Sliders (1995 series)

Original Cast

Summary

"If you saw a doorway leading into another dimension... would you step through it? Four people just found a gateway to another dimension, but they forgot one problem: how to get back!" A young genius and his comrades (including a young woman with an interest in the occult, a every-man musician, and a gruff and sarcastic professor played by John Rhys-Davies) travel to different parallel universes, trying to find their way back home. The series began as a alternate-history adventure series, devolved into copying popular movies of the era, culminating in a large story-arc involving the last remaining members of a revolving-door cast of characters being pursued across dimensions by an villainous inter-dimensional totalitarian state ruled by the "Kromaggs", a race of humanoids which evolved from a different branch of human ancestors....

Details

• Release Date: 1995-2000
• Country/Language: US, English
• Genres/Technical: Science Fiction, Fantasy
• Setting: Modern alternate universes
• Runtime: (generally formatted for a 1-hour American commercial television time slot)
• Starring: Cleavant Derricks, Jerry O'Connell, Sabrina Lloyd, John Rhys-Davies, Kari Wuhrer
• Creator: Tracy Tormé, Robert K. Weiss
• Producer/Production Co: St. Clare Entertainment, Studios USA Television, Universal Television
• View Trailer: (link)
• TVTropes: (link)
• IMDB Page: (link)

Ratings

MPAA Ratings

• Rated: (not rated) (equivalent to TV-PG for occasional mild 1990s TV-friendly Violence, Profanity, and Adult Content)

Tentacle Ratings

A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:

• S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)

This series has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work; it had far more potential for cosmic/weird storylines than it ever actually lived up to. The "Kromaggs" storylines almost suggest the sort of apocalyptic cosmicism of Lovecraft's far-future and distant-past Earths dominated by species other than humans, but never really follow through; a couple of the third-season stories that copied plots from popular sci-fi movies were probably handled in a more Lovecraftian (and skillful) way by the films they aped, and the handful of sci-fi/fantasy stories that mixed in mystical/supernatural elements were perhaps a little too inconsistent and matter-of-fact to have really worked well as weird fiction.

Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.

Reviews

Review Links:

• (review needed)

Synopses of suggested episodes (SPOILERS)

A young genius and his comrades (including a young woman with an interest in the occult, a every-man musician, and a gruff and sarcastic professor played by John Rhys-Davies) travel to different parallel universes, trying to find their way back home. The series began as a alternate-history adventure series, devolved into copying popular movies of the era, culminating in a large story-arc involving the last remaining members of a revolving-door cast of characters being pursued across dimensions by an villainous inter-dimensional totalitarian state ruled by the "Kromaggs", a race of humanoids which evolved from a different branch of human ancestors....

• "Into the Mystic" - On an alternate Earth immersed in occult practices, Quinn becomes the target of a shaman who demands his brain as payment for services rendered.
• "Gillian of the Spirits" - A slide gone wrong results in Quinn becoming lost in the astral plane, and the only person who can possibly help him is a girl with paranormal abilities. The world they've landed on is constrained by "anti-technology" laws that resulted from the atomic bombings on Japan, crimping Arturo's efforts to repair the timer.
• "Invasion" - The group arrives on a new world in the middle of an alien invasion, and learn that the invaders are the Kromaggs, sliders that can move through the gateways at will. The group slide to a World where California was settled by the French, where they are captured. They are relocated to Earth 113, and suffer interrogation.
• "Summer of Love" - After escaping from a world devastated by genetically-engineered spider-wasps, the Sliders find themselves in a present-day San Francisco where the "Summer of Love" never ended from the 1960s, and Wade and Rembrandt are mistaken for extraterrestrial prophets.
• "The Electric Twister Acid Test" - The sliders land in a barren wasteland with bizarre electrical activity that attracts tornadoes. They are confronted by an anti-technology cult, whose chief discovers the Sliders project and decides to keep Wade as hostage while keeping Quinn, Arturo and Rembrandt away.
• "The Dream Masters" - The group arrives on a world where terrorists discovered drugs that can invade people's dreams, and one of them chooses Wade as his next target.
• "Slide Like an Egyptian" - The group lands on a world where ancient Egypt retained slavery and Egyptian pharaoh rule has become predominant. They must escape from a pyramid while being hunted by a large scarab beetle.
• "Breeder" - Maggie is infected with a parasite that takes control of her body and attempts to find a mate.
• "Paradise Lost" - The sliders land on a world where a giant worm eats people.
• "The Last of Eden" - Quinn and Wade get stuck in an underground city. This episode is flashback of Rembrandt and Wade's memories. It is an adaptation of H. G. Wells' story The Time Machine.
• "The Return of Maggie Beckett" - Maggie is mistaken for her astronaut double and is kidnapped by conspirators in a world where the Roswell UFO crash happened but was never covered up, allowing a trade agreement between Grey Aliens and humans to be struck, giving Earth new technologies allowing for significant human technological advances; this included DNA advances, allowing for a Half-Human Hybrids to appear.

Notes

Comments, Trivia, Dedication

• Many fans suggest watching the first two seasons, and then abandoning the rest of the series; starting at about the third season, Sliders suffered from a crippling loss of the creative team, executive meddling, a move from FOX to the SyFy channel, and the erosion of its original cast until hardly any of the original characters remained, resulting in a lower regard for the later seasons; the third season was criticized for copying the plots of popular movies of the era (notably including Tremors, Species (1995 franchise),

Associated Mythos Elements

A Kromagg General

• race: Kromaggs, a bestial human relative which evolved on an alternate universe version of Earth (compare to Voormi and Gnophkeh)
• (YSDC forums) - discussion suggesting a way to use the premise of Sliders as a Call of Cthulhu campaign; see also:
  • (YSDC forums) - alternative histories in general, with a brief mention of Sliders
  • (YSDC forums) - description of a campaign based on the premise
  • (YSDC forums) - a brief idea for a campaign based off the similar series Quantum Leap, and inspired by the Sliders campaign above....