In this dimension Hillary Clinton is president and men can only get jobs in fields like childcare or administration. The person whispering the word 'Sliders' in the opening credits is Weiss. His voice was used for two seasons. Various cast members voices were used in later seasons. Jerry O'Connell has said that in took two weeks to film the pilot scene where he is talking to a version of himself from an alternate universe.
O'Connell made his directing debut on Sliders. Executives weren't a fan of the idea and he had to fight to get them introduced. Guest actor Ken Steadman died during the filming of the episode 'Desert Storm'.
He was in a dune buggy when it overturned and crushed him. Cleavant Derricks' twin brother Clinton Derricks-Carroll appeared in three episodes as alternate versions of the Rembrandt character. This allowed them to film in a way they couldn't if an actor was playing both parts by themselves. While Sliders was plagued by cast changes, Derricks remained on the series for its entire run, making him the only original cast member to do so.
The first original cast member to leave was Rhys-Davies midway through Season 3. Knowing this, it's unsurprising that so many fans wish for a Sliders revival in which the cast and crew were allowed to make the show they truly wanted to make the first time. Thankfully, season 4 was an improvement on the highly erratic third year, which saw beloved character Professor Arturo get suddenly and harshly killed off.
When it came time to make season 5 though, some major cast turnover took place, including the departure of Sliding's inventor, Quinn Mallory. Weiss, made the production feel very much like a different show than the one he'd originally joined. O'Connell wanted to cease being a series regular and try to launch a film career but was willing to make a few appearances to not leave fans hanging about Quinn's fate.
However, there was a catch to that offer. Jerry's brother Charlie O'Connell had joined Sliders for season 4, playing Quinn's own long-lost brother Colin, and Charlie wanted to stay on as a regular. The problem then became that Sci-Fi executives and Sliders ' current producers felt the Colin Mallory character only made sense alongside Quinn, and if Quinn wasn't going to be a regular, they didn't think it made sense for Colin to be one.
Jerry O'Connell insisted that if those involved wanted him to take part in an exit story for Quinn, they guarantee Charlie would be kept on as a regular, and also grant Jerry himself an executive producer credit, which to be fair is quite common for the lead of a long-running show.
We were both single, so we went out clubbing on a regular basis. He was an avid aviator, and I used to go flying with him every weekend. John became a close personal friend. Cleavant Derricks was also a lot of fun. Sabrina Lloyd and I lived together for a little bit, but it was truly platonic. We were roommates for a hot minute because we shot two seasons in Vancouver and then two seasons in Los Angeles.
I really miss her, but I stay in touch with her through Instagram [ Laughs ]. What about Kari Wuhrer, who became a series regular in the 3rd season?
I see her around LA. When Kari Wuhrer came on the show, it was a tough period for me. John Rhys-Davies and Sabrina Lloyd had moved on, and I felt that they had left the party too early, and I was left behind. Weiss, and John Landis also departed. While their names were still on the credits, they had nothing to do with the day-to-day operations.
I completely understood where they were coming from. Everyone did carry on, but the show was completely different. We signed on for a thought-provoking, fun take on parallel worlds that explored the effects of slight changes in the way the world works. The last couple seasons, Silders became more of an action show that focused on our fighting these aliens called the Kromaggs.
Do you think the switch from Fox to the Sci-Fi Channel had something to do with the change in focus? I do think that Sci-Fi at that time was looking for darker science fiction fare with an emphasis on heavy special effects makeup. I can imagine that experience would be distressing for you as a young actor working on his first TV series as an adult. The people who invited us to the party left the party, and that was disorienting.
Some of our cast members felt abandoned. Some pretty great people like Marc Zicree, Richard Compton, and David Peckinpah did come on to the show, but everything had just changed directions.
I finally finished the show when I was If you notice, in the episodes I direct, I did manage to get us back to sort of that thought-provoking, parallel-universe fun that made the show popular to begin with. Have you ever thought about directing TV again? I have been shadowing directors on a bunch of different shows to get my feet wet.
What I really want to get back to is directing fare like Sliders — shows with small budgets but with the freedom to tell off-beat stories using creative directing. Did your experience on Sliders help you as a director at all? Richard Compton, who has since passed away, directed a bunch of our episodes. He was an old-school guy who really made an impression on me. I also learned how to make a dollar out of 15 cents on the set of Sliders.
Science fiction is not mainstream. Besides The X-Files , science fiction television shows have always been the stepchildren of regular television with much smaller budgets. We had to work with what we had on Sliders and creativity was a must. Sliders came at an important time during your transition from teen to adult onscreen.
You were learning how to be a leading man. I was hoping that they would go on with my brother, who joined the cast in Season 4. They got pretty mad and decided to reboot the whole thing and blow it up. I know it went a fifth season. Somebody talk to me. How cool is John Rhys-Davies, though?
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