Sliders was good until Jerry O'Connell left. Then it went downhill so fast even Rembrandt couldn't save it...and that man was a highlight during the early seasons.
Older Scifi Shows...
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Never really got into that one, though I don't remember what I disliked about it.
Sliders was good in the first season, mediocre in the second, bad in the first half of the third, and horrific in the last half of the third. Probably the only more agonizingly, unwatchably awful television episode I've ever seen than the season 3 finale of Sliders was the series finale of M.A.N.T.I.S. (the mid-'90s were a bad stretch for SFTV on FOX). Yet when Sliders moved to the Sci-Fi Channel for season 4, it got massively better, almost as good as season 1. The season 3 producers had had no understanding of science fiction (they thought it was just pastiches of old sci-fi and horror movies) and no understanding of character conflict (they thought it was just gratuitous petty bickering), but season 4's writing staff actually understood science fiction and characterization and had some solid writers like Marc Scott Zicree, Chris Black, Richard Manning, and Bill Dial, although it did suffer from Jerry O'Connell's nepotism in adding his less talented brother as a regular cast member. As for season 5, despite its contrived cast changes, I felt it was still fairly good, though flawed. The season 5 cast may have been half-new, but it had good chemistry and the writing was still fairly effective; there were even episodes by David Gerrold and Michael Reaves. I know in retrospect how much the show was hurt by some rather petty behind-the-scenes decisions on the producers' part, but I've rarely seen a show sink so far and then rebound so well.
Sliders was a bright spot for me at a low point in life so I have a soft spot for it in my heart. Long story short, I had NO cash, so no movies and no cable, and it was my one show a week I would pick up on antenna and watch when the week was over. So for me its "world of the week" setup was great as I got new settings every show.
And, hey, just think, by the final season it became a rare sci-fi show with a half-minority cast and a black lead which must have been cool for Cleavant Derricks.
And, hey, just think, by the final season it became a rare sci-fi show with a half-minority cast and a black lead which must have been cool for Cleavant Derricks.
Cleavant Derricks became the only watchable part of the series for me by the time I stopped caring about it. Rembrandt was the best character in the cast after Professor Arturo died and Jerry O'Connell's character departed.
Yeah, I think it was the only SF/fantasy show of its time to have an African-American lead other than ST
S9, even if it was only through attrition (Derricks being the last survivor of the original cast and having seniority over newer cast members).While the cast changes (and the often nasty behind-the-scenes reasons for them) were disappointing and often quite badly handled, it's a shame they overshadow the worthwhile aspects of the later seasons and the good work that the replacement cast members and writers did. In particular, I think seasons 4 & 5 of Sliders offer what's probably the best work of Kari Wuhrer's career. In season 3, with terrible writing and no substantive characterization to work with, she was awful, but in seasons 4 & 5 she was given an actual, interesting character to play, and she rose to the occasion admirably, proving she was more than the sex kitten she'd usually played in the past.
^ It's a comedy but there was Red Dwarf as well which also had a half minority cast. There was MANTIS also. I'm not sure if Homeboys in Outer Space set the cause ahead or backwards. 
True, except it was short-lived and awful. The pilot movie was actually pretty good, a daring if flawed attempt to do a black-centric, urban superhero show that confronted the racial issues of the day, basically "What if Shaft was Iron Man?" But FOX recoiled from the more daring elements and brought in less capable writers to reboot it from scratch as a politically neutral series with an only 50% black cast instead of the almost entirely black cast of the pilot. The show that resulted was mediocre, but then halfway through the season they retooled it to be more "sci-fi" and X-Filesy, and it went from being a show about fighting high-tech crime and urban corruption to a show about fighting mutants, clones, ghosts, and extradimensional invaders. In a way, it was almost more fun that way, an unapologetically crazy superhero show like Silver Age comics, but it was still quite bad, and as I mentioned, its finale (which never aired on FOX) was so horrifyingly terrible and wrong that I can only think somebody involved in the production deeply hated the show and wanted to burn it to the ground and salt the earth.
I went into more depth about the show's three phases in a blog review back in 2012: https://christopherlbennett.wordpress.com/2012/01/02/the-multiple-faces-of-m-a-n-t-i-s-1994/
My statement was purely quantitative not qualitative. 
I haven't seen MANTIS in 20+ years and only remember it fuzzily. I'd maybe check it out for curiosity sake if it was streaming somewhere but I don't really want to buy it ($30 for season 1 on Amazon Prime!).
I haven't seen MANTIS in 20+ years and only remember it fuzzily. I'd maybe check it out for curiosity sake if it was streaming somewhere but I don't really want to buy it ($30 for season 1 on Amazon Prime!).
It was on Hulu when I rewatched/reviewed it, but I don't know if it still is. Anyway, I'd only recommend the pilot movie, not the series.
Very few shows work for me when the lead is replaced or departs, especially when the lead’s quest is the premise of the series. The X-Files should have ended when David Duchovny left (arguably a few seasons earlier before they lost steam). Happy Days lost its magic when Ron Howard departed and the wholesale slaughter of half the cast of War of the Worlds was devastating – the fired the interesting characters. The Office needed to end with Steve Carrell’s departure and That 70’s Show was pointless after Topher Grace left. I dropped Earth: Final Conflict when Boone was killed off and gave it a shot in the 5th season (at 2 am), but it was weird to have a resistance made up of two people vs a very conventionally “eeeevil”(come on…Howlyn?) alien force made up of…2 people. What a waste of a good concept.
Some shows handle cast changes very well: M*A*S*H was great at it (but it never would have survived if Alda left), and soaps are structured to lose cast members (although Dallas without Larry Hagman would have been much less fun). And while I loved Robert Lansing in 12 O’Clock High, Paul Burke was a decent lead and the series was still well written. At least these shows explained their changes. Unlike, say, Space:1999 (to bring this back to Sci-Fi shows) which dropped 80% of the cast and changed the main set without a word.
Some shows handle cast changes very well: M*A*S*H was great at it (but it never would have survived if Alda left), and soaps are structured to lose cast members (although Dallas without Larry Hagman would have been much less fun). And while I loved Robert Lansing in 12 O’Clock High, Paul Burke was a decent lead and the series was still well written. At least these shows explained their changes. Unlike, say, Space:1999 (to bring this back to Sci-Fi shows) which dropped 80% of the cast and changed the main set without a word.
Often, yes, but there are exceptions. A prime example is Mission: Impossible, whose original lead Steven Hill was replaced in season 2 by the enormously more popular Peter Graves. NYPD Blue is another show where the second lead was more popular than the first. As I said, I think Sliders's final season worked surprisingly well with its half-new cast. Blake's 7 lost its title character halfway through but still did okay.
Then there are shows that have had regular cast turnover as an ongoing thing through most or all of their runs, like Doctor Who (talking about actors rather than characters), Law & Order, ER, or Power Rangers. Although if you limit it to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, that falls into the first category, since the original lead Austin St. John was eclipsed in popularity by Jason Frank, who took over as the de facto lead when half the core cast, including St. John, walked out (or were fired? I forget) midway through season 2 in a salary dispute.
At this point, Doctor Who has lead changes built into the concept. I can imagine the first time they went from Hartnell to Troughton it was a shock. Now, fans look forward to it. Although, to be honest, I had a hard time with Eccleston to Tennant, but an even worse time when Rose left...
Mission: Impossible...that series evolved from a slightly more violent show with a touch more action to what it became. I was surprised how much darker and serious Steven Hill was when I finally saw his episodes. I actually liked him a lot. There was also more banter at the start, but they cut that out quickly.
Blakes 7 survived Gareth Thomas' leaving but it altered the entire course of the series. I just did a marathon of the run and the focus was lost completely for the first half of the third year. While it still had some strong characters, they didn't get back to freedom fighting and that wasn't until the 4th year for the most part. As lackluster as some of those 4th year shows were, Avon did progressively become more paranoid and over the top. It really became more about how lousy a leader he truly was. The final episode is still heartbreaking.
Babylon 5 was another show to lose its lead but was actually stronger when they switched, even though Michael O'Hare seemed to grow into the part by the end of his tenure (and it was truly heartbreaking to learn why he left). Bruce Boxleitner was a more conventional lead, but the energy was higher.
Ensemble shows tend to do better by definition, but every ensemble has a breakout character or two. The fact that ER survived after Clooney left was surprising to me. NYPD Blue was another show that kept losing leads until it became clear that Dennis Franz was the heartbeat of that series and his partners were less interesting.
Mission: Impossible...that series evolved from a slightly more violent show with a touch more action to what it became. I was surprised how much darker and serious Steven Hill was when I finally saw his episodes. I actually liked him a lot. There was also more banter at the start, but they cut that out quickly.
Blakes 7 survived Gareth Thomas' leaving but it altered the entire course of the series. I just did a marathon of the run and the focus was lost completely for the first half of the third year. While it still had some strong characters, they didn't get back to freedom fighting and that wasn't until the 4th year for the most part. As lackluster as some of those 4th year shows were, Avon did progressively become more paranoid and over the top. It really became more about how lousy a leader he truly was. The final episode is still heartbreaking.
Babylon 5 was another show to lose its lead but was actually stronger when they switched, even though Michael O'Hare seemed to grow into the part by the end of his tenure (and it was truly heartbreaking to learn why he left). Bruce Boxleitner was a more conventional lead, but the energy was higher.
Ensemble shows tend to do better by definition, but every ensemble has a breakout character or two. The fact that ER survived after Clooney left was surprising to me. NYPD Blue was another show that kept losing leads until it became clear that Dennis Franz was the heartbeat of that series and his partners were less interesting.
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Oh, Babylon 5! I knew there was at least one big example I was forgetting.
Robin of Sherwood continued decently after Jason Connery replaced Michael Praed, Law and Order also handled actor replacements well. More recently BBC's Death in Paradise has also gone through cast changes over the years without skipping a beat. Clooney may have been the 'star' of ER, but like most replacements on ER, each one was generally at least as interesting as the character/actor they replaced. Noah Wyle was truly the heart of the show, and ER only really started to fade when he left.
The real key is not to replace any character with a less interesting one. Blakes 7 repeatedly replaced a character who left with a less interesting one, it what I've termed ever since as 'Blakes 7 disease.'
A less interesting character, or a less appealing actor? In the case of Mission: Impossible, it could be argued that Dan Briggs was a more interesting character than Jim Phelps, if only because season 1 made more effort to develop its leads' personalities whereas later seasons mostly portrayed them as ciphers subsumed in their roles of the week. But Peter Graves was a more charming and accessible lead than Steven Hill.
It was both in War of the Worlds: The Series. They killed off two charismatic leads playing distinctive characters and replaced them with the perpetually dull Adrian Paul playing a rather one-dimensional character. (And I very much doubt it was a coincidence that the season 2 producers killed off both nonwhite leads for no good reason and replaced them with a white actor.)
Earth: Final Conflict is a mixed bag there. Kevin Kilner was too bland a lead actor as the pretty interesting character of Boone, but while Robert Leeshock was a more appealing actor, his character Kincaid was less interesting. And it annoyed me that they replaced Boone with another white male lead instead of promoting Lisa Howard to the top role as she and her character deserved. (They finally did that with the second female lead, Jayne Heitemeyer, when Leeshock left in season 5, but by then both their characters had become uninteresting. The only character development they'd had for the preceding season or two was growing progressively blonder.)
Alien Nation is an ideal series for a revival like that. There are probably more real-life parallels now than when it aired. You don't even need to focus on cops, just show how the world has developed with aliens living in normal society for several decades now.
I was recently rewatching Sliders and I was surprised at how much better season 4 was than I remembered. They returned more to the alternate history concept that had largely been forgotten in season 3. There were still too many stories that relied on VFX which were not up to the job, though.
I still haven't ever watched season 5, but I know Peter Jurasik is in a few episodes which does make me want to check it out at some point.
I think what helped season 4 of SLIDERS was there was an arc throughout the season... well, two of them at the start. First, finding Quinn's brother on another world, then finding the weapon to rid the Kromaggs from Earth Prime. I think it helped tie episodes together and made them more cohesive than just the general 'find our way home' plot.
Let's not forget Diana Rigg replacing Honor Blackman on THE AVENGERS . . . .
And Blackman in turn replaced Ian Hendry (and was one of three partners for Steed in season 2, though the most frequent one by far).
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