Sliders

Sliders

In my early years, my mother would try and get me into things. "Your show is on" is what she would presumably say whenever she caught me liking a certain episode - shows like The Pretender or Star Trek: Voyager. Another one of those shows that aired in 1995 was a little program called Sliders. Now I don't know much about what was happening, but I did like the concept. Four average people - a singer, professor, college scientist, and a woman - travel across parallel worlds. You would think there would be infinite possibilities to where they would end up.

As one person put it: It's a slow, but steady and absolute, downward slope in quality. The show would go through several transitions and cruelly stop being what the original synopsis was all about. We would change several cast members, change locations, change companies, and slowly churn out continuity within the seasons. Even The Onion mocked its infamous cliffhanger at the end of Season 5. Which is why I found it interesting when I stumbled across the news of a possible reboot last year. I only remember maybe 5 episodes from my past and figured now was a good time to try my hand at a re-watch. Boy, I did not realize what I was getting into the time. Maybe I should break them down by season or concept.

Season 1: No one paid attention to the technobabble (tvtrope link, enter at your own risk). They were stuck in Los Angeles. The remote control to the portal looked like a literal remote control that ticked down the amount of time that was coincidentally the amount of time they needed for the plot. Each world had subtle differences that made specific catastrophes possible. Some of these were political: Episode 5 "Prince of Wails" Great Britain ruled America or Episode 8 "Weaker Sex" Females lead the world when Males stayed at home. Some were informative: Episode 3 "Fever" Penicillin never discovered or Episode 4 "Last Days" Atomic Bomb never created. Some were fun: Episode 7 "Eggheads" Intellect is prized over athleticism or Episode 9 "King is Back" where one of our sliders is favored as much as Elvis. Sure, Fox aired the episodes out of order. One of the many corporate decisions at the time. But I guess that was fine. The crew would constantly bicker whether they were "just tourists" and "don't involve themselves with the locals" but they would always seem to find a way to get involved with the world every episode.

Season 2: Wasn't there a dog and a man that went through the portal in the previous season finale? I guess that ended up being a footnote in the season premiere. Is it strange that they are always running into the portal and no one even dares follow after them (unless it is convenient for the plot)? And what about how they always end up being famous in almost every slide? I always found it rather cruel how they always added some sort of surprise twist in the world they left behind in the last minute of the episode. Honestly, I don't even remember the girl. Perhaps it is because of that tomboy haircut of hers. Season 2 continues the saga with interesting episodes like Episode 12 "Love Gods" where a biological weapon kills off most of the males on earth or Episode 14 "The Good, The Bad, and The Wealthy" where California is still owned by Texas and still follow the Old Wild West rules. Sadly the season starts to deteriorate half-way through. Episode 19 "Obsession" introduce the surrealism of psychics and Episode 22 "Invasion" begins the long history of the Kromaggs. Episode 18 "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome" is perhaps the last fairly decent episode where they entered a world that was "close enough" to the world they knew. I would have also accepted the very first episode of the second season to be the finale where they enter their own world but leave after a few seconds when realizing the fence didn't squeak (even though it was really just fixed in that very same episode).

Season 3: Alright. 25 Episodes. It has to be good! But it isn't. They double-downed on the weird factor. The episodes started to get surreal with fantasy in Episode 5 "The Dream Masters" people can invade people's dreams, Episode 7 "Dragonslide" wizards and dragons, Episode 9 "The Prince of Slides" men can become pregnant, and Episode 24 "Stoker" vampires. Let's not forget that this is when we lose The Professor after sneaking in his mysterious illness at the beginning of the season and making him sacrifice himself in Episode 17 "The Exodus: Part 2" (which he chose how to go out personally). The show switched the portal generator in Episode 14 "Slide Like an Egyptian" and made a note in Episode 2 "Double Cross" that the wormhole can now drag them to any vast number of locations. On a sad note, Episode 6 "Desert Storm" was dedicated to Ken Steadman, the stuntman that died in the "Mad Max" chase sequence.

I would have been more forgiving to the copy-cat stories but when you get Species in Episode 19 "The Breeder" and Snakes on a Plane in Episode 22 "Slither", you sort of have to shake your head in dismay. You can tell how Hollywood sort of jumped in and started to spice things up with fan service, high-time action, and drama. Adding a hot strong chick with cleavage chasing after a villain that needs people's "essence" and changes into their appearance didn't help the situation. Did I mention that her world blows up, stranding her without a real home? Then there was the whole "alternate Quinn giving the villains access to cross dimensions to rule the universes" story in Episode 21 "The Other Side of Darkness" that threw me into a loop. Unfortunately about half of the worst 25 episodes of the show come from Season 3.

Season 4: So Fox canceled the show and SyFy picked it up. You can see their grubby little handprints all over the story. I don't even know where to begin explaining it. They return to original Earth, but it is being conquered by the Kromaggs, and Quinn finds out that he isn't from that Earth... and he has a brother. So now every episode revolves around them trying to visit their original Earth source while facing moral dilemmas with the Kromaggs. We lose Wade, and Rembrandt goes hardcore while being tortured inside the prison camp. You got Episode 3 "Common Ground" with Maggie dating Kromagg, Episode 6 "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" where Quinn finds his brother, and about 10 other episodes dealing with Kromaggs. Surprisingly, there are some decent episodes in this season. The problem is that not one of them stands out to me. The virtual reality episodes didn't do much for me - Episode 4 "Virtual Slide," Episode 17 "Data World," and Episode 21 "Roads Taken."

It is interesting to note how much they really changed their approach to sliding. They try to plan ahead with getting certain equipment, money, water, supplies before heading to the next world. They joke around about how they withdraw money from their doubles in the various universes. They tell people that "they are from Canada" in order to shut them up. The Chandler Hotel appears in almost every episode. It is a running joke where they constantly meet up with each other at this specific location. Running into their doubles also becomes a reoccurring theme. I think somewhere around Episode 20 "The Chasm" is about the time I started to procrastinate finishing this project. I got to the point where I was only able to endure watching one episode a day at this point.

Season 5: Did we lose all the cast members now? Well, there is still Rembrandt. What crazy story did they come up this time? A villain merges Quinn's "essence" into Mallory and... I never did figure out what happened to Quinn's brother. Our new actor doesn't exactly become Quinn in a new body. That would have been too simple and interesting. No, he just sort of disappears and we now have this new person who has no personality whatsoever. Oh, and we get his scientist nurse? I really, really miss Quinn during this season. And no it isn't because he ended up marrying Mystique from Xmen. I'm sorry, but I can't think of one good episode in this entire season. Well, Episode 6 "Please Press one" was at least intuitive. The budget tanks as the sets slowly degrade into cheap old tech shows. Episode 12 "Map of the Mind" creates psychics of all things. The last episode ends at a brutal cliffhanger that never really explains anything. Sometimes I wish I ended watching the show way back when.

Review

Sliders was a show that had great potential. I would certainly recommend people watching the first season and maybe the second for some interesting stories regarding changes in the past. Around season 3, the writers were shooting off whatever they could think off. The shotgun of ideas were killing the show, and losing each of the cast members over the last few seasons didn't help their cause. Adding confusing plot devices, creating unnecessary villains to fight, dragging the story through the mud of Hollywood fan service, and clear indicators of a lack of budget all brought Sliders down to its knees by the end. No way would I recommend anything from Seasons 3, 4, or 5.

 

10-9-2020