The Best Sci-Fi Multiverse Series Has Nothing To Do With Marvel, Stream Now Without Netflix
There’s something about 90’s sci-fi shows that hits differently; it could be because of the limited special effects budgets or that without everything being focus-grouped to irrelevancy, writers could be creative and throw anything out there to see what stuck. Sliders, which originally aired on Fox, did an awful lot with its network budget, especially during Season 1. A show about traveling to parallel dimensions and exploring a multiverse sounds expensive, but thanks to smart writing, the series leaned into character and not spectacle.
If that sounds like the complete opposite of the problem plaguing Marvel and most other connected universes, well, you’re right.
Waiting For The Slide Home
Sliders starts out small, focusing on gifted college student Quinn Mallory (Jerry O’Connell), who invented the technology that allowed “sliding” from one world to another, but only within the same geographical location. This was a smart restriction that, for Season 1, meant every episode took place within similar sets, namely, the grounds of the fictional California University. Though Quinn was now sliding between dimensions, he wasn’t able to get back home to what was later revealed to be the “Prime Earth.”
Thrown Together And Tossed Across Reality
Joining Quinn on his journey in Sliders is Wade Welles (Sabrina Lloyd), who has a crush on Quinn, his professor, Maximillian Arturo (John Rhys-Davies), and a local man who got swept along in the initial vortex, Rembrandt Brown (Cleavant Derricks). Later, different members of the group are…unable to keep sliding…and residents of different dimensions join, including Quinn’s long-lost brother Colin (played by Charlie O’Connell, Jerry’s real brother) and military officer Maggie Beckett (Kari Wuhrer).
The Worlds Get Weirder
Sliders does a fantastic job of giving each character a distinct personality and voice, so when they come across a dimension that was shaped by the writings of philosopher Thomas Hobbes, featuring a lottery you don’t want to win, the different reactions all make sense and are consistent with how they each feel about say, an Earth ruled by an Egyptian Pharoah. Though Season 1 keeps things low-key, by the time Season 3 comes around, every episode is exploring a wild new world, but alas, that’s where the problems started.
The Kromaggs
Beginning in Season 3, which was originally the finals season before Sci-Fi Channel (now SyFy) rescued the series, Sliders introduced a mythology arc centered on an alien race, the Kromaggs, dimensional travelers with bad intentions. There are still great episodes in the later seasons, including a bottle episode, “The Alternateville Horror,” that is exactly what it sounds like, but part of the Quantum Leap-like charm of the first two seasons is gone as the stakes are raised.
Loses What Made It Fun
I don’t think all sci-fi shows need to be about the end of the world, and honestly, I enjoyed the mission to slide home much more than the “let’s save all of existence” story that it turned into. The parallels between what happened with Sliders and the MCU during the Multiverse arc are strikingly similar, but at least the series has characters you want to root for, and some, notably Rembrandt, have a better character arc than anything (non-Spider-Man) Marvel did between Endgame and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Available To Stream Today
REVIEW SCORE
Though the SyFy era of Sliders was disappointing, and the series limps to a finish, it at least has a conclusive finish that wraps a bow on the story. That’s better than most other sci-fi shows today, but there was no need for the show to be dragged out for 88 episodes. It’s still fun, and Jerry O’Connell, in particular, is as charming as Quinn, but there’s one episode in Season 3 that once you reach it, and you’ll know what it is, you can bail, and I won’t judge you.
Sliders is free to stream on Vudu, and is also available on Peacock.
