Sliders - the gateway to a foreign dimension
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| German title | Sliders - the gateway to a foreign dimension |
| Original title | Sliders |
 | |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Year (s) | 1995-2000 |
| length | 42 minutes |
| Episodes | 88 in 5 seasons ( list ) |
| genre | Science fiction |
| idea |
Tracy Tormé Robert K. Weiss |
| music |
Mark Mothersbaugh Stephen Graziano Danny Lux Denis M. Hannigan Anthony Marinelli Dennis McCarthy Robert J. Kral |
| First broadcast | March 22, 1995 (USA) on Fox |
| German-language first broadcast |
November 2, 1997 on RTL |
| occupation | |
Sliders - The gateway to a strange dimension is an American science fiction - television series from 1995 to 2000, organized by the Universal Studios produced.
content
action
The young physics student Quinn Mallory develops a dimension gate that enables the transfer to parallel dimensions. Together with his girlfriend Wade Wells, the physics professor Maximilian Arturo and the soul singer Rembrandt “Remmy” Brown, known as “Crying Man”, they travel to ever new parallel worlds that are on the same timeframe but have taken different historical developments. So they experience an America that is still under the rule of the British Crown or was conquered by the Soviet Union or in which the dinosaurs are not extinct. Even in dangerous situations, you cannot dare to jump again before the time limit set by the timer has expired.
After the death of Prof. Arturo in the third season, the soldier Captain Maggie Beckett joins the Sliders as a new colleague and the priority is no longer to return home, but to pursue the criminal Colonel Angus Rickman ( Roger Daltrey / Neil Dickson ) across the dimensions. When Rickman dies at the end of Season 3, only Wade and Remmy get back to the domestic dimension. Quinn and Maggie, on the other hand, wander through the dimensions for 3 months before they can also return home.
Starting with season 4, there is a new primary objective: to obtain the anti-Kromagg weapon. To do this, the Sliders have to find Quinn's brother Colin and the birth parents of the two brothers. Quinn and Colin were placed with foster parents on parallel worlds as children due to a war between Kromaggs and humans. Finally, the anti-Kromagg weapon developed by her parents must be procured. The mission fails.
With the fifth and final season, the primary goal changes again. Quinn merges due to an experiment by Dr. Oboron Geiger with a double and Colin disappears between the dimensions. Remmy, Maggie, the merged "Mallory" and Dr. Diana Davis, who is new to the team, must find a way to separate Mallory and save Colin. They also continue to try to find an effective weapon against the Kromaggs.
Sliders has an open end. You never find out whether Colin will return, whether Mallory can actually be separated again and whether the virus injected into Rembrandt's blood can destroy the Kromaggs on Remmy's home earth (Earth 1).
Why do the sliders slide?
The Sliders are initially looking for their homeworld, which is attacked by the Kromaggs in the course of the series. Later they are looking for the "First World" (Earth Prime), the real home of Quinn's parents. Since they were accidentally caught in the vortex and they do not know the coordinates of their home earth, they have to travel from one world to the next in the hope of finding their own world again. Quinn had built a timer, a device that could reopen the wormhole so he could slide. After his first unexpected slide, he returns and meets another version of himself, a "double". This "double" is Quinn from another dimension. He began to slide earlier and discovered the formula with which one can slide in a controlled manner. He warns Quinn not to change his timer (the timer will count down with a countdown until the wormhole reopens) or there would be serious consequences. But the double slides away before it can explain its warning.
The first world in which the four sliders come together is a world in an ice age. They fear that they will freeze to death before the timer has finished counting down. When they see a tornado approaching, they have to change the timer settings so that the wormhole opens right in front of them instantly. The timer, however, does not send you home because its settings have been changed. Instead, they slide to any world with any countdown. Now they slide around aimlessly to find their home again.
Why haven't you come home yet?
The professor once suspected that for every decision someone has ever made, a different world emerged. This would mean that there are an infinite number of worlds. Whether or not they have to visit each earth before they get home, it will take them a very long time. As the series progresses, you learn that you need the right coordinates to navigate a world that you want to visit. In one episode they met a Quinn double who was also sliding. She wanted to send this double home. In this world, which at first sight looked like their own, they only had a few seconds to decide whether it was really theirs. They stood in front of Quinn's house, who said the garden gate had been creaking since he was a little boy and he would recognize that squeak again and again. However, the door did not creak. The gate opened and they slid on. Then you see Quinn's mother and her gardener coming out of the house. The gardener says to the mother that Quinn has probably been missing her since he disappeared and that he has finally repaired her garden door because it kept squeaking.
main characters
Quinn Michael Mallory
Quinn Mallory is a young physics student from San Francisco . His foster father was killed in a traffic accident. In his hobby room he succeeds in developing a machine with which he can travel in parallel dimensions . Quinn Mallory develops into something of a leader of the sliders during the journey. He feels responsible for his friends, who would not have gotten into this situation without him. Through an incident, he is merged with a double of himself.
Wade Kathleen Wells
Wade Wells worked as a saleswoman in the "Doppler's Computer Shop". She has an older sister. Her mother has died, only her father is still alive. She was attending North Shore Junior College when she met Quinn Mallory and fell in love with him. Like Prof. Arturo, Wade is there at the very moment when the dimensional gate opens and everything that is near Quinn's basement is thrown into a parallel universe. Wade is the heart of the Sliders team, a friend that everyone can rely on. Wade was abducted to a breeder camp by the Kromaggs three years after she started sliding .
Rembrandt Lee Brown
Rembrandt "Crying Man" Brown used to be a singer in the Spinning Topps, a successful soul band in the 1970s. Remmy, as his friends call him, actually slipped into the adventure with his Cadillac by accident . For better or worse, he joined the sliders to find a way home. He developed into an important member of the Sliders and became a kind of anchor for the others. Rembrandt cannot swim and loves to fish. He shares this hobby with Professor Arturo. He is the last slider of the first hour, but still full of hope to get home one day. Rembrandt was taken to a re-education camp by the Kromaggs three years later , but is saved by Quinn and Maggie.
Prof. Maximilian P. Arturo
Professor Maximilian P. Arturo is a renowned atomic physicist and lecturer in cosmology and ontology at the University of California . He was married to Christina Fox, but she died at the age of 27. The native Brit, who has taken on a visiting professorship in San Francisco , has found one of his most talented but also most uncomfortable students in Quinn . Arturo, who is prone to stubbornness and complacency, repeatedly has problems recognizing the ingenuity of his student, which ultimately plunges him into the greatest and last adventure of his life. About 3 years after his first slide he is injured by Colonel Rickman and finally sacrifices himself for his friends.
Marguerite "Maggie" Allison Beckett
U.S. Navy Capt. Margeret Beckett joined the Sliders when they landed on their earth and gave the scientists there the opportunity to evacuate a few people to a parallel earth before it is destroyed by a pulsar . One of these scientists was Maggie's husband, who was killed by her boss, Col. Angus Rickman, for discovering that Rickman was a killer who needed certain people's DNA to survive on his own. After Arturo was also shot by Rickman, Maggie joins the Sliders to chase the Colonel through the dimensions.
Colin Mallory
Colin Mallory is the brother of Quinn. Her parents are sliders and the brothers grew up in different dimensions. Colin grew up in a world without technology. Only Colin is interested in technology, so he experiments with electricity and invents wind turbines. The sliders land on his world and Colin, who didn't feel comfortable in this world anyway, decides to become a slider. After a few adventures an accident happens while sliding and Colin is trapped between dimensions. Since then, Maggie and Remmy have been trying to save him.
Quinn "Mallory" Mallory
Mallory had to use a wheelchair for a long time. But then a scientist named Dr. Oboron Geiger up. With experiments he managed to incorporate some DNA parts of "Quinn-Mallory-Doubles" from other dimensions into Mallory's body. Due to an accident, he merged with Quinn Mallory, known from the series to date, into one person. What remained was Mallory, who initially still has a few thoughts, memories and feelings of his double, but finally becomes completely himself again. The loss of Quinn is a severe blow to his comrades Remmy and Maggie, which is why they refuse to call their new friend Quinn and call him Mallory instead. At first he has a hard time working in a team, but over time he trusts his new friends more and more. To undo what was done to him, he slides from world to world with Remmy, Maggie and Diana, but he could no longer be separated into the two original Quinns.
Dr. Diana Davis
Dr. Diana Davis was the assistant to scientist Dr. Oboron Geiger and helped him in his experiments with Mallory. Since she later found out the real reason for the experiments, she joined Remmy and Maggie to find a way to separate the two merged Mallories again.
occupation
main actor
| actor | role | Season | German voice | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | |||
| Jerry O'Connell | Quinn Mallory | MR | MR | MR | MR | 1 GA | Manou Lubowski |
| Sabrina Lloyd | Wade Wells | MR | MR | MR | SR | Katrin Fröhlich | |
| Cleavant Derricks | Rembrandt Brown | MR | MR | MR | MR | MR | Randolf Kronberg |
| John Rhys-Davies | Prof. Maximilian Arturo | MR | MR | MR | Wolfgang Hess | ||
| Kari Wuehrer | Maggie Beckett | MR | MR | MR | Elisabeth Günther | ||
| Charlie O'Connell | Colin Mallory | MR | 1 GA | Oliver Mink | |||
| Robert Floyd | Mallory | MR | Philipp Moog | ||||
| Tembi Locke | Diana Davis | MR | Claudia Lössl | ||||
(HR: main role, NR: supporting role, GA: guest appearances, SR: speaking role)
supporting cast
| actor | role | Season | German voice | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4th | 5 | |||
| Jason Gaffney | Conrad Bennish, Jr. | 3 GA | 1 GA | Florian Halm (only in 2 episodes) | |||
| Pure beauty | Colitar | 2 NO | Pure beauty | ||||
| Charlie O'Connell | Kid Richards | 1 GA | ? | ||||
| Officer O'Hara | 1 GA | Jaron Lowenberg | |||||
(HR: main role, NR: supporting role, GA: guest appearances)
Production and broadcast
The first two seasons of the show were in Vancouver ( Canada filmed), which served as the backdrop for San Francisco. In the third season, the location changed to Los Angeles , which means that new locations were used for the plot. There was also a change in the regular cast when John Rhys-Davies complained that his character of Prof. Arturo was too much in the background. Therefore, he was left to die in the double episode "Exodus", based on a script written by Rhys-Davies himself. Kari Wuhrer took his place in the role of Maggie Beckett.
Broadcast in the USA
Sliders was broadcast by the American broadcaster Fox on March 22, 1995 in a "double pack" with the cult series Beverly Hills 90210 on Friday evening. However, the episodes were not shown in the originally planned order. In the middle of the first season, the series was stopped because of the allegedly too bad audience ratings , until a more detailed evaluation showed that they were quite good compared to similar programs. After that, Fox continued the first season and commissioned a second. Gradually, Sliders gained an increasing number of fans and developed into a new cult series in the USA.
After the third season, Fox took Sliders out of the program. The American broadcaster Sci-Fi Channel then bought the rights to the series and produced a fourth season, which was broadcast in the United States in June 1998. Jerry O'Connell also acted as a screenwriter and producer. Sabrina Lloyd as Wade Wells had since retired from the series, but the Sliders team was supplemented by Charlie O'Connell, the brother of the main actor Jerry O'Connell, who also appeared in the series as Quinn's brother Colin Mallory. In June 1999 the fifth season started on Syfy. Now the O'Connell brothers were replaced by the newcomers Robert Floyd and Tembi Locke, so that only Cleavant Derricks alias Rembrandt was left of the original line-up.
Broadcast in Germany
In Germany, Sliders - The Gateway to a Foreign Dimension was first broadcast by RTL on November 2, 1997 . Since the afternoon slot was often occupied by Formula 1 broadcasts, broadcasting was delayed until January 24, 1999, when episode 48 concluded the third season. For reasons of youth protection, four episodes of this season were only shown around midnight. From October 24, 1999, the fourth season was broadcast on RTL. From March 3, 2001 Sliders was no longer broadcast by RTL, but by RTL II . RTL II stopped the series on March 2, 2002 after three seasons. From January 17, 2004 and after four years of waiting, the fifth season found its way onto the television screen on RTL.
In pay TV the series ran until November 7, 2006 on Premiere's Syfy channel. Another broadcast followed with the complete fifth season from December 3, 2006 (Saturdays and Sundays).
In 2007 Sliders returned to German free TV . Kabel Eins broadcast all five seasons in one go for the first time, as both RTL and RTL II had previously only broadcast the seasons in parts and never completely in one run. The episodes could be seen on Saturdays around 1:25 p.m., with the exception of the four episodes from the third season, which were broadcast at night in early January. In contrast to RTL, the broadcaster broadcast the episode “Bloody Earth” from season 5 on Saturday afternoon. RTL showed this in 2004 in the night program. Tele 5 broadcast the series from August 2013 to September 2015. From August 7, 2016 to February 5, 2017, Sliders ran on RTL Nitro . Under the new station name Nitro , the channel will resume the series in its daily program from September 20, 2017 at nightly hours and will show two episodes each time.
Seasons
Season 1 (1995)
The journey of the four sliders begins in the first season. They travel many parallel earths in 9 episodes.
The first season episodes were broadcast in a different order than planned. Fox chose this order to attract more viewers. This becomes noticeable if you look at the beginning of episode 5 "The Corrupt Sheriff - Prince of Wails", which actually provides the solution to the danger from "Journey through the Time Hole - Summer of Love" (Episode 6).
The originally planned sequence of the first season episodes can be found here:
Season 2 (1996)
Towards the end of the second season, the Sliders meet the Kromaggs for the first time, who become the main opponents of the fourth and fifth seasons. As in season 1, Fox has changed the order of the broadcast.
Season 2 has a total of 13 episodes.
Season 3 (1996-1997)
Starting with the two-part "Exodus", Kari Wührer (as Maggie Beckett) joins the Sliders team and John Rhys-Davies (as Prof. Arturo) leaves the series. Since the episode "Forbidden Zones" was filmed before "Exodus", but only showed later, it was shown as a flashback in the form of Wade's memories. The 4 episodes "Deadly Game", "Die Traumkiller", "Endzeit" and "Monsterbrut" were shown by RTL after 10 pm for FSK reasons.
Season 4 (1998-1999)
With season 4, the series switched from Fox to the SciFi channel . Sabrina Lloyd alias Wade Wells left the series, but Charlie O'Connell (brother of Jerry O'Connell ) joined the Sliders team as Colin Mallory (brother of Quinn Mallory). Season 4 was already running in Great Britain , Australia and Canada before it was broadcast in the USA .
Season 5 (1999-2000)
In the 5th season there were again changes in the main cast. Robert Floyd replaced Jerry O'Connell in his role as Quinn Mallory; Tembi Locke came in exchange with Charlie O'Connell and played Dr. Diana Davis. In Germany, the episode "Bloody Earth" was only shown during the night for FSK reasons by RTL .
Episode list
DVD and Blu-ray releases
All five seasons of the series have now been released on DVD . The boxes for regions 1 , 2 and 4 were released . For the RC2 version, an extra box with an additional French sound track was released in France . In addition, region 0 boxes with Chinese subtitles have already appeared on eBay . In Germany , Koch Media GmbH published the series with a German sound. The box with the first two seasons has been available since February 22, 2008. The box with the third season has been around since June 20, 2008. The fourth season was released on December 5, 2008 and the last season on March 13, 2009 on DVD. For the first time, Germany has released a season ahead of all other countries. In 2008, Hungary and Spain also launched corresponding versions on the market.
The label Turbine Media Group from Münster has announced that it will release the complete series as a limited edition on September 16, 2016 in Germany. This means that for the first time all 88 episodes will be available on just four Blu-ray discs in this country. However, it is SD on Blu-ray and the image quality is not in HD.
comics
The US publisher Acclaim Comics published comics based on the television series. The characters in the comic are exactly the same as those in the television series. The stories are very close to the television series, but they have their own content. There are four mini-series:
Sliders : No. 1 - 2 (June 1996 - July 1996) - under the Armada label
Sliders: Ultimatum : No. 1 - 2 (August 1996 - September 1996) - from here on under the own label Acclaim Comics
Sliders: Darkest Hours : Nos. 1 - 3 (October 1996 - December 1996)
Sliders Special : No. 1 - 3 (November 1996 - March 1997)
Jerry O'Connell wrote the story for Sliders Special No. 1 entitled "Narcotica" himself.
criticism
With the idea of parallel and alternative worlds, the Sliders series picks up on a topic that is quite common in science fiction literature, but has only rarely been implemented in film and television. Some episodes of the series Star Trek , Stargate SG-1 , Superman , The Flash , Fringe or Seven Days etc. dealt with the topic of parallel dimensions. The scientific basis, which is not deepened too much in the series, is the " theory of the many worlds " from quantum physics , according to which the universe splits up with every open possibility in such a way that all possibilities in the different universes are realized. From this it follows that in addition to our known world there are an infinite number of others that have developed differently. An alternative interpretation of quantum physics is the Copenhagen interpretation .
Others
- In the episode "The Water Witch" (Season 3, Episode 6), guest actor Ken Steadman had a fatal accident in a buggy while filming.
- In an interview, Jerry O'Connell mentioned that series creator Tracy Tormé is considering a possible reboot and that Jerry would love to return to the role of Quinn Mallory.
- In March 2016, Jerry animated his fans in a video interview at WonderCon to start a petition to fight for a return of the series. The said signature campaign started that same month.
- In addition to numerous restructuring in the production team, the opening credits were also often changed. Image montage and sequence, music, effects and the introduction spoken by Mallory changed at least ten times during the first three seasons alone.
- Rembrandt actor Cleavant Derricks speaks in the "Making of" (Disc 6 / Season 1) that the introduction of the Kromaggs "was probably one of the worst ideas". Nevertheless, he remained loyal to the series as the only actor from the beginning to the end.
- In the same "Making of" O'Connell reports on the amazement of his colleagues at Crossing Jordan about his large fan base. He justified this with his role in Sliders .
- The spoken introduction to seasons 4 and 5 contains a serious mistake in the translation. In German it says "... you just can't find the way back home." That would mean that the sliders couldn't get back at all. Correctly it should read "... and what if you can't find your way home?" (Originally: "... and what if you can't find your way home?" )
- The film Parallels - Journey into New Worlds takes up a similar story and is to go into series under the title The Building .
Web links
- Sliders episode guide
- Sliders - The gateway to a strange dimension in theInternet Movie Database(English)
- EarthPrime.com
- Slidecage - A Sliders Fan Blog
- Wiki about the Sliders series
Individual evidence
- ↑ Sliders on Nitro. Retrieved September 10, 2017 .
- ↑ Accessed: Jan 2, 2010 . Dimensionofcontinuity.com. Retrieved May 25, 2011.
- ↑ Sliders Season 1 Episode Guide . Retrieved June 29, 2014.
- ↑ Steve Koukoulas - RED5 Web Design: Sliders - Season 1 And 2 - DVD Review . Dvd.net.au. Retrieved November 8, 2010.
- ↑ Sliders Season 2 Episode Guide . Retrieved June 29, 2014.
- ↑ Chinese Sliders DVD Box
- ↑ Koch Media publishes sliders
- ↑ DVD dates
- ↑ Koch Media »DVD Films» TV Series »Science Fiction. March 4, 2009, accessed March 11, 2020 .
- ↑ Koch Media »DVD Films» TV Series »Science Fiction. March 4, 2009, accessed March 11, 2020 .
- ↑ Budapestfilm - Házimozi megjelenítő. March 4, 2009, accessed March 11, 2020 .
- ↑ Sliders: Salto al Infinito - Primera Temporada
- ↑ Alexslider: News // Sliders for the first time on Blu-ray - SLiDERS DiMENSiON. In: www.sliders-dimension.de. Retrieved August 14, 2016 .
- ↑ Ken Steadman Memorial site. In: www.kensteadman.com. Retrieved May 25, 2016 .
- ↑ Jerry O'Connell Reveals the Checkered History of 'Sliders' and a Potential Reboot. In: www.yahoo.com. Retrieved May 25, 2016 .
- ↑ Geek Pop Culture Network: WonderCon - Interview with Jerry O'Connell (Sliders, Justice League VS Teen Titans). March 28, 2016. Retrieved May 25, 2016 .
- ↑ Bring back sliders. In: Change.org. Retrieved May 25, 2016 (American English).
- ↑ Sebastian Lorenz: The Building: Netflix pilot Parallels goes into series. November 20, 2016. Retrieved September 10, 2017 .