Reboot anyone?


This is one of those shows that's bound to see a reboot eventually. The original, in spite of its flaws, was iconic and unique. Not a retread of anything else that's ever aired on TV. The second half of season 3 was subpar - the ripoff of the week phase. Season 5 was the absolute bottom of the barrel though. If I was going to do a continuation of the original storyline with a twenty five year time jump I'd ignore the events of the final season entirely.

What do people think? Should they recast the roles and start over, or rejoin the original cast decades later?

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Check out the 2 hour pilot of the defunk/canceled show "Parallels". It was meant to be a spiritual successor of SLIDERS. I particularly don't like it so much as not enough of the show was developed, given that the project was canceled; could have been something good and gritty.

I think season 5 has some merit and should tie into the new series. Those characters, arches, and such still have some weight... I've been trying to write a fanfiction of a Season 6 mini-series - super tough, and mentally draining at times, and still have a ways to go in developing the story. It's set 20-25 years after season 5 with Rembrandt tilling a field on a rural farm on Prime Earth. The mini-series is to either conclude old characters, continue some of the old cast (rejoin somehow), and bring in fresh blood (the kid from the 'Sherlock Holms' episode). The end of my mini-series (fanfiction mind you), would pave the way for a proper series (at least in my head haha). The mini-series is meant to be a bridge of sorts.

I love this show so much, I do hope a proper reboot comes along in time.

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I'd like to see a fresh start. This way there could be more interesting stories than the Cromags everywhere. I would completely eliminate them, not have any "species" or whatever you want to call them ruling over every universe.

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I don't know, they were definitely an interesting element. But after Syfy took over from Fox the Kromaggs became way too central to the storyline. Suddenly they were everywhere. Having threats that are out there, so to speak, not specific to one timeline, adds to the overall plot - but if you let it become the plot then your show turns into a retread of countless alien invasion films. The great thing about Sliders was that it covered ground you normally only see in print form. Parallel worlds and the multiverse have rarely been explored well on screen.

I could see Netflix or another streaming service doing a reboot with 12 or 13 episodes per season (7 or 8 is too short). Some of the eps would be like classic Sliders, world of the week type thing. Some worlds you could spend several shows on. Other times they could have multiple worlds in one episode (as the original show occasionally did). You could have some bad guys like the Kromaggs. But also worlds that were aware of sliding. Even multi-world confederations of timelines.

The idea of non-human sentients could be more completely fleshed out with special effects having advanced quite a bit since the 90's. Some truly strange beings could be waiting out there. It's a big multiverse! I liked that episode of the original where the group found a plasma based fire creature, and Quinn was able to communicate with it. They could even land on the occasional wilderness planet and have to deal with a crisis all alone, no one around to help them. And perhaps discover worlds being colonized by sliding civilizations. I picture an episode revolving around a primitive native species falling victim to such a colonization, when our Sliders drop in and of course, have to get involved.

Fast forward a few episodes to the multi-world government that has their pictures on wanted posters in every one of their timelines because of what they did to save the downtrodden natives. Perhaps an arrest and trial. Uh-oh! Have them navigate their way through an unusual legal system to gain their freedom. I loved it when the show did stuff like that. Don't let it get too silly; but exploring ways our own society might've taken a different path, that's one of the most fascinating things about parallel worlds as a storytelling device.

So much you could do with the concept. I think it's more a matter of when, not if, this gets remade, and by whom. I'd love to see some of the original cast as executive producers!

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