By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
As a huge genre nerd, I have complex feelings about television reboots. Specifically, I think it’s a waste of time trying to reboot something truly great because the new show is likely to be a huge disappointment compared to the earlier one. Honestly, that’s why I was happy the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot got canceled; that depressing sixth season notwithstanding, the original show was nearly perfect, and trying to improve on that would be inevitably disappointing. Instead, it’s better to reboot a disappointing show that had potential, like Ronald D. Moore did with Battlestar Galactica.
With that in mind, there has never been a genre show more in need of a reboot than Sliders. The show had an absolutely perfect concept, and it explored how fun the multiverse can be way before Marvel ran this idea into the ground. But after a couple of seasons of awesome storytelling, Sliders transformed into a schlock action show that ripped off almost everything and started bleeding cast members until the series was almost completely unrecognizable. The result is a decent show that should have been a great show, and a reboot may be the only way for Sliders to achieve its full potential.
Playing Slide-And-Seek
The plot of Sliders is that Quinn Mallory (Jerry O’Connell) develops the technology to “slide” to different parallel realities, and he takes three companions (including a professor played by John Rhys-Davies) on a visit to a new universe. Unfortunately, the device they use to slide soon loses the ability to track the coordinates of their home dimension. Now, they are forced to travel to random worlds, hoping to eventually get back to their original reality. But there’s a timelock: they must travel to a new dimension when the countdown timer reaches zero. Otherwise, they’ll be stuck in an alternate reality for decades!
It’s a great concept, and the series is basically the lovechild of The Twilight Zone and Quantum Leap. As in the Twilight Zone, different dimensions are used to explore one fantastic scenario after another, including a world where America lost the Revolutionary War and worlds where time flows backwards. But much like Quantum Leap, our heroes typically spend their time in each reality trying to improve as many lives as possible. The result is a surprisingly heartwarming show in which our characters navigate prickly moral dilemmas while wearing their hearts firmly on their sleeves.
A Cast Driven Away By Bad Writing
Sliders had two seasons of nearly perfect storytelling, and if it had been canceled after that, genre fans would speak of it with the same reverence that we speak about Firefly. Unfortunately, the show went on for two more seasons, and it began to go seriously downhill in Season 3. That’s because the Fox network demanded that the show transition from thought-provoking sci-fi stories to action schlock. In an interview with Digital Spy, Rhys-Davies noted how Sliders “could’ve been the best show on television” but that the network interfered and turned most of the scripts into “incomprehensible gibberish.” This is one of the reasons he exited the show.
Rhys-Davies has been hilariously blunt in describing what went wrong with Season 3. When he was interviewed at the Toulouse Game Show, he discussed how the writers just started ripping off others’ ideas. “We did an episode like Tremors, one like Twister, one like The Night of the Living Dead, and even one like The Island of Doctor Moreau, using the film’s original masks!” Continuing, he said, “The breaking point for me was when I walked in and saw the writers sitting around looking at a DVD of Species, which had just been released, and saying: ‘Look, we could take a bit of that scene there and a bit of that scene there.’
Does Whatever A Slider-Man Can
Conveniently enough, the Raiders of the Lost Ark actor has summed up exactly why Sliders needs a reboot. A new series that never tries to do crappy ripoffs of other movies and shows could take its time exploring all of the practical, ethical, and moral conundrums involved with interdimensional travel. This would reduce the risk of core actors abandoning the show; like, by the end of the original series, only one member of the original cast (Cleavant Derricks) was still there! But a Sliders with a consistent cast and a perfect premise for episodic adventures? That’s a reboot that would be utterly unstoppable.
However, a reboot of this show seems less likely than ever before. Previously, Jerry O’Connell and John Rhys-Davies discussed a possible reboot with Sliders creator Tracy Tormé, who was working on reviving the franchise as recently as 2021. Sadly, he died in 2024, meaning we might have to slide into a new universe to see what a reboot looks like. Fortunately, fans can still experience the original show in its entirety at the click of a button. Sliders is currently streaming for free on Tubi. Just be sure to keep the remote handy; Season 2 is a countdown, and once it hits zero, you’ll want to slide your TV over to a better show!!
