The premise behind Sliders started off quite well: four people are transported and stranded in a parallel dimension. Led by Quinn Mallory, a grad student who accidentally creates the gateway to a parallel Earth while working on an experiment in his basement. The gateway opens and sends him along with Wade Wells, his best friend & computer techie, Maximillian "The Professor" Arturo his brilliant and arrogant physics professor, and Rembrandt "Crying Man" Brown, an R&B singer who happened to be driving by, to a parallel dimension.

Throughout the first two seasons and half of the third, we see the four sliders turn into a tightly knit team of friends who's purpose is to return home safely. Along the way we travel to alternate Earths where history has turned out different; British ruled America, a world where woman hold the positions power, a world where gangsters are in control, and so forth. The purpose is always clear: they want to get home, and we the viewers want them to make it.

Midway through season 3, things began to change. In "The Exodus", a madman fires a gun at Quinn but the Professor takes the bullet and concurrently dies. His last words: "Get them home! Sliders..." The shock sinks in, one of the sliders will not make it home.

And so, Maggie Beckett joins the team as her world is destroyed. From that point onwards, the sliders have a less happy-go-lucky feel to them. Maggie is too disciplined and hard (until she becomes catty and promiscuous) for the team's good. As the 3rd season comes to a close, the sliders finally find their home dimension, but Maggie is unable to breathe the air. Rembrandt and Wade stay but Quinn slides again with Maggie to save her life. They made it home, but something feels wrong at this point. Quinn is forced to stay away because of Maggie, and the happy ending we'd hope for just isn't there.

Season 4 begins with Quinn and Maggie sliding back to Earth, but the shocker is that Earth has been taken over by alternatively evolved humans called Kromaggs, from a parallel Earth. By the end of the episode we learn that Wade has been taken to a breeding camp and Quinn is not even from this Earth: his parents were sliders! By now, we realize that the first 2 seasons were in vain, they've made it home for nothing and two of their number are gone. Yet the show carries on, Quinn finding out that he has a brother and having him join the group. At this point, they're searching for Quinn's home dimension. It no longer feels the same, the purpose; the essence from the first seasons is gone. The Earth's they slide to stop being innovative and interesting, and simply become plot catalysts.

Then, in the 5th season, Quinn and his brother are amalgamated into one being: Mallory. At this point, only Rembrandt remains from the original group and knowing that the Earth has been lost, the purpose of the show has as well. The sliders will never make it home for true and good. In the finale, Rembrandt slides alone back to Earth, infected with a disease that will kill the Kromaggs and free his world.

Finally, after everything they've been through, none of the sliders make it home alive...

US Navy slang for hamburgers. These are full size hamburgers as opposed the smaller ones mentioned in TAFKAH's writeup above. The name comes from the way they slide around in the copious amounts of grease they exude while being fried.

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.