Re: Personal Status Updates!

Oh, it is much the same. Until you close your eyes, jump off the cliff and try not to reread the finished product because there is always something that could be fixed.

I am writing a sequel soon. That means going back and reading the original book. I am scared.

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Re: Personal Status Updates!

Over in the REBORN thread, a reader commented that he was confused by a specific aspect of the "Reminiscence" interlude novella. I reviewed his complaint, added two paragraphs to the novella, and the issue was resolved. So there's also this opportunity to respond to reader feedback and fix things to aid the reader experience.

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That can be a dangerous path to go down. Be careful that you don't get caught making revisions after every comment you get. I have a policy of finalizing my books at publication. Aside from formatting issues or other technical flaws, I just end the process. If someone dislikes something (which happens often enough) I just accept it and move on.

Others like to keep the door open for revisions, but that would drive me nuts.

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Re: Personal Status Updates!

Well, he or she wanted me to A) bring back Colin Mallory and B) write a resolution to the Season 4 Quinn from Kromagg Prime/Colin spy-plot storyline. I wasn't going do that. Dear God.

However, he also got confused by an idea I didn't communicate as fully and clearly as I should have. And I think communicating information clearly and effectively is something any reader should expect for their investment of time. I wouldn't change *content*, but I might improve the delivery if possible. :-)

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Makes sense. smile

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126 (edited by christian.t.chung 2015-10-17 14:34:14)

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Oh i didn't want you to make change to the plot because of my comments, I was just sharing my thought. I think you can tell an author a feedback about the plot and asking questions and make comments without implying "I want a rewrite that pleases me", I just wanted specifically what we did : exchange on the subject on this forum.
Still, it was very cool of you to clarify the thing I mentionned.

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Sorry if I sounded hostile.

The first draft of "Reminiscence" was not Quinn telling his story to a psychiatrist to explain how Seasons 3 - 5 were resolved. The first draft was Quinn cornering Amanda Mallory in a coffee shop. She wouldn't remember who he was. He would sit her down and tell her the entire story of SLIDERS from his particular perspective.

Matt Hutaff read the draft and pointed out that it was an awkward piece of work indeed. He said it was ridiculous to declare that Amanda would sit with a stranger for an hour listening to a deranged recollection of lunacy. That made no sense whatsoever.

He also said he thought it was silly to try to offer in-universe explanations for why Season 1 episodes aired out of order, why Season 2's additional sliders vanished, why Season 3 had magic, why Season 4 was miserable and why Season 5 didn't have any Quinn-doubles and was constantly reusing the same sets. He thought the methodology for restoring the original sliders was nonsensical and incomprehensible and raised all sorts of questions about the process.

I rewrote the story so that Quinn was now talking to a psychiatrist so there'd be a reason for someone to sit through this story. The information Quinn conveyed, I kept largely the same, but I had the psychiatrist ask *all* the questions Matt raised and had Quinn answer them.

I think this is the way to handle feedback on fiction; if you're clear on the story you want to tell, then use feedback to consider *how* you tell it.

128 (edited by christian.t.chung 2015-10-17 15:05:43)

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Well, while you are on the process of writing, yes, I agree you are expected and expecting to have feedback and rewrites from those.
But once the script is finished and "delivered", and all readers feedback...
I don't think there was hundreds of revisions to Harry Potter, but I guess there were hundreds of hundreds of feedback wink once it's printed and released.
Anyway, I'm just saying, I wasn't asking anything in particular except answers to my questions if it was possible.
So as you said me "asking to write Colin and Krommagg plot" to your novella was just untrue, I just asked why you didn't, that's substantially different.
Thank you again for your work.

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I'm actually open to making more revisions to "Revelation." I felt I couldn't wait for Nigel Mitchell to give me feedback.  But one thing I find "Revelation" lacked was Tracy Torme's satirical humour. I'm not very good at that; my humour is more about characters snarking and referring to crazy events in the past like the time Wade made out with a robot who happened to have the same name as the last guy she dated.

So, if Nigel wants to give me some alt-Earth jokes to put in, I will probably do that and reupload the file. For future generations. :-)

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I have another question for Informant.

Where do you stand on writers copying other writers' ideas? I ask because you were the victim of plagiarism.

"Revelation" doesn't copy dialogue or scenes. But the main plot is that billions of clocks have been randomly dropped across three parallel Earths. No one knows who they came from or why they've been distributed in this way. All the clocks are counting down in perfect sync. And when large scale disasters or wars or epidemics have taken place, the clocks have briefly sped up in their countdown. The populace thinks the clocks count down to the end of the world.

This is clearly 'inspired' by the DOCTOR WHO episode "The Power of Three." That said, "The Power of Three" flamed out spectacularly by completely failing to answer the question of why mysterious cubes had been distributed all over Earth or why an alien seeking to exterminate humanity let his murder machines sit around doing nothing for a year or what his grudge was with humans. I think I gave it my own spin by using countdown clocks and having people react to living under a countdown.

But how does Informant feel about it? Not the story itself -- I'm sure you haven't read it -- but what do you think about drawing on other people's ideas like this?

I felt it was okay since SLIDERS REBORN is free, but I have concerns about the artistic merits of this approach.

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ireactions wrote:

This is clearly 'inspired' by the DOCTOR WHO episode "The Power of Three."

I didn't even make the 'connection' until you mentioned it, guess I was too busy enjoying the story.

Great work.

--Chaser9

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I haven't read the story yet (I will. I'm just way behind) but if you're not copying the plot or scenes of the Doctor Who episode, I don't think there will be a problem. If you were selling the story, people might comment on the similarities, but a lot of stories are inspired by other stories. I guess it is more about how you make the story your own.

What happened to me was someone taking my thoughts and my words and claiming them as their own. It was unethical from a writing standpoint and the woman who did it will never be hired to write anything because of it (insert evil laugh here). Had she merely written a story that had a similar plot element, I would have been less offended. In fact, I've seen similar plot elements pop up since I wrote my stories. Sometimes it is coincidence and sometimes it makes me stop and wonder. But as long as people are doing something uniquely their own with the stories, it doesn't really matter.

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Re: Personal Status Updates!

chaser9 wrote:

I didn't even make the 'connection' until you mentioned it, guess I was too busy enjoying the story. Great work.

Thanks, Chaser9!

Informant wrote:

I haven't read the story yet (I will. I'm just way behind) but if you're not copying the plot or scenes of the Doctor Who episode, I don't think there will be a problem. If you were selling the story, people might comment on the similarities, but a lot of stories are inspired by other stories. I guess it is more about how you make the story your own. What happened to me was someone taking my thoughts and my words and claiming them as their own.

But as long as people are doing something uniquely their own with the stories, it doesn't really matter.

Hmm. Well, there are no scenes in SLIDERS REBORN: "Revelation" that resemble DOCTOR WHO's "The Power of Three." With a direct comparison:

Both "Po3" and "Revelation" feature a small, innocuous object scattered across Earth in a quantity of billions. In both stories, the objects are of unknown origin and subjected to intense scrutiny and interest and are part of a plot to destroy the world.

In "Po3," the cubes are inscrutable and implacable. The characters can't take them apart or learn anything about them. The cubes don't actually *do* anything until the third act when they start electrocuting people to death.

In "Revelation," the sliders dismantle the clocks and learn about the internals. The clocks also have sociological impact across the Earth because the countdown to an unknown outcome is disturbing and the clocks are powered by a peculiar power source that can be repurposed for other uses.

In "Po3," the characters investigate the cubes but learn nothing about them and the story is resolved without using any information drawn from examining the cubes.

In "Revelation," the sliders examine the clocks, take them apart, and later apply the knowledge they gathered from the earlier scenes. The explanation for the clocks is tied into sliding.

I dunno. I feel like the main differences are how "Revelation" is 'better' than "Po3" at least in how its mystery-box-item is handled. And "Po3"'s main problem is that it was radically restructured at the editing stage in a way that likely obscured and confused the story, resulting in questions raised and going unanswered (what did the alien have against humans and why was it necessary for the cubes to lie around for a whole year before they started murdering people?). So "Revelation" is not flawed in the areas where "Po3" was flawed. It has its own flaws!

The main conception for the doomsday clocks in "Revelation" was the realization that if the sliders were going to explore three parallel Earths in a single story, all three Earths needed some common element to link them. And I always thought "Po3" was a really great idea that didn't work out too well as aired and decided, "I need a common element, I'll use something like the 'Power of Three' cubes but make sure that my explanation for my McGuffin is directly tied into the sliding concept."

Okay. I've decided to add a note at the end of the "Revelation" script:

The author wishes to thank Chris Chibnall for inspiring the doomsday clocks with his Doctor Who episode, “The Power of Three,” in which billions of cubes were scattered across the planet Earth by an alien antagonist seeking to exterminate the human race by using his cubes as electroshock murder machines.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

I also just remembered that "Reprise" was 'inspired' by THE WOLVERINE -- specifically the tag scene in which Wolverine is shocked to find himself facing his dead mentor, the wise Professor, who was last seen vapourized in the third X-MEN movie. Wolverine stares at the miraculously restored and resurrected Professor, looking like he's ready to cry. "How is this possible?" he asks.

"As I told you a long time ago," says the Professor, "you're not the only one with gifts." The scene cuts off before any further explanation is provided.

I would insert a thank-you to the writer in the "Reprise" script, but I actually don't know who wrote the tag scene.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

So, I'm continuing to flesh out the general outline for the fifth and final installment of SLIDERS REBORN and -- I don't know if this is the right approach, but I'm trying to do all the tiring things first. Rather than try to come up with alt-history details and location descriptions when writing the script, I'm gathering all that information now for each individual scene.

Rather than struggle to work out a fight scene when trying to get to the end of the narrative, I'm working out the details now. That way, when writing the script, I can simply focus on the fun stuff (dialogue and pacing). I made the mistake of shrugging off plotholes and errors in the outline thinking I'd just fix them at the scripting stage and when I hit a problem I couldn't solve at the scripting stage, I was in too deep to have any perspective.

I don't know if this approach will be more successful than what I was doing before, but what I was doing before turned out to be rather painful in the end. Writing "Revelation" almost killed me.

Hopefully, this will be an improvement.

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Looks like the idea of reviving a series with a few 90 minute movie/episodes is a popular one. Gilmore Girls is being brought back by Netflix, for four 90 minute movies.

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Re: Personal Status Updates!

No point leaving copyrights you own sitting around if you can get some cash out of them! :-)

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They keep bringing back shows that don't really need to be brought back. They never bring back the shows that never really fulfilled their potential or had a chance. Better Off Ted. Lone Star. Even Sliders!

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Re: Personal Status Updates!

Wow. Just wanted to write a quick message to say that I kinda choked up a little when I happened to stumble across this place. Sliders means a lot to me, and it is really heart warming to see so many fans still keeping the show alive through discussions, articles and new content. I last stumbled here years ago, and it is awesome to see it still around. You guys rock.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

Welcome to the community. Stick around and join the discussions!

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Re: Personal Status Updates!

This is a post about Writing.

So -- in SLIDERS REBORN, the date given for Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo's first slide together is March 22, 1995. That's the day the Pilot aired and "Reprise" and "Reunion" were posted on Earth Prime exactly twenty years to the day of that first airing.

"Reprise" also uses the airdate of "The Seer," February 4, 2000, as the date of that episode's events. March 22 is reiterated in "Revelation" and "Reminiscence." The date is significant to the plot. "Revelation" is all about Quinn's darkest secret, the secret of 1995.

Except I just rewatched the Pilot and the date given in the episode clearly puts the day of the first slide as September 27, 1994.

Whoops.

Um. I've been willing to change my work, as indicated in the previous page of this thread. But this one -- perhaps it's stupid, but I have decided to leave it alone and allow SLIDERS REBORN to converge with the real world in this instance. In my vision of the show, we began our journey with the sliders on the same day they began theirs.

Oddly, there's actually an explanation within the "Reminiscence" interlude novella that accounts for why the date shifted. Anyone noticing the error and awaiting an explanation would receive an answer. One that is completely unintentional and yet unmistakably present.

What an error to make for someone who wants a SLIDERS revival project so much he made his own!

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Had a pretty intense story conference earlier with one of the editors on SLIDERS REBORN. There is something very comforting about having your work reviewed by someone who is fundamentally against the story you want to tell and isn't won over by your ability to pastiche Jerry O'Connell's performance. An editor who is suspicious of your story's credibility, purpose and plot elements on every level is an editor who is asking tough questions about potentially glaring issues. Some flaws are acceptable. Like choosing real-world dates over in-universe dates. But some questions must have answers prepared, such as why this character does A and why this character wants B and why are they disagreeing?

It is so much better to engage with these questions when expanding a general outline into a beat sheet rather than to engage with them while writing scenes only to realize questions have been raised and you don't have answers, but you have 111 pages already written that make these questions you're not prepared to address glaring and obvious.

I urge all writers to have their material reviewed by someone predisposed to find fault with it. If you're writing detective novels, show them to someone who can't stand such things. If you're writing romance novels, give them to me for review! And if you're writing continuity-based intrigue based on science fiction plot devices standing in as metaphors for disagreements between fans, have someone who finds that sort of writing silly look over your stuff and challenge what you're doing.

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I am jealous.

My brother is one of my primary readers. He will do all of that nitpicking and force me to view my work from different angles. But he has been busy lately, so he hasn't had time to read through all of the books that I'm working on, which is setting back my whole schedule. He just read book 2 of 6, so I can work on that. Hopefully he will be able to get to book 3 quickly.

I have another friend who is very blunt with feedback. He wanted my Strange Fall character to be horribly murdered for her stupidity. But that is also valuable feedback. But he is busy as well.

My whole regular team of readers/editors are busy, so I am making incredibly slow progress.

I am pretty much done with book 1 though. Now I can prep it for publication while I edit the rest. :-)

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Re: Personal Status Updates!

There was once an entire DOCTOR WHO novel written around the fact that "Revenge of the Cybermen" mentioned 12 moons of Jupiter when there are (I think) 63. Possibly one of the most unnecessary efforts ever to explain a minor discrepancy. I mean, next you'll be writing SLIDERS novels to explain why FOX episodes took place in the wrong order.

And now, the recent episode of DOCTOR WHO has presented an in-universe explanation for why the Twelfth Doctor looks just like a previously-seen guest-star who was played by the same actor. I hand over my Award in Obsessive Geekery Towards Unnecessary Explanations to Steven Moffat and Russell T. Davies; clearly, I can't compete and the better men have won.

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ireactions wrote:

I mean, next you'll be writing SLIDERS novels to explain why FOX episodes took place in the wrong order.

Says the guy who earnestly asked me if it mattered that his fanfic started the day the pilot aired instead of the day Quinn slid as established in the pilot. wink

ireactions wrote:

And now, the recent episode of DOCTOR WHO has presented an in-universe explanation for why the Twelfth Doctor looks just like a previously-seen guest-star who was played by the same actor.

Hey - spoilers!

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

Re: Personal Status Updates!

Transmodiar wrote:
ireactions wrote:

I mean, next you'll be writing SLIDERS novels to explain why FOX episodes took place in the wrong order.

Says the guy who earnestly asked me if it mattered that his fanfic started the day the pilot aired instead of the day Quinn slid as established in the pilot. wink

I actually did write a novel to explain why the FOX episodes took place in the wrong order. Well. Novella. Let's not go (too) crazy.

It's a very fan-oriented sort of thing. I never expect to see that sort of stuff in an actual TV show!

Transmodiar wrote:

Hey - spoilers!

Oh, it's fine. I didn't say what the explanation actually was or why it comes up. It's fine.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

Anyone watching 12 Monkeys? Only caught the first few episodes on a recent binge but really enjoying thus far.

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Not just a Movie then?

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Personal Status Updates!

.................................

I think I might need to expand SLIDERS REBORN to six installments.

(That agonized wail in the distance is the voice of the EP.COM webmaster who is terrified at the notion of having to talk through another installment of this series over Google Hangouts instead of doing actual work.)

(Oh relax. I just realized that there's a one-year gap between "Revelation" and "Regenesis" and about five 10-page shorts might be necessary to address the time gap.)

(Anyone want to suggest titles beginning with the letters R and E?)

150 (edited by Informant 2015-10-25 15:32:09)

Re: Personal Status Updates!

Repurposed
Repose
Rerun
Relive
Rehash
Reconstitute
Redirect
Remix
Resume
Reassemble
Relish
Reverberate
Recognize
Reset
Recast
Revisit

I did watch some of 12 Monkeys on Syfy's site, but it was glitchy and I couldn't finish it. It was good, but I kept getting pulled out of the story.

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Re: Personal Status Updates!

ireactions wrote:

.................................

I think I might need to expand SLIDERS REBORN to six installments.

(That agonized wail in the distance is the voice of the EP.COM webmaster who is terrified at the notion of having to talk through another installment of this series over Google Hangouts instead of doing actual work.)

(Oh relax. I just realized that there's a one-year gap between "Revelation" and "Regenesis" and about five 10-page shorts might be necessary to address the time gap.)

(Anyone want to suggest titles beginning with the letters R and E?)

Informant wrote:

Repurposed
Repose
Rerun
Relive
Rehash
Reconstitute
Redirect
Remix
Resume
Reassemble
Relish
Reverberate
Recognize
Reset
Recast
Revisit

Thanks, Informant. It may be "Reassemble." It may be "Remix." It may be nothing. I'm going to finish Part 5 and see if the time gap is a something that should be filled or something that should be left alone.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

I did watch some of 12 Monkeys on Syfy's site, but it was glitchy and I couldn't finish it. It was good, but I kept getting pulled out of the story.

If you have cable its likely all episodes are available on demand.

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ireactions wrote:

(That agonized wail in the distance is the voice of the EP.COM webmaster who is terrified at the notion of having to talk through another installment of this series over Google Hangouts instead of doing actual work.)

You couldn't be more right.

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

Re: Personal Status Updates!

ireactions wrote:

Thanks, Informant. It may be "Reassemble." It may be "Remix." It may be nothing. I'm going to finish Part 5 and see if the time gap is a something that should be filled or something that should be left alone.

It would depend on the context, but if you have a revelation, you tend to Reassess before making a change.  Or perhaps you try to fight against the path and cast a Rebuke.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

Thanks, TF! I suspect that the title may end up being "Recruitment."

"Regenesis" is set one year after "Revelation." The sliders will have gone from being a ragtag team of five to a much larger operation. I don't know how necessary the shorts will be, but if the contrast between the characters at the end of "Revelation" and the start of "Regenesis" is too jarring without a transition, the shorts can be used to facilitate the character shifts. If I do end up doing the shorts, I'll likely want to find some linking plot between them. The linking plot could probably be the sliders recruiting people to join them.

Oddly, the novella that fills in the 2000 - 2015 gap between "The Seer" and REBORN was at one point called "Reassessment" -- in that the plot featured Dr. Matthew Liebling performing a psychiatric reassessment of a patient claiming to be an interdimensional travelled named Quinn Mallory. The plot stayed the same, the title became "Reminiscence."

The titles all beginning with RE may be silly, but I've committed to it now. :-) I know you don't really read fanfic, but, as always, thank you for your encouragement.

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Resolution
Regenesis
Rewind
Reproduced
Relegation
Remembrance
Revival
Revivification
Reanimated
Retooled
Requisitioned
Requirement
Retroengineered
Reused
Reopened
Reoriented
RepentancE
Redirected
Redrawn
Redundancy
Regulation
Rejuvenation
Reckoning
Recording
Rebuttal
Renounced
Renunciation
Representing
Renegades
Renaiscance
Remembrance

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Personal Status Updates!

Rembrandt! smile

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Re: Personal Status Updates!

Sometimes, I feel so crushingly insecure about my writing. Nigel Mitchell gave me alt-histories, I picked and chose from his ideas and I may have picked and chosen all the wrong things. And then there's the, well, stealing. "Good artists borrow, great artists steal?" That's actually a misrepresentation of the actual philosophy, which is that bad artists imitate while great artists may imitate but will ultimately improve on the original. I don't know if that's what's happening here.

The resurrection of the sliders is stolen from THE WOLVERINE. Quinn's seeming indifference to people in trouble only to reveal he's been formulating a plan to help is stolen from... oh, any number of DOCTOR WHO novels, throw a rock at my shelf and you'll hit one just like it. The recitation of events from absurd Season 3 episodes with exasperation or deadpan calm is likewise stolen from DW along with the doomsday clocks modelled on "The Power of Three"'s McGuffins. The scripting style is lifted from Dan Harmon's episodes of COMMUNITY, Laurel is written by looking at my friend Laurie and replacing all her biographical details while keeping the attitude, the doomsday situation is stolen from "Last Days," there's a bunch of bantering exchanges in "Revelation" modelled on the brother-sister arguments in WONDERFALLS, the disarming of the doomsday clocks is stolen from the disarming the bombs sequence in the FLASH/ARROW crossover, the technobabble is modelled on Steven Moffat's approach to plot devices, Quinn's intelligence is portrayed in sequences 'inspired' by SHERLOCK, the confrontation is stolen from "The Other Slide of Darkness" and it's kind of ironic that a series like SLIDERS is really revealing my own failures of imagination here. I'm writing "Regenesis" now and it has weaponized sliding -- the ability to teleport anything and anyone to anywhere on Earth is the most dangerous weapon ever conceived -- and it is so painfully obvious to me that I'm treating sliding like superspeed in THE FLASH.

That said, the audience doesn't seem to mind too much, at least not the ones who write to me -- they notice parallels with DOCTOR WHO, but they say reading the scripts was a great time. And I'm glad. But it *bugs* me.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

And now for another episode of Tech Talk, with Quinn Mallory (or rather, the only person to put words in Quinn's mouth in recent years).

I managed to write about 65 per cent of SLIDERS REBORN's second script on the iPad with a Bluetooth keyboard. But there came a point when I needed the beat sheet side by side with the script, maps and photos of San Francisco next to the word processor, cross-sections of digital clocks next to Final Draft. And the desktop/HTPC setup in the living room wasn't conducive to Work. At this point, I sold some old phones and bought a new laptop. The Asus Transformer T100 CHI. It's a 10-inch Windows 10 tablet with a keyboard.

It's not a powerhouse laptop -- but there's something incredibly *cool* about it. It's very cool; this thing is made of metal and the surface always feels refrigerator chilled. And it's 2.3 pounds. The speakers are surprisingly robust once volume normalization is activated. The screen is sharp; 1920 x 1200 pixels is pretty impressive for $425. It's running on Intel Atom with 2 GB of RAM and eMMC memory, but it's incredibly responsive. Mostly. Firefox freezes every two seconds on this machine, but an offshoot, Pale Moon, runs just fine, suggesting it's less this laptop and more Firefox.

The battery life is a little weird on this thing. I've gotten nine hours of typing and web searches on the laptop. But when watching video or reading comics, it only gets about 3 - 4 hours. It's probably because typing and reading text don't require more than 10 per cent brightness, but multimedia has me raising the brightness to the 9/10 mark.

There are other quirks that are a little odd. The keyboard-mouse dock connects to the tablet section via Bluetooth. Periodically, the keyboard dock loses the connection with the tablet and I need to turn the dock off and on again. About once a month, the touchpad becomes oddly slow and unresponsive and I've had to run a repair-install on the mouse drivers and software.

There's no USB port, only a microUSB 3.0 port, so I had to spend five bucks on an adapter and a USB 3.0 hub to get me some full-sized ports. There's only 64 GB of memory in the tablet, so I had to put in a 128GB microSD card to store more files. The screen is ridiculously reflective; I had to put an anti-glare protector on it to use it outside of pitch-black rooms. The back of the tablet was hard to grip, so I had to put a plastic skin to reduce the risk of dropping it.

There's a back-facing camera on the tablet. I have no idea why it's there or how to even get a program to use it.

So, it's a weird little machine, but I have come to love it and have produced a SLIDERS screenplay and novella with it that, at this point, four whole people have read. I was kind of hoping it could replace the iPad, but the battery life just isn't there for video playback or full-brightness use. But it's kind of cool.

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Scene from "Regenesis":

QUINN: "We travelled so far and saw so much. And now everyone we ever met, everything we ever saw -- Remmy, it's all gone. What was the point? What was it all for?"
REMBRANDT: "Well, it's been twenty-one years and the four of us are still together. Living in the same house with eighteen Maggie Becketts and your mom. What else d'you need to know?"
ME: "Crap. I think I stole this sentiment from GIRL MEETS WORLD. Damn it. WHY AM I SO INCAPABLE OF ORIGINAL THOUGHT?"

Ian McDuffie once said SLIDERS would destroy you. I protested that it would simply reveal you, and what I feel is being revealed here is that my writing is good and original, but the parts that are original are not good and the parts that are good are not original.

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Hmm. Never mind. I was having a bit of a creative crisis here, but I've decided that being derivative is okay so long as the borrowed ideas are, if not SLIDERS-esque in their presentation, at least presented in a way that's tailored specifically to Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo. I think SLIDERS REBORN has, up to this point, been a fun read. It's not a transcendental experience that will expand your consciousness and redefine every preconception you've ever had, but it's a good time! And so long as it stays a good time, it's worthwhile. Thank God. I can go to bed now.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

My sister in law taught me how to make enchiladas. I like her's a lot, so this was cool.
Then the first time I made them myself, I added an extra ingredient here, and more the next time. So, it's the same basic concept of a meal, but at this point, our two takes on that meal look and taste very different.

We all take bits and pieces of what we've seen before, whether from other books, movies or shows, or from the people around us. The question is, how do you take those ingredients and mix them together in a way that creates something uniquely yours? I've only read the beginning of your series so far, but from what I've seen it's pretty good. Don't drive yourself crazy.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

About the only thing I noticed when I read it was the Power of Three-Doomsday Clock parallel, though I just thought it was a random similarity and I got a lot of excitement out of that parallel...

I think all good writers will take aspects of things they like and work it into a story, and if done well becomes something awesome and original in nature (Kinda like what Informant said). Or an author may take something that's been done before and add his own unique twist to it. (I notice this sort of thing in my own works frequently. XD) It's not seen as plagiarism or stealing so long as it's not a carbon-copy of a story with only the character names changed.

My character Dr. Cooper and his two alter-egos were all inspired by something I like. One of these alter-egos, the Watchkeeper, is greatly inspired by the Doctor, but when I lined up their similarities and differences there were more differences than similarities... and yet they're still very similar on the surface.

I'm enjoying Reborn and think it's a pretty good story, and I look forward to the next installment. big_smile

Author, artist, sci-fi nerd, rebel against the world, and self-proclaimed eccentric.

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There are no new ideas, only new twists on them. In several thousand years of human civilisation, people are going to have written the basic plot outlines you've written. What matters is what you do with them.

I think you're doing fine. More than fine; you're writing one of the best Sliders stories that's ever been published. Don't be so down on yourself.

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Thank you. I found two HUGE errors in "Reunion" and "Revelation" today.

I was listening to the "Greatfellas" podcast and realized -- "Reunion" refers to the con-woman from "Greatfellas" as "Leah Greenfield." The conwoman was actually June; Leah Greenfield was the mobster's wife.

And SPOILERS








I was rewatching "The Other Slide of Darkness" for reference and I realized I made a mistake in "Revelation." There's a sequence where Smarter-Quinn attempts to win Arturo, Wade and Rembrandt over to his side. Arturo dismisses Smarter-Quinn because Smarter-Quinn insulted him in the Pilot. Wade calls Smarter-Quinn a date rapist for trying to have sex with her in the Doppler supply room while using the other Quinn's identity and declares that she intends to kill him. When Smarter-Quinn approaches Rembrandt, Rembrandt casually remarks, "Weren't you wearing a crazy wig and face paint the last time I saw you?" Smarter-Quinn growls with frustration and gives up.

... except Rembrandt actually never saw Smarter-Quinn in "The Other Slide of Darkness."  Oops.

Anyway. I changed the line to, "Weren't you wearing a crazy wig and face paint the last time WE saw you?" Which isn't entirely accurate, but could work if Quinn later told Rembrandt what happened afterwards.

Dear God. For an obsessive fan, my memory of the episodes is being revealed as extremely suspect.

166 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2015-11-03 22:15:21)

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Rumors of an x-files spin off, based on a couple of characters introduced in the upcoming "Season 10".
http://tvline.com/2015/11/02/x-files-sp … brose-fox/


Fox bought 244 Degrees Of Freedom, set in a world where robots threaten the human race
http://deadline.com/2015/11/steve-maeda … 201605575/

Re: Personal Status Updates!

I am currently in the process of switching my laptop's hard drive over to an SSD. Ithe should make the computer faster and more stable, assuming that I don't lose everything by mistake.

Wish me luck!


I think that I will watch the new X-Files and see how it goes before I get my hopes up for a spinoff.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

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Oh God (or the manufacturers of SSDs, who are unto Gods). Please don't let this be Informant's last post.

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It worked! I cloned my old drive over to the SSD, so everything is there. My old drive is still in the other slot in my computer (since I can't get the screws out), so now I have two drives... the SSD is super fast though. My computer was getting slower and slower to turn on, and even when I got it started (which took forever), I had to wait several more minutes before I could get anywhere on the internet. Now it's lightning fast to turn on and connects right away.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

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Congratulations! I've never had that experience with an SSD replacement before. Probably because the hardware around the SSD was a bottleneck to any SSD advantages.

It's strange to me, however, that your computer was getting slower and slower. When my computers are slow down, the solution is generally a combo of defragmentation, reviewing the startup apps and cleaning out the internals. Of course, if a hard drive is breaking down due to wear over time, replacement is the only option.

I replaced the HDD once on my AMD laptop, putting in an SSD and boosting the RAM from 4GB to 8GB. The results weren't super-inspiring. On the HDD, the laptop was slow. Constantly stuttering and regularly unresponsive. It was the kind of laptop that couldn't play HD Netflix video (although it did fine with SD video). With the SSD and extra RAM, the laptop didn't freeze anymore. It was still slow in that programs took more seconds than I wanted to start and connect, but it didn't freeze up anymore. Still couldn't play Netflix HD, though.

This home theatre PC is still on an HDD. I'm interested in switching to SSD, but I'm still using the 500GB storage space and I'm not sure I can reduce to 128GB right now, which is about all I'm willing to pay for presently with SSDs.

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I got a pretty good deal on a 250GB SSD. It's half the storage of my old drive, but it should be enough for now. Especially with other storage options. Right now, I'm just happy to have the basics running a lot more smoothly.

Eventually, I'd like to get my old drive out, if only to reduce noise and power consumption. I'll keep it around for storage, but it doesn't make long-term sense to keep it internal.

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

250GB? That's pretty awesome. The little netbook on which I currently type this has a 64GB eMMC storage option. It's basically slow flash memory. But it's got the responsiveness and speedy startups that you describe on your SSD, although I'm sure yours is better. I use the eMMC drive for software and I keep all the files on a 128GB microSD card. Periodically, I move long-term storage files to an external 2TB hard drive.

On the computer front, I've had to make some choices. I am fed up with Adobe Flash; it's a security nightmare and a resource hog. I have uninstalled it from my computer. I have gone into Google Chrome and shut it down in the built-in plug-ins. It was kind of time consuming because I have multiple installs of Chrome on my computer; one for general browsing, one that's logged into all my social media and forum accounts and one that's logged into my business accounts and one that's logged into all my banking accounts. But it had to be done.

I also had to remove all PDF reader software from my computer. I don't know what the hell is up with Adobe Reader DC, but it took to opening PDFs for a split-second and then instantly closing. Foxit Reader, the light PDF reader I've recommended to people for years, has taken to throwing ads in my face. I would buy a paid version except it's also developed this hideous ALL CAPS INTERFACE. I still have to keep Adobe Acrobat X for editing PDFs now and then, but for a PDF reader -- I've just set my computer to open them all in Google Chrome.

I installed a new build of Android 5.1.1 on my phone today. It now has a built in blue-light filter for the evening! Very cool. And there are now notification toggles for creating a WiFi hotspot, which I think is darned handy. In contrast, Apple just released iOS 9.1 and I am still running iOS 8.1.3 on my iPad Mini 2 and I am not going to upgrade it. I haven't seen any articles declaring that iOS 9.1 slowed iPad Mini 2s down, but I just don't want to risk upgrading to a new OS when there's no option of downgrading if it doesn't work out.

**

I've spent years never sure what the right pain medication is for my occasional aches and pains, alternating between buying jumbo bottles of Aspirin or Tylenol or Advil and losing track of which one works best for me. So, I've been buying small amounts for the last six months and keeping track of what worked or didn't for what. Tylenol seems really effective and relieving headaches; Aspirin helps a little and Advil seems to do nothing. Both Advil and Aspirin seem very effective for relieving body aches like soreness after a six hour hike. And I seem to need gelcaps; they seem more effective in smaller doses and Aspirin doesn't come in gel caps. I hope Quinn would approve of this sort of journalled over the counter drug experimentation to remove the need to decide which painkillers to buy in the future when shopping.

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Another note -- I have decided to take a break from this forum. I am experiencing a considerable amount of RAGE within two threads and I need some time to cool off. So, this isn't good bye, but I will see you all again after a sufficient interval of time. Rest assured that if you experience any technical difficulties, any odd glitches in the Bboard, any trouble at all with the software and web hosting -- TOUGH. I'm taking time off.

See you next week. Don't burn the place down while I'm away.

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Everyone needs a break sometimes. Enjoy the time off.

I think it is really interesting how you manage to juggle all of your tech. Right now, my laptop's fan is running constantly and it is pissing me off. That is going to take up all of my attention until I fix it. I can't imagine worrying about two other operating systems at the same time. smile

Please be informed that the political, scientific, sociological, economic and legal views expressed in Informant's posts and social media accounts do not reflect any consensus of Sliders.tv.

Re: Personal Status Updates!

I said I wasn't going to deal with Colin in SLIDERS REBORN and would just write him off as the product of an altered timeline. But then I felt so terrible about failing to include Mallory in REBORN -- so awful that I wrote Robert Floyd a letter of grief-stricken apology, explaining that Mallory is really hard to introduce because his presence instantly raises questions (Why is his name Quinn and why doesn't he look like Jerry and why doesn't he have doubles and... ), questions that are a massive distraction, questions which I can't answer.

Rob was absolutely devastated to learn that his character had been excluded from a piece of fan fiction for a TV show he worked on for one season 15 years ago -- which is to say he didn't really understand what I was talking about and was also quite pre-occupied with a busy schedule of COCKTAIL THEATRE performances.

(I'm not crazy. I front-loaded the E-mail with some news articles I thought he'd find interesting; the fanfic chatter was in a post-script. The articles, he did understand and find hilarious and I'm transcribing them for Earth Prime.)

Anyway. I felt so much worse after that. So I wrote a scene where Rembrandt has a photograph of Mallory. Except then, it became necessary to also address Colin and his absence as well. So I grudgingly did so. God damn it.

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ireactions wrote:

I said I wasn't going to deal with Colin in SLIDERS REBORN and would just write him off as the product of an altered timeline. But then I felt so terrible about failing to include Mallory in REBORN -- so awful that I wrote Robert Floyd a letter of grief-stricken apology, explaining that Mallory is really hard to introduce because his presence instantly raises questions (Why is his name Quinn and why doesn't he look like Jerry and why doesn't he have doubles and... ), questions that are a massive distraction, questions which I can't answer.

Rob was absolutely devastated to learn that his character had been excluded from a piece of fan fiction for a TV show he worked on for one season 15 years ago -- which is to say he didn't really understand what I was talking about and was also quite pre-occupied with a busy schedule of COCKTAIL THEATRE performances.

(I'm not crazy. I front-loaded the E-mail with some news articles I thought he'd find interesting; the fanfic chatter was in a post-script. The articles, he did understand and find hilarious and I'm transcribing them for Earth Prime.)

Anyway. I felt so much worse after that. So I wrote a scene where Rembrandt has a photograph of Mallory. Except then, it became necessary to also address Colin and his absence as well. So I grudgingly did so. God damn it.

You see I never had a problem with a Quinn who looked different.
Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations and all that jazz.
To be honest it's probably weirder that so many iterations of Quinn Mallory have the Jerry O'Connel Genetic Map/Facial and Body type.
I find it a good explanation to think that Worlds with Jerry type Quinns are Clusters of Worlds closer to Quinss Home World. They share a Common Divergence Point way back when but with additional Divergences later that differentiate them more. Constant Branching and Bifurcation of Outcomes essentially.

Although sometimes there is the Random Factor too. The same Quinn outcome even with vastly altered World histories via lucky happenstance.

You could also argue that the Jerry type Quinn Sperm had a better chance from minute one via weighted dice. Eg: The Jerry type Quinn Spermatazoa had Higher Motility so more chance of winning the race so other Quinn type patterns are statistically less likely to become Embryos.

Robert Flloyd type Quinn while a possible divergence is just less numerous as a result.

Just a Head Canon of mine I know but I like it as it is not Exclusionary.

Parrallel Universes hold all Possibilities after all.

I remember that when I watched Space Above and Beyond back in the 90's the Chigs got a big reveal about their origin and I thought..... The Chigs would be great in Sliders. Obviously an Earlier Era of them from the 90's as opposed the their Future Appearances in SAAB but I felt sadness no crossover or cameo of them happened especially given cost savings as the CGI and Make Up/Prosthetics were already there for SAAB and could have been used for Sliders.

I would have far preferred the Chigs to the Kromaggs.
Or maybe had both?
Invasion Episode Kromaggs and Chigs being mysterious or ominous or scary in later seasons but not taking over as a Season Arc like we got in Reality with the shoddy Nazi expies. *Shudder* God that was so lazy.

The Chig Origin Reveal was a shock too so that could have been milked for hints and mystery. You only see the Chig Armour/Encounter Suit in SAAB for a long time so the Sliders only seeing these Armoured mystery people/things could have been good. As could have been seeing what was within seperately on a different world so they don't make the connection between the two being the same as in SAAB.

I always wanted to see the Sliders on a World with different atmospheric composition where they had to ad hoc survive with either Fireman Breathing gear, Scuba Gear or Hospital/Ambulance Oxygen Tank and Mask etc.
Not as a common thing but as a challenge to survive and a revelation to learn about and explore.
The closest we got was Purple Sky Robot World and Maggie Choking World.
Other Slide of Darkness I don't feel counts as that was localised and revealed too be/hinted as artificial.... I think anyway? Memory not so good right now.

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

Re: Personal Status Updates!

Warning: there is a bit of ego in this post. Or at least faux-ego. With SLIDERS REBORN, I am (pretending to be) leading the SLIDERS property. I have a (largely imagined) responsibility to shepherd this property in a fashion that is accessible for its audience.

That's largely an audience of SLIDERS fans, a decision for which Matt Hutaff has been (correctly) critical. Doing a direct sequel to "The Seer" albeit with a time gap, treating the sliders as familiar characters to whom the readers are being re-introduced -- SLIDERS REBORN isn't a mass-audience product, it's not an entry-level story for a new generation of SLIDERS fans.

That's something I think media tie-in material can do because the target audience is the fans. Examples of such products include DOCTOR WHO comics and novels, the X-FILES SEASON 10 - 11 comics, STAR TREK novels -- writers feel comfortable assuming the audience is familiar with the mythology, continuity and signifiers.

I enjoy using continuity as a *tool*. I don't throw in references randomly; they are present because they create a feeling of intimacy between the characters and the reader. They create a sense of shared experience: we all saw Rembrandt lose his Cadillac, we all saw him admit he had no idea how to recharge the timer, we all saw Wade revealed as a mutilated human computer. When I bring these things up in scripts, I think it makes the reader feel like they are one of the sliders.

However, continuity references that don't serve a plot or emotional purpose are a distraction. They interrupt pacing. They throw off the rhythm of scenes. It's like pausing in the middle of a song to interject some unnecessary commentary before pressing play again. As I said, Mallory's presence brings in so many questions and requires that the story stop in place completely in order to answer them. It's disruptive.

I mean, SLIDERS REBORN has some crazy long scenes -- but those scenes are filled with the voices of the characters whom we all missed and longed to see again, so I felt that was simply giving the audience everything they wanted and more -- but if they stopped suddenly to explain who Mallory is and why he's there and how he can exist -- the energy would instantly deflate.

HIGHLIGHT TO SEE SPOILERS

When Smarter-Quinn from the Pilot shows up in REBORN, it was necessary to account for how he was in "The Other Slide of Darkness" as a suicidal shaman of a forest tribe who claimed to have given the Kromaggs their sliding technology. This was so convoluted that I decided to address it very distantly -- first with acknowledging that "Darkness" did happen through having Rembrandt comment that the last time the sliders saw him, Smarter-Quinn was wearing a crazy wig and facepaint. Then finally, I had Smarter-Quinn mention that when reality was rewritten, he went insane (which indicates his claim to have given Kromaggs sliding was a delusion), but he found himself eventually. Anything more would have been disruptive.

Mallory in SLIDERS REBORN would serve no purpose. The whole concept for Mallory was fundamentally flawed; the idea was that he would be more street-smart where Quinn was book-smart. Except Quinn's intelligence was completely capable of addressing physical and practical problems through improvised solutions and quick-thinking -- so Mallory wasn't actually bringing anything to the table that Quinn didn't already have; if anything, he brought less. If Quinn is in the story, Mallory is completely unnecessary.

Robert Floyd, very cleverly, focused on the identity crisis; the idea that Quinn and Mallory were two separate, conflicting personalities who would both have different perspectives. Mallory would be selfish, emotional, insincere; Quinn would be moral, analytical, heartfelt. Mallory would be empathetic and eager to engage with people; Quinn would be withdrawn and secretive. Quinn would be a risktaking crusader for justice; Mallory would want to save his own skin first. That peculiar dynamic would honour Jerry O'Connell while creating something new -- which truly speaks to how much Floyd respected Quinn Mallory and SLIDERS. But if Jerry's Quinn is present, this simply isn't needed.

Colin also serves no purpose; if you have Jerry as the young scientist, you don't need another one. Colin's naivete and innocence are also unnecessary because Quinn already had that sense of wide-eyed wonder or would if he were written correctly.

Ultimately, my (imagined?) responsibilities are to serving the original four -- Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo. The original and iconic sliders. But in my view, the best version of Sliders would have Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt, Arturo, Maggie, Colin, Mallory and Diana all sitting at the table together. If my story needs an action-girl with spy skills, that's Maggie; if my story needs to give Arturo another scientist who isn't Quinn to bounce off of, that's Diana. And I have some ideas for how to integrate the Season 3 monsters into a Season 1 - 2 style version of SLIDERS. But Colin and Mallory -- how do they serve the original four?

I have found no satisfactory answer and no one has been able to give me one -- so I'm steering clear of them outside of isolated visual and in-dialogue reference.

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Your method is not bad by any meqns but I think you are mistaken in thinking that Mallory needs a big explanation in the script. A picture and comnent are fine really for your goal but just because Mallory is not present within the Core Fours group or environs he could be elsewhere in the Multiverse.

I honestly think that when the issue of Doubles/Analogues/Counterparts is visited that a minor explanation to clarify or flashback or flashback/internal narrative could work by using Jerry Quinn doubles aka "Identicals". Logan St Clair as "Mirrored/Flipped and Robert Floyd Quinn as "Fraternal".

Base it on how real life twins are classified.

Identical Twins are exactly that.
Fraternal Twins look different.
Flipped aka Gender Flipped are Female Twin and Male Twin who if ignoring Chromasonal XX or XY would be identical.

Thats why I like the Term/Title "Analogue" or "Counterpart".

Double and Doppleganger are very much restricted to describing "Identicals".

"It's only a matter of time. Were I in your shoes, I would spend my last earthly hours enjoying the world. Of course, if you wish, you can spend them fighting for a lost cause.... But you know that you've lost." -Kane-

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I like your explanation for Mallory. It remains absolutely baffling to me that Season 5 never provided any such explanation. I don't know what the hell they were thinking. They probably weren't. But I still don't see how this bypasses the need for an explanation -- none of the information you suggest was ever onscreen, meaning the script can't assume the reader already knows it and it would be necessary to spell it out. And again, for what purpose? To bring in a character to do things that Jerry's Quinn can do just fine?

And this comes back to my problem with the Mallory character; he was badly written because the route chosen to make him contrast with Quinn made Mallory totally unnecessary. Quinn was 'street-smart' in his own way.

I think that the best way to approach Mallory would have been to make him more a variant on Quinn. Jerry's Quinn was focused on mathematics as a tool for addressing physics and quantum mechanics as well as engineering and computer programming. I think Floyd's Quinn should have been focused on mathematics as well -- but seen it all only in terms of money. And this would have played up the criminal aspect of Mallory more; he's obsessed with money and scamming some out of people even if he can't take it with him. Basically like what we saw of him trying to profit off Maggie's hair in "The Return" but even moreso. Then there would be a clear contrast between the Floyd-personality and the Jerry-personality.

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And now for another episode of Tech Talk:

I just lost four hours of my life. I was trying to design a poster on my little laptop, the T100 Chi -- and the wifi kept cutting out. Troubleshooting processes accomplished nothing, nor did resetting the router. So I ended up uninstalling and reinstalling different versions of the wifi router. Eventually, it dawned on me that Windows 10 had been updating all my drivers and the new wifi driver doesn't work. Which prompted another search for some way to prevent Windows 10 from fixing things that were working perfectly well without being updated. I did, however, manage to watch several Season 4 episodes of SLIDERS during this time and also do quite a bit of laundry and vacuuming and other non-computer stuff while all this was running.

So annoying. I don't understand this obsession with updates outside of security patches and bug fixes. If something is working just fine, leave it alone, Windows! If you have hardware that runs just fine with an older version of the operating system, then don't force upgrades to an OS not suited for the processor and RAM, Apple! This reminds me -- I already don't update iPad apps unless there's a new feature I want; I'm going to turn off auto-updates for my Android phone as well. This obsession with new seems to assume up-to-date means good.

One of my SLIDERS REBORN consultants was telling me recently how he felt so out of place in fanfic writing when Season 4 of SLIDERS rolled around. There he was, working away on his Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo novellas -- and then everything he wrote suddenly seemed stupid, because no matter what adventures he created for them, it'd all end with Arturo dead, Wade in a rape camp, and Quinn and Rembrandt originating not from a world we could consider home but a Kromagg outpost. That it made him feel like all his stories were out of date and worthless because they weren't in touch with what was new even thought what was new sucked.

I wanted to see if I could talk about consumer gadgets and somehow shift it back to SLIDERS.