As you may already know Slidecage has a petition to bring the scifi series back to the airwaves. You can sign and share it here: slidecage.com/change. The petition outlines some basics that I feel a new show should have. The following checklist lays out even more effective tools if used properly in a Sliders return.
1. Don’t work on sets. If at all possible make sure you’re shooting on location. While its obviously more expensive and time consuming, a real location makes everything more believable for the audience.
2. Advertise and distribute properly. Viewers must know the series has returned. You cannot air episodes out of order or schedule the series up against other current popular shows. It’s just common sense.
3. Do not leave out the original genres. Sliders was unique in the sense that it could be absolutely serious in one scene and yet be hilarious in the next. It had the perfect blend of scifi, comedy and drama. Don’t just single out one genre. Mix it up!
4. Lay off the makeup. Its obvious the actors aren’t their young selves anymore. Don’t add so much makeup they look like they’re ready for the mortician. The X-Files did this and it came off so distracting one couldn’t help but believe they reanimated Duchovny and Anderson from the grave.
5. We’re not here for sex and violence. If we were we’d be watching other shows. Sliders is a scifi geek show about science, pop culture, and social and political themes, just to name a few. It’s about opening up our imaginations of adventure.
6. Hire writers not politicians. We want to be entertained and be taken on a fantastic adventure. So many writers today feel they must try to push their own specific political or social belief upon someone else in television. Sliders is about laying out the cards and as the Professor put it not getting involved with the locals.
7. Kromaggs. Just don’t go there. The idea was intriguing in Invasion. While it may be necessary to explain them for a new series it shouldn’t revolve around them with the likes it done in season four.
8. The Sliders are strangers. It’s essential to remember the Sliders are traveling nomads going from one place to another. Anything short of a regular hotel room or the woods for a temporary stay wouldn’t make too much sense.
9. Communicate. The Sliders cast and crew must not fail to communicate with the fans and with one another. What works? What doesn’t? If no lines of communication are open the series is ultimately doomed to failure.
10. Don’t ever forget the TV show’s main goal. It’s not to throw in a person scantily clad to give the wow factor. Nor is it to hear about some concoction that Quinn Mallory has foster parents. The main objective is home. The one home we all love and have held dear since the Pilot episode. It’s in the characters hearts and in ours. There’s no place like home.