"Sliders" (1995) TV series 1995-2000

Creators:

Tracy Tormé
Robert K. Weiss

Seasons:

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

Release Date:

22 March 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Adventure | Fantasy

Tagline:

Four people just found a gateway to another dimension, but they forgot one problem... how to get back!

Plot:

A boy-genius and his comrades travel to different parallel universes, trying to find their way back home.

Plot Keywords:

Portal | Parallel Worlds | Alternative Reality | Lost | Voyage Of Discovery

Awards:

Nominated for Primetime Emmy. Another 1 win & 3 nominations

Cast

Cleavant Derricks	...	Rembrandt 'Crying Man' Brown (87 episodes, 1995-2000)
Jerry O'Connell	...	Quinn Mallory (69 episodes, 1995-1999)
Kari Wuhrer	...	Capt. Maggie Beckett (49 episodes, 1997-2000)
Sabrina Lloyd	...	Wade Welles (48 episodes, 1995-1999)
John Rhys-Davies	...	Prof. Maximilian Arturo (40 episodes, 1995-1997)

Runtime:

60 min (87 episodes)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

UK:12 (Season 1 & 2) | UK:15 (Season 3) | Singapore:NC-16 (season 3) | Australia:M (some episodes) | Australia:PG | Singapore:PG (season 1) (season 2) (season 4)

Filming Locations:

Backlot, Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA

Company:

St. Clare Entertainment

Trivia:

In the final season, Cleavant Derricks' character, Rembrandt Brown, is the only remaining original cast member.

Goofs:

Continuity: In season one "The King is back" Rembrandt is on stage when the other Rembrandt joins him there, telling the audience that "our" Rembrandt is only an impersonator. Therefore Rembrandt leaves the stage and is welcomed by his friends backstage. The next shot is showing the stage from the front again and there you can still see "our" Rembrandt in the background, still on stage.

Quotes:

Rembrandt Lee "Crying Man" Brown: I didn't mind killing him. I might have a twinge of guilt about killing you, but then again, maybe not.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in "Family Guy: Road to the Multiverse (#8.1)" (2009)

Casting or Writing: Which Bombed First?

The original Sliders, featuring O'Connell, Rhys-Davies, Lloyd and Derricks, had potential: a Quantum Leap that held up better from a hard sci-fi POV.

Sure, the alternate worlds differed along only a narrow spectrum (no worlds where Aristotle's corpus was lost at sea or where the Spanish were beaten back by the Aztecs and Mayans--in short, nothing compared to Poul Anderson's Time Patrol novels), but for TV, it was forgiveable. The show could have served a real allegorical purpose, like the original Star Trek episodes, smuggling in controversy in veiled, science-fiction form under the radars of network censors.

And maybe it tried, and maybe it would have tried harder, but either the writing so petered out that the original stars split or the stars bolted and the writers scrambled to patch together the vehicle that had been abandoned. Down goes Sabrina Lloyd, then John Rhys-Davies, then the star, Jerry O'Connell. By the time Cleavant Derricks' seniority finally grants him the dubious honor of doing the opening voiceover narration, the show's been utterly gutted.

Maybe there's something philosophical in the program's blandness: an episode on a world without aluminum doesn't use that lack for anything more than a plot complication amid a standard good-guys vs. bad-guys story. Maybe the message in these all-too-similar worlds is that no matter how wacky the axiomatic differences among quantum realities, it's all same-old, same-old.

Network TV should be relieved at that news.