SLIDECAGE
Slidecage Parallel Earth News Service
Jul 26, 2011 10:52 EST
What if Sliders debuted in 2011 on a parallel world? Well my recent visit to a healthy superfit U.S. brought me just that. A healthy United States is another story, but I couldn’t resist writing about this earth’s Sliders series. The NBCUniversal giant had picked up “Sliders” with its first pilot airing in late February this year. I’ve noticed there’s no SyFy or Fox networks on this world, and apparently NBC is the most watched channel in the United States. Sliders is airing in full HD 1080p in a local electronics store and the online community is buzzing about its recent first season finale.
Timer replicas, t-shirts, board games, video games and action figures are just a few of the announced plans for merchandise. A movie is also in the works and it’s rumored to be directed by J.J. Abrams, and written by Tracy Tormé and Robert K. Weiss. It’s set to premiere in the fall of 2012 on this parallel world. The first season has already been released to Blu-ray, and video download purchases for the series are making history, reaching record highs.
I only had 29 minutes on this world (yes thankfully not 29 years) so I’ve only got sketchy details about its first season. The cast is dramatically different from our Sliders. Here’s what I’ve got. River Phoenix (Stand by Me) stars as Quinn Mallory and Michael Caine (Batman Begins) as Professor Arturo. Will Smith (Men in Black) stars as a rapping Rembrandt Brown, while Wade is played by Anna Torv (Fringe). That’s quite a change as we know it.
Apparently it took Quinn much longer to discover sliding. He only done so with the help of a college friend named Bennish. Quinn and Wade met at church, and he appears to be quite religious but it’s unclear as to what his belief is. Rembrandt is caught up in a moving vortex while he is rapping live on stage. The timer looks like an altered version of the iPhone, and they even have to “charge up” its battery. It’s left the Sliders with a lot of close calls especially on earths where technology is non existent. The season finale ends with Quinn being forced to open the vortex and slide with a criminal, leaving the other Sliders behind.
The setting of Sliders takes place not in San Francisco, but rather the capital of the nation, Washington D.C. And it seems the show has used a lot of historical “what-ifs” to keep the viewer interested and even up to date on historical facts and how they change from one world to the next. Quite clever, if I say so myself. I would’ve filled you in on some key episodes but like any slide my time has run out. Maybe our own earth will one day pick up the series and be just as successful as this one is.