Sliders
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Sliders is an American science fiction and fantasy television series created by Robert K. Weiss and Tracy Tormé. It was broadcast for five seasons between 1995 and 2000. The series follows a group of travelers as they use a wormhole to "slide" between different parallel universes. Tormé, Weiss, Leslie Belzberg, John Landis, David Peckinpah, Bill Dial and Alan Barnette served as executive producers at different times of the production. For its first two seasons, it was produced in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was filmed primarily in Los Angeles, California, in the last three seasons.
The first three seasons were broadcast by the Fox network. After being canceled by Fox, the series moved to Sci Fi Channel for its final two seasons. The final episode was shown in the United Kingdom in December 1999, and on the Sci Fi Channel in February 2000.
Plot
The show's titular characters are a group of people who travel ("slide") between different Earths in parallel universes via a vortex-like wormhole, activated by a handheld timer device. While the slide technology was intended to return them to their home universe, their premature use of the timer to escape a dangerous situation has caused the timer to lose track of the coordinates for their home universe.
Now, they are forced to slide between universes, spending anywhere from minutes to months there, waiting for the timer to count down to the next time they can open a vortex to a new universe, hoping it is their original one. Failing to use the vortex to slide at that point would mean they would be stuck in that universe for nearly three decades until they can open the vortex again.
While waiting for the timer countdown, the Sliders frequently explore the nature of the alternate universe and often become caught up in events of that world. Some of these universes are based on alternate timelines in which certain historical events happened differently from the history they know, such as one in which penicillin was never discovered or a world on which America had lost the Revolutionary War, while other worlds have entirely novel histories, such as one where time flowed in reverse, or where dinosaurs never became extinct.
The main initial cast included Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell), who created the Sliding technology, Professor Maximillian Arturo (John Rhys-Davies), Quinn's mentor; Wade Welles (Sabrina Lloyd), Quinn's friend; and Rembrandt "Cryin' Man" Brown (Cleavant Derricks), a professional singer who is accidentally caught in the first major test of the vortex. Over the course of the show, cast members departed and were replaced by others: Captain Maggie Beckett (Kari Wuhrer), an officer from one doomed alternate Earth; Colin Mallory (Charlie O'Connell), Quinn's lost brother; a second Quinn Mallory (Robert Floyd) that resulted from the original Quinn inadvertently merging with the Quinn of a world they slid into, and Dr. Diana Davis (Tembi Locke), a scientist who attempts to help them reverse the process.
