In cooler, intellectual retrospect, I have to note that there is a lot of speculation on the internet about how various elements of this show came undone, a lot of them pointing to behind-the-scenes politics where personnel placed priorities on their own concerns instead of what might be best for the show and its characters. But it seems to me that even when they wanted to do what was right for the show and its characters, they often failed to figure out what that would be. And as story editor and finale writer Keith Damron points out in his Year Five blog, even the ideas he had that were absolutely correct had to be approved and agreed upon by those higher up the production ladder, and many of the best ones were overridden.
The Grand Finale That Almost Was...Perhaps then, we should start out by looking at the finale that Damron had at first wanted and planned to write, and assess which parts of it were even worth pursuing. Even then, Damron's blog doesn't tell us much more than which arcs he wanted to tackle. First off, resolving the issue of Kromaggs on the world from "Genesis" is the number one thing this finale should have been about. Approved. Doing it with Dr. Oberon Geiger's patented recombinant science sounds hokey without knowing more details, but I'd be willing to see where this goes as it may have potential to be very interesting. Including a role for Peter Jurasik was probably very doable, although not absolutely necessary. Saving up some extra budget for making all this spectacular? Great! Approved.The idea of re-splitting Quinn is only going to be rubbing salt in a wound unless Jerry O'Connell is contracted to appear. Apparently, at no time did the contract happen, so the re-split idea should not be entertained at this time either. It's too bad it had been set up as a goal for these four regulars at the start of the season, and it's hard to see why else Diana and Mallory joined the team, other than temporarily escaping Geiger's lab. Seeing Linda Henning's character of Quinn's mother to a good place is a noble goal. Approved. Seeing a good end for Colin's character is also noble, if you can still figure out how to pull off a satisfying version without him actually appearing. Don't count on Charlie's participation if you can't get his brother Jerry. Really, off screen mention could be used to put any character into a good place without necessarily getting the actor to come back and appear, but they've now added extra complications in Quinn's case, because he is supposedly inside Robert Floyd's character somewhere. How can Quinn possibly come back out without the viewer seeing it as it happens to Floyd? Use extreme caution before building anything that hinges on re-hiring an actor from the show's past. Strange too it is that Damron posted his better ideas on his blog entry for "Dust", which would have appeared on the internet two weeks before "The Seer" aired and thus helped to both raise fans' expectations and set them up beautifully for a grand disappointment. At any rate, all the above is at least attempting something this show has always struggled with, namely resolution. And that struggle to write proper resolution has been problematic within stand-alone episodes as well as longer arcs on "Sliders". There is probably some nobility in some of the crew believing that there was hope to continue making Sliders for a sixth season, or for some other form like a TV movie or mini-series, or even a feature film. I don't want to ever declare that that was or should be a vain hope. I will maintain that I think a resurgence would have been best achieved by providing as much resolution as possible on every arc they had control of at this point, and TRUSTING that should more "Sliders" happen in a sixth season or whatever, finding new motivation would be fairly easy. Really, if all obvious arcs were wrapped up, we'd have our old Quinn (whether played by O'Connell or Floyd) back in his own lab, now wondering how to improve on his invention so that he could go where he wanted in the multi-verse whenever he wanted, and all that's left is to add that simple ingredient that drives good sci-fi everywhere: the urge to explore the unknown. Instead, Damron says Bill Dial told him to go for a cliffhanger. Noble perhaps, but not smart.
Then Came "The Seer"....Now back to the episode that we did get, where things quickly start to fall down. What sense did it make for Dr. Geiger to have some little disc to give Diana to kickstart any of this fake returning home stuff? His story and the one in "The Seer" are completely unrelated, and the disc becomes a very hollow way to create audience anticipation for where the series is going. Turn it instead into a repository for some of his recombinant science to use against the Kromaggs, and maybe you'd have something worthwhile.The dialogue for the regulars in the opening hook just doesn't make sense anyway. Really, they possessed the ability to return "home" to the Kromagg occupation the whole time between the season four opener "Genesis" and the events of "To Catch A Slider", but they didn't use it because they wanted to be sure to bring back something to help rid that world of Kromaggs. So now that they have restored their ability to find home, why do they suddenly want to go there empty-handed? Additionally, why do they assume that they won't ever slide again afterwards, whether they're able to defeat the Kromaggs and stay on that world or not? It's more like the characters somehow know that their show has been cancelled, and that this is the last episode. At least we get some decent returning faces in this one amongst the guest cast. Roy Dotrice does good work with his character of "The Seer", but for my money I think it might have been more profound had the character's real name been Archibald Chandler again, founder of our heroes' favourite hotel, and a more benign and pleasant double of his character from "Data World" in season four. That might also add some credence as to why he locked onto these people, if they were constantly staying in various versions of his hotel. Jennifer Hetrick had also previously appeared in season one's "Last Days", and now has an even more central role in this story which she plays well. It is nice to see her in the show again. Most prominent of all is actress Linda Henning, who gets to play the same character she started out as in the pilot. Or is it the same character? The Sliders are once more a little too complacent in not wondering if they're encountering doubles of people they think they know. Personally I think it is really far-fetched to believe that the exact version of her that we would want to see has managed to end up on this world, and Damron never really honours the fact that much of what the Seer and his movement know about the Sliders could have come from or been commented on by Henning's character. Though I take issue with the content of her earliest scenes, it IS nice to have her in the episode and get good reason to believe that whoever it was we saw in "Genesis" is now in a better place. Henning gives another fabulous performance as always. On the surface it seems like it would be interesting to get Quinn's Mom's response to Mallory, but what comes out here in the early scenes just drives more of a wedge between Robert Floyd's new character and the audience's acceptance of him, and gets us all to pine for Jerry O'Connell some more. This is not wise. Plus, it's now compounded with another dose of all the adoption crap from "Genesis", which I'm still not sure I'll buy unless this is a double of Quinn's original mom. Bugger. Mallory later flips poles on whether old Quinn still has any resonance here, and he ends up in a much better and more acceptable place, but it doesn't quite lift the show out of the depressing take we have on Quinn earlier, and simply bringing the subject up yet again is a bad idea. I think I can definitely say now that making a goal out of the idea of re-splitting Quinn at the beginning of the season, without a Jerry O'Connell contract in hand, was a bad idea.... And before we all get too amazed at the accuracy of the Seer's visions, ah.... let's have another look at "Requiem". The Wade we meet in that story was left alive at the end, yet the Seer now says that she died. What the hell? That comment goes directly against what Damron said he thought he achieved in the episode back in his blog. He must really have been asleep at the switch here. If you are going to change something, why make it worse and depressing? Too much failure is piling up in this episode already without adding that totally unnecessary comment.
Post Reality Stunt SyndromeBut let's focus more squarely on the main premise here. Surprise, surprise, Damron's found yet one more way to abandon reality for something virtual. Organ fanfare please.... And now for something completely different. It's.... "Sliders" the TV show? Hmmm, seems like it wouldn't be too bad an idea for a regular mid-season episode, but in a finale? It feels more like a desperate last minute attempt to spawn a legacy of merchandising. The Sliders logo looks like it has been hit with a rotten egg.... oh, that's supposed to be four figures running towards us on top of it... whatever. Should we really be getting the same logo, title sequence, and theme music for this internal fake show? I think it would be more believable if it were all different.Mind you, there are quite a number of worthwhile humorous moments scattered throughout the show stemming mostly from this premise. In a standalone mid-season episode, perhaps Damron would have been able to really cut loose with humour and do the premise justice. But here at the end of all things, it feels like too much of the fun has been squeezed out by all the housekeeping that has greater priority. In fact, it almost seems here that the show wants to disappear up its own tailpipe and into a parody of itself.... as if it's saying that it's all been a joke all along and that its makers care about little else than grabbing money where they can. It feels a bit insulting to the fans. Maybe there is a thematic point in there somewhere, and the behind-the-scenes crap threatening the future of the show is being vented on screen, but it never quite finds a satisfying perspective or framing. Doctor Who tackled this kind of idea much more successfully at the end of the second last season of its classic run in "The Greatest Show in the Galaxy", and easily had a better wrap up one year later in "Survival" since it had been taking much better care of resolving its arcs properly as it went along. Really, "Sliders" fans are here looking for the definitive Kromagg resolution instead at this point.
Where the Story's Drive Stalled...Particularly when it comes to the characters' long-term goals, there are intriguing sections in this story, and questions that bite. But other times, I feel a bit bored, not knowing where the story is going, or what the Sliders might hope to do to improve their situation. Perhaps it does work a bit better on repeat-viewing, when the audience already has a clearer idea of what is about to happen. But for the first time through, there's a real lack of drive here, despite the fact that long-term goals are addressed....Which brings us squarely to look at how flawed it really was for the Seer to make a prediction that the Sliders would all die upon exiting the wormhole in the next world if they slid. This idea is relied upon to create most of the tension in the episode, but really, it doesn't give the Sliders anything solid or interesting to DO for the episode, and only generates idle and poorly informed second guessing, particularly since it is based on the assumption that the danger is in the next world and we will have no idea what it is until our time here runs out. As a source of anticipation for where the story is going, it's pretty limp to be dragged out as long as it is. The prediction fails logic on several levels too. First of all, at the insistence of the Seer and his daughter, the Sliders resign themselves to two choices: taking a chance on sliding forward randomly, or staying here where they are. Well, there are always more than just two choices in life, as the infinite variety of the multiverse can attest to. The Sliders also have the ability to slide back to any world they've visited previously. Even if the timer's memory was reset in "To Catch A Slider" three episodes ago (which was a fairly ridiculous and useless move, by the way), you've still got several good worlds there to choose from. The Sliders obviously believe in this ability when they mention that they can come back to this world for Linda Henning's character if the next world is safe. The second reason that the prediction fails logic might even be called "Slide-ology".
I'll let Keith Damron himself give you a bit of an idea of what
I think should be one of the founding principles of Slide-ology:
This is quoted from his blog entry for the fifth season episode
"Heavy Metal" (story no. 82).
Perhaps most important is how this aspect of the multiverse
grates against the idea of anyone like
the Seer predicting any outcomes. All outcomes happen, and each one
exists in yet another universe that our protagonists could "slide" to
after the fact, possibly meeting their doubles who made the other choice.
The fact that the guest characters and protagonists can be so blind
towards what should be at the heart of their movement makes the episode
feel so much more hollow than what it deserved.
When you look at what this cure is, you wonder why we didn't
get this resolution at the end of
"Mother and Child" (story no. 60),
using the protagonists' "return to any previous world" mechanism.
In fact, for all we know, this could be the same world from the end
of "Mother and Child".
Trying to follow the logic of this cure is also quite painful.
It sounds plausible enough when Hetrick first explains it - ingredients
kept separate until needed, two day synthesis period putting the
ingredients together correctly, short shelf life afterwards....
then so many more contradictions appear in further information:
like the short shelf life only refers to it on the shelf or in the air,
but in a person's blood it lives on.
Rudest of all is the sudden silliness of Typhoid Remmy, who pointlessly
injects himself with the other guy's raw blood. That should lead to all
kinds of problems (read more narrative debts) that no one needed,
but note specifically that they're worried about some two-day time limit
to synthesize the virus.... isn't it already in synthesized form in the
guy's blood? Plus the two-day limit was the minimum time for
synthesis and incubation, not an expression of the maximum shelf life.
What the hell? This is so stupid, it makes you want to rip your brain
out.
Of course, the smashing of the Timer is one of the episode's key
emotional moments, and betrays split thinking on the writers' parts.
If they were hoping for a sixth season with this half-finished story,
why destroy the timer? It signifies "The End" in too big a way.
When all is said and done, it is kind of cool to get an
untrustworthy Kromagg wormhole at the end, and suddenly the prediction
of doom works for the first time in the story. But....
Is there any believable time pressure on jumping through the half-baked
Kromagg wormhole, or can we not just wait until Diana has the thing
working properly?
And if she's going to use that disc to try to find "home" again,
would she not be sending Remmy back to some other spot on this same
"Sliders on TV" world? At other times, I have to wonder if the disc
actually points to some radioactive ball of flame where Maggie's homeworld
used to be, and if that's what fueled the Seer's vision.
A cliffhanger ending? With no season six on offer? In fact, with
season five designed to pad the show out into syndication? What were
they thinking? Resolve this mess! Leaving the prediction hanging open,
possibly forever, really drags this ending down. The Professor is dead
as we know. Wade has been declared dead today even though she is
actually alive (and twice over if we only saw her double this season).
O'Connell's Quinn probably lost his last chance to come back out of
his own living death. And now maybe Rembrandt's dead too. The Seer
turned out to be a nice guy in the end, but he's dead too. Is it too much
to ask for something uplifting and hopeful here somewhere?
I will say I think it's a good move
to split the cast up at this point, since we don't
know who or how many can ever be brought back together for another go.
And of these, Rembrandt is probably the biggest key to the show's
continuity.
It also motivates some heartfelt goodbye moments for the cast to
indulge in, and what we see on screen probably isn't all acting. Nice.
Still, I don't feel that these characters have been left in the most
ideal of places to spawn further Sliders stories. Really, perhaps what
this story demonstrated almost single-handedly is that "Sliders" didn't
have a writing staff qualified to do a sixth season justice.
The re-split of Quinn should have been left for later, and not even
mentioned in these last two stories. Maybe it should have been Mallory
who jumped through an unstable wormhole by himself. That might maximize
the chances that we'd get some version of our Quinn back on the show,
even if he was played by Floyd next year.
Will "Sliders" ever come back? More importantly, if it does come back,
would it try to continue from the absolute mess that this episode left
the series in? The characters would have to reflect the amount of time
that has passed, since the actors will have aged. Do we really want
all of that unfinished business to have hung over their heads for all
that time? And if it were to be a Jerry O'Connell led cast, does that
mean that Robert Floyd must be hired as well to accomplish the
re-split on screen? Do we want Quinn to have been suffering that muted
existence during all the intervening years? Or would we have wanted it
to happen offscreen in the distant past, shortly after the events of
"The Seer"?
It would seem a waste to have to restart Sliders from absolute scratch
if it ever came back, and if that's the only option for a feature film,
I think it might not be the best thing to do first. I'd prefer a TV movie,
or perhaps better yet a six-episode mini series, with each episode
dedicated to properly paying off a previously unresolved narrative debt
from the original series.... because trying to do that all in one
two-hour movie would be too much of a mess for new audiences to wrap
their heads around, plus six episodes allows a variety of worlds
to be put on display, which of course has always been one of the main draws
for the show.
And about resolving those arcs.... death does not count.
This is sci-fi. Use your imagination, and positive possibilities
become countless.
But the other strength was the parallel world concept explored so
regularly and successfully, which can no doubt continue to spark ideas
and audience interest endlessly. If there's anything positive in the
lasting legacy of this show, it is that it made this concept more
mainstream in science-fiction, and developed and popularized durable
English terminology for many of the recurring concepts that go along
with the main idea. Perhaps one day, the "Sliders" brand
will be back with new adventures, forging boldly forward once more
into the unknown and the bizarre. Here's hoping.....
This story has become available on DVD. Click on the Amazon symbol for the location nearest you for pricing and availability:
Comments on this article are welcome. You may contact the author from this page:
|
A
