Sliders

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sliders
Opening Title card
Genre	Science fiction
Creator(s)	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 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	David Peckinpah (Seasons 3+)
Running time	44 min
Broadcast
Original channel	Fox/Sci Fi Channel
Original run	March 22, 1995 – February 4, 2000
Links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

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 originally cancelled after the first season, which was broadcast from March to May 1995, but was brought back for a second season after much fandom protest, from March to July 1996. A third season was broadcast from September 1996 to May 1997. The Sci-Fi Channel produced the fourth season (June 1998 to April 1999) and fifth season (from June 1999), 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 episode. The Sci-Fi Channel often shows all five seasons of Sliders in daily rotation.

The show was produced by Robert K. Weiss and Tracy Tormé, son of singer Mel Tormé (Mel Tormé appeared in an episode as an alternate version of 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.

Contents 1 Changing themes 2 Plot 2.1 Season one 2.2 Season two 2.3 Season three 2.4 Season four 2.5 Season five 3 Cast 3.1 Main cast 3.2 Supporting cast 3.3 Recurring guest stars 4 Production 4.1 Changing cast 4.2 Changing staff 4.3 Episodes aired out-of-order 5 Show concepts 5.1 Timer 5.2 Doubles 5.3 Vortex 5.4 Hotel 6 Intro 7 Connection to other works 8 DVD releases 9 Sliders in other media 10 References 11 External links

[edit] Changing themes

The nature of the show changed throughout 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 significant changes to the premise of Sliders. As a result of increased FOX Network oversight (and forced reduction of day-to-day creative control by creator Tracy Tormé), episodes became far more action-oriented in tone, even going so far as to devolve into "riffs" on major feature-films (including Species, Twister, and Anaconda).

To many, this was the beginning of a downward slide, making it arguably the least-favorite season among fans, and culminated with the firing of John Rhys-Davies by the network (in an attempt to attract a "younger" audience-demographic via the Maggie Beckett character), and Tracy Tormé deciding not to contractually continue with the series he himself created, in light of the massive creative interference he was receiving from the network executives.

The fourth and fifth seasons saw the series moved to the Sci-Fi Channel, and a restoration of the series creators' original "alternate history" premise; the other major storyline (begun at the end of the second season, but diminished during season three) involved the growing war against the Kromaggs.

[edit] Plot

Main article: List of Sliders episodes

[edit] 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/mentor Maximillian Arturo join him.

The wormhole grows unstable and spirals 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, more than four hours before it was scheduled to, it loses its original 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.

Common themes during this season include the exploration of political issues and the appearances of recurring characters' alternate selves, showing how their situations had changed on various worlds.

[edit] 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 indeed their homeworld), 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 of the series for later seasons.

[edit] Season three

Episodes 24 – 48

The third season takes a more bizarre twist, producing a series of one-off episodes, most of which are "homages" to existing plotlines previously seen in major genre feature films. Additionally, the production of the series was moved from Vancouver, Canada down to Los Angeles, California (ostensibly due to an increased desire for oversight by FOX Network executives), necessitating a creative adjustment in the climatological backgrounds of future stories — whereas Vancouver was very "green" and lush, the Los Angeles filming environments brought a much "brighter" color palette to the series, including (for the first time) desert location-shooting.

Early in the season, Quinn meets a woman named Logan St. Clair, who is working on sliding technology, and decides to help her. It's later discovered that she's not only a female double of Quinn himself, but also that she has nefarious purposes. As a result of their interaction, a key part of the timer, which normally governs that characters will slide within a two-mile radius, has been replaced with a piece that causes them to slide anywhere within a 400-mile radius. Before this, their slides took them to alternate versions of San Francisco. Afterwards, they could arrive in many varied locations, but most episodes took place in alternate versions of Los Angeles.

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 homeworld. It is on this planet 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 Professor Arturo.

The Sliders now have a new mission — to find Rickman. Maggie wants revenge on Rickman, and the other Sliders want his timer so they can slide to Earth Prime, and so they can stop Rickman from harming anyone else. 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 shoves Wade and Rembrandt into the vortex while he stays behind for Maggie. Quinn and Maggie slide using a second timer gained from Rickman. However, due to damage to the timer, Quinn and Maggie end up on a different world, and are not able to return to Earth Prime.

[edit] Season four

Episodes 49 – 70

After three months and ten worlds, Quinn and Maggie finally arrive on (supposed) Earth Prime, and discover Rembrandt in a Kromagg prison (clues in the episode potentially make this another alternate earth). 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, in fact, her adopted son, and is actually from another, parallel world — the earth on which the Kromaggs originated. The three Sliders escape to find the Kromagg homeworld in order to take possession of a 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 becomes 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]

[edit] 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 original 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 ecosystem, 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 homeworld. Whether or not Rembrandt succeeded is never revealed.

[edit] Cast

Main article: List of Sliders actors

[edit] 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

[edit] 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

[edit] 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))

[edit] Production

[edit] Changing cast

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.

[edit] Changing staff

The series co-creator, Tracy Tormé, has often been critical of the direction the series took in the third season^[1]. David Peckinpah was brought onto 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 his involvement caused the show to "jump the shark." ^[2]

Seasons four and five have their fanbases; some even called four the best season since the first two (largely due to new executive producer Marc Scott Zicree's decision to restore Tracy Tormé's original "alternate history" premise for the series).^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Episodes aired out-of-order

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

1 - "Sliders" (pilot episode) 2 - "Summer of Love" 3 - "Prince of Wails" 4 - "Fever" 5 - "Last Days" 6 - "The Weaker Sex" 7 - "Eggheads" 8 - "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 within a very specific period of 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. ^[3]

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. ^[3]

"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. ^[3]

"The 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 March 28, a full month after Arturo had been written off the show, requiring a new opening scene be added to frame the story as a flashback. ^[3]

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.

[edit] Show concepts

[edit] Timer

The timer is a handheld device that resembles a mobile phone or remote control. The Sliders had a finite amount of time to stay in each world, a time which was beyond their control, and was revealed on the timer's display upon arriving on 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," 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.

Different timers have different countdown times — if you miss the window on one timer, you could still slide out with another.

[edit] 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. Gender and appearance of doubles was also somewhat fluid, although this was only seen in a few cases.

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^[4] were at one time in their respective worlds, president of the United States. In the pilot episode, the former cast of The People's Court guest starred as their own doubles in a Soviet-styled parody of the show.

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.

[edit] Vortex

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.

[edit] Hotel

The Sliders would often stay at the same hotel on different worlds, and in a recurring plot device, would usually stay in the same room. In Season One, this was Room 12 at the Motel 12 in San Francisco. In Season Two, it was the Dominion Hotel in San Francisco (this may just have been a different name for the Motel 12, as they were often both managed by the same person, Gomez Calhoun). In Season Three, they stayed at the Chancellor Hotel in Los Angeles; however, the real-life Chancellor Hotel in San Francisco objected to the use of the name, so in Season Four, they stayed at the Chandler Hotel, in Los Angeles.

[edit] 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."
• Seasons 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 through 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 seasons had roughly the same music.

[edit] 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. In the Season Five episode "The Return of Maggie Beckett," Maggie's father was revealed to be a career military officer named Thomas; Dr. Beckett's brother was also a career military officer named Thomas.

[edit] DVD releases

DVD Name	Cover Art	Region 1	Region 2	Special Features
The First and Second Seasons		August 3, 2004	December 27, 2004	"Making Of" documentary, with interviews from Cleavant Derricks and Jerry O'Connell. Audio commentary on the pilot episode by series creators Robert K. Weiss and Tracy Tormé.
The Third Season		July 19, 2005	October 31, 2005	Gag reel (Region 1 Only)

[edit] Sliders in other media

The pilot episode of Sliders was novelized by science-fiction writer Brad Linaweaver, and was released in the spring of 1996, one year after the series originally premiered. Linaweaver's novelization incorporates several deleted scenes from the original pilot episode production script, along with Linaweaver's own additions to the plot.

Linaweaver also later compiled an episodic guide to the show, Sliders: The Classic Episodes, which contained information only on Seasons One through Three.

Sliders has also been spun-off into a comic book series published by Acclaim Comics. This comics series had no direct input from series creators Tracy Tormé and Robert K. Weiss, but Tracy Tormé did pass along several notes detailing stories that went unproduced. Series star Jerry O'Connell also personally authored one special issue of this comic series. While advertised and solicited for advance order, the final Sliders comic, titled Get a Life, never made it to store shelves; but artist Rags Morales completed art for 14 pages of the comic before production was stopped. ^[5]

After the changes of the DC Comics event mini-series Zero Hour, the artistic design of time travel was changed and first introduced in Legion of Super-Heroes vol. 3 number 74. During the issue, Superboy comments that this new artistic design of time travel is similar to the tunnel effect on Sliders. ^[6] This new artistic design for time travel has been used by DC Comics from the 1995 debut through to its last appearance in 2005 in the Teen Titans/Legion Special.

In 1997, the Desktop Images production company released a training video on the subject of Organic Modeling and Animation hosted by David Lombardi. This how-to video gave a special behind the scenes look at the special effects process used on the Sliders season three episodes Paradise Lost and Dinoslide. ^[7]

In the comic strip FoxTrot by Bill Amend, Paige is condemned by a sort of Ghost of Christmas Past figure for watching Sliders instead of Frosty the Snowman.

Released in 1999, a Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel, The Gatekeeper Vol 3: Sons of Entropy, featured characters Angel and Oz discussing Sliders in relation to their current situation.

During the year 2000, Private Media Group produced pornography titled Sex Slider Shag-a-rama which was based on Sliders. Ironically, the special effects and production values of the pornography rivaled the work done on season four of the Sliders television series.

Marvel's Exiles features several Marvel characters who have been pulled from their own realities to fix problems in alternate ones. Series creator Judd Winick has stated that Sliders was part of the inspiration for the series. ^[8]

Starting October 15, 2002, the webcomic Real Life featured an epic interdimensional adventure based upon and referencing Sliders. ^[9]

In 2003, Vivendi Universal produced a Hulk game for XBox which featured the Sliders season one theme song produced by Mark Mothersbaugh. The Mothersbaugh theme song is featured during the level of the game titled Reckoning 2 which is one of the final levels of the game.

In Marvel Knights 4 issue 15, the Human Torch fondly remembers Sliders as the team prepares to embark on a time travel mission. ^[10]

Damien Broderick's 2005 novel Godplayers mentions Sliders on page 47. The reference is in comparison to the novel's own dimension hopping heroes.

Sliders has been the subject of several trivia questions on game shows such as Jeopardy!, The Weakest Link, Hollywood Showdown and Beat the Geeks.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Earth Prime: Sliders episode guide, scripts, interviews, screen captures, behind-the-scenes media
• Dimension of Continuity: Sliders FAQ, script outtakes, props, etc.
• Earth 62: Image-heavy episode guide, article archive, etc.
• Sliders Comics

Sliders
Characters
Quinn Mallory | Wade Welles | Rembrandt Brown | Maximillian Arturo Maggie Beckett | Colin Mallory | Diana Davis | Mallory Recurring characters of Sliders
Concepts
Earth Prime | Kromagg | Kromagg Prime
Actors
Jerry O'Connell | Sabrina Lloyd | Cleavant Derricks | John Rhys-Davies Kari Wuhrer | Charlie O'Connell | Tembi Locke | Robert Floyd List of Sliders actors
Staff
Tracy Tormé | Robert K. Weiss | David Peckinpah | Marc Scott Zicree
Episodes