Below is a review for the Sliders Dual Dimension edition DVD set. I wrote the review for Ciao so you can also see it at their website by clicking here.
I'm a big fan of Sliders and was very happy when it was announced that the
first and second seasons would finally be released on DVD in a 'Dual Dimension'
collectors box set. I had been waiting a long time for this day and it wouldn't
have happened without the determination of the fans that sent numerous letters,
emails and petitions off to the executives of the show. I bought my Box set for
around £28, which was a bit high considering most TV shows that have 22 episodes
cost around £23 or so, but I didn't care, I could finally get one of my fav
sci-fi shows on DVD after all these years of waiting.
[The History behind Sliders]
Sliders started life on the Fox channel for the first three seasons and was then
picked up by the Sci-Fi channel after Fox cancelled it. It's a weird history
behind Sliders because it has been cancelled quite a few times. It was initially
put on hiatus after 9 episodes out of the 22 were completed in the first season.
This was because Fox wanted to change the nature of the show and have more
action than it actually had. So because of late production on the next lot of
episodes, after the hiatus period, these episodes were aired a year later and
were known as season two. Fox then officially cancelled the show after the
episodes were aired.
Fans were devasted at the decision by Fox, so decided to start a campaign to
bring the show back. Their efforts worked and Fox gave Sliders a full 25 episode
season, exactly what the fans wanted. For that season Sliders done quite well in
the ratings but Fox decided to cancel it again because they wanted to go ahead
with another show in the time slot that Sliders usually had. Lucky enough
though, the Sci-Fi channel saw the potential in Sliders and decided to pick it
up for a Fourth and then a Fifth season. After good ratings (First place in
Season 4 and second place behind Farscape in Season Five), fans thought that
Sliders would surely get a Sixth Season, but no they didn't. Sci-Fi cancelled
the show. That decision was mainly thought to be because of problems with the
budget the Sixth season would have had but I'm not sure. There are also rumours
that Sci-Fi tried to pin the blame for the cancellation on the actors, saying
that none of them signed up for a Sixth Season, but they responded by saying
that they were never asked and went on to do other projects.
Not only has Sliders been cancelled several times but key members of cast and
crew left the show too. Most notably was the removal of John Rhys-Davies
(Professor Arturo), Sabrina Lloyd (Wade Wells) and of course the main star Jerry
O'Connell (Quinn Mallory). This was what let the show down in the fourth and
Fifth seasons. There were loads of goings on with pay disputes and what not but
nothing could be settled. The only actor who stayed for all five seasons was
Cleavant Derricks (Rembrandt Brown), who became the lead character after Jerry
left. Rembrandt was a good character but after seeing Jerry O'Connell as the
lead for so long it felt very different. Various writers and producers left too,
which was why a lot of the stories didn't turn out that well. There were so many
cast/character changes as well that didn't help the matter. These included Kari
Wuhrer joining the cast in Season three and Tembi Locke and Robert Floyd joining
in Season Five. This was of course because many of the original actors had left
the show for one reason or another.
Sliders has been a hit all round the world and like another cancelled show 'Farscape',
continues to play on the sciFi channel. So if you want to catch a few episodes
then the best thing is to check if you got that channel. They used to air
Sliders on BBC2 but the BBC decided not to purchase Seasons Four and Five after
they aired on Sky One. That left many of us who were watching on BBC2 in a bit
of a bother because we didn't have Sky.
[The characters]
Quinn Mallory [Jerry O'Connell] aka Q-Ball
Quinn spends most of his time in the basement of the house, where he often
conducts various experiments, one of course that led to sliding. He lives in San
Francisco and when he was 12, his dog Bopper went missing. His father died in a
car crash at the same time. After his father's death Quinn got interested in
'Quantum Physics' and decided to go to the University of California to study the
subject. There he attended lectures by Professor Arturo. He also works part time
at the Doppler Computer Superstore as a repairman. His friend Wade also works
there.
Wade [Kathleen] Wells [Sabrina Lloyd]
Wade is the best friend of Quinn Mallory and works at the Doppler Computer Superstore. She also has feelings for Quinn but she is considered to be more like a sister to him, so their romance doesn't really go anywhere to start with. Over the course of the season they do kiss but Wade becomes more closer to Rembrandt because they agree on more things than she did with Quinn.
Rembrandt [Lee] Brown [Cleavant Derricks] aka 'The Crying Man', 'Remy'
Rembrandt first started life as a singer with his music group 'The Spinning
Tops' but once he left them his success went downhill. He was named 'The Crying
man' after he cried real tears on stage and often provides a lot of the comic
relief throughout the seasons.
Professor Maximilian P. Arturo [John-Rhys Davies]
Arturo has to be most sarcastic out of Sliders but he is very knowledgable and
his bright ideas and plans help the Sliders out in most sticky situations. He's
a teacher of Cosmology and Ontology at the University of California and is one
of Quinn's lecturers.
[How does the story for Sliders start out?]
Quinn Mallory accidently opens up a portal to another dimension while he was
trying to discover anti-gravity. After several tests he then invents a timer so
that if he goes through the gateway he can return home. This is when the story
really starts. Quinn decides to enter the portal and lands himself in a
parallel-world that is slightly different to his own, where for example, on a
traffic light, red is go and green is stop. This world was only a little bit
different but as you will see later in the seasons some worlds are totally
different.
When he returns from his sucessful 'Slide' he finds out that he is being blamed
for things he hasn't done while he has been away. That is when he finds out that
a double from another world has also invented sliding and has come through the
gateway into his world.The double has been Sliding for quite some time and just
as his timer counts down to the last second he tries to warn Quinn about
something with the Timer. The double Quinn isn't able to finish what he is
saying as the portal opens and he is sucked through.
Later Quinn invites his friends Wade and Arturo round to his house to show them
what the device can do. The two are amazed when they see Quinn's basement full
of gadgets and gizmos but what really amazes them is when Quinn opens up the
portal. Wade wants to try it out but the professor looks at it from a more
scientific view and questions whether or not it would be stable for all of them.
After, they all decide to travel through the vortex but first Quinn decides to
increase the power so that the portal will be large enough to carry all of them
through safely, but once they enter the vortex something goes wrong and causes
the portal to enlarge and travel out into the street where it gathers up
Rembrandt in his cadillac.
When the four 'Sliders' arrive on the next world they stumble upon disaster, so
Quinn must advance the timer and open up a new vortex for them to escape. This
saves their lives but has also caused the timer to erase the co-ordinates of
their own world, which therefore begins their journey sliding through numerous
worlds in an attempt to make it back to their own someday.
[The Seasons]
[Season One Intro] What if you could find brand new worlds right here on Earth,
where anything's possible? Same planet, different dimension. I've found the
gateway!
[Season Two Intro] What if you could travel to parallel worlds? The same year,
the same Earth, only different dimensions. A world where the Russians rule
America, or where your dreams of being a superstar came true, or where San
Francisco was a maximum security prison? My friends and I have found the
gateway. Now the problem is, finding a way back home!
Overall both seasons were excellent and it was a great ride sliding through the
different worlds. Some really great episodes were produced and among my
favourites would have to be the feature-length Pilot episode. This was because
it not only set the story for sliding through different dimensions but because
it almost felt like a sort of movie. There were so many other great worlds that
the Sliders visited such as the one where men are are considered the weaker sex
or where most of the world's population of men have been killed by a virus.
Whatever world Sliders takes you to it's always great fun. The visual effects
for the show were also very good and were considered the best for a TV show at
the time Sliders was made. Obviously when I watch it back now the effects are
not as good as say Farscape or something but one thing that is still realistic
is the vortex, which the Sliders jump through when they travel from world to
world.
[The DVD]
The 6-disc Dual Dimension DVD set is region one NTSC and is not available on Region 2 at the moment. The best thing is, if you've got a multi-region player, is to puchase it from a cheap canadian site like me or to get it from cdwow.com, Amazon or playusa or something. You have to watch out though because a lot of these sites ship there DVD's direct from Canada so you can get a customs charge a lot of the time. I was lucky this time, I avoided getting charged. But now that probably means when I order my next box set, a £9 something charge will be waiting for me. I really hate it when this sh*t happens. Why can't you just order it and get it delivered to your house like your suppose too?
[The Packaging]
The packaging for this box set is very different and original to most sets that
I buy. This is because there is an illusion that makes the discs looks as though
they are floating. This has been done quite simply with a piece of foam which is
stuck on the left with six slots for the DVD's to slide in and out of. When you
pick it up it does feel kind of cheap because it's nothing like the normal
package you would get, but I like the design and it looks nice on my shelf. The
outta case is a shinny silver in colour with an image of sliders on the front.
It also has the sliders logo in a purple colour. There is also a transparent
plastic cover that slots into the case so you can see the discs 'float'. There
is no writing on the back and comes with no booklet, which is a shame. Many
people thought that the discs would get scratched up if you keep pulling the
discs in and out but various sites have tested it several times and say that the
foam does not cause the discs to get scratched.
[Technical details]
Sadly the two seasons are not in Widescreen, but instead a nice cleaned up
fullscreen version is included, which I am happy with. It's probably one of the
best fullscreen transfers actually, for a TV show. The colours are all in the
right contrast and despite having some dust are very good quality. On the audio
side of things everything is fine, considering that I first thought that there
was going to be a Mono track rather than the Dolby Surround track that is
actually included. It's not the best but it does the job at recreating the
stunning Sliders sound effects and music. The set also contains English, French
and Spanish subtitles but there are no other language tracks included.
[Extra Features]
This is a big let down because there's so much that could have been included,
such as various outtakes, interviews, behind the scenes segments, extra
commentaries but we get none of that and are stuck with only a total of three
features. These are:-
[Audio Commentary with writers/co-creators Robert K. Weiss and Tracy Torme]
Considering the pilot was about an hour and a half long we are given quite long
commentary, which is one good thing about the extras. Overall I thought the
commentary was great and very informative. We were let in a few behind the
scenes mishaps and they talked about the actors, among other things. One
highlight would have to be when they explained how John Rhys-Davies wanted to do
this stunt where he had to roll under a truck. They told him that they wanted to
use a stunt double but he kept insisting that he he wanted to do it. So they
finally let him and guess what? He rolled under the truck split his head open.
[The Making of Sliders]
This was mainly featurette fluff with loads of clips from the show but it did
have quite a few good interviews in there. Out of the actors though, only
Cleavant Derricks and Jerry O'Connell are interviewed. It would have been nice
to see what some of the others had to say but nothing from them was included. So
overall it was an okay feature.
[Photo Gallery]
Some photos come on the screen with some music playing in the background.
[Final Word]
Overall it was a great two seasons and I really enjoyed seeing them again after all these years. As I do with most of my TV show DVD reviews I would like to recommend the show to anyone who is into Sci-Fi. It's a great show and these two seasons were the high peak of Sliders.
Thanks for reading!