I was interviewed by Sébastien from the Silver Screen Association from France. You can read the interview in English form below.
– Hello Thomas, could you quickly introduce yourself?
My name’s Thomas Birchfield. I’m from East Tennessee, and I live next to the Blue Ridge Mountains. My studies were in photography but unfortunately my health has rapidly declined. My scifi “Sliders” fan website is slidecage.com and I have a “Christy” TV show website christycove.com. “Christy” is very niche like Sliders, but it’s of significance for East Tennessee.
– How did you discover SLIDERS? Did you like the concept right away?
It was probably January or February of 1995 when I found out about Sliders. My family didn’t have cable TV at the time. It was too expensive, so we were using the old analog way of watching broadcast TV on FOX. The struggle of antennas is probably something most young people don’t know about today. I guess the term don’t touch that dial is outdated. I watched The X-Files back then so I saw the Sliders Pilot being advertised and scheduled to air March 22, 1995.
I was 8 years old then, so I don’t think I really understood the concept of Sliders that well in the Pilot. It’s been so long ago, but I think the things that intrigued me as a kid was the adventure. At the time I had been watching some Star Trek: The Next Generation. Don’t get me wrong, Star Trek is good but I always felt trapped in the show. No I’m not claustrophobic, but you’re often confined to a ship. With Sliders you jump into a wormhole and see new worlds and can run around without being inside a box. I think it’s that adventure with those bits of comedy that pulled me in. The creator of the show Tracy Tormé, said that some of the writers took the pilot tape out of their house and their kids started crying. The kids enjoyed the show that much. It proved on how many levels the show could work. From kids all the way up to the adults.
– What are your favorite episodes? What’s your favorite season?
Some of my favorite episodes are “Eggheads”, “Last Days”, “Fever” and “The King is Back.” The latter may be my most favorite of all time. The comedy is so great. Plus you have Rembrandt being the “Elvis Presley” of that world. I think “Eggheads” might be the best episode for a person to understand the show’s concept. With “Eggheads” everyone can relate to how highly praised sports stars are. Well on that world they aren’t, instead it’s the geniuses.
Season one is the best in my opinion. It laid the groundwork for the show, and little by little it kept slowly going off track. I think the average executive wants these big gunfires, explosions and havoc going on in shows non-stop. Sliders wasn’t with the in-crowd, and stood all on it’s own. It thought outside the box. It was pop culture and I don’t think it went well with the networks. In a manner of speaking it was an Eggheads show, but something everyone could relate to.
– Who are your favorite SLIDERS characters?
My favorite character is Quinn Mallory. Honestly I guess as a kid I saw him as the hero. He was the main lead of the show anyway. My next favorites would be The Professor and Rembrandt. Don’t ask me to rank them, I’ll just put them tied for 2nd place.
– Your website is a wonderful illustration of your passion for “SLIDERS”. How did you come up with the idea of creating slidecage.com?
Back in the late 90s or early 00s I remember visiting the Sci-Fi Channel bulletin boards. It’s now known as Syfy but I found my way to earthprime.com then. It was such a well done site, I think it started with 2 writers or maybe more. I started my website back in 2007, after seeing all of the continued fanfare that still lingered. With the various other websites I found no alternative but for a good blog to try something unique. I was late to the website game because I was so young when the Pilot aired. Website domains are hard to come by. After a lot of research and contemplating I chose slidecage.com because not only is it an episode but it has a character named Thomas in it. Well my name is Thomas too, so it only felt like the most logical choice.
– What’s next for the site?
I’m hoping to continue bringing more blog posts plus episode reviews. Sliders is something I love but I hope I’m putting out material that people will enjoy. Our society is so stressful today and if I can bring your attention away from it all just for a few minutes or even drag you to watch an episode it’ll be worth it. I’m trying to give people a way to escape from this world and into Sliders. It’s kind of ironic.
– Tracy Tormé has recently been working on a sequel to “SLIDERS”. Do you think the SLIDERS reboot will come to fruition? What would be the ideal scenario for you?
I hope there will be a reboot, but one with a continuation of the original actors. I know that’s what Tracy was working on. I hope we’ll see it come back but only under Tracy’s command, and Jerry’s said the same thing. The network at the time was sorta saying ok yeah, but why now? It seemed positive but at the same time negative. But from my perception it’s just sitting on a shelf to the side right now. In fact all of Hollywood is at a standstill with the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes going on. This only delays a possible reboot even further. My greatest fear is something that is out of our control and that’s age. We all get older day by day, and I hope it can get done with greats like Tracy Tormé, John Rhys-Davies and Cleavant Derricks.
My ideal scenario would be a miniseries or solid limited series. Something like 15-20 episodes that are solid material. I know a lot of people would disagree with me on that but if you look back at history we don’t want the same downfall to happen again like it did. If it’s going to be done it needs to be done right and not end up in another disaster with someone else at the helm.
– Can you tell us about the Bring Back Sliders movement? Have you had a chance to talk to Jerry O’Connell and John Rhys Davies on the subject?
I’m 100% sure Jerry O’Connell wants to do Sliders again with Tracy. John Rhys-Davies does as well. I asked him at a convention and he said “we need to get something done”. I didn’t have a lot of time with him but I handed over 5,000 signatures as well as my various thoughts to him. The petition can be signed at slidecage.com/change. Obviously it’s not up to JRD, it’s up to the network. At this point all we can do is pray about it, sign and share the petition. Literally and not figuratively. You may think it’s too little to concern yourself with. If I hadn’t taken a step in starting the petition John Rhys-Davies would have never started talking about it at conventions. Nor would we have over 5,000 signatures. In reality it was Jerry’s idea, and Matt Sernaker of comicsonline.com coined the hashtag #BringBackSliders when he interviewed him. I just took the initiative to start it.
– There’s talk of a future SLIDERS convention. Do you think it will happen?
The Sliders Convention fell through, but I recently suggested a type of online convention to Tracy Tormé. Hopefully they can come up with something. We’ll see. As Quinn Mallory said, “Where there’s mystery, there’s hope. Keep hope alive.”