I love science fiction and (vainly) look forward to every new attempt on TV to replicate the "sense of wonder" that good science fiction is supposed to create. So I was disappointed that this show was so blandly unsurprising. So much science fiction (on TV and in the movies) appears to concentrate on the most superficial elements of the genre and merely use its "technical poetry" to tell the same dull stories over and over. Sliders was no exception: a world where the Nazis won? You got it! A world where there are still dinosaurs? Two heaping spoonfuls served up! But there was little of the intellectual and philosophical "weight": that attends the best science fiction, and for which the mechanical devices and impossible processes (here a device that traversed dimensions) are just meant to be "color." It's partly in the nature of serial TV that very little in the way of surprises can be allowed to occur, since we all know the heroes will fight and vanquish. This is why The Twilight Zone is still so watchable: you never knew what was going to happen. It had better writers too. Sad truth is, there are PLENTY of good science fiction tales that might be dramatized on TV, but Hollywood turns again and again to its usual hacks who merely dress up their usual tales with a few "gimmicks" of the sci-fi trade. It simply isn't compelling finally, and comes out as no more than the usual "Fantasy Island" mess: tired moral tales glittered up with bells and whistles.
The best science fiction on TV has always been either anthologies series (the aforementioned Twilight Zone, the best of The Outer Limits) or one-shot dramatizations of REAL science fiction tales, such as the superior The Lathe of Heaven.
Oh well, maybe next time...
The best science fiction on TV has always been either anthologies series (the aforementioned Twilight Zone, the best of The Outer Limits) or one-shot dramatizations of REAL science fiction tales, such as the superior The Lathe of Heaven.
Oh well, maybe next time...