Sliders (TV series)

Sliders
File:Sliders title shot.jpg
Created by	Tracy Tormé Robert K. Weiss
Starring	Jerry O'Connell Cleavant Derricks Sabrina Lloyd John Rhys-Davies Kari Wuhrer Charlie O'Connell Robert Floyd Tembi Locke
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	88
Production
Executive producers	David Peckinpah (Seasons 3+)
Running time	44 min
Original release
Network	Fox/Sci Fi Channel
Release	March 22nd, 1995 – February 4th, 2000

This article is about the sci-fi television show. For other possible meanings see Slider (disambiguation).

Sliders is a science fiction television series that ran from 1995 to 2000, across five seasons. The series focuses on a group of travellers who "slide" between parallel worlds by use of a wormhole referred to as an "Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge".

The first three seasons of Sliders were shown by the Fox Network. It was cancelled after the first season, which was broadcast from March to May 1995, but was brought back for a second season from March to July 1996. A third season was broadcast from September 1996 to May 1997. The Sci Fi channel produced the fourth (June 1998 to April 1999) and fifth (from June 1999) seasons, but announced in July 1999 that Sliders had been cancelled and that there would not be a sixth season. The last episode aired in February 2000.

In the UK, the BBC showed the first three seasons from September 1996 to January 1999, though they were also aired on Sky One prior to this date. The episodes (on the BBC) were (confusingly) shown out of order. Of the episodes shown on the BBC, none have been repeated and the fourth and fifth seasons were not aired. Sky aired the complete series, including the final one. The Sci Fi channel often shows all five seasons of Sliders in daily rotation.

The show was produced by Tracy Tormé, son of singer Mel Tormé (Mel Tormé appeared in an episode as himself).

The series was filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in its first two seasons. The filming of the show moved to Los Angeles, California for the last three seasons.

Changing themes

The nature of the show changed during the seasons. Most fans tend to prefer the first two seasons, which focused on alternate histories and alternate social norms. These stories explored what would happen for example if America was conquered by the Soviet Union, or if Britain had won the American War of Independence, or if penicillin had not been invented, or if men were subservient to women in a clear sexist divide.

The third season introduced the first change to the running of Sliders. Episodes became more action-oriented in focus, and to some this was the beginning of a downward slide, making it arguably the least favorite season among fans.

The main focus of the fourth and fifth seasons was the war against the Kromaggs.

However, within these changing themes, a pattern runs through each and every episode: the Sliders arrive on a new world, often following a prelude, narrowly escaping a plight from the previous slide; trouble ensues and the Sliders are separated; after much drama, the Sliders reunite with the timer and escape.

Plot

Main article: List of Sliders episodes

The original Sliders. From left to right: Wade Welles, Rembrandt Brown, Professor Arturo and Quinn Mallory

Season one

Episodes 1 - 10

Quinn Mallory, a graduate student of physics, creates a device capable of opening vortices to alternate universes. With a little help from his double from another world, he develops the technology to the extent that not only can he send items through the gateway he created, but also, with the use of a timer, items can return to their point of origin. He uses himself as his first living guinea pig, and on his second journey, best friend Wade Welles and his professor Maximillian Arturo join him.

The wormhole grows unstable and out of control. Singer Rembrandt "Cryin' Man" Brown, driving his car by Quinn's house, is accidentally sucked through with them. When the timer is activated ahead of time, over four hours before it was scheduled to, it loses its coordinates and the Sliders cannot return home. This leaves them unable to control when the vortices open or which world they lead to. Thus, the Sliders continue their journey, trying to find their way back home.

A common theme during this season is to explore political issues and to play around with recurring characters who had first appeared in the pilot, showing how their situations had changed on various worlds.

Season two

Episodes 11 – 23

Other than a two-minute visit to their original world Earth Prime (which they left because they didn't have enough time to verify that it was home), the Sliders are still no closer to returning home. The Sliders encounter the Kromaggs for the very first time in the episode "Invasion". Their presence is short-lived, but they become part of the main plot for later seasons. After some close encounters, the Sliders make it a rule to no longer accept hitchhikers, an action that had previously saved people from plights in their own worlds, and agree to try to stop interfering wherever possible, much like the Prime Directive from the Star Trek franchise.

Season three

File:Sliders3.JPG

Late Season 3 cast. From left to right: Rembrandt Brown, Maggie Beckett, Quinn Mallory and Wade Welles

Episodes 24 – 48

The third season takes a more bizarre twist, producing a series of one-off episodes, most of which are patterned on existing ideas previously seen in films.

During a slide to a world that is soon to be destroyed by fragments of a pulsar, the Sliders help the inhabitants develop sliding technology, with the intent to evacuate their best and brightest to a new home. It is on this world that they encounter Captain Maggie Beckett and the murderous Colonel Rickman, a veteran of the Gulf War on that world, who contracted a strange disease which attacks his brain, thus making donor tissue necessary; Rickman kills both Maggie's husband and the Professor.

The Sliders now have a new mission - revenge. They continue to chase Rickman until he meets his demise in the season finale. They find the correct coordinates that will take them home and the episode ends when Quinn tells Wade and Rembrandt to slide home without him, while he stays behind for Maggie. Using the second timer gained from Rickman, he and Maggie end up on a different world. The timer gained from Rickman had been damaged so Quinn was not able to return to Earth Prime.

File:Sliders4.JPG

Season 4 cast. From left to right: Rembrandt Brown, Quinn Mallory, Colin Mallory and Maggie Beckett

Season four

Episodes 49 – 70

After three months and ten worlds, Quinn and Maggie finally arrive on Earth Prime and find Rembrandt in a Kromagg prison. Earth Prime had been attacked by the Kromaggs, and Rembrandt and Wade were separated (she had been sent to a Kromagg breeder camp on an alternate Earth). Quinn's imprisoned mother tells him that he is her adopted son and is actually from another, parallel world — the earth on which the Kromaggs originated. The three Sliders escape to find Kromagg Prime for the weapon with which to liberate Earth Prime.

They find Quinn's brother Colin on another world, their parents having sent them to different worlds for their protection after their home was attacked by Kromaggs and was no longer safe. Colin became the sixth Slider and they tried to track down their birth parents, hoping they have the answers they seek and the means to defeat the Kromaggs.

The war with the Kromaggs is the primary theme throughout the season. Some fans disliked the Maggie and Colin characters, and wished Wade and Arturo were still on the show. The ratings on the Sci-Fi Channel were less than they were on Fox.[1]

Season 5 cast. From left to right: Maggie Beckett, Rembrandt Brown, Dr. Diana Davis and Mallory

Season five

Episodes 71 – 88

With Jerry and Charlie O'Connell stricken from the cast list, the writers decided to simply lose Colin in the vortex, and fused Quinn with his counterpart on the new world, who is the only duplicate to not look anything like Quinn (other than Logan St. Clair, the female double of Quinn, in a season three episode, "Double Cross"). Mallory has the combined personality of himself and the Slider Quinn. He stays with the group throughout the season. Whilst Mallory showed initial signs of acting like Quinn, this largely took a backseat to his own personality traits; to many fans this came across as bland, and they disliked that the dual identity crisis had been reduced immensely until its resolution in "Eye of the Storm".

In the same episode ("The Unstuck Man"), scientist Doctor Diana Davis becomes the final Slider, feeling responsible for what happened to Mallory. They discover that the weapon created by Quinn's father, Michael Mallory, to defeat the Kromaggs on Kromagg Prime had the unintended consequence of destroying that planet's ecosystems, making its use on Earth Prime impractical.

In the middle of the fifth season, Wade telepathically communicates to Rembrandt and is able to transport him and the other sliders to the world that the Kromaggs are keeping her on. Wade was being used as an experiment by the Kromaggs in an attempt to liberate their homeworld. Rembrandt is unable to save Wade, but Wade is able to sabotage the experiment. Rembrandt does not know if Wade survived.

The series concludes when Rembrandt (the only surviving original Slider) slides alone with a virus in his blood to fight the Kromaggs on his world. Whether or not Rembrandt succeeded is not revealed.

Cast

Main cast

• Quinn Mallory (seasons 1-4), played by Jerry O'Connell
• Wade Kathleen Welles, (seasons 1-3, voice of Wade in "Requiem", S5e11), played by Sabrina Lloyd
• Rembrandt Lee "Crying Man" Brown, played by Cleavant Derricks
• Professor Maximillian P. Arturo, (seasons 1-3), played by John Rhys-Davies Appeared in the episode "The Last of Eden" (S3e20))
• Maggie Beckett, (seasons 3-5), played by Kari Wührer

Supporting cast

• Colin Mallory, (season 4), played by Charlie O'Connell
• Quinn Mallory (2) a.k.a. Mallory, (season 5), played by Robert Floyd
• Diana Davis, (season 5), played by Tembi Locke

Recurring guest stars

Main article: Recurring characters of Sliders

• Colonel Angus Rickman, played by Roger Daltrey ("The Exodus" parts 1 and 2 (S3e16–17)) and Neil Dickson (episodes "The Other Slide of Darkness", "Dinoslide", "Stoker" and "This Slide of Paradise" (S3e21, S3e23–25))
• Elston Diggs, played by Lester Barrie (episodes "Double Cross", "The Dream Masters", "Desert Storm", "Dragonslide", "Murder Most Foul", and "The Breeder" (S3e2, S3e5–7, S3e13, S3e19))
• Doctor Oberon Geiger, played by Peter Jurasik (episodes "The Unstuck Man", "Applied Physics", and "Eye of the Storm" (S5e1–2, S5e17))

Production

Changing cast

Fans of the series have dedicated websites to reports of petty office politics pushing cast and crew members off the show and thus changing the direction of the series. Among the allegations:

The Dimension of Continuity website claims that John Rhys-Davies was fired by the combination of both a Fox executive, who wanted to fire Rhys-Davies due to being allegedly humiliated at a party by John Rhys-Davies a few years previously, and David Peckinpah, who wanted him gone due to his creative criticism. When the executive gained control of the series, he sought revenge by killing off Davies' character. The episode where Davies was killed was a radical rewrite of a script he penned.

The Dimension of Continuity website claims that Sabrina Lloyd had conflicts with Kari Wuhrer, which included an incident where Wührer made a remark about Sabrina's boyfriend (at the time a crew member) while on the set, and that Sabrina eventually told David Peckinpah to choose between her and Kari, and that Peckinpah chose to keep Kari. The fact that Wade was sentenced to a Kromagg breeding camp in the first episode of season four, insinuating that she is subjected to repeated rape, is often cited by fans as evidence of the bad blood that existed on the set.

While the fourth season was airing, fans began petitioning for Lloyd to return. Sabrina Lloyd had signed a contract with ABC's Sports Night, and was then filming. Sabrina Lloyd returned for one episode in season five as a voice actor. Part of the reason she only returned as a voice actor is because it took less time away from her work on Sports Night.

The Dimension of Continuity website claims that Jerry O'Connell quit the show because his request to become the executive producer was denied. The website also claims that with Jerry gone, they had no reason to keep Charlie O'Connell on the show either, since Charlie was only there because of Jerry.

Cleavant Derricks (Rembrandt Brown) is the only cast member to stay with the series throughout its entire run, while Derricks and Linda Henning (Mrs. Mallory) are the only actors to appear in both the first and last episodes of the series.

Changing staff

Fans of the series have also dedicated websites to reports that original creators and writers were fired from the series or lost creative control because of the short-sighted executives at Fox. Much of the criticism of Fox is based on a belief that they pushed the series away from its social commentary and exploration of scientific theories and various philosophies, in order to focus more on cheap action, sex appeal and ripoffs of science fiction films.

The series co-creator, Tracy Tormé, has often been critical of the direction the series took in the third season. David Peckinpah was brought to the series in the third season (around the time when Tracy Tormé started to criticize the show). Peckinpah has been criticized by fans of the show who argue that Peckinpah's involvement caused the show to jump the shark .

Seasons four and five have their fanbases; some even called four the best since the first two (largely due to Jerry O'Connell becoming a writer and producer for the series, although this was itself an albatross as it led to the casting of the much disliked Charlie O'Connell).

Episodes aired out of order

The original filmed order for Season 1 episodes is as follows:

1 - "Sliders" (pilot episode)

1 - "Summer of Love"

3 - "Prince of Wails"

4 - "Fever"

5 - "Last Days"

6 - "The Weaker Sex"

7 - "The King is Back"

9 - "Luck of the Draw"

The Fox network aired the episodes in a different order to best capitalize on potential ratings-winning episodes, thus causing some continuity errors. For instance, the timer is first set to count down not in the pilot episode, but in "Summer of Love"; since Fox aired "Fever" after the pilot episode, though, many viewers were left confused as to why the sliders suddenly had to leave at a certain time. Similarly, the cliffhanger at the end of "Summer of Love" leads directly into the opening of "Prince of Wails"--which Fox had aired a week earlier.

For Season 2, Fox did not want to resolve the cliffhanger at the end of "Luck of the Draw", preferring to focus on new storylines. Thus, in "Time Again and World" (the first episode filmed for Season 2), Arturo makes a brief passing reference to the events of "Luck of the Draw". Tracy Tormé successfully petitioned for a chance to resolve the cliffhanger, though, which is briefly dealt with in the opening minutes of "Into the Mystic" (the third filmed, but the first episode to air that season). "Time Again and World" ended up airing sixth in the rotation.

"Double Cross" was filmed as the premiere for Season 3. In this episode, the audience learns why the sliders will now be able to slide anywhere between San Francisco and L.A. However, Fox opted to air "Rules of the Game" first, since it was a more action-oriented episode, even though that episode did take place in L.A.

"Last of Eden" was filmed before John Rhys-Davies (Prof. Arturo) left the show. However, Fox chose to air the episode for the first time on Mar. 28, a full month after Arturo had been written off the show.

When the show began airing in reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel, Sci-Fi restored the original filmed order for Season 1. However, when the DVDs were released, Universal used the aired order for Season 1 and the subsequent seasons.

Abandoned stories

The departure of the original actors and the changing tone of the series meant that many storylines had to be abandoned or left open. In addition, in some episodes it was originally the idea for the story to be somewhat different from the story that ended up being used in the episode. Among the rumored, never-developed storylines were:

• In "The Summer of Love", Quinn's classmate Bennish is interrogated by the FBI about the sliders' disappearance. However, the FBI is never mentioned again, and Bennish (or at least his doubles) isn't seen after a handful of episodes either.
• In "Post-Trumatic Slide Syndrome", the Professor (John Rhys-Davies) gets into a fight with his evil double, and one of them ends up sliding. Fans have speculated for some time that the real Arturo is still on this world, and he could be found and included in future stories.
• The character of Logan St. Clare, introduced in "Double Cross", proved popular with fans, but was never used in any future storylines on the TV show or in the comic books.
• Tracy Tormé wrote an episode titled "Heat of the Moment" that features the sliders on a parallel world that is falling towards the sun, which will leave all life to be burned up in a few months with the sliders stuck there. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that the episode focuses on doubles of the sliders. This episode was never produced due to John Rhys-Davies leaving the show, and Tormé refused to rewrite it for the Maggie Beckett character. .
• In Season 4, the writers toyed with the idea of revealing that Quinn's naïve brother Colin was either a Kromagg spy or somehow under the control of the Kromagg race. This was the original idea for the episode "Revelations". Nothing came of this idea, though.
• The script for the final episode of the series ("The Seer") was supposed to feature a big-budget, final battle with the Kromaggs. However, the writers opted for a cliffhanger instead.

Show concepts

Timer

File:Sliders - Timer.jpg

The original timer.

The timer is a device that resembles a cell phone or television remote control. The sliders had a finite amount of time to stay on each world, a time which was beyond their control and was revealed on the timer's display upon arriving to the parallel earth. The only time they were able to leave a parallel earth was when the timer hit zero. If they did not slide at that time, they would not have another opportunity to slide for another 29.7 years. In the episode "Rules of the Game (Sliders)", it is first stated that the sliders must wait 29 years for the next slide if they miss it when the timer hits zero. It is mentioned again in several more episodes. The timer has frequently been lost, stolen, or damaged during the slides. However, it is almost always recovered, repaired or replaced before they are scheduled to slide.

Doubles

One of the concepts of the show was the concept of doubles. On many parallel earths, there would be alternate versions of the same person. The sliders frequently encountered alternate versions of themselves. Sometimes, the doubles of the sliders had similar personality traits and interests (for example, many doubles of Quinn Mallory had invented sliding, or were in the process of inventing sliding). Sometimes, however, the personality traits of the sliders were entirely different.

Some of the doubles the sliders encountered were doubles of people they knew from Earth Prime, such as Quinn's classmate Conrad Bennish, Jr. In the episodes "Dragonslide" and "The Prince of Slides", Rembrandt met doubles of girlfriends from Earth Prime and in the episode "Eggheads", Arturo met a double of his late wife. Sometimes doubles of the family members of the sliders were found during sliding; Quinn often encountered doubles of his parents, and in the episode "Season's Greedings" Wade met doubles of her father and sister.

On some of the alternate earths that the sliders visited, there were alternate versions of celebrities and politicians of Earth Prime. However, celebrities on these alternate earths sometimes had different levels of fame than their Earth Prime counterparts. In addition, some of the alternate versions of earth prime politicians hold different offices. For example, the sliders found alternate earths where Oliver North, Hillary Clinton, Jocelyn Elders, and even B-movie filmmaker Ed Wood, Jr. were at one time in their respective worlds, president of the United States. In the episode "The Good, the Bad and the Wealthy", the show's creator, Tracy Tormé, had originally intended a character named "Billy the Kid" to be an alternate version of Bill Gates [2].

Cleavant Derricks's identical twin brother, Clinton Derricks-Carroll, occasionally appeared on the show, in the episodes "The King Is Back", "Greatfellas", and "The Prince of Slides", when there was a need for Rembrandt and his double to interact.

Vortex

File:Sliders - Vortex.jpg

A Vortex (ERP bridge)

The vortex, a wormhole opened by the timer that the sliders carried around, was the means by which the sliders travel from one parallel universe to another. In the pilot and several other episodes, Quinn referred to the vortex as an "Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge", a fictitious term that may have arisen out of a confusion between the actual term Einstein-Rosen bridge (a type of wormhole in physics) and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox (a famous thought-experiment in quantum mechanics which is unrelated to wormholes). The look of the vortex changed throughout the series. From the first to third season, the vortex was a blueish whirlpool and was somewhat transparent. In the fourth and fifth seasons, the vortex appeared as a mostly blue whirlpool with some blue-green and was entirely opaque.

In the episode "Gillian of the Spirits", Arturo said the vortex would close itself automatically after being open for sixty seconds. However, in several episodes -- including Gillian of the Spirits -- the vortex was open well beyond sixty seconds. Critics generally consider this to be a conscious error made to allow for more dramatic closing scenes.[3]

Intro

The beginning credits started by watching a spiral of earths and a monologue describing the premise of the show:

• Season One What if you can find brand new worlds right here on earth where anything is possible: same planet, different dimension? I found the gateway!
• Season Two What if you could travel to parallel worlds? The same year, the same earth, only different dimension. A world where the Russians ruled America, or where your dreams of being a superstar came true, or where San Francisco was a maximum security prison. My friends and I found the gateway. Now the problem is: finding a way back home.
• Season Three, Four, and Five What if you found a portal to a parallel universe? What if you can slide into a thousand different worlds? Where it's the same year and you're the same person, but everything else is different. And what if you can't find your way home?

In the first to fourth seasons, Quinn spoke the monologue. Rembrandt spoke the monologue in the fifth season, after Quinn had left the show. The monologue was followed by music, without lyrics. The first and second seasons had music that were unique to each season, and the third to fifth season had roughly the same music.

Connection to other works

Some people believe the series may have been inspired by the book The Homeward Bounders by Diana Wynne Jones, in which a young boy from earth "bounds" between parallel worlds, searching for his home. Others believe it to be inspired by Piers Anthony's "Mode" series of novels. However, a possible inspiration that seems very close may have been George R.R. Martin's 1992 ABC pilot Doorways, in which the main cast were fugitives fleeing through parallel worlds, while carrying a device that tells them where and when the next Doorway opens. Although ABC commissioned six additional scripts after the pilot film was completed, Doorways never went to series, as ABC decided to launch Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in the fall of 1993 instead. At the time of Sliders' launch, some TV critics noted the similarities to Doorways, and Martin claimed that Sliders creator Tracy Tormé applied for a writing position on the show, although Tormé later denied this.

Maggie Beckett may have gotten her name because Sliders was often compared to the Quantum Leap television series that starred Scott Bakula as Dr. Samuel Beckett. To further the connection, we find out that Maggie's father's name is Thomas. This has caused some to theorize he may actually be Sam's brother Tom.

The Nightmare on Elm Street inspired episode "The Dream Masters" actually features two actors who were in Nightmare on Elm Street films. Rodney Eastman, who plays one of the Dream Masters, was in the third and fourth Nightmare on Elm Street films, the latter of which was actually subtitled "The Dream Master". Lead Dream Master Zack Ward would later go on to play another one of Freddy Krueger's victims in Freddy vs. Jason.

DVD releases

File:SlidersDVD.JPG

Sliders season 1/2 DVD release.

On August 3 2004, the first two seasons were released on DVD in region 1 and in region 2 on December 27 2004. It included some Bonus Features including a 'Making Of' with interviews from Cleavant Derricks and Jerry O'Connell, and an Audio Commentary on the Pilot Episode.

The complete third season was released on region 1 on July 19 2005, and on October 31 2005 in region 2, with a Gag Reel as Bonus material.

Sliders in other media

Sliders has also been spun-off into a short-lived comic book series, published by Acclaim Comics.

Sliders-esque stories abound in comics, TV series and science fiction books, one of which is the Hypertime plotline running in DC Comics' 2nd Superboy series (issues 60–65), where Superboy hops between Elseworld, Realworld and Possible 'Realities' in a fashion akin to Sliders.

Sliders also has similarities to Marvel's Exiles title, which features several Marvel characters who have been pulled from their own realities to fix problems in alternate ones. The series also shares some similarities with Quantum Leap, and some fans have speculated about a link between the character of Maggie Beckett and Quantum Leap protagonist Sam Beckett.

See also

• EPR paradox

External links

• Earth Prime: Episode guide, scripts, interviews, screen captures, behind-the-scenes media
• Dimension of Continuity: FAQ, script outtakes, props, etc.
• Earth 62: Image heavy episode guide, article archive, etc.
• Sliderslinks.com: Comprehensive guide of Sliders links.
• Slidersweb.net: Fan fiction, humor, campaigns, etc.
• Sliders Comics
• Fitting the Comics in Series Continuity