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Do the Time Warp
The Fox show Sliders is about White Castle hamburgers. This is what I used to think before I saw it. Of course, I couldn't talk about this in public, because serious Sliders fans would flambé me like a fat pig on a spinning television rotisserie. So I decided to educate myself.
Sliders on my computer
To begin my learning curve, I turned to the small screen of my computer - not my TV. Yes, just one stop at www.yahoo.com introduced me to an entire world of Sliders maniacs and Sliders fanatics. I came across the writings of people who devote a great deal of thought to this show about people who like to slide through holes in time. For example, I came across Web pages that included such things as:
1) A planlet about what it would be like if Sliders
characters were on the Dating Game
2) Insider Sliders jokes
3) Sliders trivia
4) Sliders drinking games
5) Another planlet involving a Sliders character trying on a condom
Almost all of the Sliders Web pages contain a description of the show, some photos, and links to other Web pages that contain a description of the show, photos, and further linkage to Web pages. From the Sliders Fan Club homepage, I learned the following:
Sliders is a state-of-the-art (mis)adventure series about a young genius, Quinn Mallory (Jerry O'Connell), who discovers the key to a gateway to an infinite number of parallel Earths. His maiden attempt at traveling to another world is marred by an accident, leaving him and three others with no way back to their own Earth. The other three companions are: Professor Maximilian Arturo (John Rhys-Davies), Quinn's university professor; Wade Wells (Sabrina Lloyd), Quinn's good friend who secretly has the hots for him (possible future romance, maybe?!); and Rembrandt "the Crying Man" Brown (Cleavant Derricks), a washed-up R&B singer who accidentally gets caught by the Portal during that fateful "slide."
(Journalistic note: When you feel lazy about writing an article, copy large portions of other people's writing.)
This information was very helpful to me. I began to understand the overall concept. Here's the deal: The Sliders always hope the next slide is the slide home! What an intriguing idea. Kind of like Quantum Leap, only different somehow.
The Web pages also got me up-to-date with the various episodes: Each week the Slide crew encounters alternative Earths of the same year, but fucked-up in some way. Here are some of the things they've seen:
After hearing about these episodes, I began to think of a few plot ideas of my own:
One helpful site told me a summary of the upcoming episode. Apparently, the Sliders were scheduled to go to an Earth where America is ruled by a monarchy and men have babies. Crazy! This I had to see. With all this prepping, I was finally ready to evaluate the show (which airs on Friday nights). The cast members already felt like old friends to me. Bring on "Prince of Slides!"
Sliders on my television
In the episode I watched, Rembrandt Brown is mistaken for royalty. This kooky misadventure causes him to carry the baby of the woman who is married to his double in this parallel world. It's a pregnant man! Sharing the joys and pains of childbirth! How can that not be funny? Men aren't suppose to be pregnant! See the irony?
Now here's the twist: The baby is supposed to be delivered in one week, and it's three days to the next slide! Maybe Rembrandt should stay and raise the baby instead of sliding to another Earth. In the end, Rembrandt gives birth, with the assistance of Arturo, to the future king, and they all slide on to their next big adventure.
Sliders on my mind
Sliders is based on kind of a fun idea for a show, but it could stand some more special effects. Looking at the list of past episodes, I think it could also use some more story lines that aren't taken from recent popular movies.
Well, got to go now. I have to start creating on my very own Sliders Web page. For starters, I'm going to write a playlet involving some of the Sliders characters buying dental insurance. For more information, see www.yahoo.com.
*Thanks to Blinker for the article*
26-February-1996
Source: Sci-fi Wire
Sliders
Viewers get a second chance at Sliders
Review by T.H.
Sliders is back. This canceled series deserved another chance, and it's got one. For those who don't remember, Quinn Mallory (O'Connell) is a genius college student who builds a sliding machine, a temporary portal to alternate Earths. The machine is only semi-useful, however. There is no way to control the jump's destination or how long each jump will last -- it could be as long as days or as little as 30 seconds. If at the end of that time the sliders aren't back in the portal, they're stuck in that world for good.
Quinn is joined on his journey by a professor, Maximillian Arturo (Rhys-Davies), his friend Wade Wells and a singer they accidentally dragged with them, Rembrant Brown. The four must keep sliding between worlds, hoping the next slide will take them back to their version of Earth. In between slides, they have to deal with the problems and pitfalls of whatever strange version of America they happen to land in. Last season ended in a cliffhanger as Quinn was shot just before the group slid out of a particularly dangerous timeline.
When they land in the new timeline -- and in the latest season -- Quinn needs medical attention fast, and the sliders search for help. The practitioner they find is more of a witch doctor than a regular doctor, for the sliders have landed in an America whose cultural infrastructure is controlled by shamans and those who dabble in the supernatural. When they cannot pay the witch doctor's high bill, the doctor demands Quinn's brain in restitution. Now only the mysterious Sorcerer can help them, if they can find out who the Sorcerer really is...
After such an irregular and long absence, Sliders needed a season premiere that not only bridged the cliffhanger of last season, but one that could reunite the enthusiasm of its audience as well as draw in new viewers. This season's premiere fits that bill nicely, and this one hour is all anyone will need to see if they're not familiar with the show (veteran sliders will find their nearly one-year wait well rewarded).
While Sliders is not in the same league as Babylon 5 or any of the Star Trek incarnations, it was never meant to be. This show is aimed at a younger demographic and not meant to appease space-flight hungry science fiction fans. It's softer and more fun, for the most part light on science but thoughtful with issues. Judging from the premiere, this season looks promising. And given its time slot just ahead of the megahit X-Files, it looks like Fox is willing to give it a good run.
Yeah, I'm glad Sliders got another chance, but I'm still waiting for Fox to bring back Alien Nation as a series, and for an apology from the lunkheads who canceled it in the first place. -- Tamara
*Special thanks to Blinker for this article*
Sliders is
back after six months in limbo
The Province; Vancouver, B.C.; Feb 29, 1996; by Ray Chatelin
For the Fox network, it
means a changing of the guard. For the rest of us, it's the first sign that
summer is near.
Sliders, the
made-in-Vancouver series about a group of adventurers on an inter-dimensional
coaster ride, is returning after a six-month hiatus, having its new
"season" beginning Friday (U.TV, KCPQ, 8 p.m.).
It's replacing Strange Luck,
another Vancouver-based Fox show that is going into hibernation until the fall
-- assuming its option is picked up by the network -- as the lead-in show to
X-Files (9 p.m.).
"We never intended
Sliders to be anything else than a summer- season show," says Fox
Entertainment Group president John Matoian. "It was always intended to
alternate with another show."
And, waiting in the wings
and about to make its entrance for Fox is Profit, yet another made-in-Vancouver
show, this one from Stephen J. Cannell and starring Adrian Pasdar as a
sociopathic financial wizard.
It debuts April 8 with a
two-hour movie, initially displacing Melrose Place, although it may yet be seen
at 9 p.m. Like Sliders, it has a 13-week guarantee and will be seen through the
summer.
Sliders stars Jerry
O'Connell, John Rhys-Davies, Sabrina Lloyd and Cleavant Derricks, the original
cast. It was a series whose concept was often richer than its content.
The story-line chronicles
the travels of the four, who are able to transport themselves to parallel,
current Earths, where history has created a different existence.
Last season's stories had
them in an America that had been conquered by the Soviet Union -- a world in
which nuclear winter prevailed and where men were considered the weaker sex.
But the ideas were often
better than the writing and Fox executives promise a different approach this
season.
"We've been able to
fine-tune the concept a bit," says Bill Coveny, Fox's senior VP in charge
of programming, "with a new generation of episodes."
In effect, the show is being
developed to get more of the X- Files crowd.
Says executive producer
Tracy Torme: "We're going to a world this year that has a lot of black
magic in it, where the occult may or may not exist. We're going to a world where
time is sliding backwards for the Sliders and forwards for everybody else.
"And we're going to a
world of `invasion' where we land in the middle of an invasion from somewhere
and the Earth is being taken over."
The emphasis is moving away
from our heroes saving yet another parallel Earth every week to a smaller, more
focused series of challenges.
DOWN IN SCALE
"We'll get to know
these people better," says executive producer Jacob Epstein, "as they
confront these worlds. "We're bringing it down in scale, making it more
personal for these guys. The show was the highest-rated of Fox's (new shows)
last season."
As for filming in
rain-sodden Vancouver, Epstein has given us a new light, made us a lot brighter.
"Vancouver is a
terrific city. But it's rainy and it's overcast and the shows are kind of dark,
brooding. The X-Files is the only show I can think of that succeeds with that
because it incorporates the gloominess in its stories.
- Special thanks to Blinker for this article
29-February-1996
Source: The News Times
By Mike Duffy
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Life on ``Sliders'' isn't like being sentenced to the tedium treadmill.
Just the opposite, says Jerry O'Connell, handsome young star of the lively sci-fi series that returns for a new season Friday on Fox. ``Working in television can become very monotonous or very boring,'' says O'Connell, 22. ``But with this show, it's impossible to get bored. You're in a different parallel reality every week.'' Yeah, and in at least one of those wigged-out worlds, Elvis really is still alive. That's half the fun of ``Sliders,'' which follows the adventures of an eclectic quartet of time travelers headed by collegiate physics whiz Quinn Mallory (O'Connell). This is science-fiction television with a sly wink, a light touch. That may have something to do with Tracey Torme, the former writer for ``SCTV'' and ``Saturday Night Live,'' who cocreated and produces ``Sliders.'' These time warp wigglers have a sense of humor. But just because ``Sliders'' doesn't take itself too seriously doesn't mean it doesn't have any sci-fi credibility. Torme also worked on ``Star Trek: The Next Generation.'' And ``Sliders,'' which has its own web site on the Internet, has developed a fervent following among cybernauts over the past year. ``I go on-line and I'm just amazed by what our fans are aware of,'' O'Connell says. ``Sci-fi fans are the hardest fans to please. I hear people talking about about things I don't even remember. These are the sort of fans who are not only watching, they're watching every little detail.'' Though ``Sliders'' has so far been just a modest little success for Fox, O'Connell is on the brink of sliding into the parallel reality of big-time Hollywood achievement. He'll star this summer in ``Joe's Apartment,'' a movie based on a short, loopy MTV cult film. Later this spring, he'll begin filming ``Jerry Maguire'' with Tom Cruise, a comedy about a desperate sports agent (Cruise) in hot pursuit of a hotshot college quarterback (O'Connell). O'Connell, who stands 6-foot-2 and weighs 190 pounds, has the hunky look of an all-star jock. That's not exactly the profile he flashed a decade ago in ``Stand by Me,'' the beloved Rob Reiner coming-of-age comedy. Yes, believe it or not, an 11-year-old Jerry O'Connell played the fat kid. ``It was a fluke,'' recalled O'Connell of his first encounter with show business. ``There was a cattle call for `Stand By Me.' And I was the right age, the right size and, I guess, the right width.'' O'Connell grew up in New York City, where he began acting in school plays. His parents kept his head screwed on straight, treating their son's acting career ``as an extracurricular activity'' and insisting he attend college. In between acting jobs, O'Connell majored in film and television at New York University, where he graduated last spring. Now he's happily chatting up the new, improved ``Sliders.'' ``Last year, sometimes you didn't know whether it was sci-fi, sci-fi adventure or sci-fi comedy. It was pretty wishy-washy,'' O'Connell says. ``This year, it's more true science-fiction. ``It's that voice that's really coming through in the writing. Sci-fi is such a fun genre to work in because you can hold a mirror up to society. You can comment on social issues. It's not just dopey TV.'' Sounds like a surefire Fox promo: `` `Sliders': It's not just dopey TV.''
01-March-1996
Source: www.canoe.ca
Edmonton Sun
Yup, that's pretty much Sliders in a nutshell.
The Fox series, about a quartet of travellers who "slide'' through alternate
universes, returns tonight from its most perilous journey - a stay in the network TV
hibernation zone called hiatus.
The show, which was not on Fox's fall schedule and was reported cancelled, may be
another program that owes its second life to the Internet. Only eight episodes of Sliders
were produced last season and the ratings weren't great. But fantasy/sci-fi/supernatural
shows tend to inspire a lot of Internet chatter and with on-line protest ringing in its
ears, Fox re-considered and commissioned the producers to come up with 13 new Sliders
adventures.
"Immediately the Internet traffic was so big that I kind of had a sense that if
we could find our footing and keep going long enough, it would get bigger and bigger,''
said Sliders executive producer Tracy Torme (yes, he's Mel's son) in a recent interview.
"That's already starting to happen.''
Sliders' star Jerry O'Connell admits input from on-line fans has helped ground the
show, so to speak. "It amazes me when I go on-line and I see that people pay
attention to details that I didn't notice - and I was there on set. It's helped me with
the fact that every detail counts. Science fiction fans are the most critical. If you can
please them, you can please anybody.''
VR5, M.A.N.T.I.S. and, apparently, Strange Luck, which has finished its season or
been placed on hiatus depending on who you believe, all failed as companion pieces for
X-Files, and Sliders is the latest to get the time slot before Fox's best-loved show.
While time travel is a sure-fire way to interest some viewers, sometimes the show's
special effects haven't been up to its parallel universe ideas - remember the giant shark
sequence?
Co-exec producer Jacob Epstein, who says he has always seen the show as the
"ultimate backpacking trip through Europe," reveals the new episodes will not be
about the travellers saving the world each week.
"It will be more intimate challenges and things on a smaller scale,'' he said.
"We're bringing it down in scale, making it more personal.''
O'Connell insists those tough-to-please sci-fi fans will still get a nice
special-effects rush. "We've been doing some pretty snazzy stuff with the wormhole,''
he promises. Sliders is back with an episode about witch-doctors and sorcerers tonight at
9 on Cable 28, 33.
"Sliders" returns to the schedule (8 p.m., Fox) with a typically cheeky
episode, which takes off on "The Wizard of Oz."
This time, the alternate-dimension voyagers -- brilliant grad student Quinn Mallory (Jerry
O'Connell), spunky computer techie Wade Wells (Sabrina Lloyd), puffed-up prof Maximilian
Arturo (John Rhys-Davies) and circumspect singer Rembrandt Brown (Cleavant Derricks) --
are plopped onto an Earth in which the occult forms the basis of science. The injured
Quinn is treated by a doctor who is a shaman; the group stays in a hotel that literally
has skeletons in its closets. As some may find all too appropriate, a legal process-server
even shows up dressed as the Grim Reaper.
Understandably anxious to leave, the Sliders undertake to meet the Sorcerer (Rod Wilson),
who, they are told, is himself a Slider. They set out for his spooky castle, just across
the Golden Gargoyle Gate Bridge and are surprised by what they find -- although it will
seem oddly familiar to fans of "The Wizard of Oz."
We've always liked "Sliders," although it may not be to the taste of those who
like their science fiction and fantasy on the dark side ("The X-Files"). To us,
its irreverence and refusal to take itself too seriously is infectious, making it one of
TV's quirky little pleasures.
By Christy Slewinski
New York Daily News
Only a few minutes into a recent between-scenes chat, ``Sliders'' star Jerry O'Connell admits his mother was less than thrilled with his interview in the February Playgirl.
It seems perplexing at first, as her son not only appears fully clothed but comes off in the text as quick, witty and all-around entertaining. Then, O'Connell fesses up - it wasn't the interview, as much as all the skin pics Mom had to flip past to find it.
Note to Jerry's mom: Don't fret. We predict there's going to be a deluge of stories on Jerry that you'll be able to easily read without averting your eyes.
That's because O'Connell, 22, is on a career roll. Friday night at 8 ET, his sci-fi adventure series, ``Sliders,'' gets a second chance at life, as a lead-in, no less, to the Fox hit ``The X-Files.''
Next, O'Connell, a '95 NYU film-school grad whose best-known movie credit used to be as the chubby Verne in ``Stand By Me,'' will star in ``Joe's Apartment,'' a feature based on the MTV film short. In April, O'Connell begins work on ``Jerry McGuire,'' where he'll play a star quarterback being wooed by sports agent Tom Cruise.
The script, he says, calls for his picture to appear on the Sony Jumbotron in Times Square - a mega-event for the die-hard New Yorker who still resides in Chelsea with Mom and Dad.
``The entire family's coming out for that one,'' he said. It'll be something Mom will want to see.
BY CLAIRE BICKLEY
Toronto Sun As universe-hopping hero Quinn Mallory on Fox's sci-fi Sliders, Jerry
O'Connell is worlds away from the part that brought him to prominence.
"I've always been known as the fat kid from Stand By Me," admits
O'Connell, 22, who has since grown sleek and strapping.
On Sliders, which has just returned to TV as a Friday night companion to The
X-Files, his character is a physics genius who slips between parallel Earths with a group
of friends.
No math whiz in school, O'Connell was an honors student nonetheless and although
he's spent more than half his life in show business, education always came first.
Training in acting and dance in grade school in New York, he was acting out even
earlier, dressing up in grade four as General Douglas MacArthur as a joke on his
Japanese-American principal.
Early jobs included a chocolate chip cookie commercial - he can still belt out
"Crispy chewy yummy Duncan Hines tastes crispy chewy, tastes great - like my Mom's
does" - to prove it, and a part in Water Music, an off-Broadway biography of
all-terrain actress Esther Williams.
Cast as Stand By Me's chubby, chicken-hearted Vern, the Greenwich Village resident
hit paydirt. Professionally and, more importantly since he was 11, playfully.
"The biggest trees I'd seen were in Central Park and now I'm in Eugene,
Oregon. It was the best summer of my life," O'Connell remembers.
For O'Connell, acting remained an extracurricular activity instead of a fulltime
job.
"You hear horror stories about child stars," he says.
"But it's been nothing but great times and memories for me. I've had nothing
but great experiences. I think that has a lot to do with my family. I thank them very much
for keeping me grounded."
Another major influence was actor Derek McGrath, his co-star from 1988 to 1991 on
the Canadian adventure series My Secret Identity. From age 15 to 18, O'Connell - who grew
a foot during the show's run - played a teen turned superhero after being exposed to a
radiation experiment.
"Working with Derek on My Secret Identity in Toronto were three of the best
years of my life. We had so much fun on that show," he remembers.
McGrath and O'Connell's father Michael, a realtor who took time off to live in
Toronto as his chaperone, remain good friends.
Because he's done so much work in Canada - Sliders shoots in Vancouver - O'Connell
is often mistaken for a Canadian and has toyed with seeking landed immigrant status here.
"I love it so much," he says of his sometime-adopted country.
"You can't see the air. I find myself going outside a lot more."
Still living up to his parents' expectations, O'Connell graduated last Spring from
New York University's four-year film program.
"I figured I'd do acting on the side while I was going through college and I
found a happy balance between the two and was able to work and go to school," he
says.
The only time he took off school was for a part on the short-lived ABC sitcom Camp
Wilder. Everything else, including the telefilms The Room Upstairs; The Ranger, The Cook
And The Hole In The Sky and the movie Calendar Girl, were restricted to summers and
holidays.
For one NYU project, O'Connell made a 10-minute film about an unemployed actor who
sits at home talking to himself and listening to the messages on his answering machine.
But when Sliders went on hiatus after a spring run last season, he wasn't waiting for the
phone to ring. He was filming the Fox movie of the week Blue River and Joe's Apartment, a
David Geffen-produced feature for release this summer.
The Joe of the title is a New York newcomer whose only friends are the cockroaches
that infest his tenement apartment. The role required O'Connell to eat a couple of the
crawlers.
"They were clean," he protests.
"They were Hollywood-breds. You know, it's not like they were running around
the subways gathering up bugs."
Actor Jerry O'Connel, star of the current FOX series "Sliders" and the upcoming summer movie "Joe's Apartment" appeared at the Denver Starfest convention this past weekend. He spoke on Saturday only for one hour in front of a packed audience. He was wearing a gray suit, white shirt and black tie and seemed rather relaxed. My very first impression of him was: "He's a Guy!" meaning an ADULT. I often watch "Sliders" from the view that he is a college student, but he came across on stage as a full fledged adult who likes what he does very much. He was very nice, seemed to be very friendly and answered questions rather easily. The primary topics he covered were "Sliders" and his new movie "Joe's Apartment." We were shown a brief preview of the movie as well as some clips from the film -- it's all about a kid named Joe who moves into a small New York apartment and finds out he does NOT live alone: he's living with about 2,00 talking, singing and dancing cockroaches. If you are like me and HATE those little bugs - have no fear - the whole idea (based on a small MTV skit) came across as funny, humorous and very entertaining. He was very enthusiastic about the show and said he absolutely loves to work on it. He said he "can't believe I'm getting paid to do this." They laugh all day on the set and have a great time -- he's so happy he doesn't mind getting up really early for shooting. -- He was asked if he thought "Sliders" would do anything for his career? He said that has never entered his mind: when he first read the pilot script, he thought "oh, wow! There are so many possibilities here!" It struck his imagination and got him excited. What it would do for his career never entered the decision when he accepted the role. -- FOX never actually canceled "Sliders" last year -- it was on hiatus for a long time because FOX could never find a decent timeslot for it. He said the cast & crew are VERY happy with the 8pm Friday timeslot before "X-Files" (um, who wouldn't be?) and they are looking to stay there. -- He "hangs out" on the FOX's "Sliders" WWW site and tries to answer as many questions that come in as possible. He likes the Internet and has a good time on it. -- Working with John Reis-Davies on "Sliders" is the BEST. He is "also the best Slider." O'Connel says Davies can run and jump around better than the rest of them. They slide by running and jumping off trampolines onto mats. -- He and the female star of "Sliders" do enjoy the romance stuff that is often written into the show, but the producers "are probably not going to anything with it." He said he watched "Moonlighting" and saw it go downhill after the two main characters slept together -- he doesn't want to see the same thing happen here. -- Davies can be a pack of trouble on the set. They were filming a scene where the female lead (I cannot remember her name for the life of me) is climbing a rope up a wall: O'Connel and Davies were holding the rope below and if they were to let go, she would start sliding back and forth and would scare her. Davies kept asking O'Connel to let go of the rope so she would swing around. O'Connel said no, they shouldn't do that. Davies kept insisting, saying they could add the blown shot to the year-ending blooper reel. So they let go of the rope and she goes flying around, everyone laughs and Davies remarks, "No come on, you're telling me that wasn't worth it?" -- They have an episode coming up where all time runs backward. He found the filming of the episode very confusing, went to Davies to ask him HIS take on the episode and how things worked, and Davies said there was no need to understand what was really happening - just film the episode and have fun. -- Was asked if he gets paid double when a double of him appears on screen -- the answer is NO. -- He was asked about the "Sliders" episode where there weren't many men and Quinn may have had a child with someone there -- would we ever see the child? He said at this time there are NO plans by the producers to revisit any worlds already seen, however HE would like to see stories where they ARE able to revisit worlds and see what effect their previous visit had on Society. -- He says one of the reasons he really likes "Sliders" is because the plotlines are unlimited. You can do just about anything on any world (that a budget will permit) -- He joked (but maybe he was serious) that actor Nick Lea was brought in toward the end of "Sliders's" first season "to scare me into not asking for more money." -- Was asked what his perfect "Sliders" world to slide into would be: being a New Yorker, he said, "Where the New York Mets would have some kind of winning record." -- Quinn Mallory is a physics genius; actor Jerry O'Connel cannot add or subtract. He said he hoped his 10th grade teacher was watching the show and would get the impression that he was really smart after all. JOE'S APARTMENT - He had a lot of fun working on this movie - one of the best experiences he ever had with a cast and crew. He said working with the cockroaches was better in some cases than many actors he had worked with in the past... -- Started out filming the movie with 2,000 live cockroaches, and when they finished filming, they had 8,000 cockroaches. He said that should teach something to everyone. -- He said it was some of the strangest filming he had ever done - a great deal of acting he did was to thin air -- to computer animated cockroaches that would be brought into the shot later. Watching the movie clips at the con for the first time, he said he was still amazed how the special effects were done and painted in with him. -- He enjoyed doing the movie for a lot of reasons, among them the fact that it was filmed in his home town of New York. Also, he liked the script a great deal (felt it was very hip) and had seen the short film seen on MTV. He has to film "Sliders" in Vancouver and he was just happy to be home. -- How were cockroaches directed on the set? He said the set was a VERY controlled atmosphere, where all cast and crew were given a Roach Seminar to learn about the little bugs and treat them well on stage. He WAS a bit grossed out by the 6-inch Venezuelan cockroaches that were brought in for filming. -- He had to have to cockroaches in his mouth for filming at one point - his girlfriend was rather angry and he had to really brush his teeth. -- The roaches they worked with were pretty clean, "they were Hollywood roaches." In the end they didn't really bother him that much. He believes this movie "will bring the barrier between people and roach down." OTHER ---------- -- His very first acting job was at the age of 11, where he was hired for three days to eat 2,000 chocolate chip cookies. -- What is his favorite science fiction novel? He said he really likes works by Ray Bradbury -- feels he is the master. However there are some "Sliders" books out right now that he thinks are GREAT science fiction novels.... :) -- Was asked if he could be any kitchen implement, what would he be? He didn't have an answer... -- A child asked him if he had any pets: a black Lab named Blackie who is still not house-trained even after 12 years. -- What does he do to escape the pressures of work? O'Connel said he feels he has NO pressures at work. He enjoys what he does a great deal and has so much fun he can't believe he's getting paid to do all of this. Among his hobbies: fencing, and surfing. He was in Colorado Springs a few years ago for the Junior Olympics. -- His favorite cartoon is "The Tick." He owns all the toys from the Taco Bell happy meals... -- As a child he had no idea what he wanted to be... didn't know he wanted to be an actor or anything else. -- Aside from "Sliders," "X-Files" is his favorite TV show.
-Special thanks to Blinker for this article.
By Christy Slewinski
"Sliders," Fox's inter-dimensional actioner, has placed its female lead in a sticky predicament.
Throughout the first season, Sabrina Lloyd's character, Wade Wells, has had an unrequited crush on series centerpiece Quinn Mallory, played by Jerry O'Connell.
But, with a second season on the horizon, the one-sided story could go a different way.
Which way? Who knows.
And the actress' call-waiting has inadvertently increased the intrigue.
During a phone interview this week, Lloyd debated the pros and cons of a matchup between the two time travelers. But, as she was likening the situation to an in-office romance, the incessant beeping of the call-waiting on her end of the phone knocked out every 10th word or so.
``They're always traveling together, so that could get pretty - - - ,'' she said.
Could get pretty what?
Lloyd laughed.
``You could just leave that blank,'' she said. ``Fill in whatever you want it to be. In fact, we could just leave `fill in the blanks' throughout the interview, and let people use their own imagination.''
Not that ``Sliders'' (Fridays at 8 p.m. ET) lacks imagination to begin with. The show, which is still in first-run episodes through the end of June, routinely takes its viewers to worlds where history has been turned upside down.
But, hey, back to the important stuff - Wade and love.
``Well, of course I want to see Wade get something,'' Lloyd, 25, said with a laugh. ``She's been traveling by herself for a long time.''
Then, seriously: ``I don't know if I would actually like to see them become a couple, but ... I would like to see them start playing upon the sexual tension thing - it could be a little more of a tease.''
24-June-1996
Source: ZENtertainment
Fox's Friday night episode of SLIDERS is reported by TV GUIDE as having "a creepy, suspenseful script that ventures into more traditional sci-fi terrain." The episode has the SLIDERS gang coming across a dimension occupied by technologically superior aliens who have the ability to slide at will and plan to conquer the entire dimensional spectrum.
*Thanks to Blinker for this article*
September-1996
Source: TV Guide
Returning Favorites: Sliders
The Big News: The sci-fi series is aiming for a broader - or at least younger - audience
in its third season. "I'm committed to making Sliders a true family show," says
executive producer David Peckinpah. "There won't be a lot of sexual content or
profane language this year." Count on more involved special effects and - with
production shifting from Vancouver to
Los Angeles - some tropical settings.
Hot Plots: Our involuntary wanderers will find themselves in parallel universes where
dreams can be deadly, where tornadoes are ubiquitous, and where the planet spins far more
slowly.
Transformations: The roguish recurring character of Logan St. Clair (Zoe McLellan) will be
beefed up. As the female counterpart to Quinn (Jerry O'Connell), she is a fellow slider
who jumps among the same parallel worlds, stealing natural resources. Professor
Maximillian Arturo (John Rhys-Davies) will contract a strange alien affliction that will
profoundly alter his
personality. And we thought R&B singer Rembrandt Brown (Cleavant Derricks) had all the
musical talent here, but computer expert Wade Wells (Sabrina Lloyd) reveals an unexpected
gift this year.
Guest Star: Donnie Most (Happy Days) as a game-show host.
*Special thanks to Blinker/Slider120 for the article*
Prediction: Executive Producer David Peckinpah has vowed to turn Sliders into a
true family show, which should make it an odd companion for the dark Millennium. FOX
doesn't have as much patience as it used to. It's a major network now, and if Sliders
can't begin to build an audience, it could be gone by the end of the year. Start the
letter and e-mail writing campaigns now.
Comic Books on the Screen is about adaptations of comic books into movies and TV shows. It's been happening since film was invented and we yakked about it with the folks creating Superman: The Animated Series; Naojo Nakamura (Tenchi Muyo in Love) and Lou Farrigno, who voiced in The Incredible Hulk cartoon. We also talked with the writer, colorist and editor of the Sliders comic adaptation. TV show into comic book instead. All this and our guest host this time was Kevin 'Clerks' Smith! Yippie-yi-ki-yay!
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