All throughout my life I’ve been a basement/garage tinkerer. You know, the sorta Jobs-Wozniak thing, stitching together old electronics, auto parts and pieces of wood to make “the next greatest invention.” I think there were a hell of a lot of kids like me in the ’80s who built (or at least tried to build) what I call “Frankenstein devices” — things build from discarded other things, just to see if you could do it.
For about the first two seasons of Sliders, I was completely hooked. That’s because this kid, Quinn, was the ultimate basement tinkerer and nerd, making this incredible machine right under the noses of everyone, including his parents. As hokey as many parts of the show were, I was actually rather impressed at some of the scientific details behind how the sliding machine worked. Dare I say that some of it made actual sense?
In the pilot episode of Sliders, the main character, Quinn (Jerry O’Connell), is seen reading a book titled Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension. I was so intrigued by the formulas and explanation behind the machine Quinn built, that I went out and bough the book. It’s really a fascinating and fantastic read, even for non-math types like me. I tore through the book in a couple of days, and it only made me more interested in the show … for some reason. Because really, in the end, it was a pretty hokey show, and no amount of “real life science” could save it from that.
The start of Sliders‘ third season in 1996 slipped by my radar, but when I found time to catch up I wasn’t pleased. The show had taken quite a turn from the fun I’d remembered in the previous two seasons, especially in how season two ended with the gang almost making it home (in fact, they seemingly did make it home, though didn’t realize it). Filming moved from Vancouver to Los Angeles so FOX could keep a closer eye on production. First, Professor Arturo (John Rhys-Davies) was killed off, then things only got worse.
Later on we’re introduced to something called the Kromagg Dynasty, throwing the show way off its base. We saw a little of them in the season two episode “Invasion,” and even then I raised an eyebrow. Could they really start bringing in quasi-aliens to the show? Would that ruin things? Yes they did and, for me, yes it did. I didn’t watch past half of season three, as I was too uninterested in the show at that point, but a quick synopsis is enough to make me thankful I didn’t continue on. The truth about Quinn’s parents; the way the show handled the absence of Quinn and brother Colin in the rest of the series; ending a five-season show with a cliffhanger. Those are just some of the disappointments capping off the later seasons of Sliders.
The oddest thing about Sliders was that, in the end, the strangest most unlikely Slider of them all wound up being the final original Slider left in the end: Rembrandt. Had most of the original cast stayed on and the series not have gone down that Kromagg path, I may have stuck around myself. Well, at least I got an introduction to a great book out of it.
Clacked by Keith McDuffee 
on Sep 02, 2009 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
