Brikar

I dunno if anyone remembers this FOX sci-fi show about four people traveling to alternate universes, trying to get home. It was pretty fun the first two seasons, and then a lot of in-fighting between the cast and producers dragged it downhill - first getting it dumped by FOX and then Sci-Fi Channel running it squarely into the ground.

But anyways, the first two seasons (which were pretty good) are coming out on DVD on August 3, according to dvdanswers.com . I'm pretty excited. There's two seasons in one set, since the first season had only 10 episodes and the second had 13.

Anyone else excited? Or at least wanting to give the show a chance?

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Bean

I didn't like the show for the first 2 seasons. It was a good premise, but lacked any real kind of overall storyline. It started getting interesting in the third season. So yeah, I'm excited about the dvds too.

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Stag

Yeah I liked the show. Didn't the story line change somewhere around the second season with some sort of war going on between the realities, or something like that?

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Arik

Well, kinda. Here's what happened, on screen and off.

Sometime around the third season, the creators, Tracy Torme (yeah, I misspelled his name) and Robert Wise were removed from the show in favor of a man named David Peckinpah. Peckinpah's first season in charge resulted in a number of copies of 'big screen' movies in the Sliders format, only changed slightly to make them sound sci-fi (I think there was an episode about upside-down tornadoes). This pissed off most of the actors, but especially John Rhys-Davis, who demanded that they either change, or get rid of him.

This forced the staff to kill off the Professor character. In the same two-parter, they brought in Maggie Beckett (played by the lovely, but annoying Kari Wuhrer). They also introduced a new threat for the sliders, Coloneal Rickman, who was running around parallel worlds stealing DNA from unsuspecting victims so he could live longer (if that sounds in any way stupid, it's because it is). Rickman lasted the rest of season three, when FOX closed up the Sliders shop.

Sci-Fi then picked the show up almost a year later. They brought back an old threat, the Kromaggs, who were apparently a different chain in the evolutionary ladder (kill me, I mixed a metaphore). They got most of the original cast back, except for Sabrina Lloyd (Wade Wells). Sabrina had gotten a different job, on 'Sports Night', and didn't want to leave it to come back (despite the fact that she would shortly be forced to leave 'Sports Night' when the show was canned). Privately, she didn't want to go back because Kari Wuhrer made her life a living hell on the show.

The fourth season started with Quinn (Jerry O'Connell) and Maggie getting back to their Quinn's earth, only to discover that the Kromaggs had conqurored it. Rembrandt Brown (Cleavant Derricks) and Wade had slid back to their home earth just before it was conqurored, and so were captured. Wade had been sent off to a breeding facility. Quinn and Maggie rescued Rembrandt, and Quinn discovered that he's actually from another earth, one that fought a war with the Kromaggs and won. He also discovered that he has a brother out there, somewhere. So, the three of them spent part of the fourth season looking for Quinn's brother, played by his real life brother (Charlie O'Connell), and also looking for his home-world.

Jerry also played producer through the fourth season, which had a detrimental affect on his acting. His brother would have made a porn star look like an Oscar-worthy actor. Kari Wuhrer was always just bad and, after the alterations to the Kromaggs, the fourth season was just bad.

The fifth season came and Sci-Fi decided to cut the budget. Peckinpah was reduced to 'Executive Consultant' which opened the door for an Executive Producer. Jerry O'Connell wanted it, but Sci-Fi didn't want to give it to him. His power-plays ended up getting both him and his brother fired, so very early in the first episode, he was merged with his double from a different world, a double that looked nothing like him. Charlie became 'unstuck' in the wormhole, unable to reconstitute himself in any one dimension. So, they team up with 'Mallory', who also has Quinn inside him, and a researcher named Diana (Davis?) who was working with a mad scientist (Peter Jurasik, Londo from Babylon 5). The show actually got better in the fifth season, as they returned to telling some sci-fi stories, and the ratings began to improve. It was beginning to look like Sci-Fi was going to renew for a sixth season...

I'm going to take you back to the Sci-Fi channel in Slilder's fifth and final season. It was showing on Friday nights, along with some new shows that Sci-Fi hoped would secure a good showing. First there was this brand new show called Farscape. Then came Sliders, and another new show, First Wave. Farscape was easily the highest rated show on Sci-Fi's lineup, followed slightly by Sliders. First Wave, a Francis Ford Coppola show was pulling in some garbage numbers. However, based on the strength of Coppola's name, Sci-Fi had signed it to a three year contract. And it was not a cheap show. So, Sci-Fi was forced to thin out its original programming, and oficially canned Sliders. First Wave was moved to Sunday afternoon, where it died a slow and painful death.

Sliders, after the potential for a sixth season was squashed, ended with a cliff-hanger and, despite rumors of a revival several years back, nothing has ever happened.

Sci-Fi is running Sliders daily at 9 AM central, FWIW.

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Cymro

Yeah, I used to like Sliders, (I'm sure it's still in re-runs on our sci-fi channel).

The show had a really good premise, but it seemed that once they hit the third season, while the story arc was interesting, it just got too messed up, and then they replaced Quinn with another Quinn (who I think was the original actor's brother) from a different reality by which time the show had completely lost the plot and changed direction more often than "Andromeda".

Shows like Sliders and Andromeda are the ones that beg for someone to do a "re-make" because they have so much potential but weren't executed properly the first time around.

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"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Brikar

I would love a "Sliders" remake that would take the full potential of the series. It was once Peckinpah started doing silly things like upside down tornados and SENTIENT FIRE that I really lost interest in the show. Before that, they had done interesting things like a world where Communism ruled, or where the hippie movement was still alive and well. Those were the series best episodes.

So I'll likely get the first three seasons on DVD and leave it at that.

__________________
"A million monkeys typing until the end of time will produce the complete works of William Shakespeare. Ten thousand monkeys typing for ten thousand years will write a Hemingway. Ten monkeys typing over Columbus Day weekend will give you a Dan Brown."

http://olympusmans.blogspot.com
http://benforrealz.blogspot.com

Bean

I agree that the plot got way to convoluted after a while, but it was fun followoing the various arcs. My favourite would undoubtedly be the
Cro-Mags (sp?).

__________________
"I haven't faced death. I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

--James T. Kirk

Stag

HOLY CRAP, Arik!!!

Thanks for putting that together, now I don't need the DVDs. :lol:

__________________
"I want to do a motorboat on Shatner's manboobs" - Sam Cogley

Cymro

The Cromags was a good storyline, the problem was that they only touched it slightly afterwards, so you were left with a "What the hell's going on exactly" feeling, and half the original cast went missing.

The first two seasons were good TV, and the Cromags storyline could have been spectacular, but it wasn't. The show had a premise that hadn't been done on that scale before, and it had lots of original ideas, but sadly it all went to hell.

Hey Brikar, maybe if you make it big as a screen writer you can pitch a re-make to the sci-fi channel :P

__________________
"Let me tell you something about humans, nephew: They're a wonderful, friendly people - as long as their bellies are full and their holosuites are working.

"But take away their creature comforts, deprive them of food, sleep, sonic showers, put their lives in jeopardy over an extended period of time and those friendly, intelligent, wonderful people...will become as nasty and as violent as the most blood-thirsty klingon."

Arik

Hey, I never said anything about seasons one and two.

Seasons one, two and five are really the only ones worth getting. And five is iffy because of the finale.

The 'mags from earlier in the show were interesting. They looked and acted like monsters. The 'mags from seasons 4 and 5 looked and acted like Nazi rejects.

What was worse? The sentient fire, or the fact that they managed to teach it to communicate (and set up a computer program to translate from fire to english and back) in a few hours?

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