Skip to main content

Why did FOX mess up the running order of Sliders?


I've been reading a few questions about Sliders on this site, and on more than one occasion, the answer has involved the episode broadcast sequence being changed by FOX.


An example is an important scene which had to be removed from the episode "Summer of Love" because it didn't make sense after the episode was moved from second to sixth.


( Why would Quinn wait to Slide to a new reality? )


(Indeed I believe at the end of this episode or maybe it was another, they land on a world where a giant tidal wave is approaching, and the next episode had no mention of this, but at the beginning of an earlier (I believe) episode, they are indeed on top of a sky scraper and completely surrounded by ocean, implying that they did indeed narrowly escape the wave)


My question is, why would the company doing the broadcast change the order of the episodes? Why would they even care enough about it to do this? The only reason I can think of is that a certain episode was not ready on time, but even then, why not move it back to its proper place when showing repeats?




Answer



Fox did it to make the show look more popular.


The, alas now defunct, Sliders: Dimensions of Continuity website (usually a highly reliable source of information) indicated that the air-dates were messed around with at the insistence of the network.



Why Did Co-Creator Tracy Tormé Leave Sliders?


Even from the start, Fox gave co-creator Tracy Tormé many problems. They refused to show season one in its intended order...even when the episodes linked together. Fox refused to allow the series to be an open medium...and constantly tried to place it in a single box (they chose action/adventure). This hindered Tormé a great bit. Fox also constantly restrained Tormé on any of his ideas...this even went to the point that Fox almost didn't let Tormé resolve the season one cliffhanger. In fact, the season two premiere "Into the Mystic" was filmed with no resolution...and after it was finished, Fox gave permission and Tormé had to go back and make changes as he could to resolve the season one cliffhanger.


Behind the Scenes - Sliders: Ultimate FAQ



We learn from a SliderWeb interview with Season 3, 4, 5 director David Peckinpah that the main aim in re-ordering the episodes was to game the ratings, making the show look more popular by airing blockbuster episodes in the "Sweeps" period when audience numbers were collected.




On why we never saw Quinn killing any Kromaggs before…


"I felt episode six was more important to air during sweeps than episode five. Episode five, 'Quinn Kills a Bunch of Nazi Kromaggs While Maggie Disguises Herself as a Stripper,' just didn't seem to have that special something that this episode had."


Earth 5260: The Peckinpah Interviews



and in case you were thinking that original showrunner Tracy Tormé was entirely unblemished in all of this, it turns out that he also had plans to muck around with the airdates for much the same reasons.



Even after Sliders came back in its second season, though, it walked the ratings borderline. As May sweeps approached, Tracy pushed to air what he thought was the season’s best episode, Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome, an episode with a controversially ambiguous ending and few special effects. The network vetoed Tormé and slid in instead an episode featuring dinosaurs, complete with a “Jurassic Park”-ish ad campaign.


“I saw the promotion and I thought, ‘Oh, Christ,’ ’cause we can’t do Jurassic Park, and we can’t do Twister like the movies can do it. To me, that’s worrisome.” However, the dinosaur episode, In Dino Veritas, aired to the season’s best ratings, and Tormé isn’t afraid to admit he was wrong.


“It worked,” he says. “That’s probably one of the reasons we came back for another season; the ratings on that episode were that good. I’ll give the devil its due.”


THE UNIVERSE INTERVIEW: TRACY TORMÉ




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...
Post a Comment
Read more