Information AboutSliders |
''Sliders'' is an American Science Fiction Television Series that ran for five seasons from 1995 to 2000 . 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 22 , 1995 to May 17 , 1995 , but was brought back for a second season after much fan protest, from March 1 , 1996 to July 12 , 1996 . A third season was broadcast from September 20 , 1996 to May 16 , 1997 . The Sci Fi Channel produced the fourth season ( June 8 , 1998 — April 23 , 1999 ) and fifth season (from June 11 , 1998 — February 4 , 2000 ), but announced in July 1999 that ''Sliders'' had been cancelled, and that there would not be a sixth season. The last new episode first aired on December 29 , 1999 in the United Kingdom and finally aired on the Sci-Fi Channel on February 4 , 2000 . 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. CHANGING THEMES The nature of the show changed throughout the seasons. The first two seasons focused on , or if Britain had won the American War Of Independence , or if penicillin had not been invented, or if Men Were Subservient To Women . 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, even going so far as to devolve into riffs on major genre feature-films (including '' Species '', '' Twister '', and '' Anaconda ''). To the series' creators, this was the beginning of a downward creative trend, culminating 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.Finch, A.: "The Universe Interview: Tracy Tormé," ''Sci-Fi Universe'', 35(78):24 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 de-emphasized during Season Three) involved the growing war against the Kromaggs . PLOT See Also: List of Sliders episodes 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 universe, 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, to return them to their point of origin. He uses himself as his first living "guinea pig." His best friend Wade Welles and his professor/mentor Maximillian Arturo join him on his second test. However, the wormhole grows unstable and spirals out of control. Singer Rembrandt "Cryin' Man" Brown, driving 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 universe they lead to. The Sliders continue moving from universe to universe, 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 in various realities. Season two ''Episodes 11 – 23'' The team actually gets home at the end of the second-season premiere episode " Into The Mystic ," but only has seconds to decide whether or not to stay. Quinn's gate that had always squeaked does not squeak, so they leave, not knowing that the gardener had recently oiled it. Other than this two-minute visit to their original world Earth Prime , the Sliders are still no closer to returning home. The Sliders encounter the Kromagg s 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 in later seasons. 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 to Los Angeles, California (due to an increased desire for oversight by FOX Network executives), necessitating a creative adjustment in the climatology 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 herself, and decides to help her. It is later discovered that she is not only a female double of Quinn himself, but also one with nefarious purposes. As a result of their interaction, a key part of the timer, which normally ensures that characters slide within a two-mile radius, has been replaced with a version that causes them to slide anywhere within 400 miles. Before this, their slides took them to alternate versions of San Francisco . Afterwards, they could arrive in many varied locations, but most episodes take place in alternate versions of Los Angeles. In the middle of the season, the Sliders do not slide when their timer reaches zero, which means the timer cannot open a vortex for another 29 years. However, they later find a replacement timer, and are able to continue slidingEpisode: "Slide Like an Egyptian". A little bit later in the season, Quinn mentions that his timer has a 500-mile radius, which presumably could be the radius of the new timerEpisode: The Exodus, Part 1 . However, later in Season Four, Maggie says that the timer has a 400-mile radiusEpisode: "World Killer". 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 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 Rickman's timer, which holds 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 their timer, which has been tracking Rickman's slides. 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. Season four ''Episodes 49 – 70'' After three months and ten worlds, Quinn and Maggie finally arrive on (the 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, which was no longer safe. Colin becomes the sixth Slider, and they try to track down their birth-parents, hoping they have the answers they seek, and the means to defeat the Kromaggs. This war with the Kromaggs is the primary theme throughout the season. 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 fuse 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; the dual-identity crisis was 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 with 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 succeeds is never revealed. CAST See Also: List of Sliders actors Main cast
Supporting cast
Recurring guest stars See Also: Recurring characters of Sliders
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. Many rumors persist on fan web pages about why some of these casting changes occurred. Changing staff The series co-creator, 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 ." http://www.jumptheshark.com/topic/sliders-general-comments/1808 Seasons four and five have their fanbases; some even said season four improved on three (largely due to new executive producer Marc Scott Zicree 's decision to restore Tracy Tormé's original "alternate history" premise for the series). Episodes aired out-of-order The original filmed order for Season 1 episodes is as follows: # "Sliders" (two-hour pilot episode) # "Summer of Love" # "Prince of Wails" # "Fever" # "Last Days" # "The Weaker Sex" # "Eggheads" # "The King is Back" # "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 actually aired a week earlier. "", Brad Linaweaver (1999) For Season Two, FOX did not want to resolve the cliffhanger at the end of "Luck of the Draw," preferring to focus instead on brand-new storylines. Thus, in "Time Again and World" (the first episode filmed for Season Two), 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 episode filmed, but the first to air that season). "Time Again and World" ended up airing sixth in the rotation. "", Brad Linaweaver (1999) "Double Cross" was filmed as the premiere for Season Three. 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. "", Brad Linaweaver (1999) "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. "", Brad Linaweaver (1999) When the show began airing in reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel , Sci-Fi restored the original filmed order for Season One. However, when the DVDs were released, Universal used the aired order for Season One and the subsequent seasons. SHOW CONCEPTS 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. 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 Oliver North was President in Summer Of Love ; Hillary Clinton was president in The Weaker Sex ; Jocelyn Elders was president in " Luck Of The Draw "; Ed Wood was president in " Into The Mystic ". 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. 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 bluish 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. 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 Seasons Four and Five, they stayed at the Chandler Hotel, in Los Angeles. INTRO The beginning credits started by watching a spiral of earths and a monologue describing the premise of the show:
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. CONNECTION TO OTHER WORKS Some people believe the series may have been inspired by the book ' 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. DVD RELEASES On August 23, 2007, Netflix Instant View provided official releases of Season Four and Five available for computer download. Netflix is also allowing customers to reserve copies of a DVD release for these seasons, but the DVD release date is listed as unknown. ''SLIDERS'' IN OTHER MEDIA
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