Please do not reboot Sliders, NBC.

Nothing personal, John Rhys-Davies. You’re a good dude. Just… no.

At the Toronto Comicon this weekend, John Rhys-Davies has revealed to Flickering Myth that he and his Sliders co-star Jerry O’Connell are speaking with NBC about a potential revival of the 90s sci-fi series.

The sci-fi series followed a group of scientists as they discover ways to travel – or slide – into parallel universes. After getting stuck in one parallel universe and losing their way home, they have to discover how to find Earth Prime again or risk being stuck in that world for nearly 30 years before they can open a vortex again.

I am a long-time fan of the alternate history genre. I have a respectable library of the stuff, including most of the classics of the genre. I am always up for a good new entry into the genre. …So when I say this, it means something: Sliders sucked. The concept was crap, the stories were crap, the execution was crap, the actors were fine but couldn’t save anything from the wreck, including themselves. It does not deserve a revival.

Some things simply belong dead, John. Sorry.

Moe Lane

18 thoughts on “Please do not reboot Sliders, NBC.”

  1. I thought the first couple seasons were okay (although I will freely admit my enjoyment was strongly correlated to Sabrina Lloyd’s presence on screen).

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    There’s certainly a lot of room for doing a better version.

  2. I thought it was fine, right up until Roger Daltrey showed up. I lost interest after that. Apparently so did Jerry O’Connell and John Rhys-Davies. I think they both left the show not long after that.

    1. If I remember correctly, Jerry essentially got himself kicked off the show due to his own ego, after letting his fame from Jerry Maguire go to his head.

  3. Sliders .. wasn’t that just a grunge remake of “Quantum Leap” ?
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    Both started off with an interesting premise, both quickly tossed the premise in the toilet and flushed.
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    Repeatedly.
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    Hard pass on a remake for either.
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    Mew

    1. For me, Sliders and Quantum Leap (and Warehouse 13, and The Librarians, and a host of others) have the episodic nature that I crave sometimes – with so little overarching story or multi-part arcs, one can drop in anywhere and enjoy an episode without feeling lost or behind.

      1. I concur, QL was head and shoulders above Sliders. (W13 was sometimes hit or miss, but it had some actors I really like in it. Jeri Ryan as a guest star!)

      2. Finally a place for obscure Quantum Leap Trivia….
        What other hour long scripted TV series debuting in the 1980s had an equally low number of characters (a main cast of 2) and had a loner run?

          1. I’d have to go back and see how long “Route 66” ran, and how big a cast “Vega$” had…
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            Mew

          2. Okay, Vega$ had a bigger cast, and Route 66 only managed 116 episodes, so .. QL for the win .. not sure of any 1980s scripted hourlong that did more with less or ran longer.
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            Mew

      3. Wrong? No, not wrong, just .. bland.
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        Too much historical retcon, too much “Little House on the Prairie”-level morality play, not enough interesting problem-solving.
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        Not my cup of meat.
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        Mew

        1. Highway to Heaven, with Michael Landon and Victor French.

          One other series (hour long scripted drama) started in the 80s, had over 250 episodes and only a single main character. (no other actor in 25% of the episodes)

  4. Hi, I’m bensdad, and I own the complete Sliders series on DVD.
    (Hi Bensdad!!)
    It’s…not good, as Moe points out. It falls into that guilty pleasure zone where I can put it on and ignore 90% of it while cleaning or reading and only glance up once in a while to see a forgotten guest star or before-they’re-sci-fi famous bit actor.

    But I also own the complete Highlander. And the complete Friday the 13th (TV show). and the complete Andromeda. And I’d do…things… to acquire Time Trax if anyone remembers that particular stinker. So it’s probably incurable at this point, and I’ll watch a reboot* whether I should or not.

    *But not a reboot of a good program. F*ck fake Magnum PI.

    1. I tried watching the “Magnum PI” reboot and .. whoever wrote and green-lighted it did not understand why the original series worked.
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      Same with the “MacGyver” reboot .. I’d really like to sentence writers and producers who want to make this kind of series work to watch the *entire* Cannell and Bellisario libraries.
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      “Brooklyn 99” is a very well done spin on “Barney Miller”, although they left out the best bass line in television.
      .
      Mew

  6. Obligatory comment: We coulda had Doorways.

    (For those who aren’t aware, a year or two before Sliders came out, one George R.R. Martin shopped around a proposal for a series about two people, one from our world, traveling to parallel timelines using portals called “doors”. ABC commissioned a pilot, then ordered scripts for six additional episodes after seeing the pilot, but ultimately passed on the show in favor of another series named Lois and Clark. Bootleg copies of the pilot were passed around, and the show was much better, both as entertainment and as alternate history, than Sliders.)

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