An insider's guide to the show and Hollywood, 19 Feb 1999

Brad Linaweaver is certainly one of the most qualified persons to write the episode guide for the TV show Sliders. After all, he wrote Sliders: The Novel, which recounted the two-hour premiere of the TV show in written form. Linaweaver visited the set, spoke with the show's creator and prime mover, Tracy Tormé, and interviewed the main cast. He lives in Hollywood and has worked in several aspects of show business. And his knowledge of the show and buisness around it shines through the entire guide.

Sliders: The Classic Episodes consists of detailed synopses of the first two and a half seasons, with brief descriptions of the second half of the third season, the last season on Fox. Linaweaver interviews the four main cast members, Sabrina Lloyd, Jerry O'Connell, Cleavant Derricks, John Rhys-Davies. Two of these were replaced late in the third season, and I agree with Linaweaver that their departures were the show's loss. Rhys-Davies is a powerful actor, in voice and demeanor, and he instantly improves any scene of any movie or TV show in which he is part. Sabrina Lloyd has an elfin charm and the kind of strong female presence Hollywood seems to instinctively hate. I was not surprised to read she started in theater, where the "scripts" are better.

In addition, there are interviews with Peter Spellos, one of the guest actors, as well as with Tracy Tormé and co-creator Robert Weiss. All the interviews were conducted before Lloyd and Rhys-Davies left, and before the show started to suffer and slide downhill. Sliders was cancelled by Fox after the third season, although the Sci-Fi Channel picked it and resumed production, under new management so to speak. There's a certain buoyant innocence in the interviews, where Lloyd talkes about being "on for the duration," and Tormé talks happily about his numerous battles with executives constantly urging changes, from the significant to the trivial.

Sliders: The Classic Episodes works on several levels. It is an excellent research guide, listing the writers, directors, and composers for each episode (this isn't Babylon 5 where one person wrote over 80 percent of the five year series; instead 24 writers tackle 46 episodes, with several repeats but also many one-time writers), as well as supporting cast members. The synopsis of each episode is clear and informative. And opinionated. Linaweaver pulls no punches, reaming at least two of the stories as incoherent, and wistfully pointing out how other episodes could have been much better. Linaweaver slips in humor as often as he can, and in ways only he can; the informal style makes even the shorter plot summaries quite readable.

Linaweaver takes pains to make the episode guide entertaining, as well as show the evolution of the show and the characters. Although he covers only three seasons, we see the growth of Sliders as it struggles with its inital limitations; the first two seasons were set in San Franscisco, and it moves to Los Angeles in the third, leaving room for many Hollywood inside jokes in the interviews. People who live in LA lnow how to laugh at themselves and especially Tinseltown. Although the humor is uneven at times, overall it lends the book an insider's touch.

Even if you're not a Sliders fan, this guide is useful and informative as a book about science fiction and the television industry. Too mnay good shows suffer quick fates (the original Star Trek lasted three seasons), and the creator rarely has full control. If you're a Sliders fan you'll want to buy this book, especially for the interviews, but also for the memories, which Linaweaver, a true fan of the visual media, captures on almost every page. Once the show's life is over, I'm sure there will be another book that brings the rest of the episodes up to date. This book, after all, is subtitled "The Classic Episodes," and we all know the story is not yet complete.

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