Re: Rewatch Podcast

So, "The Prince of Slides." Cory and Tom seemed to enjoy this one aside from a few small plotholes (specifically, the Duke nearly getting killed at his cottage, then remaining at the cottage for anyone to find him). They liked a lot of the well-crafted characterization with George being revealed as a pawn rather than a villain. The alt-history with America as a post-Revolution monarchy was effective for them and they also liked the expanded alt-history in the deleted scenes. I enjoy "Prince of Slides" too -- it's a strong combination of the alt-history of Seasons 1 - 2 with the action-spectacle approach of Season 3. This is how the average Season 3 episode should have been; an engaging, enjoyable, professional product.

But there are little things that irk me. First of all, monarchies are bull$#!t. I'm not an American, but I find "Prince of Slides" to be treacherously unAmerican. To put it simply, you people living in America are capable of governing yourselves; you don't need kings to be selected for you by right of blood and birth (a.k.a. luck). If God chooses your rulers in this way, he's not much of a God. I'm not saying Americans do a great job of governing themselves; I'm just saying that of all the ways to organize your society and move towards greatness, monarchies are the dumbest way to do it, choosing leaders by family rather than by demonstrable ability.

So, to see the sliders defending kings and queens is pretty weird, although "Prince of Slides" makes it an internal revolution rather than a revolt from an oppressed population. What's troubling to me is that the sliders barely question or critique this absurd system of government, with Arturo actively supporting it as he laps up the luxuries of royal life. This is troubling when contrasted with "Prince of Wails" where Arturo was both supportive and critical of such power structures.

I also really took issue with Arturo creating a false identity for Quinn as a "fitness instructor." Holy S-word. We have really lost sight of who the hell this character is, haven't we? I think Arturo would have presented Quinn as the Duke's scientific advisor; you'd barely need to alter the dialogue for this.

I adored how Cory and Tom protested Arturo being presented as a Swiss-Army-Knife who walks like a man, noting that Arturo is now an expert on royal decorum and can perform C-sections. And I really liked their irritation towards another bizarre backstory for Rembrandt; his revelation that Danielle is the reason he calls himself the Cryin' Man is... I'm not saying it couldn't work, but "Prince of Slides" doesn't hit the mark. I'm not sure why, and I'll need to follow up later, but the story rings false to me and Cory and Tom found it over-the-top in trying to elevate the Danielle character's importance.

They also found it strange that Quinn wins the swordfights. Well, Jerry O'Connell is/was a championship-level fencer who'd won many competitions. Given Quinn's sports-obsession, I don't think it's impossible that he a fencer as well as a surfer / basketball player / baseball player / football player / waterboarder etc..

"The Prince of Slides" is pretty good, but, as stated, I have some concerns.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Tom, it would be DIVINE if you rounded up your actor friends and did a radiodrama with Ib's Sliders revival.  And Corey does GREAT imitations. You guys would seriously do it justice.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

I don't think it's a good idea.

I don't think Tom and Cory completely captured my opinion, which is this: you can have new actors play Quinn the boy genius, Arturo the bombastic man of wisdom, Wade the moral crusader and Rembrandt the outdated showbiz icon. But trying to have new actors imitate Jerry, John, Sabrina and Cleavant creates an awkward uncanny valley effect where all the audience will notice is how the imitation is either wildly off-the-mark or close but not-quite-right.

It's also a crappy situation for the actor. Instead of trying to capture the emotion, intensity and dynamic of a scene, they're trying to capture what some other actor might have done with the scene. It doesn't make for a good performance.

Even Robert Floyd, whose Jerry-impersonation is perfect, wasn't keen on imitating Jerry. He didn't think it was a good idea for him to play Quinn 1.0 and only Quinn 1.0. because he felt the audience would get tired of it and he would simply be copying another actor. His opinion was that it would be best if he could constantly shift between Quinn and Mallory. That way, imitating Jerry would just be one part of creating something new.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

ireactions wrote:

I don't think it's a good idea.

I don't think Tom and Cory completely captured my opinion, which is this: you can have new actors play Quinn the boy genius, Arturo the bombastic man of wisdom, Wade the moral crusader and Rembrandt the outdated showbiz icon. But trying to have new actors imitate Jerry, John, Sabrina and Cleavant creates an awkward uncanny valley effect where all the audience will notice is how the imitation is either wildly off-the-mark or close but not-quite-right.

It's also a crappy situation for the actor. Instead of trying to capture the emotion, intensity and dynamic of a scene, they're trying to capture what some other actor might have done with the scene. It doesn't make for a good performance.

Even Robert Floyd, whose Jerry-impersonation is perfect, wasn't keen on imitating Jerry. He didn't think it was a good idea for him to play Quinn 1.0 and only Quinn 1.0. because he felt the audience would get tired of it and he would simply be copying another actor. His opinion was that it would be best if he could constantly shift between Quinn and Mallory. That way, imitating Jerry would just be one part of creating something new.

For what it's worth, your writing style perfectly captures the "voice" of the sliders characters imo. I'm not so particular about whether anyone is dead on... I think I would just get lost in the drama. But that's just me.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

Tom, it would be DIVINE if you rounded up your actor friends and did a radiodrama with Ib's Sliders revival.  And Corey does GREAT imitations. You guys would seriously do it justice.

I know but those guys won't touch it because it is a copyrighted work. Their only focus now is originals they can own and distribute and sell, which i understand.

Plus, like iReactions said, there will be comparisons and I especially like what he said about Robert Floyd; very good point and example. We discussed this a little in the episode we recorded yesterday but didnt go in depth into it as maybe we should have. You'll see!

In any case, great reviews ireactions! Appreciate the feedback! You always give me something more to think about. I listen to the podcasts my self when they released and I always think of more things to say after the fact and the same happens when i read your thoughts as well. In fact, our next show has a new segment I call By The Way, in which we mention something that we failed to mention or thought about AFTER we recorded the episode. So many times something you have said here makes me think, we should have mentioned that! Or when i'm driving I think, why didnt i make that comment about such and such?

Anyway, thanks again! we appreciate ya listening and chiming in!

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Hmm. I've thought about it some more.

I would be okay with Tom and company performing these four pages. Maybe not even all four pages -- just the last two. No more than that, though. :-) I can get a friend to provide dialogue for the female voice.

I will finish catching up on responding to all the podcasts tomorrow. :-)

67 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2015-09-24 10:55:42)

Re: Rewatch Podcast

ireactions wrote:

Hmm. I've thought about it some more.

I would be okay with Tom and company performing these four pages. Maybe not even all four pages -- just the last two. No more than that, though. :-) I can get a friend to provide dialogue for the female voice.

I will finish catching up on responding to all the podcasts tomorrow. :-)

That'd bring me so much joy!  Perhaps Tom you might be able to fill out the parts with folks outside that company. I do love Cory's impressions smile And he is a hell of a producer / sound effects guy.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

So, "State of the ART." Like Cory and Tom, I don't mind this episode too much, although Arturo's aptitude with physics and mathematics seems to have gotten an absurd upgrade to the point where he's repairing robots! The purple sky is intriguing. Visually, this episode is kind of cramped and dull with its bland sets and soundstages and the editing is a little flat. But I didn't mind it too much. Not exactly thought provoking, however. I enjoyed Cory and Tom talking about whether or not they'd submit to being transplanted into robot bodies. Tom's thoughts on artificial intelligence were intriguing as he argued that Derec's 'emotions,' such as they are, don't represent any internal state. They're just programming instructing a machine to show specific symbols on its display, using a human face as its screen and human expressions as its graphic user interface.

At the same time, is the human brain or body anything more than a machine in itself, albeit one of biological components as opposed to mechanical parts? I dunno! Interestingly, Bob Weiss, co-creator of SLIDERS, is also an expert in robotics and is the CEO of a company working on robots that can perform surgery. (I don't think he's currently working on artificial intelligence.)

Then we come to "Season's Greedings," which is again a combination of the Season 1/2 alt-histories with the Season 3 approach of aiming for light entertainment. Unlike "Double Cross," the emphasis is less on action but ultimately about good triumphing over evil. Unlike "The Prince of Slides," this episode has something truly meaningful and important to say about the futility and pointlessness of consumer purchasing and consumer credit. And I like it a lot. It's heartfelt. It's sweet.

It's got an absurd and ridiculous climax where the sliders delete debt records to free everyone in the mall from their servitude -- I find it *very* difficult to believe there wouldn't be extensive backups of this stuff. I get the impression this script was written well before computers were as common as they are now and in our pockets. I enjoyed Cory and Tom noting how the friendly, cheerful setting of the mall is essentially a polite face on slavery, however, and I suppose that's part of why I don't quibble too much with how the story is resolved.

But certain things trouble me.

Quinn Mallory. Something has gone wrong with Jerry's performance and the scripting of the character. The physicality and the expression of the character have gotten confused. The scene that strikes me as most wrong is when Quinn and Kelly go to dinner. Quinn talks about his family's traditions. Jerry is completely out of character in this scene. He acts like he's accustomed to attention from women and enjoys it greatly.

I think a Season 1/2 Quinn would perform exactly the same dialogue, but with Quinn's usual reserve and slight social awkwardness, making it less of a performance and more of an awkward sharing between himself and a new friend. Jerry, however, plays this scene as completely flirtatious and intensely sexual and it's deeply uncharacteristic for Quinn; why would Quinn be flirting with Wade's sister at a time when Wade is hurting for family? Had Jerry modulated his performance correctly, it would have come off as Quinn trying to better understand Wade through understanding Kelly.

Instead, Jerry plays it like he's on a date. Tom and Cory highlight deleted scenes where Quinn was written to have had a crush on Kelly since their first meeting at Wade's house over dinner. That also doesn't sync with Jerry's performance. Would this confident, flirtatious, girl-chasing Jerry O'Connell have been at a loss for words when first meeting Kelly? Would he have been "unable to take his eyes off her," as Wade says in the script? No -- this version of the character would have asked Kelly out.

The other scene that really rubs me the wrong way with Quinn is Quinn pouncing on the mall manager at the end and punching him out with enraged satisfaction. I don't see why Quinn would do this; the man's business has been shattered, he's wanted by the law, his assets have been destroyed and his face is known to all. What was the point? Quinn knows when a guy is beaten; he doesn't enjoy inflicting physical pain. Something has gone really wrong here.

The ending. Oh, the ending. Yes, it's nice to see a happy ending. But I remember this article where Tracy Torme remarked that he felt Season 3 of SLIDERS (at the halfway mark) was doing empty, feel-good television. Everything is wrapped up happily at the end. All is well. The sliders open the vortex off camera to save money. And they leave. No twists, no thought-provoking endings. Just acceptable mediocrity.

Film director James Gray once remarked, there are two words in the English language -- "good" and "enough" -- that, when combined, are a recipe for low standards. "State of the ART" and "Season's Greedings" are certainly good enough -- but SLIDERS is no longer receiving the detailed care and love to characterization and viewer enjoyment that often made it great.

Next: The terrible truth of Season 3.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

"Murder Most Foul" is one of my favourite episodes of SLIDERS. I think it's beautifully filmed, cleverly conceived, sharply written and delightfully performed. Podcasters Tom and Cory liked it lots in their SLIDERS REWATCH. And wondered. How can this great episode be David Peckinpah's script?

Throughout Season 3, the SLIDERS have confronted horror movie villains, dragons, Mad Max photocopies, intelligent talking flames and deathtraps. David Peckinpah is the man commissioning all these episodes. The average Season 3 script is an unedited, unrefined mess with characters not being given names or introductions ("Rules of the Game"), nonsensical exposition ("The Dream Masters"), clumsily considered world-building ("Electric Twister Acid Test"), witless exposition (Elston Diggs), and a startling lack of imagination and ideas ("Desert Storm") -- all of which are David Peckinpah's responsibility as showrunner.

But "Murder Most Foul" is great. And yeah, some people argue that Peckinpah, a cop show veteran, was just working in a genre he knew well -- crime fiction. But "Murder Most Foul" is so intriguing, so imaginative. Fractures. False personalities to give the conscious mind a rest. Rembrandt intimidating a secretary into giving the sliders into while still being Rembrandt. The little boy's wonder and joy towards the sliding concept. Quinn's cleverness and Arturo's strength of character saving the day. How is this possible?

The terrible truth of Season 3 is and always has been this: David Peckinpah was a *great* writer. A brilliant director. A capable, skillful talented man who truly understood the TV medium. He introduces guest-characters correctly. Names and points of distinction so the audience will remember them later. He knows how to stage confrontations. He knows how to tell stories through action and dialogue. He even does the thought-provoking ending as the episode ends with us looking at little Trevor, the first of a new generation of sliders. Trevor was named after one of David Peckinpah's sons.

The sad fact is that David Peckinpah had *all* the skills needed to make SLIDERS great. He was a fun guy to work with. A gifted storyteller. Decades of experience. He had also known hardship; Peckinpah was a recovered drug addict who put his recklessness behind him to be a good father to his four children. He was sober for 20 years. And then, shortly before being assigned to SLIDERS, Peckinpah's 16-year-old son, Garrett, died of meningitis.

This broke Peckinpah. He fell back into his drug addiction. He had a two-year development deal with Universal and they assigned him to SLIDERS -- a show that Peckinpah simply didn't care about. His son had died and it left a hole in his heart that never healed. Note how Peckinpah was generally vindictive and angry towards people who made his working life challenging. Sabrina Lloyd. John Rhys-Davies. To people who showed up, stood on their marks, did their work and left him alone to shoot up or snort, Peckinpah was perfectly amiable.

We're coming up on two episodes -- "The Exodus" two-parter -- that were basically an excuse to hire a musician as a guest-star so that he and his band could perform for the cast and crew over two weeks of boozing and filming while drunk. Peckinpah used SLIDERS as a line of credit to feed his addictions and loneliness. He started cheating on his wife with would-be actresses. His presence on SLIDERS was as a figure of indifference and laziness except when feeling contrary to people who demanded his efforts (Torme, John Rhys-Davies).

But he was a great writer. And when writing scripts, he couldn't hide that. "Murder Most Foul" and "Dinoslide" are well-written stories. "Genesis" is actually quite good in its execution even though the content is misguided. He just didn't care to bring his A-game to the *rest* of the show -- not in commissioning scripts and not in editing them.

Some time after SLIDERS, Peckinpah moved from LA to Vancouver, wanting to create a personal space to work on film and TV projects. But it was simply a drug den and now he had no family and friends to monitor him and reduce the harm he was causing himself. He never addressed his grief; he never learned to live with it; he couldn't ever move past it. All he ever did was medicate his loss and in the end, it killed him.

David Peckinpah was not a villain or a monstrosity, merely a broken and very sad little man. In 2006, Peckinpah experienced heart failure brought on by a drug overdose. And he died where SLIDERS was born.

Behind the scenes information courtesy of Temporal Flux.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

ireactions: Wow. Jesus. I had no idea. That... makes so much sense out of everything.

I used to hate the guy. Now I mostly just feel sorry for him.

Still sorry that he wrecked the show, and made working conditions intolerable for so many of the people who made Sliders great. But ouch.

Dude, where do you get all this info? This is pretty detailed stuff. I'm also super curious how Lloyd and Rhys-Davies reacted to the whole "filming while drunk" thing. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing they would have stood for at all.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

intangirble wrote:

ireactions: Wow. Jesus. I had no idea. That... makes so much sense out of everything. I used to hate the guy. Now I mostly just feel sorry for him. Still sorry that he wrecked the show, and made working conditions intolerable for so many of the people who made Sliders great. But ouch. Dude, where do you get all this info? This is pretty detailed stuff. I'm also super curious how Lloyd and Rhys-Davies reacted to the whole "filming while drunk" thing. It doesn't seem like the kind of thing they would have stood for at all.

David Peckinpah's family posted on the old Sci-Fi Board, protesting the fans' mockery and ridicule towards Peckinpah. Saying he was a wonderful father and a loving man. Informant replied, "What you have to understand is that when you run a show like SLIDERS, you are creating a legacy. People who don't want to be mocked and ridiculed really need to put some thought into what they're producing. I have no doubt that David Peckinpah was a solid citizen. Unmatched in his moral integrity. The last good man on Earth. His show still sucked."

After Peckinpah died, the family posted some stuff on IMDB about how the poor man was simply broken after his son died. And looking at SLIDERS -- Season 3 is a man in pain lashing out. Seasons 4 - 5 represent a man who has given up and simply wants to die.

The 'rock concert' environment of "The Exodus" can be seen in the gag reel. Lloyd is clearly hungover in "The Exodus Part 2," as are Jerry and Cleavant, in the Professor's eulogy scene. John Rhys-Davies was, I think, more irritated by the scripts, which led to Peckinpah despising him and removing his character from the show by sucking out the Professor's brain, shooting him, then blowing up the corpse. Sabrina Lloyd didn't like working with Kari Wuhrer. I have no data on how they felt about the on-set quality of filming.

In the end, yes, David Peckinpah is responsible for SLIDERS' downfall and had little-to-no credit in its continued survival on Sci-Fi. But he wasn't a demonic monstrosity. Just a man. Weak and lost. I think it says something about sobriety -- one must commit to living a healthy life for one's self, not for someone else, not even a beloved child. Be angry with him if you have to. But forgive him.

Behind the scenes information courtesy of Temporal Flux.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

"Slide Like an Egyptian." I honestly don't know what to make of this episode and my reaction mirrors Tom and Cory almost exactly. The episode is very strangely edited with scene to scene progression lost as character motives fade in and out of the story. Quinn's death is a moment in a muddled, confused, disorienting episode and leaves me completely cold. The sliders stumbling across a replacement timer that works pretty much the same way the old one did is just baffling to me. It knocked me out of the story completely. The scarab special effect is appalling. Why are the creators of Season 3 so utterly convinced that special effects will attract an audience when the special effects are so terrible?

I really can't figure out what the point of this episode was beyond David Peckinpah's wish to have the Torme timer destroyed and replaced with one he can call his own. As Cory and Tom note, Michael Mallory's advice to Quinn is meaningless nonsense. There's no real exploration of the Egyptian alt-history. This episode is a boring mess and it's hard to tell what they were going for.

With "Paradise Lost," we come to one of the most loathed episodes of SLIDERS ever made. Tom and Cory note all the obvious, glaring errors throughout the story from misdelivered dialogue to silly chronological errors and baffling contradictions in how this town keeps its secrets or discovered the immortality-granting substances.

"Paradise Lost" features two of the worst guest-characters on SLIDERS. Trudy is appalling, claiming to be trying to save innocent people while only ever providing vague, unspecific warnings that have never saved a single person. Laurie is a non-entity paraded in front of the camera as a Baywatch babe, so dull that Tom and Cory have trouble remembering her scenes. And there's an alarming lack of oversight such as Quinn addressing the Professor as "Max" or actors confusing the words "do" and "don't."

This episode is a clear reflection of how the Season 3 production is unprofessional. They commission scripts for SLIDERS even when the pitches clearly lack parallel universe story elements, which reflects the showrunner's indifference to the series. They permit scripts to be filmed without any concern for introducing guest-characters or scene-to-scene progression or reviewing dialogue, indicating that the script editor is not on the job. They permit actors to mis-read dialogue and do not do reshoots, suggesting the script supervisor is either incompetent or being ignored. All this leads to a nonsensical final product.

I think, earlier in the season, some of the Season 1/2 writers (Tony Blake, Paul Jackson, Nan Hagan) were still writing for the show they knew in Season 2, so you'd get episodes like "Double Cross" and "Dead Man Sliding" which merge the Season 3 spectacle/action approach with Season 1/2 storytelling elements. You had writers like Eleah Horwitz writing perfectly decent stories like "The Prince of Slides" and "Season's Greedings," aiming for the same. These were writers who, I think, were willing to do their own quality control on their material. David Peckinpah did the same for himself on "Murder Most Foul."

But then there are the scripts where the writers were either not reviewing their own material or there were changes being made to film material more cheaply and more quickly but without any concern for coherence or watchability.

In Season 1, Tracy Torme, Robert K. Weiss and Jon Povill were often rewriting scripts. "Last Days" and "Eggheads" were heavily redone. "As Time Goes By" had multiple writers working on the individual threads. "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome" was heavily workshopped. With Season 3, little to no effort in this area is present. "Paradise Lost" is a marker -- the Season 3 episodes that follow are mostly from scripts that have not been reviewed for basic professional standards (introductions, exposition, in-character dialogue, basic scene-to-scene progression) or have been rewritten in ways that aren't concerned with those standards.

"The Last of Eden" also reflects all the problems that result when scripts aren't being reviewed with these concerns in mind. Cory and Tom explore how the underground society makes no sense and are wildly inconsistent in the threat they pose and the timeline presented by the episode makes no sense whatsoever. The script raises questions about the Gineers that aren't explored in the slighest. The script plunges the sliders into a plot that makes no effort to explore the surroundings or the civilization in any meaningful or informative way, treating every guest-character in this episode as a threat or a mechanism to move the plot to its tedious conclusion.

Episodes like "Double Cross" and "Dead Man Sliding" showed that SLIDERS could give FOX the light entertainment and action-spectacle they wanted while still telling stories with alternate histories and strangers in strange lands. But in the end, the problem isn't even that Season 3 reducing alt-history for doing monsters and horror and fantasy. Any story is conceivably a SLIDERS story; even a story without a strong alternate history is potentially a SLIDERS story. The problem is that Season 3 is doing *bad* monster movies and horror movies and fantasy movies. This regime has no concern for quality or viewer enjoyment and "Paradise Lost" is the point at which this is consistently indicated in nearly every episode that follows.

Behind the scenes information courtesy of Temporal Flux.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

ireactions wrote:

In the end, yes, David Peckinpah is responsible for SLIDERS' downfall and had little-to-no credit in its continued survival on Sci-Fi. But he wasn't a demonic monstrosity. Just a man. Weak and lost. I think it says something about sobriety -- one must commit to living a healthy life for one's self, not for someone else, not even a beloved child. Be angry with him if you have to. But forgive him.

Yeah.

ireactions, you're awesome and I salute you. I've only known you through your writing a little while, but almost everything you've said about the show and its behind-the-scenes dynamics has really made me think, and think again, about... the humanity, I guess, behind all of the screwups.

Fandom tends to be so black-and-white. You're an angel or you're the devil. You're everyone's hero or everyone's villain. I hate that Sliders went so badly downhill because of Peckinpah, and that it never really recovered from that. But seeing that there's more to the story than "he just didn't care and was an asshole" is... well, it's humanising.

Thank you for reminding us of the subtleties and frailties in all of this. There but for the grace of God go all of us.

74 (edited by RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan 2015-09-28 06:56:34)

Re: Rewatch Podcast

ireactions wrote:

"Slide Like an Egyptian." I honestly don't know what to make of this episode and my reaction mirrors Tom and Cory almost exactly. The episode is very strangely edited with scene to scene progression lost as character motives fade in and out of the story. Quinn's death is a moment in a muddled, confused, disorienting episode and leaves me completely cold. The sliders stumbling across a replacement timer that works pretty much the same way the old one did is just baffling to me. It knocked me out of the story completely. The scarab special effect is appalling. Why are the creators of Season 3 so utterly convinced that special effects will attract an audience when the special effects are so terrible?

I really can't figure out what the point of this episode was beyond David Peckinpah's wish to have the Torme timer destroyed and replaced with one he can call his own. As Cory and Tom note, Michael Mallory's advice to Quinn is meaningless nonsense. There's no real exploration of the Egyptian alt-history. This episode is a boring mess and it's hard to tell what they were going for.

With "Paradise Lost," we come to one of the most loathed episodes of SLIDERS ever made. Tom and Cory note all the obvious, glaring errors throughout the story from misdelivered dialogue to silly chronological errors and baffling contradictions in how this town keeps its secrets or discovered the immortality-granting substances.

"Paradise Lost" features two of the worst guest-characters on SLIDERS. Trudy is appalling, claiming to be trying to save innocent people while only ever providing vague, unspecific warnings that have never saved a single person. Laurie is a non-entity paraded in front of the camera as a Baywatch babe, so dull that Tom and Cory have trouble remembering her scenes. And there's an alarming lack of oversight such as Quinn addressing the Professor as "Max" or actors confusing the words "do" and "don't."

This episode is a clear reflection of how the Season 3 production is unprofessional. They commission scripts for SLIDERS even when the pitches clearly lack parallel universe story elements, which reflects the showrunner's indifference to the series. They permit scripts to be filmed without any concern for introducing guest-characters or scene-to-scene progression or reviewing dialogue, indicating that the script editor is not on the job. They permit actors to mis-read dialogue and do not do reshoots, suggesting the script supervisor is either incompetent or being ignored. All this leads to a nonsensical final product.

I think, earlier in the season, some of the Season 1/2 writers (Tony Blake, Paul Jackson, Nan Hagan) were still writing for the show they knew in Season 2, so you'd get episodes like "Double Cross" and "Dead Man Sliding" which merge the Season 3 spectacle/action approach with Season 1/2 storytelling elements. You had writers like Eleah Horwitz writing perfectly decent stories like "The Prince of Slides" and "Season's Greedings," aiming for the same. These were writers who, I think, were willing to do their own quality control on their material. David Peckinpah did the same for himself on "Murder Most Foul."

But then there are the scripts where the writers were either not reviewing their own material or there were changes being made to film material more cheaply and more quickly but without any concern for coherence or watchability.

In Season 1, Tracy Torme, Robert K. Weiss and Jon Povill were often rewriting scripts. "Last Days" and "Eggheads" were heavily redone. "As Time Goes By" had multiple writers working on the individual threads. "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome" was heavily workshopped. With Season 3, little to no effort in this area is present. "Paradise Lost" is a marker -- the Season 3 episodes that follow are mostly from scripts that have not been reviewed for basic professional standards (introductions, exposition, in-character dialogue, basic scene-to-scene progression) or have been rewritten in ways that aren't concerned with those standards.

"The Last of Eden" also reflects all the problems that result when scripts aren't being reviewed with these concerns in mind. Cory and Tom explore how the underground society makes no sense and are wildly inconsistent in the threat they pose and the timeline presented by the episode makes no sense whatsoever. The script raises questions about the Gineers that aren't explored in the slighest. The script plunges the sliders into a plot that makes no effort to explore the surroundings or the civilization in any meaningful or informative way, treating every guest-character in this episode as a threat or a mechanism to move the plot to its tedious conclusion.

Episodes like "Double Cross" and "Dead Man Sliding" showed that SLIDERS could give FOX the light entertainment and action-spectacle they wanted while still telling stories with alternate histories and strangers in strange lands. But in the end, the problem isn't even that Season 3 reducing alt-history for doing monsters and horror and fantasy. Any story is conceivably a SLIDERS story; even a story without a strong alternate history is potentially a SLIDERS story. The problem is that Season 3 is doing *bad* monster movies and horror movies and fantasy movies. This regime has no concern for quality or viewer enjoyment and "Paradise Lost" is the point at which this is consistently indicated in nearly every episode that follows.

Love that your doing these essays, adding your own review/recap to following the rewatch one.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Hey Sliders fans, our discussion of "The Exodus" Parts 1 & 2 is up in the iTunes feed now! Or use this link http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 7_54-07_00

Re: Rewatch Podcast

I'm glad Tom and Cory enjoyed "The Exodus," because I never want anyone to have a bad time. That said, this two-parter BLOWS. Oh my God, if it weren't for "This Slide of Paradise," it would be one of the worst TV productions ever made. Chilling in its incompetence, its existence opening a gateway to a world of anti-talent and anti-creativity.

Of all the ways to explore the end of the world, a base of faceless and anonymous soldiers is probably the *worst* choice. I mean, the idea in "Exodus" is so simple: if you could save *some* parts of a dying world, what would you save?  The sliders never grapple with the question. It's irrelevant as far as the story's concerned.

Then there's the need to inject slasher-horror characters where they don't belong. The Rickman character is pathetic on every level. There is simply no deeper dimension to this character; he is a cowardly killer who exists to antagonize and attack. His desperate need to survive is played as empty-villainy with absolutely no sense of pathos or tragedy. There's nothing below the surface of this cartoon.

The Professor's death is humiliating and a complete dis-service to a fine actor and excellent character. First, he's deprived of speech and intelligence, then he's killed in an instant. It's boring.

"The Exodus" is full of ugly, callous characters who are somehow masquerading as our sliders. Quinn is indifferent to the death around him and there's some nonsensical conflict where he refuses to let the sliders go home Because. Arturo is shockingly insensitive to the mass casualties. Wade and Rembrandt are hungover during Arturo's eulogy scene.

The Maggie Beckett character is a disaster. Antagonistic and abrasive, inexplicably paired with Quinn romantically, indifferent to her husband's efforts to save people's lives, and in no way convincing as a soldier or a spy. Kari Wuhrer's performance is witless and without detail or charisma. Awful.

This simply isn't the show we started watching in Season 1. Season 3 started so well, adding more action to the SLIDERS format, but "The Exodus" has lost *any* sense of what the show is. Is it about special effects? The effects are terrible. Is it about action? The episodes are just people wandering around a military base. Is it about the characters? They're unbearable. Is it about adventure? If there's one adventure I don't want to ever go on, it's the latter Season 3 episodes. For TV to even work as mindless entertainment, it first has to qualify as entertainment and I can't work out how any audience could find anything to enjoy here.

Matt Hutaff once wrote a review of "Strangers and Comrades" where he talked about how the dialogue and direction gave a sense of depth and importance, but the content was ultimately hollow and empty. "The Exodus" may be an 'important' SLIDERS story and it may be full of significance, but I think it's just badly made and yet, it looks like a masterpiece compared to what's coming next.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

.... so, when the Professor died, I was 10-years-old. It was one of the most traumatic events of my life. I felt like my own father had died. About five years later, I was rather upset with Tracy Torme over AOL Instant Messenger. I was a kid. I was furious that he'd left SLIDERS and let the Professor die. "My dad was sick and I had to be with him, I'm sorry you lost your TV dad," he said. "I lost my dad too." Arturo's death left a hole in my heart. A void that couldn't be filled.

**

A film student wrote me an E-mail recently about "Slide Effects." He asked me where I got the idea for how to resurrect the original sliders and reset the show to just after Season 2. The idea was stolen from Tracy Torme during that AOL chat. The student asked me: "How are you so good at screenwriting?" Which is bull#!t. SLIDERS REBORN's laboured development would indicate that there are some serious issues here. But I told him I understood certain requirements of screenwriting -- writing third person, showing the edited highlights of larger events, telling stories with action and visual information -- and also, that every story must have a point. An insight. Something to say.

What I wanted to say with "Slide Effects" is that fiction can only be created and never destroyed. The SLIDERS concept is magnificent. The series is truly unique. It has four lead characters who can embody cynicism and hope, experience and innocence, crusading and caution, wisdom and stupidity. It has a storytelling platform that welcomes any genre. Any story is conceivably a SLIDERS story. And once it exists, it can't be killed.

Yes, Wade was sent to a rape camp, then had her brain cut out and put in a jukebox from the movie BIG. The Professor had his brain sucked out, was shot, then left on a planet that blew up. Quinn was merged with another actor and 'lost.' Rembrandt -- fate unknown. The sliders' home Earth was invaded by Kromaggs and left that way. There was no conclusion to the Kromagg Prime saga or the search for Quinn or Logan St. Clair's pursuit or the FBI investigation and every single thing SLIDERS ever set out to do ended in ghastly failure with every single character dead or worse than dead and all because David Peckinpah was in no condition to run a show.

But it's fiction. And I think "Slide Effects" was my way of saying that if you embrace the sliders as fictional creations and the concept of sliding, everything that was lost can come back. You can retrieve Arturo, restore Wade, rescue Quinn and reunite them with Rembrandt. You can save them all.

**

Tom said I should do my own SLIDERS podcast. I think the stuff I have to say about SLIDERS is better said in scripts. SLIDERS REBORN is an effort to give SLIDERS something that it currently lacks, even with "Slide Effects." You'll see what I mean.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Hey Sliders Fans! Our new ep is up now. Tom and Cory discuss "Sole Survivors" and "The Other Slide of Darkness."

http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 8_10-07_00

Re: Rewatch Podcast

RewatchPodcast wrote:

Hey Sliders Fans! Our new ep is up now. Tom and Cory discuss "Sole Survivors" and "The Other Slide of Darkness."

http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 8_10-07_00


You guys did a great job with the Exodus!

(and Cory only proved by point with his great remy impresonation smile

Re: Rewatch Podcast

ireactions wrote:

.

Tom said I should do my own SLIDERS podcast. I think the stuff I have to say about SLIDERS is better said in scripts.

Well you are a great podcaster as well. You sounded like a highly professional NPR cultural critic during your sliderscast 14.5 episode.

SLIDERS REBORN is an effort to give SLIDERS something that it currently lacks, even with "Slide Effects." You'll see what I mean.


Cool!

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Ooh, looking forward to listening to the Sole Survivors one. One of my favourite episodes, honestly, just for the way Sabrina knocks it out of the park.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Ib pointed me in the direction of the "Exodus" podcast that references "Exodus Excised." Just want to thank everyone who said such kind words about my fanedit; one of these days I hope to follow it up with my "Genesis" edit, too. (Certainly won't happen before the podcast is produced, though!)

Earth Prime | The Definitive Source for Sliders™

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Hey everyone,

our latest ep is up now. This week we discuss "The Breeder" & "Stoker." Find it on iTunes or at http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 8_14-07_00

Enjoy!

Re: Rewatch Podcast

"Sole Survivors." I thought it was funny how Tom and Cory started noting when the show would bother to provide names for its guest-stars and laughed uncontrollably when Cory said he couldn't even make out Erica's name in the dialogue.

Oddly, for a late Season 3 episode  -- I don't hate "Sole Survivors." The original script, which can be found on Earth Prime, was better. The rewrite is a fairly functional, capable, competent hour of TV and Tom and Cory seemed mostly okay with it.

It's a zombie story; it's SLIDERS doing monster movies -- and as I've said before, any story is conceivably a SLIDERS story. And as zombie stories go, "Sole Survivors" has some strong character moments and a good sense of action and pacing. I can even bring myself to accept zombies in the SLIDERS mythology since there's an effort at a rational explanation.

There's some seriously impressive work at depicting Quinn's brainpower in this episode. It's been sorely lacking as of late, but I was really impressed with how this episode showcased his mental agility while fighting the infection. He gathers the equipment and ingredients to cure himself, he gets Debra's generator back online, he saves the day.

But, as Tom and Cory note, there are lots of flaws, too. Quinn pranking his friends with pretending to electrocuted  -- I'd say it's out of character, but the truth is that I barely recognize this flirtatious, smug, skirt-chasing action hero as the Season 1/2 character. It's strange how this bizarre note, however, is in a fairly strong episode for Quinn.

The guest-characters are pretty incapable and hopeless. Dr. Tassler and Debra seem to go out of their way to be threatened by the zombies. The zombies inexplicably start capturing people at the end. But these aren't aggressively annoying.

I just really, really, really hate this episode. Or rather, I hate this body of episodes. "Paradise Lost," "The Last of Eden," "The Exodus" and now "Sole Survivors" have turned SLIDERS into one of the most depressing shows of the 1990s. And it was airing alongside THE X-FILES. Sliding is no longer a fun adventure that the viewers would want to join. Sliding is, instead, an endless journey through despair and hopelessness and death and zombies represent that wholly and totally.

I think if you had one or two episodes like "Sole Survivors" -- horror and misery and agony and terror -- that'd be fine. But when it's *every* single episode *every* single week  -- well, there's a reason for that.

"The Other Slide of Darkness" is another grim march through misery and depression. This is now the sixth episode in a row that is utterly miserable on every level with unhappy, troubled, angry, abrasive characters.

Rickman is truly bizarre. Tom and Cory note how the explanation for his altered appearance doesn't match "The Exodus" and also note error upon error upon error in the story. Very simply: Quinn-2's character is completely incoherent. He recognizes Quinn on sight as the same Quinn he met in the Pilot. How?

He claims to have given the Kromaggs sliding. But the Kromaggs had been sliding for decades if not centuries, given that adult Mary was raised by Kromaggs as an infant to be their Speaker. How could the Kromaggs have raised Mary from infancy to adulthood in the two years between the Pilot and Invasion?

And once Quinn-2's motivations fail to withstand scrutiny, his helping Rickman and wanting Quinn to kill him becomes impossible to analyze or understand.

Tom and Cory also note how absurd it is that Quinn-2's followers are intimidated by a floating head and how the ending is unintelligible and cuts off practically in mid-scene. "The Other Slide of Darkness" bears all the marks of Season 3's unprofessionalism: unreviewed scripts, unconsidered story elements, and absolutely no concern for viewer enjoyment. Aiming for depth through diving into darkness.

But here's the thing: misery and despair are easy. Depression and anger require absolutely no artistry, no craft, no skill, no talent. What did SLIDERS have at the start? A sense of wonder. Delight. Joy. Look at the impish glint in Quinn's eyes at the end of the Pilot when he asks his friends where they'll slide to next. What does it have now? A disengaged cast, writers who are grimly waiting out their contracts, an executive producer who is incapable of doing his job and the original creators have fled the set.

Many posters have talked about how Sabrina Lloyd does such a great job of showing Wade's trauma and grief and degenerating mental state  -- and sure, it's an impressive performance, but artistically, is that really an achievement? Anger and fear are easy. Wonder and joy are hard and impossible to achieve by a regime that's pretty much given up.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Behind the scenes information courtesy of Temporal Flux.

John Rhys-Davies, at a convention, told a story about his last days on the SLIDERS set. Despite being fired, he had wanted to leave SLIDERS. He performed his death scene, and as he was leaving the set, he passed by the producers. They were huddled around a TV watching a movie. They were watching the movie SPECIES.

Tom and Cory hilariously highlighted the terrible inattention to sound design in this entire episode. And Cory notes the truly bizarre choices with the Maggie character. If they wanted a sultry, flirtatious, promiscuous character, why did they write her as a solder/fighter pilot/spy/intelligence officer? Maggie as sexuality-defined object completely undermines the military aspect of the character.

And then there's the ending. Quinn and friends condemn an entire Earth to its doom due to a parasite they brought to this world and failed to contain. SLIDERS is completely incapable of addressing this on any level. And once again -- there is very little artistic challenge in having the characters fail and lose. There is very little advantage in having a surgically augmented Barbie doll prance around on the screen.

Which brings us to "Stoker." There's just no thought behind this episode. Tom and Cory ask lots of questions: even if they accept this week's villains as immortal vampires -- what allows vampires to telekinetically control cars and their inner workings? Or fire electricity through guitars? And then -- if DRACULA was never written on this Earth, why are all the characters named after Bram Stoker's various creations?

It's really sad. Because the truth is that SLIDERS could do a vampire story. I mean, it could be so interesting. Quinn and Arturo trying to understand the rules behind how these vampires work, how their powers function, and how they could be challenged. Wade and Rembrandt exploring the psychology and artistry of the creatures. But none of that is here -- the vampires are played as invincible with whatever powers are wanted on a whim -- but then Quinn beats their experienced and powerful leader with a stick! You can hear Tom and Cory on the verge of falling into hysterical laughter, losing any ability to take SLIDERS seriously.

*sigh*

By the way, the rock-star vampires from "Stoker" will make an appearance in SLIDERS REBORN. :-)

Re: Rewatch Podcast

I always wondered about Sole Survivors.

The Episode came way before the Movie 28 Days Later which is kind of funny.

It is the only Season 3 Ep that inspired a Movie Homage/Copy as opposed to most Season 3 Eps being Copies of Movies. smile

I agree with ireactions on a lot of points made here. The Zombies did have something of a Scientific origin/plausable explanation and the Episode as a one off despite it's flaws is not that bad.

But when taken as one of many GRIM Eps in Season 3? Yes.... Very Tiresome and dispiriting.

I have issues with nBSG 2003 and Stargate: Universe for the same reasons.
Some Grim... Fine, ok but all the damn time? NO!

Life is Grim Enough thank you.

Give me Wonder, Adventure, Comradery and Humour!

Rant over.... Sorry heh. smile

As to Stoker.... Ugh! A mess. 

Sliders dabbling in the Supernatural and Magical is Fine if Done well via followinf
g the old adage of any sufficiently understood Magic is Science.

Sole Survivor Zombies: Biotech gone Wrong.
Telepaths in that Ep about the Oracle: A different branch of Scientific Study and possibly Alternate Biology or Evolution.
Into the Mystic Magic and Sourcery: Technology like Holograms etc.

Stoker Vampires though.... No. Just NO!

"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: Rewatch Podcast

New Sliders Rewatch episode in the feed now! This week Cory and Tom discuss "Slither," "Dinoslide" and "This Slide of Paradise." Find it on iTunes or http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 9_49-07_00

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Is is a very special episode by the way... Featuring a very special "extra". I hope you enjoy! And enjoy the adjusted lyrics:



         D           Bm
I've got tears in my fro
        G                A             D 
Cuz I'm standin' on my head, over you
Bm   
And I,
G             A         D     Bm
I've got a long way to go
G                    A
Will this crying stop?
            D        Bm
I wish I knew.
   E                                       A  Bb  A  A  A  A  G  G  G  G
I'm only half the man I used to be --
                   

           D
Well I got tears in my fro
          G                       D
Cuz I'm standin' on my head over you...
           G
Well I got tears in my fro
                                 D
Cuz I'm Losing you to someone new
E                                   A
When will this crying stop, I really wish I knew


            D 
I've got tears in my fro
           G                        D
Cuz my world is upside down over you hoo hoo
             G       
I should comb 'em out I know but that's the
                                   D
Saddest thing I'll ever have to do...
      E                           
these tears they won't stop falling hard
    A
I'm crying here for you


    G                           
At first I thought our love was never-ending
D
You and I until eternity,
       G                   
But now I realize I'm just pretending
       E                        A          G        ... to solos, then back to previous verse to end
I'm only half the man that I used to be

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Also if you would like your own copy of Tears In My Fro, you should be able to download it here:

https://app.box.com/s/oq9dltf58zexaw9zwedtdp78hxxac3hn

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Awesome to see the podcast integrated in EarthPrime!

Tom, nice job on ToMF!

It was almost as if Marty McFly was singing it!

Re: Rewatch Podcast

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

Awesome to see the podcast integrated in EarthPrime!

Tom, nice job on ToMF!

It was almost as if Marty McFly was singing it!

Woohoo! I'll take that compliment! I loved that scene in BTTF! Thanks much! And yes, we are glad to be a part of earth prime!

Re: Rewatch Podcast

"Slither" is terrible. One of the worst episodes of SLIDERS ever made. Tom and Cory highlighted a lot of the moronic points: Rembrandt's discarded shirt is later referred to as Quinn's shirt. The sliders foolishly take separate vacations with massive distances between them. Maggie and Wade would never agree to be alone together for extended periods.

The one point that didn't seem to offend Tom and Cory too much, however -- was Quinn declaring his intention to abandon the sliders, abandon the chase for Rickman and abandon his pursuit of the timer holding his home coordinates. All to be with Kyra. Tom and Cory found it to be one odd note among many odd notes for Season 3 Quinn.

I found it to be utterly devastating to the Quinn character. As Mike Truman noted in his review, Kyra is an obvious sociopath and manipulator. And for the first time in the series, Quinn has a real chance of making it home (or at least, he thinks he does).

Quinn Mallory has indeed changed since Season 2. He's become oddly caustic and callous, strangely flirtatious, unusually aggressive and much less intelligent. But even this altered version of Quinn has no logical or emotional reason to abandon an opportunity to make it home in favour of being with a woman who will obviously betray him at the first opportunity!

"Slither" is full of incoherent logic, poorly considered storytelling and nonsensical developments and this is before we even get to the super-intelligent snakes that can knock out electricity to buildings and down a plane. And it completely destroys Quinn Mallory's character. There is nothing admirable, understandable or workable with this character anymore. This is Quinn's worst depiction to date in the series.

(Season 4 will be even worse in this area.)

"Dinoslide." It's not bad! Cory and Tom raised issues with the military personnel being suspicious of Maggie and the sliders, saying this doesn't match "The Exodus." I actually thought it quite reasonable that some people didn't trust Maggie due to her association with Rickman even if Maggie was the one to expose Rickman as a murderer.

The episode is very well-filmed with stunning cinematography and location work. The action is compelling. I'm not in favour of SLIDERS stories that use force and violence, but as action hours go, Peckinpah's scripting is capable and filled with strong exchanges. There's a grim sense of humour in the T-Rex being used for food. Malcolm's gift to Rembrandt is touching. It's a fun action episode.

Where the story really falls apart is Rickman. He's not threatening. He's just ridiculous. As I said in my post on "The Exodus," there's really nothing human in this character. He's just a bunch of cartoonishly villainous traits. He's also a coward. He doesn't want to achieve anything other than eke out his days on stolen brain fluid; he doesn't care about the sliders beyond wanting to escape them. He isn't actually dangerous to the sliders outside of them pursuing him.

It's weird how Peckinpah is a decent writer whose script is impaired by the need to involve the Rickman character, yet Peckinpah's the reason Rickman's even in the show! Rickman's in the show because the producers wanted Roger Daltrey and his band to perform for the cast and crew and spend two weeks partying and filming an episode between binge drinking sessions.

Cory's right to say "Dinoslide" should have been the Season 3 finale. It's not a transcendental life experience, but it has the sliders revisiting the "Exodus" colony and it looks beautiful.

It's certainly better than the chaotic mess of "This Slide of Paradise." This is the worst hour of television ever made. Completely unwatchable. The guest-characters are just a mess of exaggerated 'animalistic' behaviours. Dr. Vargas is an unrelatable, inhuman lunatic. There is absolutely nothing onscreen that appeals or entertains.

The animal human hybrids are not remotely interesting or believable and they fill the screentime to the point where it's unbearable.

And then the ending. It's nice that Wade and Rembrandt are mercifully sent home and are freed from this trainwreck of a series. But the Quinn/Maggie romance is just nonsensical.

The two characters have no common ground, no mutual respect, no partnership -- the show has never bothered to explore any aspect of their friendship aside from a contrived sexual attraction. Jerry, despite his flirty performances, seems incapable of performing any actual interest in Kari Wuhrer.

Kari, despite her skill at conveying sensuality, seems unable to indicate that she's sexually interested in Jerry. Even after months of filming together, Jerry and Kari have the onscreen rapport of two strangers who vaguely recall walking past each other at a gas station.

And then Quinn says they slid into the future. Tom says he can hear the voices of a thousand SLIDERS fans screaming out in rage. Cory suggests the line may have been meant sardonically. Oh, Cory. You dear, delightful man.

And Tom. Oh, Tom. Tom performs "Tears in my Fro" for us. It is a wonderful performance. I really liked how Tom chose an upbeat, joyful, energetic approach to the song.

It actually reminded me of something Sliderscast noted in their "King is Back" podcast. Jim Ford observed that our Rembrandt sang "Tears in my Fro" as a melancholy love song while Rembrandt-2 sang the same song in a fast, high-energy fashion that showed why Rembrandt-2 was a star and our Rembrandt wasn't.

"The King is Back" feels so far away. With "This Slide of Paradise," we have a smart, satirical show having collapsed into doing bad monster movies. "The King is Back" is so flawed, so clumsy. A Rembrandt double who doesn't look like a Rembrandt double. Quinn and Wade rushing to rescue Rembrandt -- but making a stop at the concert venue first to check out some Rembrandt-impersonators.

But then there's the scene where Rembrandt and Rembrandt-2's performances are compared to each other. It's so insightful. So thoughtful. It shows such love and care for its characters.

Whereas "This Slide of Paradise" has the sliders blissfully unconcerned when Rembrandt runs off to fight with animal-human hybrids all by himself.

Season 3 is a terrible show. And Season 4 is actually worse in many ways The really sad thing is that SLIDERS was so close -- so very, very close -- to turning itself around. The Sci-Fi Channel renewal caught everyone by surprise.

Tracy Torme was prepared to return to the series. John Rhys-Davies was prepared to return to the series. Sabrina was contracted for Season 4, as were Jerry and Cleavant (and Kari).

But, as is frequent in the history of this series, Universal and the Sci-Fi Channel didn't understand what they'd bought. Sci-Fi's bizarre opinion was that SLIDERS worked best with three men and one woman -- and that it didn't matter which woman was retained.

Who could watch Season 1 and declare the show worked better because it was three men and one woman? Could it be, instead, that one of those men was a Shakespearean actor with an intensely commanding screen presence? And that the one woman was a capable actress who had chemistry with all her castmates? Kari Wuhrer, in Season 3, seems to be acting in a completely different production from the other actors.

Temporal Flux has noted that the regime that bought SLIDERS for Sci-Fi left the Channel shortly before the development process for Season 4. Others less enamoured of the series, less interested in it, took over that process.

The studio, Universal, didn't seem to be concerned with content, either. They wanted more episodes of SLIDERS, but were largely unconcerned with what would be in those episodes.

It's like the people and entities in charge of SLIDERS' future only viewed it in the context of a balance sheet. Episode numbers. Syndication potential. Deficit-financing. Return on investment. Contracts. Show business with no concern for the show, only the business, and they didn't even handle the business that well.

The Season 3 budget was badly mismananged, which is why so many back-9 episodes look cheap and ugly. A man had died during production due to negligence. And yet, David Peckinpah, the ringleader of this decaying circus, was retained. He should have been fired.

Even if you set aside his hostility towards Rhys-Davies and Lloyd and the quality of his work, he presided over a severe misallocation of funds and he wasted Universal's money. And he certainly had nothing to do with getting SLIDERS renewed for a fourth season; it happened in spite of him.

Tracy Torme made a bid to regain control of his series for Season 4. Tom says that Tracy hoped to bring John back as an alternate Arturo. This is inaccurate.

Tracy's Season 4 premiere would have been "Slide Effects." Quinn wakes up to discover it's 1995. Arturo is alive. Rembrandt and Wade have no memory of sliding. The scenario is revealed to be a Kromagg mental simulation along with all the episodes Torme didn't like or watch. The sliders escape and slide off to new adventures. Kari would have been released from her contract; she would never have appeared on SLIDERS again.

But David Peckinpah had signed a multi-year contract with Universal. If Torme returned to the show, Peckinpah would be dismissed -- but Universal would have still been obligated to pay Peckinpah.

Universal decided to go with Peckinpah for Season 4 rather than pay both him and Torme. SLIDERS had escaped the FOX Network, but they had inflicted a lazy, indifferent and unprofessional manager onto the series and that manager never left.

There is a terrible irony to the fact that fan support is technically what kept making SLIDERS worse -- that the continued renewals meant more and more episodes in which Peckinpah and his hires could find new and terrible ways to mutilate the series into a twisted parody of what it once was. The fans saved the show in the sense that they prolonged its diseased and withered state.

The sad truth is that sometimes, things don't get better. Sometimes, we find ourselves in the deepest of holes with no means of escape and then someone will hand us a shovel.

SLIDERS could have changed everything. It could have galvanized our society into realizing the value and importance of choice. How a single choice can change everything and impact everyone. How even the refusal to make a choice is in itself a choice. How every possibility we face is critical and crucial, how our awareness of how our present choices affect our future situations. It could have united us as a planet and a people in confronting all our challenges with knowledge, imagination, curiosity and teamwork. SLIDERS could have saved us all.

David Peckinpah destroyed sliding. He destroyed the future. There is no hope. There is no tomorrow.

Behind the scenes information courtesy of Temporal Flux.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Luckily the Torme thing I said was from Messages in Time and was posted back on May 17 of 1997 by Peter Dimitriadis who said:

"At a con, Tracy Torme allegedly
said that if he were given full control of the series, the first thing
he'd do is strand Maggie on some random world, and hook the sliders up
with an alternate Arturo (assuming JRD was willing to come back)."

So it wasn't really me who was in accurate, it was Peter! Blame him! wink

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Ah, Peter. Shame on you. Say, how exactly do you get the Messages in Time? I know you mentioned how in a podcast, but I can't remember which one.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!for … tv.sliders

I go there and do a search for episode title and then narrow it down by the air date so I get just the results from that initial broadcast time.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

I just started listening to a 12 Monkeys podcast and was delighted to hear none other than Cory come on!

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Hahaha! Yes, 12 Monkeys Uncaged came about because listeners on the Golden Spiral Media network wanted it. I have a great time with that show and can't wait for it to come back next year! I also do a film podcast on that network called TripleCast.

In Rewatch Podcast news, our latest Sliders Rewatch is up now. We are starting season 4 with "Genesis" and "Prophets and Loss." Find it on iTunes or at http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com/ent … 0_08-07_00

We're really calling for some rate and reviews on iTunes! You'll really help out the show by taking just a couple of minutes to give us a 5 star rating and writing your thoughts on our show. We'd appreciate it guys! Head over to our webpage for a direct link to the RSS Feed http://rewatchpodcast.podomatic.com

Re: Rewatch Podcast

God damn it. I hate the whole world and everything in it -- but I only feel that way when I'm trying to get iTunes to work on my computer.

... but you guys plugged SLIDERS REBORN and I owe you. Fine. Fine fine fine fine fine. I will find some way to get iTunes going. Dagnabbit, it CRASHED AGAIN. Uh. I think my friend, Laurie, has a MacBook. I'll go see her tomorrow.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

I posted my review in iTunes and the review just DISAPPEARED and didn't SHOW UP IN THE PAGE! DIE, iTunes! Die die die! Ugh. iTunes is so awful I have to use iMazing just to get files on and off my iPad Mini.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Tom and Cory enjoyed "Genesis" and "Prophets and Loss" plenty, and I could see why. They pointed out how both episodes, respectively written by executive producers David Peckinpah and Bill Dial, are extremely skillful pieces of television.

Cory points out how efficient the scripting is. "Genesis": the Season 3 cliffhanger, Maggie's breathing and the Kromagg invasion of Earth are established in a mere 10 - 15 minutes. The atmosphere of the invasion is horrific and compelling with background details and precise lines of dialogue indicating how the Kromaggs are merciless sadists.

Peckinpah remarked in an interview that he hesitated to make "Genesis" as dark as he did, but he committed to selling sheer helplessness of the human race and how the Kromaggs are totally implacable and unstoppable. It's a shocking turn of events; the sliders' homecoming is a nightmare. Once again, Peckinpah is a professional screenwriter and he does a professional's job in rendering the content. Cory and Tom noted how all these details created a compelling sense of loss and darkness.

The same can be said of "Prophets and Loss." Tom notes how well-structured the script is throughout. The Cadmus character witnesses the sliders' vortex and calls it in, yet this never comes up when the sliders are captured, an odd note that pays off at the end. When the sliders are brought in for questioning, the authorities are friendly, warm, charismatic and the sliders are awkward, nervous and led into giving themselves away.

Tom notes how intricate and subtle the scripting is, letting the conversation play out in almost real-time as an amiable chat becomes a forced detention. Cory and Tom were also impressed by the carefully crafted characterization where only Gareth is seen to operate the machine that incinerates people.

It's also a nicely shot episode. Location filming, great blocking, terrific guest-stars with David Birney as Cadmus and Connor Trineer as Samson. Well done, Mr. Peckinpah and Mr. Dial. I HATE THESE TWO EPISODES. They are two of the worst episodes of SLIDERS ever made. They completely DESTROY EVERYTHING in SLIDERS that matters to me and if I had the time and energy, I would personally round up every DVD set of Season 4 and return them to NBCUniversal through their front window with a complimentary brick attached to every box.

"Genesis" completely destroys the SLIDERS storytelling engine. Once you have the Kromaggs invade 'Earth Prime,' the sliders officially no longer come from our world and they have no connection to anything the audience considers home because there was no Kromagg invasion on our world the last time I checked. As a result, you can no longer use the sliders as audience surrogates and compare alternate realities to their own world with a contrast that is in any way meaningful to the viewer. The fundamentalist-ruled Earth of "Prophets and Loss" is a ****ing paradise compared to the Earth of "Genesis."

Anyone can relate to feeling homesick. There is absolutely nobody who can relate to being the chosen one in an interdimensional war that has turned your adopted Earth into an alien battleground and sent you searching for a mysterious superweapon that might liberate your world. That's just nonsense.

There's also the fact that "Genesis" warps SLIDERS into something *incredibly* convoluted. Quinn Mallory found the gateway to parallel dimensions. But on his first adventure, he lost the way back home. Simple Straightforward. Elegant. Beautiful.

Quinn Mallory found the gateway to parallel dimensions, but once he made it home, home was invaded by the Kromagg Dynasty, a race of interdimensional conquerers, and then Quinn's mother revealed to him that he was actually a refugee from a different dimension in which humans and the Kromaggs once lived in peace until a war between their races saw the Kromaggs driven off with an obscure superweapon that Quinn is now hoping to find in order to liberate his adopted home and oh my God this is terrible.

And Wade. Okay. This is just stupid. Setting aside David Peckinpah's obvious misogyny and unprofessionalism towards his employees present and former -- the script completely mishandles this because it sets up Wade's situation as one that needs to be resolved. This is just idiotic; if the actress has left, Wade's capture is a plotline that can only be resolved if Sabrina Lloyd returns, and after "Genesis," she sure as hell won't. Martin Izsak, a noted SLIDERS reviewer, observed that SLIDERS had created a "narrative debt" that it couldn't possibly pay off.

Mike Truman said, very simply, they should have killed Wade off. Let Quinn and Rembrandt mourn a corpse with the face off camera. And move on. That's one way. I wouldn't have done that.

I would have modified Starke's line to Quinn and have Starke say that Wade is about to be shipped off with numerous women to a rape camp. Then, when Marta, Rembrandt and Maggie rescue Quinn, Quinn insists they go to rescue the women as well. They storm the holding area -- only to find numerous Kromagg corpses and a hole in the wall. Wade is gone.

Resume the same plot as before with Quinn receiving the message from his birth parents, considering with Rembrandt and Maggie whether or not they'll stay and fight Kromaggs or search for the superweapon. And then, fiddling with a radio, they suddenly hear a broadcast. It's a speech being given by "Commander Wade Welles" of the human resistance, saying she's hacked the Kromagg frequencies. And she urges everyone -- soldier or prisoner, slave or civillian -- to keep fighting and not to give up. (Hire a soundalike?)

Quinn and Rembrandt realize that while Wade is fighting the war back home, they have to slide off and find weapons to aid her in the war. And we end on that. If Sabrina Lloyd returns to play Commander Welles, awesome. If not -- we know what she's doing and we're glad she's doing it.

It would certainly make "Prophets and Loss" more palatable, where Quinn and Rembrandt are upbeat and cheerful. Because as aired, "Prophets and Loss" makes no sense whatsoever for the characters. How can Quinn and Rembrandt be so lighthearted? So cheerful? So upbeat? So at ease? Quinn's mother is a Kromagg prisoner. Everyone Rembrandt has ever known or cared about is enslaved or dead. Bennish. Alesha. Danielle. Daelin. Wing. The Professor's son. Rembrandt's parents. Hurley. Wade.

And furthermore, how can the sliders be so utterly indifferent to the resistance back home? The timer lets them slide back to Earth Prime. How can they be joking around and hanging out? Why aren't they periodically sliding back to Earth Prime with supplies for the people fighting and dying for their world?

"Prophets and Loss" features Quinn and Rembrandt encountering a despotic regime and toppling it with absurd ease. If it's so easy, so simple, so straightforward, why did they ever leave Earth Prime under Kromagg rule?

I think the reason SLIDERS was so special to me in Seasons 1 - 2 and parts of 3 was because I would have loved to be a slider. Having amazing adventures with the best of friends. But the delight and joy was mixed with the tragic longing for home.

With Season 4, I don't want to be a slider and I can't relate to these people at all. The Kromagg Invasion has warped these characters into something unrecognizable, especially with their bizarre lack of reaction immediately afterwards. The Kromagg Invasion plot is not something SLIDERS can execute properly without a commitment to ongoing, episode-to-episode characterization.

And the Kromaggs. Okay, I'm out of energy. I'll deal with the Kromaggs when we get to "Common Ground."

It's really sad. Season 4 brought with it freedom from FOX, freedom from episodes being aired out of order, freedom from the numerous content restrictions that came with airing on a major network. Season 4 could have done absolutely anything. But instead, Season 4 dismantled the very concept of sliding by turning the sliders from relatable human beings into aliens.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Just a small follow-up --

What happened with David Peckinpah and Bill Dial could have happened to any one of us. We've all held crazy grudges to the point where they warp logic, reason, sense and basic facts. We've all engaged in ill-advised and hurtful pranks because causing people alarm and annoyance seemed more important than regarding each other with respect and kindness. Turning Quinn into a pivotal Chosen One in an interdimensional war is something any fanfic writer might misguidedly do after a long STAR WARS marathon. Turning home into a Kromagg battleground is something any artist might do when mistaking cynicism and horror for depth and meaning.

It's just that when we screw up, we're probably not doing it on a national stage, but that's merely due to circumstance. David Peckinpah had the grave misfortune to be in a very bad place when he was creating broadcast drama. Don't know much about Bill Dial other than many staffers describing him as a petty jerk and Robert Floyd describing him as a sweet and loving genius. But given that Dial spent his post-SLIDERS career getting in stupid online fights with slider1525, it's safe to assume he was a pretty messed up guy as well.

Could've been any of us. For that reason, my final SLIDERS script will be dedicated to David Peckinpah and pay tribute to some of the ideas he introduced to the show.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

ireactions - I would have loved Wade as the commander of the human resistance. It would have been a perfect throwback to the pilot and also just a much better way to resolve the issue of her character.

I want to read this story now.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Have to agree with intangirble. Nice. Very apt.

"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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ireactions, Commander Wade Welles is the BEST idea for handling Wade’s situation. Damn it! Where were you when they were planning this episode?

105 (edited by NDJ 2015-10-31 21:39:44)

Re: Rewatch Podcast

I need to catch up on the Rewatch. I love it! So here’s my Season 2 all at once.

Time Again and World. Yes, reading it over the radio when there is a working internet seems silly but the idea of people not knowing what rights they have lost makes sense (the show specifically states that people do not remember the full Constitution, not that they have completely forgotten about it). Remember “Prince of Wails” when Arturo and Rembrandt can’t remember the full Bill of Rights? What's their excuse? Quick, list the Bill of Rights right now without looking it up. I know 1, 2, 4 and 5 off the top of my head. The rest I’ll read up on if I ever get arrested. It was a good idea that wasn’t fully conceptualized.

I always thought the sliders should take a backpack too. In Time Again and World, Rembrandt does make the slide with a bag. I guess it couldn’t be a regular thing because as practical as it is, it’s not that good a look and it’s just one more thing to keep track of. Besides what could you take that you can’t stuff in your pockets? It’s not like you can take canned goods- imagine landing hard on a bag of cans or having it fly out of the vortex and hit you. And as many times as they slide in the nick of time, having a bag would just slow them down- or it would be taken away like the timer.

Love Gods. I love how the professor, for all his intellectual high and mightiness, is still a man underneath it all. He’s the one making statements like “Gentlemen, we made a slide to heaven” and talking about nurse fantasies. He’s worse than Rembrandt!

As Time Goes By. I understood the backwards time section when it aired; I appreciated the attempt at innovation and I am not into physics beyond how it is interpreted by science fiction. (I actually looked up the adiabatic limit mentioned in “Last Days” and the only world I understood was ‘limit’). Yes, there are plot problems. For example, the people should have been speaking backwards but how are we, the viewing audience, supposed to understand the show? The compensation was the time shifts. Also, Quinn destroyed the universe by changing both the past AND the future. By saving Daelin he changed his own future- which had already happened (how was he supposed to slide into jail for a murder that was never committed) and the past events of that world- which now cannot be reconciled with the present. This is a time paradox worthy of Star Trek or The Twilight Zone!

Invasion. Organic metal seems to be a staple of science fiction. Both Stargate: Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica had a version of it.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

intangirble wrote:

ireactions - I would have loved Wade as the commander of the human resistance. It would have been a perfect throwback to the pilot and also just a much better way to resolve the issue of her character.

omnimercurial wrote:

Have to agree with intangirble. Nice. Very apt.

NDJ wrote:

ireactions, Commander Wade Welles is the BEST idea for handling Wade’s situation. Damn it! Where were you when they were planning this episode?

I think I was like 12. And oh dear God, I've created a monster.

The "Commander Wade Welles" concept makes "Genesis" a little less upsetting, but "Genesis" would remain shockingly destructive to SLIDERS concept. If the sliders are no longer from a world that's just like ours, there's no basis for contrast between alt-histories and our history. The show is broken.

The home invasion was just awful. Matt Hutaff and Temporal Flux have gone into what Marc Scott Zicree meant to achieve with the Kromagg Prime arc and I think it's just ghastly.

The original plan was to reveal at the end of Season 4 that the Earth in "Genesis" wasn't home at all and that Quinn's new backstory had been a trick. That still means that, for 21 episodes, Quinn and Rembrandt would still be refugees from a devastated Earth and soldiers in an interdimensional war as opposed to relatable nomads searching for home.

It is impossible to tell SLIDERS stories properly post-"Genesis" and 21 episodes of SLIDERS where it's not possible to do SLIDERS stories is way too many. This should have been, at most, a 6 episode arc. Maybe a three-episode season-ender where home is invaded and a two-episode season premiere where it's liberated.

(But ireactions! Haven't you also broken the SLIDERS concept with SLIDERS REBORN? Well, yes. But it's only a three-part story with a prelude and an interlude -- and it's obviously not a permanent situation.)

A Season 4 without John or Sabrina could have worked. But I would have gone for a simpler route.

Here's a Season 4 version of SLIDERS REBORN: two years after "This Slide of Paradise," a teenaged girl named Laurel on Earth Prime wanders into Quinn's basement and accidentally triggers the sliding machine. She ends up on an Earth where anyone under 25 is a slave who has to earn their freedom.

She is rescued by Quinn; he detected the sliding signature of his original hardware and thought it might be Wade or Rembrandt searching for him. Quinn tries to return Laurel home only to discover his sliding in to investigate also scattered the photon trail. He can't send her home.

He admits that he deleted his home coordinates two years ago and has been sliding alone for a long time.

What happened to Maggie? She encountered a double of Steven and chose to remarry and remain. Why didn't Quinn go home? Shortly after "This Slide of Paradise," Quinn suffered a head injury. He recovered, but a CAT scan revealed the Kromagg tracking device in his brain. Inoperable. Impossible to remove even with the most advanced surgical techniques. Powered by a zero-point energy process that draws fuel from Quinn's body. Programmed to send an alert should Quinn ever stop sliding.

Quinn dared not return home, not even for a moment -- because he feared he'd never be able to bring himself to leave again. He deleted the coordinates from his timer to avoid temptation.

Quinn Mallory is a genius. His timer can take him to any dimension. He's formed trade routes and relationships across a hundred worlds; he's built machines that can process and collate data from a thousand different histories. He has ended hundreds of wars, brokered peace between nations, ended water and energy crises, saved thousands of lives and seen more than anyone can imagine. Quinn Mallory can do anything. Except go home.

For two years, Quinn has rejected every offer of companionship in his endless journey, but Laurel offers him something no one else can -- she is a piece of the home he'll never see again. And SLIDERS begins once again: an experienced, capable, hardened slider and a young girl who will become Quinn's confidante and protege.

I would have released Cleavant and Kari from their contracts as well as Sabrina -- once Rickman died, the Maggie arc was over; once Rembrandt and Wade made it home, their stories were over too. But I would have asked them to guest-star as doubles throughout the season.

There. Season 4. How hard was that?

Re: Rewatch Podcast

It would certainly make "Prophets and Loss" more palatable, where Quinn and Rembrandt are upbeat and cheerful. Because as aired, "Prophets and Loss" makes no sense whatsoever for the characters. How can Quinn and Rembrandt be so lighthearted? So cheerful? So upbeat? So at ease? Quinn's mother is a Kromagg prisoner. Everyone Rembrandt has ever known or cared about is enslaved or dead. Bennish. Alesha. Danielle. Daelin. Wing. The Professor's son. Rembrandt's parents. Hurley. Wade.
And furthermore, how can the sliders be so utterly indifferent to the resistance back home? The timer lets them slide back to Earth Prime. How can they be joking around and hanging out? Why aren't they periodically sliding back to Earth Prime with supplies for the people fighting and dying for their world?

I thought more-or-less the same thing when I watched that episode. I basically said, "So, Wade is in serious trouble and their homeworld is too. And they don't seem to care a lick!" Maybe thet's the subliminal reason why I stopped watching Sliders in the middle of that episode (I finally picked it up again a few weeks later). They were too darn apathetic!

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

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ireactions

First, I don’t think that killing Wade would have been a good idea- not right off the bat. The whole reason SyFy bought Sliders was for its fan base- some of which was based on the characters not just the concept. There was already so much change happening. I think it would have been too much all at once- better to ease the audience into her death. The problem is, they didn’t do this right either. 

I do agree with you, I signed up for adventure- not a search for a weapon of mass destruction. But I LOVED the group. If they had kept Sabrina Lloyd then they wouldn’t have had to resort to the obvious science fiction of aliens. It could have gone something like this: Remmy and Wade are on a non Kromagg infested Earth Prime. They were excited to be home, but their time away has changed them and they don’t feel comfortable on Earth anymore. Quinn shows up (after having dumped Maggie off with her people) and the FBI pounces. Bennish has pulled a “Last Days” Einstein and no one can get sliding to work. This, coupled with a host of adjustment issues, leads Quinn and friends to realize it’s not their time to be home and they voluntarily slide off together into the sunset. Quinn’s last line from Genesis “We’ll be back. You can count on it,” stays the same.

So now it’s not “will they ever find home”, its “will they ever be ready to return home”?

Maybe they take Bennish, maybe they don’t. Maybe they run into PTSS Professor maybe they don’t. Maybe they run into Colin (the brother of a dead Quinn) or Logan, maybe they don’t. The original mission, of wonder and exploration with all its possibilities, remains alive.

I disagree, though, that the culture of other worlds can’t be explored, appreciated, and compared just because their world isn’t our world (although the idea that it isn’t, stings). Theirs is a close enough copy that it still stands as a surrogate for ours. Revisionists note that from day one there have been clues throughout the series that their Earth was never our Earth. If this is true, we can hardly be sore now.

As you have stated several times, anything can be a Sliders episode (or am I giving you credit for someone else’s thoughts?). They were trying to go big because so much had changed. The search for home was always their main goal and with Sabrina Lloyd gone that was off the table. Lloyd may not have been integral to the show staying on the air, but she was integral to the old storyline. Without something catastrophic, there was no way to have Rembrandt back without Wade. So how do you bring back the search for home, realign the group, keep the old audience, AND entice new viewers? Use an unexplored but previously used villain to make the old home uninhabitable and make a ‘real’ home somewhere else!

In as far as the idea and goals of season 4 goes, I think they did a slightly below average job. Could they have done better? Hell yes. Could they have done worse? They did.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

NDJ wrote:

If they had kept Sabrina Lloyd then they wouldn’t have had to resort to the obvious science fiction of aliens. It could have gone something like [...]Quinn and friends to realize it’s not their time to be home and they voluntarily slide off together into the sunset. Quinn’s last line from Genesis “We’ll be back. You can count on it,” stays the same. So now it’s not “will they ever find home”, its “will they ever be ready to return home”?

I guess. I imagine the sliders needing a stronger motive to keep sliding besides home being less welcoming than hoped -- although there was a SLIDERS comic book that had nearly the same decision made.

I find that "Genesis" makes it really difficult to swallow Quinn and Rembrandt taking down dictators and fascists every week while failing to do anything about the Kromaggs. And given that there was no Kromagg invasion in our world, Quinn and Rembrandt no longer have a common frame of reference with the audience.

The Earth in the Pilot was *never* 'our' Earth, but it was close enough as a surrogate, as you say. That's no longer the case with "Genesis." I mean, sure, "Prophets and Loss" has people being incinerated, but it's still a better world to live in than "Genesis."

My Season 4 proposal was for Jerry O'Connell and a new co-star. The idea of keeping the show going with Jerry, Sabrina and Cleavant -- it doesn't really sit well with me. I don't feel like those three characters function properly without the Professor; he's a necessity for contrasting against the other three especially in screen presence and temperament.

The Quinn Mallory character isn't really designed to be a leading man as much as he's meant to be an advance scout and a juvenile who inspires his teacher. Rembrandt and Wade are meant to react to crazy situations like a normal person; Sabrina's performance plays it for drama and Cleavant's performance makes trauma and terror funny. And the Professor is really the leader of the sliders even if he comes last in the credits.

I don't really feel the Quinn character should be the leader for Rembrandt and Wade; I just don't see Quinn having that kind of presence. I see Jerry's acting being more appropriate to leadership roles with younger co-stars -- the way Quinn mentored his younger self in "The Guardian."

The only way Sabrina would have stayed on SLIDERS anyway would have been if Peckinpah had left and Tracy Torme had returned and brought John Rhys-Davies back with him -- at which point, you might as well just do "Slide Effects," declare everything from "The Exodus" to "Paradise" to be a Kromagg mind game and get back to the business of sliding.

I guess if I had to find some way to make Jerry, Cleavant and Sabrina work without John, I would cheat, steal an idea from Temporal Flux and bring in a female-double of Arturo.

NDJ wrote:

In as far as the idea and goals of season 4 goes, I think they did a slightly below average job. Could they have done better? Hell yes. Could they have done worse? They did.

It continues to terrify me to this day that Keith Damron, one of the driving forces of SLIDERS in the Sci-Fi years, is now teaching film and television production at the University of Eastern Michigan. I hope to God his students are slow learners.

110 (edited by NDJ 2015-11-01 11:07:49)

Re: Rewatch Podcast

I like the original four as well and thought each brought something special to the table- none of whom could really be replaced but I don't like "it was all a dream" or "it was all mind control" as an excuse; it's lazy and disrespectful to the viewers who have invested their time and energy into believing what was shown to them. It can work for an episode but for half a season? I would have grudgingly taken it from Torme because of the behind the scenes drama. I understand the end of season 3 was a mess but clean it up, don't pretend it didn't exist. I like the idea of Arturo being left behind in PTSS being the real one and finding him. This could have resulted in some great character moments as they have to reconnect with a new/old version of someone that they not only saw die but had a relationship with and he has to deal with issues of abandonment.

Truthfully, I like the idea that "Genesis" Earth wasn't Earth Prime ("Exodus" did not sell me that it was) but it still leaves the Wade issue as well as another one: Did Quinn really leave his friends on a random Earth? That would create huge issues of trust and reliability. Also, how many times can you dangle "It's home! Wait- no it isn't" in front of the audience and the sliders? There's a fine line between sad but true and straight up cruel.

My understanding is that Lloyd would have worked with Peckinpah, she couldn't work with Wuhrer. So any idea that includes Wade but not Maggie was totally feasible. The problem was Peckinpah preferred Wuhrer. JRD wasn't coming back with Peckinpah there. That's why I left that as a possibility rather than a necessity.

As for Quinn leading the group- he can't stay the impetuous kid forever, he needs to grow up. By season 3 the professor was backing off a bit anyway. I think it might be a bit quick for him to be mentoring a kid when he's still working out how to be a grown up himself.

Oh, first and last are honored positions in the credits. People remember the first and last things they see more than anything in the middle. Also notice that his name is the only one accompanied by the role he plays.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Which Actresses would you envision as an.effective and well suited Femme Arturo?

"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: Rewatch Podcast

omnimercurial wrote:

Which Actresses would you envision as an.effective and well suited Femme Arturo?

I would choose Joanna Lumley.

NDJ wrote:

I like the original four as well and thought each brought something special to the table- none of whom could really be replaced but I don't like "it was all a dream" or "it was all mind control" as an excuse; it's lazy and disrespectful to the viewers who have invested their time and energy into believing what was shown to them. It can work for an episode but for half a season? I would have grudgingly taken it from Torme because of the behind the scenes drama. I understand the end of season 3 was a mess but clean it up, don't pretend it didn't exist.

Back on the old Bboard, slider1525 wrote a lengthy plot outline where the Professor, following the sliders, encounters the animal human hybrids of "This Slide of Paradise" and revisits Michael York's lab and gradually reunites with his friends one by one. It was very amusing and sincere, but also exhausting. I have read every Season 6 fanfic ever written with the point-by-point reversals of Seasons 3 - 5 and they, too, are utterly draining and a massive distraction. Television is best, in my view, when its aims and goals are simple and straightforward. The sliders are lost in the multiverse, trying to find their way back home. Simple. Elegant. Beautiful.

Yes, "Slide Effects" is a massive copout, but I'd argue that getting Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo back onscreen together immediately is far more important than anything else.

But then again, I honestly don't think "Slide Effects" was even meant as a way of deleting the Season 3 episodes. Torme presented it to me that way when we had an online chat as his solution to getting rid of the episodes he didn't like. But the 2009 interview on EP.COM revealed the story had been conceived in November 1996 before John had been fired. It was meant to be a Season 4 premiere and his sequel to "Invasion." In an interview, Torme said:

“I have a very trippy, surrealistic show in mind involving the Kromaggs. It wouldn’t be us landing in the middle of another invasion; it would start in a way that you wouldn’t know it was a Kromagg show.”

With that in mind, the story is clearly not about removing episodes from continuity. Instead, it's about the Kromaggs as manipulators offering the sliders the ultimate temptation. The Kromaggs prey upon the sliders' homesickness and despair, offering them a facsimile: a permanent and eternal illusion of home in exchange for information that will let the Kromaggs invade the actual home Earth. The Kromaggs point out that the sliders, with random sliding, have no chance of ever getting back to where they came from and even if they do, the Kromaggs will destroy it. Surely there's no shame in accepting this beautiful lie of living happy and content lives in a world where sliding doesn't exist and they never left their homes and loved ones?

But the sliders refuse. Sliding took them away from everything they knew, but it revealed their ingenuity, their strength of character, the power of ideas and the friendship between them. They wouldn't trade sliding for anything. They escape the Kromaggs and resume sliding. And so, Season 4 would begin with the sliders reaffirming their commitment to each other and to their adventure.

If mishandled, it could have been a copout; presented correctly, it's a life-affirming character study that communicates the joy of sliding and the wonder of the multiverse as well as the bonds between the quartet.

Also, with time rewound to the Pilot, it's a way of introducing the show to a new audience and offering some nostalgia for the fans.

NDJ wrote:

Lloyd would have worked with Peckinpah, she couldn't work with Wuhrer. So any idea that includes Wade but not Maggie was totally feasible. The problem was Peckinpah preferred Wuhrer. JRD wasn't coming back with Peckinpah there.

It's not as simple as that. Sabrina was very upset when John was fired. She held his farewell party at her apartment. She was devastated by his absence. Kari's behaviour was indeed a deciding factor, but Kari or no Kari, Sabrina didn't want to do SLIDERS anymore. Her ultimatum was absurd; she knew full well that Peckinpah would choose Kari. If that hadn't gotten her fired, she would have used salary demands to get removed.

Only John's return would have convinced Sabrina to stay. And John would only have returned if Tracy Torme returned. Don't get me wrong, John and Tracy had tremendous animosity towards each other, same as John and Peckinpah -- but Tracy considered John's talent and character worth any aggravation.

Interestingly, in the Season 2 interviews, John was extremely critical and dismissive of Tracy Torme's writing. After Season 3, John suddenly revised his opinion and spoke extremely well of Tracy; clearly, after Peckinpah, John realized what Tracy had been fighting against.

Had Tracy returned, he would have asked John to re-sign for Season 4 and John would have said yes and Sabrina would also have remained as well.

NDJ wrote:

As for Quinn leading the group- he can't stay the impetuous kid forever, he needs to grow up. By season 3 the professor was backing off a bit anyway. I think it might be a bit quick for him to be mentoring a kid when he's still working out how to be a grown up himself.

I put in the two-year time gap so he could be a mentor to a new slider who wouldn't know which end of the vortex was which.

As for Quinn -- we now enter the arena of personal interpretation. Let us be clear: this is strictly *my* vision of Quinn Mallory and it is not Jerry's vision or even exactly Tracy's vision (although it's close).

Quinn Mallory isn't a leader. Good leaders need to be good with people and Quinn is one of the most withdrawn, isolated characters ever created. As scripted before casting, Quinn was a socially awkward geek. Then Jerry O'Connell was hired to play him and Jerry, for whatever reason, did not play Quinn as socially awkward at all. The Pilot script has Quinn too terrified to ask a girl out on a date and he's laughed at for his inability to receive any woman's undivided attention. The scenes were cut from the script and with good reason; can you imagine Jerry O'Connell having trouble approaching women?

And so, we have a charismatic, attractive, confident, athletic young man who avoids women and labours in secrecy and obscurity in a basement laboratory rather than a university lab. Wade is practically throwing herself at Quinn and if you watch Jerry's performance carefully, Jerry plays Quinn as being perfectly aware of Wade's infatuation but cautiously avoiding eye-contact and direct engagement.

The result of Jerry's performance of Torme's script: Quinn is alone because he chooses to be alone. Because he builds walls around himself to isolate himself from others. He is uncomfortable dealing with people; he doesn't even really have *friends* -- he banters with his classmates but is intimate with none of them. Wade has never even been invited to Quinn's house until Smarter-Quinn's behaviour forces Quinn to invite her over.

One of the most-cited plotholes in "The Guardian" is Quinn's refusal to reveal his secret to the other sliders -- that he permanently injured his school bully with a baseball bat. This isn't an error, in my view: Quinn is withdrawn. The backstory "The Guardian" gives us: Quinn skipped two grades, he was smaller than his peers, he was abused, he was later traumatized by his father's death. And while Quinn will function and improve, I think that Quinn's withdrawn, self-inflicted isolation is what makes the character complex and fascinating.

It's also a neat subversion of a heroic type; it's like Torme wrote Q from the James Bond movies and then essentially hired Daniel Craig to play him while splitting the actual James Bond role between the Professor and Rembrandt and Wade.

So, my feeling is that if there's a need to write Quinn as a more conventional leading man type, it'd be best to write some other character who isn't Quinn Mallory. Quinn's just not a leader in the conventional sense; he's an anarchist who passes notes and information to the actual leader and acts independently to support the group. He doesn't command situations; he operates at the fringes. He occasionally *looks* like the leader ("Prince of Wails), but he's really the idea man. And that's totally fine; not everyone needs to be Sean Connery.

That's what makes SLIDERS so interesting to me; conventional roles are twisted and subverted. The leading man character is a troubled geek, the wise older man is an arrogant ass who is deeply insecure, the leading lady starlet is a mousy firebrand and the muscle is actually the comic relief in the form of a trauma victim played for laughs.

Behind the scenes information courtesy of Temporal Flux.

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Re: Rewatch Podcast

ireactions wrote:

Yes, "Slide Effects" is a massive copout, but I'd argue that getting Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo back onscreen together immediately is far more important than anything else.

If mishandled, it could have been a copout; presented correctly, it's a life-affirming character study that communicates the joy of sliding and the wonder of the multiverse as well as the bonds between the quartet.

There is some true to this- if handled correctly.

ireactions wrote:

It's not as simple as that. Sabrina was very upset when John was fired. She held his farewell party at her apartment. She was devastated by his absence. Kari's behaviour was indeed a deciding factor, but Kari or no Kari, Sabrina didn't want to do SLIDERS anymore. Her ultimatum was absurd; she knew full well that Peckinpah would choose Kari. If that hadn't gotten her fired, she would have used salary demands to get removed.

I am clearly not as versed as you are about the Sabrina Lloyd situation (although I was aware of the salary demands) so I will have to defer to your reasoning on that.

ireactions wrote:

Jerry plays Quinn as being perfectly aware of Wade's infatuation but cautiously avoiding eye-contact and direct engagement.

I didn't see this. I read it as being oblivious. They do actually hang out- they have plans to go to a hockey game.

ireactions wrote:

The result of Jerry's performance of Torme's script: Quinn is alone because he chooses to be alone. Because he builds walls around himself to isolate himself from others. He is uncomfortable dealing with people; he doesn't even really have *friends* -- he banters with his classmates but is intimate with none of them. Wade has never even been invited to Quinn's house until Smarter-Quinn's behaviour forces Quinn to invite her over.

One of the most-cited plotholes in "The Guardian" is Quinn's refusal to reveal his secret to the other sliders -- that he permanently injured his school bully with a baseball bat. This isn't an error, in my view: Quinn is withdrawn. The backstory "The Guardian" gives us: Quinn skipped two grades, he was smaller than his peers, he was abused, he was later traumatized by his father's death. And while Quinn will function and improve, I think that Quinn's withdrawn, self-inflicted isolation is what makes the character complex and fascinating. 

That's what makes SLIDERS so interesting to me; conventional roles are twisted and subverted. The leading man character is a troubled geek, the wise older man is an arrogant ass who is deeply insecure, the leading lady starlet is a mousy firebrand and the muscle is actually the comic relief in the form of a trauma victim played for laughs.

I totally agree. And I never saw "The Guardian" as having plotholes- I saw the injury he inflicted as a reason for some of his social reserve. As for not telling the others, I would never tell anybody, no matter how close I was to them, that I did something like that unless I had to- like Quinn did.

I just don't see why the group needs an official leader (and Arturo was terrible with people). They are not a military unit taking orders and they always discuss what they want to do. But if someone disagrees, that person does what he/she thinks is right and the rest are forced to support him/her (Quinn always got the blame for this but Wade and Rembrandt were just as guilty). Arturo was the father figure, mentor, and voice of reason, but when was the last time any of them did what he said? When was the first time? What they need is different points of view that play against each other.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

In the Cleavant Derricks interview on EP.COM -- at least in the original version -- Cleavant established that Sabrina was absolutely miserable after John was fired. Kari Wuhrer did upset Sabrina, but Sabrina was upset to begin with. After the original version was posted, Cleavant contacted the EP.COM webmaster and asked for his negative remarks about Kari Wuhrer and the Sci-Fi Channel to be removed and the webmaster, not wanting to do anything to harm Cleavant's professional relationships, agreed to perform a rewrite.

Sabrina and John were very close; you can see here Sabrina's memo inviting people to attend her farewell party for John.
http://dimensionofcontinuity.com/sabin.jpg

I feel like the Quinn/Wade/Rembrandt/Arturo quartet requires Arturo as an instigator with experience. His presence as a flawed father figure establishes the characters as a family. Arturo is an arrogant ass, but he's also someone who inspires people to follow him straight into hell.

It's also essential that he is Quinn's counterpart but as part of an older generation, the way Rembrandt is to Wade. It's weird, but once Arturo left the show, the onscreen dynamics lost the sense that Quinn and Wade are *extremely* young adults. Onscreen, youth needs age to contrast in order to come off as youthful.

I just don't think Quinn, Wade and Rembrandt function properly as characters without Arturo -- and, to be quite frank, I don't think the actors function particularly well in their roles without him, either. This is not their fault; they were cast as part of an ensemble, after all.

Jerry was, at the time, one of those actors who would only read his own dialogue and then play scenes as himself. If you watch KANGAROO JACK or CROSSING JORDAN or MISSION TO MARS, Jerry plays cops, astronauts and barbers in the same way: as a goofy playboy. He played Quinn the same way. Part of this was unavoidable; he was a football player type playing a geek, after all. But in Seasons 1 - 2, Jerry is incredibly convincing when portraying Quinn's intelligence, moral integrity and intense curiosity -- and I suspect this was largely John's influence on him.

The reason I suspect John elevates every other actor in his work: John is genuinely invested in the scripts. John reads all the scenes, not just his own. You can see John in a behind the scenes feature marvelling at the Kromagg organic metal. So he actually knows the whole story, not just his lines. And he is the sort of actor who constantly wants to discuss scenes with the other actors, work out pacing and rhythm, redistribute lines, etc.. The result is a very clear sense of the relationships between the characters and their roles in each scene. Take that out of the equation and leave Jerry, Sabrina and Cleavant to their own devices -- and then things start to shift.

Cleavant is a really good actor, but his clownish comic timing works better with Arturo's stately sarcasm and pronouncements to compare. Sabrina has a certain stagey quality to her line deliveries. She's more focused on hitting certain points of emotion instead of making her dialogue sound spontaneous and unrehearsed. Butwhen working with John, it becomes a rhythmic rapport. And Jerry -- Jerry in the 90s struck me as a genius-actor who was content to be a hack, but working with John made Jerry put a lot of himself into his work.

John is indispensable. Essential. At least to me.

As for whether Quinn is aware of Wade's attraction or not, we've hit an area of personal interpretation. In the scripts, Quinn was most definitely not aware of Wade's interest in him. Jerry's performance, in my opinion, introduces (unintentional?) ambiguity; other viewers don't see it that way.

The reason I started to think Quinn was perfectly aware of Wade's feelings for him the whole time; Wade indicates, in "Last Days," that there are some things Quinn doesn't know about her, presumably, her feelngs towards him. Quinn responds to that by trying to kiss her. But what about in the Pilot when Quinn asks Wade, "What's with the tears?" as though he doesn't realize she's in love with him. To me, that struck me as Quinn foolishly thinking himself invincible as youth often do.

But again. I'm not 'right' anymore than you are 'wrong' -- we're just looking at art with different views. In a recent chat with Matt Hutaff, I commented that I think "The Guardian" is a retcon that attempts to bridge the gap between the scripted Quinn and the onscreen Quinn by offering an explanation for how Jerry O'Connell could lack confidence with the skipped two grades backstory.

As supporting evidence, I cited how the Pilot indicates in a photo that Quinn was in his late-teens when his father died; Jerry plays young-Quinn in the photograph. "The Guardian" changes that to Quinn being played by an 11-year-old actor when his father died in order to make Michael Mallory's death more traumatic.

Matt disagreed. He doesn't think "The Guardian" was a retcon at all; his view is that if Jerry hadn't played Quinn in the photograph in the Pilot, the viewer would have been confused by who the boy in the photo was meant to be.

Another interesting instance: Temporal Flux once described his vision of Conrad Bennish Jr. to me. Bennish, to TF, is someone in a perpetual time warp, representing what was at the forefront of culture but from decades in the past. Bennish dressed and acted like a 60s hippie because hippies were the 'cool' thing when Tracy Torme was a child, but Bennish is only capable of representing the exterior details of the culture without any of the inherent values or deeper meaning behind the movement. That's how I see Bennish too; he's constantly behind. In SLIDERS REBORN, he's a relic of the dot-com boom and bust from the 90s.

Matt disagrees with this take on Bennish. To Matt, Bennish is simply the token pothead student to round out the class in the Pilot and seeing more than that is me adding things to the character as opposed to seeing what's already there. And that is the nature of art. We all look at the same thing and see something different.

Oddly, the skipped-two-grades backstory is in the original draft of "Gillian of the Spirits."

Behind the scenes information courtesy of Temporal Flux.

115 (edited by NDJ 2015-11-01 14:32:20)

Re: Rewatch Podcast

The skipping two grades backstory actually fixes a problem that I did not see addressed here (or maybe I am not looking hard enough)- Quinn was only 20/21 when he started sliding, yet he had just started the second year of his graduate studies.

The scripts place him as being closer to 25 because of grad school (and I have heard 23 for the same reason) and because Smarter Quinn is married. "Into the Mystic" however, puts year of birth as 1973 and the pilot states he started sliding in 1994. If he had graduated high school at the standard 17/18 then there's no way he could be in his second year of grad school (even geniuses have to take general education classes and abide by course load standards plus he'd needs to work to pay for all his equipment). Allowing him to graduate high school at 15/16 gives him a standard 4 year undergrad 2 year grad school education arc, assist with the social awkwardness aspect, and supports the idea of the 'boy genius.'

116 (edited by intangirble 2015-11-01 14:28:52)

Re: Rewatch Podcast

ireactions wrote:

Back on the old Bboard, slider1525 wrote a lengthy plot outline where the Professor, following the sliders, encounters the animal human hybrids of "This Slide of Paradise" and revisits Michael York's lab and gradually reunites with his friends one by one.

I feel like I've asked this before, but can we read a copy of this anywhere?

For that matter, the original interview with Cleavant Derricks, as well. And John's behind the scenes feature with the Kromagg metal. I feel like there's a lot of Sliders history that I missed out on, not being in the online fandom all this time. I'd like to catch up.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

The behind the scenes featurette is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT3PYXDPpHQ

I consider it to be one of the grimmest and darkest pieces of SLIDERS. Ever. Just terrifying. At one point, Sabrina jokes about Jerry's manic overperformance as an actor. Later, Cleavant expresses fear of the sparks from on-set effects and Sabrina tells him not to worry and that the production will step in if there's any real danger. John proceeds to laugh darkly at the naivete of actors who think that people on the set would actually care about protecting them from harm. John later declares that the only reason Cleavant stays on the show is because he has to feed his four children and Sabrina jokes that they are all getting fired.

...

I never really noticed Quinn's age as a child. I just saw Quinn as 'young.' As I got older and more aware of details, I thought Quinn had to be 23 - 24 and would be actually older than Jerry, but "Into the Mystic" and "The Guardian" indicated that Jerry is only one year older than Quinn.

Jerry is a very good actor, but there are times when he's phoned in his work. I think one of his best performances is the Season 3/4 credits voiceover. His work there is so detailed, so considered. "What if you found a portal to a parallel universe?" he asks in a questioning, thoughtful tone. "What if you could slide into a thousand different worlds?" he says in a slightly challenging tone, daring the listener to imagine those worlds. "Where it's the same year and you're the same person," he continues with a playful, almost laughing manner -- "but everything else is different." The humour vanishes; his voice is suddenly apprehensive. "And," he finishes in a haunted, lost delivery: "what if you can't find your way home?" It's extraordinary! There's such thought put into how to sell each line.

And then you have "Slidecage," where Quinn thinks Maggie is dead and the script portrays Quinn as shattered and broken and despondent -- but Jerry plays the scene like Quinn is bored, like he doesn't understand that in this scene, Quinn honestly thinks Maggie has died. What's the difference? When John was around, Jerry seemed to know what the hell he was performing; after John left, Jerry just memorized his lines.

That said, I think Jerry grew out of this sort of hackwork a long time ago.

The original Cleavant interview wasn't archived, sadly, but there were almost no direct quotes from Cleavant anyway. It consisted largely of Matt's recollections of meeting Cleavant when Cleavant was doing a CD signing. Cleavant described Kari Wuhrer as "a little abrasive" and that he felt the Season 4 reworking for Maggie "did little good" and that Cleavant felt the Sci-Fi Channel had no interest in SLIDERS, seeking only to get its fans to watch the Channel's other programming. Sci-Fi did not support the show after Season 4, had no intention of renewing it for Season 5 until ratings forced them to do so, made no plans to renew it for Season 6 despite the ratings, and this pissed Cleavant off. A lot.

Cleavant then asked Matt to rewrite the article. Cleavant's remarks about Kari were removed. He was now "full of praise" for the Sci-Fi era writers and grateful to Sci-Fi for renewing the show. Ah, business.

Cleavant was also on very good terms with David Peckinpah. The Derricks and Peckinpahs had family evenings together. I'm told that this was, again, something Cleavant did because he wished to stay on good terms with business partners and was not one to be hostile anyway; it did not indicate that Cleavant in any way approved of Peckinpah's approach to SLIDERS, John or Sabrina.

Sliders1525's outline -- I can't find it. It was likely lost due to the god-awful web service that used to host this Bboard. Stay the hell away from Hosting Check, everyone. Sliders1525's outline was completely insane and absurd and ridiculous (sorry) -- but you could say the same of my writing, too. It was basically Arturo facing off against the leftovers of "This Slide of Paradise" and wandering around the location, gathering clues that would eventually lead to a reunion of the original cast. On one level, it was really silly -- the thought of John Rhys-Davies confronting those silly characters and doing a sequel to the worst episode of television ever made is really difficult to visualize.

At the same time, I had to admire it. I've brought the sliders back to life in two different ways, but it has to be said that I always used shortcuts in order to skip ahead to the ending I wanted -- Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo reunited, the Kromagg Prime plots dismissed. Most other Season 6 writers took a character-by-character, plot-by-plot approach to undoing Seasons 3 - 5. Most of them are unreadably incoherent. It's a problem with the material, not the writers. There is no real thematic connection between revealing that the wrong Arturo slid, discovering that the Wade in "Requiem" was a clone, sticking Colin, revealing the Kromagg Prime story to be a falsehood, discovering that the real Earth Prime is safe. It's attempting to do a sequel to five different stories. Even a resurrected Ernest Hemingway couldn't take on these tasks and wring a coherent tale out of it.

Nevertheless, I have to appreciate these writers trying to put some real effort into the exercise instead of using shortcuts, cheat codes, time gaps, etc..

118 (edited by intangirble 2015-11-01 20:02:59)

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Thank you, ireactions, for what you could give us, even if it's not the full picture.

I need to watch the behind-the-scenes reel now. For a production that, at least in its first two seasons, was so lovely, it sure was plagued with an underlying negativity and fear.

When I watch a show, I want to think the actors I love are well cared for, respected for the amazing work they do and treated with kindness and dignity. It's painful every time I'm reminded that this wasn't the case at all for these people.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

I think I may have skewed what the featurette was like. It's really cute. They look so happy. The sliders are in their prime. And they're kidding around and the chemistry between them is so natural and genuine and beautiful. I frequently watch this clip before writing SLIDERS REBORN dialogue.

But every single joke they make as they're relaxing between setups -- they're all jokes that would come horrifically true. They did all get fired. Someone actually did die on set. Cleavant really did stick with the show for five seasons because, well, come on, it was a living.

Re: Rewatch Podcast

Now that I've watched it, I see what you mean. It's actually cute, but darkly prophetic.

I always thought/hoped that Cleavant just really loved Sliders that much and didn't want to be the last original cast member to jump ship, but I guess the alternative is more realistic.

I know he does really love his fans, though. I'd love to see him at a convention someday.