Sliders reboot in the work?

[JirinPanthosa]

Hell, a lot of Shakespeare plays were rebrands of existing stories.

Sliders is another one of those really base concepts. People are traveling between dimensions and experiencing alternate history hypotheticals. You can do a zillion things with it so why not call it the name a few people remember?

 

[Christopher]

Hell, a lot of Shakespeare plays were rebrands of existing stories.

Nearly all of them. Indeed, most human storytelling throughout history has been retelling of existing stories, myths, history, etc.; that's the only way stories survived before widespread literacy and printing. The practice of telling entirely new stories is historically a rather recent development. The whole reason "novels" were called that was because at the time the form was introduced, it was unusual to tell new (novel) stories, so that was a distinct enough thing to name them after.

 

[FreezeC77]

Count me in the wanting it to be a COMPLETE remake and not some type of reboot/continuation. I don't think it is the kind of property that attracts new fans by revisiting the past and more than likely turns off some.

The concept is what is and always was the most intriguing thing. Going back to the original storylines isn't needed.

I think Sliders would work best as a shorter series with like 10-12 episode seasons and a tighter storyline.

If you want to toss a bone with a new character in the show or appearance by a past cast member similar to how Richard Hatch had a part in the BSG remake I think that can work much better than actually trying to incorporate the original characters/storyline/history into it.

 

[Christopher]

I think Sliders would work best as a shorter series with like 10-12 episode seasons and a tighter storyline.

I'm not sure of that. I mean, it's a premise designed to work as your classic episodic quest format where the characters are in a completely new situation every week. It's hard to see how the modern obsession with telling just one big overarching story per season is a good fit with that.

 

[E-DUB]

My personal head canon has the last group of Sliders (Remy, Mallory, Maggie, and Diana) meeting up with another group of Sliders consisting of Quinn, Colin, Wade, and Arturo. They synchronize their timers and can then go on together.

 

[The Lensman]

I'm not sure of that. I mean, it's a premise designed to work as your classic episodic quest format where the characters are in a completely new situation every week. It's hard to see how the modern obsession with telling just one big overarching story per season is a good fit with that.

It’s premise is easily modifiable. Just because it was done that way once doesn’t mean it needs to be done that way again. While we don’t need an overarching story per season, we also don’t need a return to “Gilligans Island” type stories where there’s a tease that they may get home or having the timer stolen or lost every week to manufacture tension or drama.

Keep the concept, have them unable to return to home Earth and that’s it. It’s a great concept that could benefit with 2 or 3 part eps that allow for more exploration of a particular world. We don’t need to be rushing off every week to a new world.

 

[Owain Taggart]

To many, the show would be seen as Jerry O'Connell's breakout role, but how many remember his even earlier show, My Secret Identity? It was corny and campy, but I loved that show, a superhero show before the trend was even a blip.

 

[captainkirk]

Maybe take out the trying to return home concept. People made far more comparisons between Stargate Universe and Voyager than they did with Atlantis and I think a major reason was that while in the first season of Atlantis they were cut off from Earth, they did it willingly for the sake of exploration and discovery. Maybe you can have a team of Sliders who choose to explore the multiverse and have no intention of going home.

 

[Christopher]

Here's a thought: Don't do a reboot. Do a sequel, with new characters, set in the present day after sliding technology has been perfected and parallel worlds are interacting regularly. Explore how society is changed by gaining the ability to see other paths history might have taken, or by people getting to meet doppelgangers of themselves or their lost loved ones. Maybe there's an idyllic world with too many refugees coming in from hellhole worlds and wrestling with whether to keep its open borders. Maybe there's an interdimensional war that's spilling over into peaceful worlds and someone has to end the fighting. There are so many possibilities.

Too many reboots and revivals just reset the story to zero. With science fiction series, I'd often find it more interesting to see a sequel that advances things to the next level. I want to see a Stargate series where they finally dropped the pointless secrecy and the Stargates are known to the public. I want to see an Alien Nation sequel that picks up when the Tenctonese have been on Earth for more than a generation. Science fiction should extrapolate forward and explore the ramifications of change, rather than keeping an unchanging status quo.

 

[captainkirk]

I want to see an Alien Nation sequel that picks up when the Tenctonese have been on Earth for more than a generation.

Alien Nation was my first thought when I started reading your post. That's a 90's sci-fi series that feels overdue for a revival. If anything, it would be more relevant now than when it started.

Science fiction should extrapolate forward and explore the ramifications of change, rather than keeping an unchanging status quo.

I never watched it because I heard it was really bad, but one of the repeated criticisms I saw of Bright was that for a world where magic is a thing and fantasy races are everywhere, nothing is that different from the real world.

 

[thribs]

Perfect thing about this franchise is that they could reboot it and it could still be a continuation; with the multiverse and all.

 

[Skipper]

Err, is Sliders a so well known name that it deserves a reboot/sequel/whatever rather than making a new tv show with a similar concept?

 

[Christopher]

Err, is Sliders a so well known name that it deserves a reboot/sequel/whatever rather than making a new tv show with a similar concept?

False dichotomy. As I already said, most works of fiction ever created in human history have been retellings of old stories. Originality is not in where an idea came from, it's in where you take it from there. Look at Battlestar Galactica. The original was cheesy and dumb, while the remake was highly innovative and critically acclaimed. Similarly, the She-Ra reboot is much more innovative, smart, and rich than its original, no less so than non-remake shows like The Legend of Korra or Steven Universe.

You can get a good story from any subject matter -- it doesn't matter whether it's been done before or not. It sure as hell doesn't matter how "well-known" it was. All that matters is whether you have a good idea for what to do with it.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And even the original Sliders was basically a reboot...of Doorways.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I totally agree about wanting to see Stargate after dropping the secrecy.

I’m not sure it’d work for a Sliders premise unless it was still really hard for most people to do. Otherwise it’d either be really dark or really unrealistic. For every story where some guy who lost his wife is looking for another version of her, five Nazi dimensions would try to invade, three slavery dimensions would kidnap people, and four plague dimensions would start infecting healthy ones.

You’d basically be producing Counterpoint increased to the Nth power.

Imagine dealing with COVID variants from a thousand different universes.

You might be able to make an interesting show where it’s all really tightly controlled. Like every dimension has their own vaccine regimen, there’s agencies pairing up people who lost each other from other dimensions, lovers, parents and children, etc. Hitler dimensions are blocked off. People scalp tickets to dimensions where the performer is dead. Sports contests to determine which version of the same athlete is the best. Debates over whether an artist’s career was better with or without their near death experience. People overstaying their visas to get better jobs.

That’d be more of a comedy though.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Never mind Sliders, I want Charlie Jade back!

(Which was a sort of more localized version of Sliders, actually...just three universes.)

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[Grizzlor]

Sliders reboot discussion around 26 minutes in...

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Tracy gave another interview, this time with former Sliders writer Marc-Scott Zicree as well. He mentions that he pitched the reboot to NBCU, it went well, but they threw some cold water on it. Will meet again in a month or so. Tracy said "not getting too up or down, optimistic that when all the dust settles, there will be a Sliders reboot."

 

[Guy Gardener]

I've had my own thoughts on how the series could be revived and my approach would be to go with an all-new cast. I'd start without any obvious links to the old series, just keep things simple with a small group of characters traveling from one universe to another. Then for a few event episodes, they can run into some familiar faces.

I think trying to directly continue the original would just bog things down and make attracting new audiences impossible.

There's 88 episodes of Sliders.

It would take months of subscription to a streaming service to watch all of that, if a new series was so cool, a million nerds went backwards to see where it all began.

A million nerds paying 6 bucks a month for 2 years.

$144,000,000.00

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

There's 88 episodes of Sliders.

It would take months of subscription to a streaming service to watch all of that, if a new series was so cool, a million nerds went backwards to see where it all began.

A million nerds paying 6 bucks a month for 2 years.

$144,000,000.00

Isn't the old series available on DVD, streaming and places I can't mention for much less than $144?

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

I totally agree about wanting to see Stargate after dropping the secrecy.

I’m not sure it’d work for a Sliders premise unless it was still really hard for most people to do. Otherwise it’d either be really dark or really unrealistic. For every story where some guy who lost his wife is looking for another version of her, five Nazi dimensions would try to invade, three slavery dimensions would kidnap people, and four plague dimensions would start infecting healthy ones.

You’d basically be producing Counterpoint increased to the Nth power.

Imagine dealing with COVID variants from a thousand different universes.

You might be able to make an interesting show where it’s all really tightly controlled. Like every dimension has their own vaccine regimen, there’s agencies pairing up people who lost each other from other dimensions, lovers, parents and children, etc. Hitler dimensions are blocked off. People scalp tickets to dimensions where the performer is dead. Sports contests to determine which version of the same athlete is the best. Debates over whether an artist’s career was better with or without their near death experience. People overstaying their visas to get better jobs.

That’d be more of a comedy though.

The existential crisis of people discovering that there are an aleph-null infinity of versions of themselves could well be destructive of civilisation. It could negate many religious beliefs and produce a sense of hopelessness as people are forced to realise they really are unimportant and inconsequential as individuals.