Topic: SLIDERS (2013): Why did it fail?
Every night, just before I fall asleep, the last thought that crosses my mind is this: why did SLIDERS (2013) fail?
In case you don't recall, SLIDERS (2013) was a 2013 reboot script for SLIDERS where Slider_Quinn21, Informant, Temporal Flux, Chaser9 and myself were ruminating on what a rebooted SLIDERS would be in the 21st century and I proposed taking all their musings and writing it into scripts. I wrote the first script, "You Can't Go Home Again": http://freepdfhosting.com/ab3f9e4b78.pdf
After that, the project stalled. I've always wondered why.
Slider_Quinn21 wrote half of the pilot outline to establish Quinn's life and creation of sliding on Earth Prime and then left the project for a screenwriting competition, promising to return. He didn't. Where'd he go?
Informant provided the second half of the pilot outline in which Quinn and friends land on a world where the War on Terror dominated America. I merged their ideas and incorporated Temporal Flux's origin story for Wade and Chaser9's reboot idea for Rembrandt. I posted the script online and received dead silence in response. Why didn't Informant read it and comment?
Chaser9 said his well for SLIDERS was dry. TemporalFlux confessed that he wasn't too enthused about fan fiction these days and had a lot of stuff going on in real life. But what about Slider_Quinn21 and Informant?
With Informant, I guessed that our decidedly opposing political views made collaborating in screenwriting understandably untenable. His second half of the outline was clearly a rant against Obamacare which I didn't agree with but also didn't change -- because I felt it was a reasonable parallel Earth concept. But I suspect my presentation (in the combined outline which he did read) rankled with him. But it is only a suspicion that has never been confirmed by the individual himself.
With Slider_Quinn21 -- I wonder if he was enthusiastic about posting random SLIDERS reboot ideas in a message board but not so enthusiastic about actually producing 4 - 6 screenplays and putting in all that work into a fan fiction project. But that is only a supposition that has never been verified by the person in question.
Another massive mystery as to why SLIDERS (2013) quietly imploded is me. RussianCabbieLotteryFan wondered why I, the most obsessive fan on this Bboard, couldn't scrape together the scripts.
I attempted to carry on; Temporal Flux even granted me the use of his comic book pitches in an attempt to populate SLIDERS (2013). But I couldn't get it together. I had a bunch of ideas: Episode 2 would be a series of 'shorts,' 5 - 8 pages of script each where the sliders get to grips with sliding and learn how to get money, food and shelter. Episode 3 would be a rewrite of "Please Press One" where the sliders encounter an artificial intelligence trying to steal sliding. Episode 4 would be TF's story where the sliders meet a Quinn-double, a serial killer who'd been luring sliders and murdering Arturo-doubles for sliding technology.
It didn't work out. I didn't have the plotting skills to execute TF's clever ideas at the time. The outlines were an incoherent mess and TF (probably) had neither the time nor the inclination to clean them up. But I think the REAL reason I never got my act together on SLIDERS (2013): I didn't want to do it.
Looking at the 2013 script, it is very obvious: what I want is to write Jerry O'Connell, Sabrina Lloyd, Cleavant Derricks and John Rhys-Davies making obsessive references to Seasons 1 - 5 of SLIDERS. The writing is clearly focused on writing a pastiche of the original actors even though they'd be too old to play the 2013 characters. My wish was not to do any sort of reboot, but a sequel featuring the Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo we met in 1995, at their present-day ages, sliding again in the 21st century. This led to SLIDERS REBORN where Quinn and Wade are in their 40s and Rembrandt and the Professor are in their 60s and 70s. In 2015, I began writing again and this time, I had a vision of SLIDERS that had a clear beginning, middle and end.
SLIDERS REBORN required tremendous effort from Nigel Mitchell (who came up with the parallel world ideas), Transmodiar (who reviewed the plot outlines) and Slider_Quinn21 (who reviewed script pages and caught typos). But unlike SLIDERS (2013), however, nobody was required to create material but rather asked to finesse existing content. I'd tell Nigel I wanted an alt-history where all water on Earth had been contaminated, lay out the plot, and Nigel would provide the exposition. I told Transmodiar I wanted to create a situation where the multiverse was collapsing and then a scenario where Quinn would save all worlds and Transmodiar provided a solution. I wrote pages where road salt was sold in San Francisco and Slider_Quinn21 corrected this.
Recently, I asked Transmodiar if he was sure we shouldn't work together as screenwriting partners. "You say that like we haven't!" he exclaimed. "The amount of time I put into SLIDERS REBORN was insane." I conceded that it was our magnum opus and we should let it stand. And because Slider_Quinn21 reviewed the REBORN script pages and was present and reliable for SLIDERS REBORN, I excused him for his disappearance during SLIDERS (2013).
Looking back, SLIDERS (2013)'s failure was a good thing. I'm happier with SLIDERS REBORN. But even so... WTF, Slider_Quinn21 and Informant? What happened?