Musings about Sliders

[Joelist]

Over the past week and a half I watched the whole series Sliders off of Netflix.

Overall, not bad. Not really a heavy science fiction show but when it was good it was a nice, somewhat light toned entertaining adventure with an appealing "scooby gang" cast. Quinn Mallory was the "adventure hero", Arturo the "professor", Wade the heart and Rembrandt the solid, quiet backbone of the group. And the formula worked very well for over two seasons - then the networks stepped in and started messing the show up.

First, they wanted to make it more an action show. This got John Rhys Davies (excellent actor) upset and he left so they killed off Arturo. Interestingly, the show actually recovered from this decision as they "smartened" Rembrandt and had Quinn display braininess in more areas than theoretical physics. They also added Kari Wuhrer (basically known for porn up to this point) and after a rough start the character started to properly meld into the group.

Then came the move to SyFy and the decision that (to me) irreparably harmed the show - writing out Wade (Sabrina Lloyd). The show needed Wade as she was the proverbial "heart" and "conscience" of the group. Removing her and providing no one to fill that function pretty much wrecked the whole chemistry of the cast. We got treated to nonsense like Quinn and Maggie (Kari Wuhrer) being teased as a couple by the producers and Rembrandt's role got trimmed back too. Then after a season of this Quinn left and the last season was dreck.

So, Sliders was fun. Just stop watching after Season three. .....

 

[Bluce Ree]

I loved Sliders until they started killing it mid-way through season 3.

Tracey Torme wanted a more serial show, which it was in the first two seasons. The suits wanted something they can more easily syndicate and play out of order and in came season 3, at which point Torme all but resigned from running the show. I think he kept the title of executive producer in name only at this point.

Interestingly, JRD wrote his own exit episode and even that ended up having the show runners' finger prints all over it.

In season 3 we saw Quinn's old Motorola flip-phone timer device become useless and replaced it with a big-ass TV remote in Egypt world. I never understood the inconsistency of their own science behind it. If they miss the window, the timer becomes useless for 25 years. If they jump too soon, they become lost and their jumps become totally random, which is what the entire show as about anyway and what they ended up doing with the big TV remote timer device. So, what was the point? I suppose to get rid of that giant phone.

They also changed the wormhole effect in season 3, making it look more fake with that cheap CGI.

 

[shavedape]

The show was just sad by the time they cast this clown in it:

Now I'm not trying to be mean or snarky when I say this but I've always thought that Charlie O'Connell was developmentally disabled. Seriously. The dude is a walking door knob.

 

[Bluce Ree]

The show was just sad by the time they cast this clown in it:

Now I'm not trying to be mean or snarky when I say this but I've always thought that Charlie O'Connell was developmentally disabled. Seriously. The dude is a walking door knob.

His acting was always referred to as wooden in the series.

 

[shavedape]

His acting was always referred to as wooden in the series.

I just couldn't watch the show at that point. Did you make it to the end?

 

[Bluce Ree]

I just couldn't watch the show at that point. Did you make it to the end?

Yeah, kind of like I'm watching Walking Dead. There were rumors of Jerry O'Connell's return after his exit so I hung on for a while, hoping they'd make the entire thing after mid-season 3 a big Dallas-like dream.

I think at some point I had started writing a fanfic on that subject. That they, the original characters, were still on Earth 113 following their first Kromagg encounter and were all hooked up to a simulation in deep sleep with the goal of finding the coordinates to their Earth Prime.

 

[Joelist]

To be honest I didn't care by the point they inflicted Charlie O'Connell on us (that was SyFy who did that by the way). By that point they had wrecked the chemistry of the cast with removing Wade and the constant Quinn-Maggie relationship hints. It was yet another bad SyFy decision - they dropped Sabrina Lloyd from the cast for really nebulous reasons.

 

[Atlantis]

First two seasons were great but then I saw episodes where the professor was killed off and that's what started downfall and they way they killed him off. I didn't like it at all. It was cheaply done. Then the whole kromags thing came. I hope they do a better job in the revival if there is such. I am going to stop watching after season 4 if the main characters are not appearing on the show,

 

[Joelist]

Seasons 1 and 2 are excellent. Season 3 is decent as they do recover from writing out John Rhys Davies somewhat by in effect assigning his traits to others in the group. But after Season 3 when the show went to SyFy they wrote out Wade which wrecked the chemistry of the group - Wade was the heart and conscience of the group like Rembrandt was the backbone and without her the dynamics of the group fell apart.