Sliders

From BluWiki

Sliders is a science fiction television show about four people who have the ability to travel (or "slide", as they put it) to alternate universes. However, the problem is that they cannot find their way home.

Spoiler warning: plot or ending details follow

Sliders was a show that dared to ask, "what if" (at least in the first two seasons). What if the Soviet Union had conquered the United States? What if intellectuals were given comparable social status as athletes and movie stars? Unfortunately, by the third season Sliders had been reduced to cheap copies of popular movies.

Evolution of the show

The show changed dramatically over the years. The view that the first two seasons of the show where the best, and that the third season was mostly bad copies of trendy movies is the view held by the far majority of the fans.

Season 1

The first season was the best season of the show. In this season, the sliders would usually land on alternate universes that are similar to our universe except one aspect of the sciology or history of that earth is a little bit different, and this small difference causes the alternate earth to diverge completely from our earth. In the episode "Summer of Love", the outcome of the war with Korea was different, which changed the sequence of policial conflict afterwards. The episode, "Prince of Wails" had a world where the United States lost the Revolutionary War and the land that is called the United States on our earth is called "The British States of America" on this alternate earth. In the episode "The Weaker Sex", the sliders landed on an alternate earth where the social roles of men and women were reversed, and women had positions of authority in politics, business, and military, and men primarly worked in nurseries, low paying jobs, or stayed at home, and men were portrayed as sex objects. Some episodes examined how our earth might be different if faced with a seriousa disaster. The episode "Fever" depicted an earth where there was an epidemic of a deadly plague. On this earth, sanitation related goods and services were constantly advertized on the market, and businesses like restaurants and hotels included claims of sanitaion in their slogans. The episode "Last Days" examined how an earth like ours might respond to an asteroid that was going to hit the earth and end all life.

The first season was intellectually oriented and was designed to make the viewers think about the world we live in and to make us see our earth with new eyes.

Season 2

Though season 2 was like season 1, and focused on "what if?" type episodes, season 2 did become a bit more action oriented, with an episode involving gunfighters ("The Good, the Bad, and the Wealthy"), an episode where someone from a violence oriented world follows the sliders to a world where San Francisco is a maximum security prison ("El Sid"), an episode with dinosaurs ("In Dino Vertias"), and a world dominated by gangsters ("Greatfellas"). Alternate history/sociology oriented episodes include: "Into the Mystic", where the general population has strong beliefs in the mystic and where something like putting Ouji boards in classrooms can be perceived as violating separation of church and state policies (or, separation of coven and state). The episode "Gillian of the Spirits" showed a world where fear of technology has caused technology to be outlawed. The episode predicted some social reactions to banning technology, such as a black market of technology and underground groups that attempts to research more advanced technology illegally and also lobbies to make technology legal, so that when technology is in fact legalized, those who have illegally researched technology will have a strong advantage in the market. The episode "Time Again and World" examined an earth where fear that individual liberty has led America onto a path towards anarchy and moral decay, the United States constitution has been outlawed and there are no civil rights. The world has a "war against the person" which might be a phrase meant to model "the war on drugs".

Season 3

The third season of Sliders pretty much sucked. Episodes were basically rip-offs of popular movies and were action oriented, in contrast to the intellectually oriented first two seasons. "Dragonslide" was a rip-off of Dragonheart. "Electric Twister Acid Test" was a rip-off of Twister. "This Slide of Paradise" was a rip-off of The Island of Dr. Moreau. "Paradise Lost" was a rip-off of Tremors. In addition, the personalities of the characters changed. Quinn started out as a wide-eyed eccentric scientist and a social misfit. In the third season, he became more of an action hero, the exact opposite of a social misfit, and had lost intelligence. Rembrandt's personality also changed. Originally, he was meant to be sort of clueless but also turned into an action hero like Quinn. The beloved Maximillian Arturo was written out of the show and was replaced by Maggie Beckett. The Maggie Beckett character had a very bad attitude and was unpleasant to have on the show. Maggie often did not wear a lot of clothing. Quinn was frequently shirtless in season 3 as well. The eight episodes that aired after the death of Maximillian Arturo were extremely bad episodes.

Season 4

The fourth season of Sliders primarily focused on adventures involving the Kromaggs. Another common theme was episodes with technophobic worlds. The fourth season was the first season to be aired on the Sci Fi channel. The first three seasons were aired on the Fox Network.

In the season premiere, the show had to clean up after Fox's mess: the previous season finale ended in a cliffhanger which left Rembrandt and Wade on earth prime, and Quinn Maggie on a random alternate earth with a timer with a broken tracking device and no way to go to earth prime. They ended up resolving the cliffhanger by having Quinn and Maggie find earth prime three months later, but the Kromaggs had already taken over the earth. This is how the Kromagg-themed season began.

Some episodes returned to "what if" oriented episodes. The episode Just Say Yes depicted a world where the perception of drug users and non-drug users was reversed. Here, drug use is manditory and non-users are associated with hippies. Non-users are described as "getting low", analogous to the saying "getting high" on our earth to desribe drug users.

The Kromaggs in the fourth season had a World War II style theme to them, which was very different from the Planet of the Apes theme in the episode Invasion. Kromagg episodes in season 4 where thus very action oriented, such as The Dying Fields where the sliders are part of a deadly game where Kromaggs hunt humans. There were still some idea oriented Kromagg episodes. Revelations featured an episode on Kromagg double prime where Quinn and Colin thought they were home but it turned out that they were on a world that looked similar until they discovered a big difference. This was a theme similar to the season 2 episode Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome.

Season 5

Season 5 wasn't that different from season 4, except there were not nearly as many Kromagg themed episodes. The episode Requiem was quite possibly the best episode of both the fourth and fifth seasons. Action oriented episodes of season 5 include Strangers and Comrades and Heavy Metal.

Season 4 and 5 attempts at season 1 and 2 style episodes

A few episodes of the fourth and fifth seasons were attempts at the quality of seasons 1 and 2, but they were still not done quite right. Some episodes did a better job than others. The episode Just Say Yes is probably as good as a season 2 episode. That episode had a theme of "role reversal" common to seasons 1 and 2 -- Just Say Yes reversed the perception of drug users and non-users, and the season 1 and 2 episodes, The Weaker Sex reversed the perception of men and women, and The Young and the Relentless reversed the perception of the young and the old. The episode Please Press One from season 5 was an attempt at season 1 quality, accoriding to one of the show's producers, but this attempt failed miserably. Season 1 quality episodes had themes that involved social role reversals, or worlds where some aspect of history or sociology of the world is slightly different, and results in world that is completely different. Please Press One was nothing like that; that episode asked "What if a weird corporation that had a monopoly on the entire market was obnoxiously difficult to get service from?" which is nothing like "What if the United States had lost the Cold War?" or "What if intellectuals were more popular than athletes?" In addition, season 4 and 5 episodes that were failed attempts and season 1 and 2 quality tended to focus on the sliders' adventures on alternate worlds, and lacked the focus on the worlds themselves that season 1 and 2 episodes did.