Almost every decade could make the claim that it was one of the best for the sci-fi genre on television, but the 1990s has one of the greatest bodies of work for the title. Not only did three different Star Trek shows come into their own in that decade, with The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager all airing, but it saw the premiere of Babylon 5, Stargate SG-1, and Farscape. Furthermore, the ’90s were defined by the premiere of The X-Files, one of the most influential genre shows of the era and one of the most popular in all of television. It was a good time for sci-fi fans, but headaches quickly made themselves known with their favorites.
31 years ago today, the world got another great science fiction series, one that further solidified the ’90s as one of the great decades for the genre. On Wednesday, March 22, 1995, the first episode of Sliders made its way to television, bringing with it a universe-hopping storyline and great characters that we could immediately fall in love with. The trouble, of course, is that no good thing can last, and Sliders found itself on a slippery slope that resulted in major changes to the show, and a frustrating ending we’re still talking about.
Sliders Has A Perfect Sci-fi Premise
Sliders begins like all good stories in a San Francisco basement, where we meet Quinn Mallory (Jerry O’Connell), a physics student whose attempt at creating an antigravity device has instead opened up a wormhole. He goes on to perfect a device that allows anything sent through the portal to return after a set time limit, eventually stepping into the wormhole to test his tech and figure out what exactly he’s created. This is when the perfect premise for Sliders is revealed, as Quinn finds himself on an alternate Earth where things are just different enough to cause some major confusion. While there, though, he meets the version of him from this world who explains the tech to him, including the term he’s coined for dimension hopping, “sliding.”
The first episode builds from there, with Quinn and his companions Professor Maximilian Arturo (John Rhys-Davies) and friend Wade Welles (Sabrina Lloyd), who decide to step through the portal and enter another world (they’re also joined by Rembrandt “Cryin’ Man” Brown (Cleavant Derricks), who is drawn in by accident). As the four of them slide, they find themselves on yet another different Earth, one where the Soviet Union is the primary global superpower. The result of their arrival proves helpful, defining the structure for the show moving forward, as they’re able to help the American resistance fighters in their world before hopping back to what they believe is their own. As the episode concludes, though, the group realizes that they haven’t returned home at all, giving the show a throughline for the series to come as they work to make their way home.
Across five seasons and 88 episodes, Sliders gave science fiction fans something that has long been a staple for speculative fiction: alternate worlds and histories. Some of the Earths that they find have changed one thing that has caused major distinctions, such as worlds where Great Britain successfully squashed the American Revolution, or one where prohibition was never repealed, and bootlegging mobs rule. Others have drastic differences, like an Earth where nations battle over fertile men (a rarity) or an Earth where dinosaurs still roam. Every week promised a unique adventure, and despite the fandom’s adoration, Sliders routinely found ways to let them down thanks to corporate decisions.
Sliders Left Fans Hanging Consistently, Especially With the Final Episode
Image Courtesy of Fox
The headaches for Sliders started early, with the original network, Fox, airing many of the initial episodes out of order (a common practice at the time for television). As a result, the story didn’t always come together, with only the first two and the final two episodes aired in the order that they were intended. Things got even tougher from there, though, with Season 3 of Sliders being given a distinct mandate by the network, hoping to change the show’s priorities from being a thought-provoking science fiction series to one that was largely action-oriented, going so far as to point to popular movies at the time and demanding they be copied, such as Twister, Jurassic Park, and Species.
These changes to Sliders prompted star John Rhys-Davies to exit the show, which was just the first change to come at the end of Season 3. After the finale, Fox cancelled Sliders, but the show was quickly picked up by the Sci-Fi Channel. In the process of moving networks, another major star was left out, with Sabrina Lloyd not returning for the fourth season. Season 4 of Sliders on Sci-Fi continued the trend of being more action-oriented, and by the end, without any of his original collaborators still present, Jerry O’Connell also left the series.
Despite these changes, Season 5 of Sliders was still ordered, with actor Robert Floyd replacing O’Connell as the lead, explained in the series by having O’Connell’s character merged with an alternate version of himself from another world (Floyd’s). Despite all these changes and countless groan-inducing decisions, fans still tuned in for Sliders, which made its final episode that much more heartbreaking. With the Season 5 finale of Sliders, the show concludes on a cliffhanger, unclear about whether the characters have even survived or if they’ve even made it back to their home world. The series was cancelled after the finale, and despite hope that a fan campaign might convince the powers that be otherwise, a sixth season wasn’t ordered, and the story ended with no resolution.
Time has been kind to Sliders. The series is currently streaming on Peacock and still finds new fans thanks to its availability and distinct storyline. Despite the frustrating ending, the cast has also maintained their interest in a revival, with both O’Connell and Rhys-Davies frequently expressing interest in a return. Despite that down ending, the series had a great beginning, and it all started today.
