ALL SCI-FI

Pow · Posted: Mon May 27, 2024 2:31 pm Post subject:

Screen Rant, October 9, 2023, TV Episodes That Made Viewers Give Up On A Show by Richard Craig.

Sliders. Part-way through the third season of the hit Science-Fiction series Sliders, all was not well behind the scenes. Tensions arose between the writers and one of its stars, John Rhys-Davies----who played fan-fav Professor Maximilian Arturo. Ultimately firing Rhys-Davies, the Professor was killed off rather unceremoniously in season 3, episode 17, "Exodus: Part 2."

Viewers did not respond well to this, many of whom considered Rhys-Davies a particular highlight of the show, with his replacement unable to adequately compensate for his departure. Indeed, the subsequent seasons were never quite able to recapture the magic of the early seasons.

Sidebar: My sentiments exactly. JR-D was correct, the quality of the scriptwriting for Sliders was declining in quality. Kari Wuhrer who played Captain Maggie Beckett replaced the Professor Arturo character. A beautiful woman and decent enough actress. However, male or female, there was never going to be an actor or actress that could possibly fill the shoes of the terrific JR-D on the show. The original cast shared a marvelous chemistry together, it was now lacking a crucial component and never recovered.

I managed to stay with Sliders to its bitter end, amidst its cast turnovers and transition from the FOX network to the Sci-Fi network. If I ever catch reruns though, I'm only interested in the first two seasons.

Pow · Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2024 9:43 pm Post subject:

Some unused ideas by Tracy Torme for Sliders episodes.

The sliders land in a field and see a group cloaked in KKK hoods and outfits. Arturo quickly suggests that Rembrandt hide. The leader of the KKK walks up to the sliders and removes his hood, he's black.

"Heat of the Moment." An asteroid causes a shift in the earth's orbit, it falls out of place and increases in deadly proximity to the sun. The Earth is doomed and their timer will not open another vortex until it is too late for the group.

Arturo attempts to create a gravitational device to place the Earth back into its original orbit, but he fails.

Quinn & Wade give into their feelings to one another and decide to get married with the time they left. Rembrandt reunited with his brother only to have him murder Remy and Remy dies in Arturo's arms.

The next day, Arturo comes to the wedding and Quinn & Wade ask where Remy is? The professor, not wanting to ruin the ceremony, makes up a story as to Remy's absence and does not reveal to them his death.

At the end of the episode we see "our sliders" come through the vortex with only 2 minutes before the next one opens. The sliders we followed for the entire episode were never our group but another set of sliders.

Pow · Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2024 9:45 pm Post subject:

Having written for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Tracy Torme became friends with Gene Roddenberry and said that Gene encouraged him with the idea of Sliders.

Bud Brewster · Posted: Thu Dec 05, 2024 10:18 am Post subject:

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Interesting info, Pow. Thanks. Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

Pow · Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2024 12:55 pm Post subject:

"In Dino Veritas" April 26, 1996.

The Sliders land in a San Francisco which has been turned into a huge living dinosaurs preserve. After losing the timer because of an attacking allosaurus, the Sliders retreat to a cave. There they are discovered by a park ranger and accused of poaching, and encounter some actual poachers.

Series co-creator & scripter Tracy Torme wanted to air the episode "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome." FOX felt that episode wasn't flashy enough for the critical "TV Sweeps Week." They wanted an episode involving dinosaurs which Torme was very displeased with but acquiesced to.

At this time, Tracy was having serious battles with FOX over the direction of his show.

The episode was originally conceived as having it take place in a cave in order to cut production costs. Torme came to discover that executing the visual effects for the dino was not going to be as expensive as anticipated, so he expanded the episode to have parts of it take place beyond the cave set and on outdoors locations.

Another challenge was getting Jerry O' Connell off camera for a large segment of this episode because he was currently shooting the feature film "Jerry Maguire."

The solution being that Jerry's character Quinn Mallory leaves the cave to go search for the crucial timer.

Tracy Torme did acknowledge that this episode did indeed garner a sizable audience. "I'll give the devil its due," he said.

Bud Brewster · Posted: Fri Dec 06, 2024 1:54 pm Post subject:

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Mike, your well-researched posts have often amazed me with how difficult it was for the Hollywood people who created the series we love! Sad

The battles which these imaginative and creative people must fight just to create the shows they produced are very disheartening!

It strikes me as being similar to the futility of war itself!

Why does mankind constantly waste its resources and sacrifice its people in violent conflicts which could be settled peacefully? Confused

Guys, I used to think that mankind was basically intelligent and reasonable. I no longer have that naive notion.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)