?" 

QUINN: "The quantum gravimetric transvibrational respositioning process. It's what makes interdimensional travel possible. I call it the QGTR manifold equation process for short."

REMBRANDT: "That's the short version!? Q-Ball, you need one word! Something can be a verb and an adjective."

QUINN: "I like the QGTR manifold equation process, it's a perfect name."

(The waiter approaches.)

WAITER: "Hi! Just give me two minutes for our menu to update and you can select your state and party preferences, then I'll be right with you. Half price sliders today no matter which side of the aisle!"

WADE: "What in the crazy... ?"

REMBRANDT: "Sliders! Sliding! Q-Ball, that's the name for your coronary grad school whatsit! Call it sliding!"

QUINN: "We're not calling it sliding! Professor! Tell him! It makes interdimensional travel sound like a park for little kids!"

ARTURO: (good-naturedly) "Now, Mr. Mallory, I find that 'sliding' has the benefit of being a mere two syllables and from my recent court struggles, I can tell you that brevity is an asset."

WADE: "And since we're sliding, we could call ourselves the sliDERS. Fits on a protest sign."

QUINN: "We are not naming quantum gravimetric transvibrational repositioning after a mini-hamburger!"

WADE: (very condescendingly) "Boy, sliding is making you cranky; let's get you some sliders and make you a happy slider."

ARTURO: (almost sadistically) "Sliding has spurred a craving; I find myself partial to the onion rings."

REMBRANDT: (happily) "And the go-to slider for a hungry slider is a slider with pickles and a touch of that ol' bacon."

WADE: "I'll go for the vegetarian slider which is the perfect slider for a vegetarian slider."

QUINN: (bleakly) "I can see that this is going to stick."

(Later)

(Quinn sits quietly on the floor of the hotel room.)

(Rembrandt sits next to him.)

REMBRANDT: "You got a grudge against chairs and sofas?"

QUINN: "I can't... "

REMBRANDT: "Talk to me, man. We're all we got on this crazy ride."

QUINN: "All this money. This hotel room. Two days ago, I was mixing dialysis solutions for my mom because I couldn't pay for the real thing. I was sleeping on a tarp. And now... for lunch and this room, we spent enough cash to cover four sessions. Two weeks. I needed this money so badly and I couldn't get it and now I have it and my mom's gone and I just can't -- "

REMBRANDT: "I'm sorry, Q-Ball. I've had rough times too. I spent a month living out of my car last year."

QUINN: "Sounds humbling."

REMBRANDT: "It was the Ritz compared to how, this month, I was on the verge of living in a tent. But Quinn, you doing well now doesn't mean you weren't doing your best before. These worlds are crazy. And in all the crazy, d'you really think your mom would be upset for you staying warm and eating well?"

QUINN: "No."

REMBRANDT: "'Course not. She'd be proud of you for surviving."

QUINN: "Would your mother be proud of you?"

REMBRANDT: "Heck, no. She'd take it as a personal insult. Momma Brown was one petty meanie. Your mom wasn't like that."

QUINN: "You never knew my mom."

REMBRANDT: "I know you."

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: Sliders (2025): A hypothetical reboot where no one wants to go home

I got a comment on my outline:

I very much like what you have done here and it makes some sense. However it’s a little bit negative to me that none of them would have any family or friends that they loved enough to ever want to return back. Not sure what that says about our characters and I feel that makes them less compelling. Not sure I would route for loners that didn’t love any family or friends. These would be people that weren’t morally good enough to face their own problems but to me our sliders we watched were the most moral and that is partly why I loved them.

To continue to watch a show and route for people unwilling to face their own problems whilst they are our prism looking at other worlds problems and whilst they sometimes make a start to fix other worlds problems- well I don’t think I would route for them or feel or have an affinity with them enough. I love the start of what you have done but I feel that if they didn’t slide to the next world they would be ok with missing it and returning home.

Surely some of these worlds would be bad enough that doing some prison time or facing problems back home would be seen as an ok alternative. E.g. they go to a world with no penicillin or another with lottery euthanasia or one where nazis or nazi oligarchs are in charge and do nazi salutes on TV and blame countries that have been invaded in the oval Office for being invaded…. Also I assume they may be able to steal or make money in their travels to enable them to sort some of their problems when they return home.

Really Quin’s problems would be largely resolved when he returned home and explained what he had discovered and they looked into it. The USA would involve him in a secret operation to go to other worlds and eg find ones where we could exploit natural resources, find one that’s slightly in the future, obtain future tech etc etc. he would probably be able to solve all their problems by exploiting this tech he created.

I’d be ok with having the background problems you mentioned forcing them to feel the need to slide once or twice but with the twist that this led to them requiring to jump before the timer said. After a couple of episodes they discuss it and agree to return home but before doing so they are in imminent serious danger and jump.

The jump starts the timer and means that unless they jump they will be stuck indefinitely. There would then be an irony that they wanted to escape their earth only to find other earths were worse. And that when they did wish to return home and face their problems they realise they couldn’t and were now set on jumping through the multiverse one parallel world to another. And they still wanted to get home despite all the problems they will face.

Also on a side note I would definitely have them miss a slide once after a few years and have them have to invent sliding again. Montages etc. thankfully they were on an advanced world etc. problem is though that they don’t have coordinates home….but they can go back to that earth as a base whilst they scout other worlds.

My response:

I know that American TV has taught us that heroes should always fight the good fight and stick with their ongoing challenges. But I think that heroism has limits, perseverance has a threshold at which it becomes untenable, people have the right to recognize when a situation is unworkable and choose to walk away. We should not apply a moral judgement to someone choosing to disengage from a situation that is no longer working and where they do not have dependents.

Wade is looking at jail for standing up for civil rights; Arturo is being sued for exposing higher education as a debt trap; Rembrandt's poverty is a societal failure and not Rembrandt's own doing; Quinn is being hunted for stealing medicine to try to keep his mother alive.

These are real life issues: protest should be a civil liberty in a democracy that is often systemically shifted into a criminal offense; education is all too often a scam to create financial servitude to creditors; poor people are a failure of society and not the people; and I've read horrible stories of people being denied life-saving dialysis because they couldn't afford it.

These problems are problems of a deeply troubled society as opposed to personal failings or bad choices on the part of the person facing them, and as I read about these things happening in real life, I wondered if Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo could be dealing with them and if they would even want to find a way back home.

I recognize that this is an inversion from what the show was when it was first filmed in 1994 and broadcast in 1995, and I understand that it may be unwanted and unwelcome. It's just the world I'm seeing outside my window.

There was a time when I thought poorly of people who cut their losses and ran. Now, I think anyone who wants to leave a bad situation should be empowered to do so.

The theme of SLIDERS (2025) is clearly: you have the right to walk away, to decide something isn't working, there should be no moral condemnation for retreat or withdrawal, and this 'never give up' mentality of American television is a delusion and a lie.

Thank you for listening to my TED Talk.

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: Sliders (2025): A hypothetical reboot where no one wants to go home

I don't have time to write the full stories, but over time, I'm going to write short summaries for nine more episodes of a season of SLIDERS (2025) with a season finale.

I think, inevitably, the first season ends with the sliders going home to confront their problems, face their fears, address their issues, and they will live to regret it. (Haha!)

  • Registered: 2015-06-21
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Re: Sliders (2025): A hypothetical reboot where no one wants to go home

Episode 2: "Any Day Now"

The sliders arrive in a San Francisco dominated by the colossal, unfinished skeleton of a bridge stretching across the Pacific. This Trans-Pacific Unity Bridge is a 30 year project for a bridge to Asia. The Golden Gate Bridge is abandoned while this incomplete, decades-in-the-making bridge has consumed San Francisco's resources for a generation. Sections of the incomplete bridge keep detaching and collapsing. 

The prevailing cultural attitude is to be persistent and to shame anyone seen to abandon or give up on any pursuit or goal, which makes the sliders feel really weak, worthless and guilty about fleeing their homeworld.

Arturo, while leafing through a pamphlet about the bridge, determines that the bridge project is unworkable and always has been. His rant sees him reluctantly pulled into an anti-bridge fringe group seeking a spokesperson to argue that the bridge is a collective delusion and a waste of time and resources. Quinn, accompanying the Professor, determines the whole bridge project has been a scam since it started and finds the original lead engineer who knew the bridge was hopeless.

Meanwhile, Rembrandt and Wade, wandering the streets, spy a troupe of street singers whom Rembrandt eagerly joins. Rembrandt is engaged to perform at a celebration event for the start of the next construction wave for the bridge. Wade, accompanying Rembrandt through the pre-event setup, sees how people have devastated their livelihoods on business plans and investments in anticipation of the post-bridge economy, yet convince themselves that the completed bridge will cover all their losses.

At the concert, Rembrandt sings a song about lost dreams and moving on, and then the event organizers show a celebration video -- except Wade has replaced it with one provided by Quinn and Arturo where the original bridge engineer reveals that the bridge was never workable and is totally unachievable. The populace react with dismay and grief, and as the sliders leave the concert, they hear about a new project: an under-ocean tunnel from San Francisco to Asia, for which the city has great enthusiasm. The sliders groan and, exasperated, they slide out, having made their own peace with giving up and walking away.