ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

I've watched a fair number of episodes, but the show sometimes seemed a bit under-funded, and that hurt the quality of the series. And the changes in the cast from one season to the next was a little disppointing.

Wikipedia has a good article about the show. Here's an excerpt.
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The show follows a group of people, called "Sliders", as they travel ("sliding") between different Earths in parallel universes via a vortex-like wormhole, hoping to return safely to their original Earth Prime.

The vortex can only be opened after a specific but random period of time on each new universe, monitored by a countdown clock on a portable timer that they carry; failure to open the vortex in time would strand the Sliders for 29.7 years in that universe.

While waiting for the timer countdown, the group learns about the differences in the alternate Earth from their own, and often become unwillingly involved in events that they must resolve before they can safely leave via the vortex. The travelers have no control over what world they end up in, but continually look for means to find Earth Prime.


_ Sliders TV Pilot - Extended Premiere Commercial


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

[bulldogtrekker]

This was a fine series, even when it slid over to the Sci-fi channel, it was worth watching. When the professor was killed off, I lost interest.

[Pow]

I was a big fan of Sliders.

Found the premise of parallel earths existing in alternate dimensions a fascinating one.

The show was able to make social commentary on a wide range of issues. They could also just do episodes of pure adventure, horror, comedy, and romance. You name the topic & it could be tackled.

The cast was terrific & had a wonderful chemistry with one another.

Unfortunately like so many sci-fi tv series the "network suits" got their noses involved with tampering with the show over time.

Cast members left, creators left, writers left & the series devolved over time from being fresh & creative to borrowing movie plots for their episodes.

A sad end to what once had been such a promising & fun show to enjoy.

[Bud Brewster]

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I found an interesting trivia item on IMBD that relates to the decline in the show's quality.
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Even though the production of the show went on continuously between season 3 and season 4, it had a year hiatus from airing when it was dropped by Fox and picked up by Sci-Fi, making the airing years (1995-1997, 1998-2000).

The special effects in the fourth season take a very noticeable dive in quality, as the series had just been canceled by Fox before being resurrected by the Sci-Fi Channel, which left the show with an overall lower production budget.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Game of Throne's George RR Martin did a tv movie/pilot years ago called Doorways. Similar premise to Sliders involving parallel earths.

I liked some aspects of his movie better than Sliders, & I say this as a huge fan of Sliders.

Sliders: Genius Quinn Mallory without help from anyone else builds a machine that opens portals to other earths in other dimensions. Uh-huh.

Doorways: Cat, an escapee from another earth comes to our earth with her pursuers not far behind.
I like this premise better because it has more credibility.

Quinn has no other scientists working with him at all. He certainly does not have the government or anyone putting up the enormous sums of $$$ required for such an endeavor.

Cat comes from an earth that has developed the technology to travel to alternate earths.This works for me better than thinking a lone student actually constructed a dimension travelling machine in the 20th century.

[Andrew Kidd]

Check out Murray Leinster's oft-anthologized novelette "Sidewise in Time" if you're a fan of the show.

[Zackuth]

I was a fan of the show as well. Some of the parallel earths seemed feasible and some not so. I was upset the series was cancelled but happy it got picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel. I'm a big fan of John Rhys-Davies and was upset with him leaving the series. To me the quality slipped at season 4 and really dropped at season 5.

[Pow]

Perhaps with the mega-success of Martin's Game of Thrones, someone will want to go back & produce his Doorways as a weekly series for tv.

I would think with the tremendous advances in CGI that they could create astonishing looking parallel earths on a tv show today.

[Bud Brewster]

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One thing that bothered me a bit about Sliders was the way the limited budget often hampered the show's ability to make those parallel dimension Earth's look sufficiently different from ours to be very convincing.

I think you're right about how CGI would solve that problem if the show is ever rebooted.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Custer]

I see that Murray Leinster's "Sidewise in Time" has a pretty good page on Wikipedia... not the first time that the "what if history had taken a different turn" idea had appeared in fiction, but it certainly was pretty influential over the following decades. "A Roman legion from a timeline where the Roman Empire never fell appears on the outskirts of St. Louis, Missouri. Viking longships from a timeline where the Vikings settled North America raid a seaport in Massachusetts. A travelling salesman from Louisville, Kentucky, whose van bears a commercial logo including Uncle Sam with the Stars and Stripes, finds himself in trouble with the law when he travels into an area where the South won the American Civil War. A ferry approaching San Francisco finds the flag of Tsarist Russia flying from a grim fortress dominating the city..." plenty of stimulating possibilities there!

[Bud Brewster]

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How 'bout a timeline in which Hillary Clinton won the election, but the DOJ put her in jail for something-or-other and Tim Kaine became president!

Tim who?

Exactly. Who remembers the running mate of the person who lost the election?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Custer]

He seems happy enough with that situation . . .
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[Bud Brewster]

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He seems happy in that photo. I have photos of me smiling, too.

I propose that neither him nor I are very happy about the past election. In this timeline, a wacky real estate mogul with no political experience sits in the White House and gets closer each day to impeachment!

I'm hoping I can jump over to the timeline that has Mike Pence as president! He might look like Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love —


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— but we'd still be better off than having a president who is Vladimir Putin's personal Howdy Dowdy!


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

[Custer]

The internet, or at least its memes, seems to think Mike Pence is more like Race Bannon, though the resemblance is disconcerting.

[Custer]

Rumour has it that there's an alternate reality where some sort of reality tv guy got elected president of the USA. Oh, wait...