Remix Continuity: Power Rangers and SLIDERS

Sliders would work more easily in this context, since the world at large changes every issue.  The only continuity is among the Sliders themselves.

The comic book medium is very different from TV and audio (or fan fiction). The average comic is 22 pages, and the page count to undo Seasons 3 - 5 would have been gargantuan. Telling lost stories set during Seasons 1 - 2 would have immediately presented the SLIDERS concept and characters: four friends, parallel worlds, boundless adventure, entry level stories.

That said, in 2000, the majority of the fanbase *wanted* the original sliders resurrected, the loose threads wrapped up -- and I just don't think TF's lost stories approach would have served that wish. However, SLIDERS should never be presented as a back catalog of unfinished plots to be resolved. I can't think of anything worse than opening a new SLIDERS comic book with a post-"Seer" story and all its complexities.

If the comic book adventures of Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo had sold well and led to spin-offs, it'd have been nice to do a "Slide Effects" extra-sized comic in which Tracy Torme's plot for resurrecting the original sliders in a single story with the ongoing comic set after Torme's story and Seasons 3 - 5 no longer casting a shadow over the ongoing comic. But that's a 2000 - 2005 proposition. After that point, I think a SLIDERS comic would need to present SLIDERS as a comic book, not a tie-in to a TV show that was no longer in production or recent memory.

If we were to do a SLIDERS comic today, I would probably advise going with something similar to TF's approach. Start with the sliders already sliding, introduce the characters and concept immediately, have them convey their backstory to a guest-star in a single-issue premiere comic. Indicate that this is a rebooted version of the sliders, not an extension of the 1995 series. If the comic did well, then there could conceivably be a SLIDERS: ORIGIN mini-series that would be a comic book adaptation of the pilot set in the modern day -- and perhaps a SLIDERS CLASSIC series to resolve the 1995 series as well.

The QUANTUM AND WOODY comic book, a superhero series, was in a similar position. It was a popular superhero comedy from the 90s that unfortunately got cancelled. When the comic came back a few years ago, it was a reboot with a new writer. However, once the reboot series was up and running, the publisher hired the original writer to come back and do a wrap-up series for the original series continuity.

You didn't. I was commenting on the 2000 - 2005 situation for the fans during which (a) Robert K. Weiss was attempting a series revival (b) TF was hoping to do SLIDERS comics and (c) the fans were hoping that SLIDERS could resurrect its original cast and get back to the Season 1 - 2 situation.

It's a difficult scenario for any creator and the remix approach is intriguing because it immediately restores what made SLIDERS worthwhile in the first place -- the concept and characters -- and puts that center stage rather than splitting the Quinns and defeating the Kromaggs. And that's great for the SLIDERS property, but I don't know if it's good for the fans? Because the fans would have read and enjoyed these comics, but there would be a terrible shadow over any Quinn, Wade and Arturo story given their eventually fates on TV. I wonder how it would have been received had the comics gone through.

I think there can also be a 4th option - Revision.

There's a Halloween movie starring Jamie-Lee Curtis that's going to come out later this year.  The premise is that it's a sequel to the first movie only.  Michael escaped - Loomis chased him - Michael killed several and came after Laurie Strode - then he was recaptured at some point and has been locked up since the 70s.  It doesn't care about the later sequels, even the ones that Jamie Lee Curtis came back for (the original Halloween II or H20). 

The same was planned for a Neil Blomkamp Alien film.  The plan was to make a "True Alien 3" that would've ignored Alien 3 and Alien: Resurrection, which would've included Hicks, Newt, and Ripley after the events of Aliens.

Another great example is the Toho Godzilla films.  They get a reboot every decade or so, and every reboot starts as a sequel to the original Godzilla movie (which has stayed in canon for each iteration).

If I wanted to do stories with the original four sliders, this is how I'd handle it.  Don't burden yourself with coming up with convoluted ways of explaining every continuity issue (it's going to sound like I'm teasing ireactions, but I'm really talking about the backflips I did for my own alternate Season 6) - tell the stories that make up "Vancouver Season 3" - so ignore everything that filmed in Los Angeles.

What's great about Sliders is that you could do whatever you want without harming any continuity.  Just say the Season 3-5 Sliders were doubles of the originals.  We know that there are other groups of Rembrandt/Quinn/Wade/Arturo sliding out there - just say that Season 3-5 was another group.  If you really want, have the "real" Sliders run into post-Seer Rembrandt.

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That all being said, the new Power Rangers series sounds pretty cool.

I think Slide Override is referring to "Heat of the Moment," and I totally agree with his criticisms.

Anyway. A SLIDERS comic book in 2000 shortly after the series was cancelled is a very different proposition from a SLIDERS comic book in 2018. TF's story ideas were all about his craft for world-building and social satire and none of them depended on being set in 1995 - 1996 aside from the presence of the original sliders.

2000
In 2000, SLIDERS fans were pretty traumatized by the events of "The Exodus," "Genesis," "Mother and Child," "Revelations," "The Unstuck Man," "Requiem" and "The Seer" which mutilated the cast and concept. It's a fair argument that it's emotionally disengaging to reveal the Season 3 - 5 events happened to a different set of sliders.

However, one could argue that the damage was done on TV already and picking up from the Season 2 finale and having these sliders encounter a post-"Seer" Rembrandt would be repairing harm that happened long before the comics saw print.

I think a comic book version of SLIDERS in the 2000 - 2005 era featuring Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo would have needed to find some way to cast off the shadow of Seasons 3 - 5. I personally imagine SLIDERS #1 (2000) seemingly set between Season 2 and Season 3. But then a year in, there'd be a SLIDERS #0 (2001) to adapt Tracy Torme's "Slide Effects" and reveal Seasons 3 - 5 were a Kromagg simulation and the comic has been replacing Season 3 and onward all along. Hopefully, a full year of issues would have gotten the audience so invested in the comic that deleting Seasons 3 - 5 would be acceptable and dodge SlideOverride's objections.

Something similar happened with IRON MAN comics. Tony Stark was, in 1995's "The Crossing," transformed into a mind-controlled murderer who'd been in thrall to a villain since his origin story and then killed off. When Tony returned in 1998's IRON MAN #1, he was heroic again and there was no reference to "The Crossing" until 2001 when it was hurriedly explained that Franklin Richards, Mr. Fantastic's son with reality warping powers, had restored Tony and the mind-controlled period was retconned, scaled back to a few months. Most readers were so pleased to have Tony back that when the explanation for his restoration came three years later, it felt like old news.

2018
With 2018, I think a comic book SLIDERS shouldn't return as an extension of the TV show but instead be a reboot that exists on its own terms. But the Pilot story is *very* long for the 22 page comic book format, so it'd probably be best to open with SLIDERS #1 (2018) again featuring the sliders having already been sliding for 3 -6 months, explaining their situation to a guest-character and do the origin story later.

When the NEW 52 BATMAN comics started up, there had been a recent reboot, but the NEW 52 BATMAN comics didn't start from day one. They started in the present with Batman already established with about 5 - 10 years of experience. After a period of time, there was a flashback arc, YEAR ZERO, which depicted Batman's origin.

Remix?
POWER RANGERS comics have gotten away with shifting the 1993 show into a floating timeline of perpetual now because the 1993 show seemed to be set in a bubble of a few standing sets and reused footage from Japanese superhero shows. The original POWER RANGERS had no backstories for its characters and showed nothing of how the larger world reacted to aliens on the moon launching weekly attacks on a single American city. The comics have a nearly blank slate outside the onscreen bubble and their filling it in is satisfying even if those details don't always line up with the show itself.

I don't think SLIDERS could get away with shifting the 1994 - 2000 continuity into a floating timeline since SLIDERS' world-building wasn't vague and foggy like POWER RANGERS. I also don't think the SLIDERS concept does well when satirizing a period of time that's over two decades in the past. SLIDERS should always be set today.

Also, while the actors on POWER RANGERS were treated terribly, the characters were inoffensively written off: they left the team to join a peace summit, compete in gymnastics, become archaeologists and some returned from time to time. Nobody reads GO GO POWER RANGERS and feels sad about how Billy's search for a place to belong will end with him getting shot and blown up because he wasn't. The LOST SLIDES approach would have gotten SLIDERS back at the height of its powers, but the dark future of Seasons 3 - 5 would have been a problem.

One of my favourite episodes of the SLIDERS REWATCH podcast had Tom and Cory talking about how they thought "The Alternateville Horror" was a fun episode, but it was hard to enjoy anything lighthearted when home had been invaded and Wade was in a rape camp. I think LOST SLIDES would have had a similar problem.

I have never seen a single HALLOWEEN film, but the continuity fascinates me.

That's not necessarily true.  If John Rhys-Davies had wanted to come back to the series and they brought him back saying it was really our Professor who got left behind on Azure Gate Bridge world, would anyone really have been upset?

Wade and Quinn would be pretty easy to deal with.

She was drugged and the Kromaggs have mind altering abilities, so she likely wouldn't remember any of what happened after she was captured.  When they encountered her in Requiem she didn't even know where she was.  As for rape, the series never said that explicitly.  I prefer to think she was used as a surrogate; Kromagg egg fertilized by Kromagg male implanted in her for gestation.  Still bad, but not quite as bad.

Quinn also might not remember his time being merged.  Certainly he wouldn't have any memory after New Gods for Old.  It's a manageable problem.

It would make a good Black Mirror episode.  It would not make a good Sliders episode.  I've been on the reboot team for a long while, but if they decided to continue the old characters 20 years later it could be done without making it quite so dreary.

There are always exceptions to the rule, but there is a serious underlining reason why it is generally not done. I absolutely would not be upset if they pulled a 'wrong slider slid' scenario ... but that is side-stepping the point at hand.

There is an unspoken pact made between the person who reads/watches/plays a piece of work and the creator of said work. Outside of some obvious exceptions - and they are usually blatant exceptions - that pact states that we will happily go on a journey with a creator in order to explore the worlds, characters and the situation that you have created, regardless of the innate fact that we know full well that no harm will ever come to the main characters of this story. We will create a suspension of disbelief. There may be hundreds of instances where these character will be thrown into mortal danger, and though we know that they will 99.9% of the time always come out of it in one piece, we happily embrace any and all suspensions of disbelief specifically because it is the journey that the creator wants us to go on, that is of critical importance above all else.

However, there are limits to that suspension of disbelief.

When you take away that journey, when you begin to say that death doesn't matter, or even what you thought you saw with that character doesn't matter, then there is a subconscious detachment that takes place. You may very well state that it wouldn't matter personally for you, but it is something that happens on a subconscious level. You take away death, you take away even the fake peril from that pact between creator and viewer, then nothing matters. At what point then does a viewer begin to ask that, if they no longer like a particular aspect of that journey, that they want that changed, since if death doesn't matter, nothing matters. Forget even rules of the world that you have created, if death is something that someone can easily come back from, then everything is fair game. Suspension of disbelief is well and truly shattered.

There may be joy at the 'real' Arturo now ... but where does that lead? I don't like Action Man Quinn compared to the original. Do we then say that there was a real Quinn still sliding out there and I want him back? I detest the character assassination of Head-In-A-Jar Wade. Can I just wipe that entire journey clean, pretend it didn't happen, and pick up a sub series 3 Wade? Can I seriously, and easily, just wipe out series 3-5 as just 'fake alternates' and embrace a series 6 in the shape of the 'real' series 3?

The moment you tell an audience that the journey doesn't matter, that it was a dream, a coma, the wrong character slid -whatever reasoning you want to come up with - you make a huge impact in that suspension of disbelief and, whether you are conscious of it or not, create a divide between the work and the viewer. Hand-waving death in the fashion mentioned here, and ignoring entire character stories and arcs, is a suspension of disbelief one step too far.

On a side note, there is also an entirely separate discussion that could be had about wiping out 3 seasons worth of content, including all of the hard work put in by actors, writers, crews and everyone else contained within that, but that's a whole other discussion to be had.

In 2018, I think any hypothetical SLIDERS comic would have to start fresh and create a new version of the characters going sliding for the first time. I think any TV show or movie would have to do so as well.

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From a 2000 standpoint -- all the emotional difficulties Slider_Quinn21 raises are too convoluted for SLIDERS because they interrupt what should be a very simple, straightforward premise: the sliders are lost in the multiverse trying to find a way back home. Addressing merged Quinns and Kromagg invasions and Kromagg Prime origin stories and resurrecting Wade and wrong Arturos is too complicated, and even pilight's dismissals (Quinn and Wade don't remember their traumas!) would still require addressing them. There is, in fact, a decidedly unsettling undertone to saying Wade should simply forget that David Peckinpah raped her.

It's also counterintuitive to bring all this continuity into a story only to say none of it matters anymore -- and it's also far more than could fit into a TV episode or a comic book, and even if you could, what is the point of any version of SLIDERS that's more concerned with resurrections and de-mergings than it is with exploring parallel worlds? That's probably why TF's LOST SLIDES concept is getting such a good response in this thread.

Slide_Override's dismay at wiping out 65 episodes is well-founded, but that's like a patient protesting life-saving surgery because he's scared of sharp objects. Tracy Torme seemed conscious of this as well when he came up with "Slide Effects" as a Season 4 premiere that would erase everything after "The Guardian" and when he suggested it as a hypothetical Season 6 premiere. His story would have had Quinn waking up after "This Slide of Paradise" or "The Seer" to discover time rewound to the Pilot with home uninvaded, Wade and Rembrandt and Arturo alive and well and only Quinn remembering sliding. The emphasis would not be on the traumas of Seasons 3 - 5 but rather Quinn's disorientation and confusion at his present/past situation and how sliding doesn't seem to exist.

The situation would be revealed as a Kromagg trick along everything after "The Guardian." But, as a concession to the 21 or 65 episodes he'd be erasing, Torme had *Quinn* retain all his memories while Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo would only recall Seasons 1 - 2 and the first five episodes of Season 3. That was his solution to SlideOverride's protests: one slider would remember all of it, the other three would only remember the Torme era. Is it a perfect solution? There is no perfect solution, but a post-"Slide Effects" SLIDERS is certainly in a better place than a post-"Seer" SLIDERS.

More importantly, "Slide Effects" is a story that could fit into a 42 minute timeslot or a double-sized comic book whereas neither Slider_Quinn21 nor I nor pilight nor Temporal Flux have ever been able to present a point-by-point repair process that could reunite the original characters within those constraints. I think even a resurrected Ernest Hemingway would defer to Torme's story on this one.

Admittedly, it's a moot point now since no hypothetical 2018 revival of SLIDERS should be trying to turn clock back to 1996 -- at least not without a successful reboot first (whether in TV or comics). The reimagined BATTLESTAR GALACTICA TV show had a lot of media tie-in comics and inevitably, that led to a comic series set in the original continuity (although it wasn't the first) and that paved the way to a crossover where the 2004 BSG characters met the 1978 version in a universe-spanning storyline.

When thinking in terms of a proposal, I put focus on something we often overlook - how do you sell it?  And the more I thought on that, I came to realize the best way to sell it is by appreciating why I bought into it in the first place.  So I stopped looking at how to fix Sliders; I just looked at why I liked it.

While the comics proposals were a collection of ideas with some sample art, I took it further in 2008 when SL4ever proposed on this forum the idea of a fan film.  It would be bare bones budget with likely no access to the actors (at best the possibility of one); and I was inspired to write a full script for it.  It was new characters; new situations; and served as a continuation but in more of a Next Generation context.  It was again a creation of something I would like to watch; something I would buy.  And in the end, I really love it.

With no fan film materializing, I had considered making a bare bones online comic adaptation of the script (like the pencils only “The Ten Doctors”), but it just never came together.  The last few years have been especially difficult since my father’s stroke that left him unable to take care of himself; my time just seems to evaporate.

I think I’ll go ahead and just put the script out there for any interested.  It will take some time to get it into a presentable format on PDF, but maybe it will bring back something of what you loved about the series.  It’s called “Sliders: Declassified”.

There’s probably a few minor revisions I’ll make first.  I’ll send you that when I can.

Yes.  Would that be disingenuous to the original characters to say "those events happened, but now we're following a different set of sliders played by the same actors"?

The main problem is that it would have limited appeal to people who aren't already Sliders fans.  It will be very confusing to newcomers once you start jumping around the timeline; one issue is the original quartet, next one has Maggie & Colin, the one after that has Diana & Mallory.