TTCoBS: Prologue

Date: 08/23/2001
From: Brand_S

The True Confessions of Brand_S

Prologue

WARNING: This whole thing is laced with swearing left and right. Just so you know. Nonetheless, I think everyone who has any kind of opinion of me should read this.

Although he hasn't been here nearly as long as I have, I think Recall317 (who happens to share a last name with one of my personal favorite presidents, Harry S Truman) described my situation best. To paraphrase him... This message board is like crack. God knows I've tried to quit dozens of times, but no matter who tries, they just can't put that pipe down.

How long has Recall317 been here, about a year at the most? I'm well into my third, and it took much longer for me to figure that one out.

I guess for me this all started at the end of "This Slide of Paradise." I was still in my early teens when I saw that, and I was as hopelessly naïve as they come. I knew "Sliders" was an excellent show. I thought I was the show's biggest fan; I watched every episode up to that one. But ever since John Rhys-Davies (who was always my favorite actor on that show) left, there was something about it that just seemed... wrong. The movie ripoffs were only a small part of it for me. Fruity Pebbles commercials had already desensitized me to cheap attempts to rip off the franchise du jour. Honestly, in the heyday of the Power Rangers, one of those commercials featured Barney disguised as a "Changeria Ranger." When the Lion King came out: "The King of the Jungle." Not to mention that one of my all-time favorite cartoons is "Eek! the Cat." You really should see their "Pulp Fiction" spoof, if that show ever comes back on the airwaves again.

So, anyhow, I was a bit disappointed the following fall when there was no Sliders to be seen. Surprised? No. After all, the show was always coming and going. Disappointed? Very. I always held out the hope that John Rhys-Davies would come back and that bitch Kari Wuhrer would disappear somewhere. (An interesting sidenote: I have a friend I work with. Nice guy, but his biggest flaw is his incessant horndoggery: he lusts after Kari Wuhrer. Even after I told him that she probably has every form of VD there is, his response was, "So fucking what?") My sister got the Sci-Fi Channel and I didn't, which pissed me off when I found out that that's where "Sliders" went. I begged my sister to tape the episodes for me (again, in the faint hope that John Rhys-Davies would make a guest appearance; I had no inkling as to what happened behind the scenes of the show or what would happen to the show itself). She never got around to it, but I eventually forgot about the show.

A few months into "Sliders'" fourth season, I caught an episode of it at a hotel that happened to have a television that happened to carry that channel. Maybe it was some bad diarrhea I had that day, or that it was on in the morning (what with me being the exact polar opposite of a morning person), but when I watched "Just Say Yes" that day I almost ralphed. I didn't even know Kari was still on the show; I thought that was another actress with the freakish black hair. I'd heard before that Jerry's real-life brother had joined the cast. I thought that would make it interesting, but... Well, I don't need to say. So I forgot about "Sliders" again. The show eventually became nothing more than a sporadic thought or mention or appearance, almost like that "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "The Visitor." (Another interesting sidenote: Out of all the movies and television shows I've ever seen, that single episode, "The Visitor," is the only one to ever have me in tears watching it. I still think it's the best serious episode of any television show I have ever seen.)

Eventually, my cable provider finally started carrying the Sci-Fi Channel. Then it was onto my next goal: getting them to carry Playboy. But seriously, folks, I eventually remembered that "Sliders" was on the Sci-Fi Channel. I kept missing episodes, but I eventually caught one: "Revelations." The overwhelming impression I got watching it was: What the FUCK is going on?! Quinn's homeworld? Remmy's homeworld?! Kromagg-Prime?! Why aren't they trying to go HOME? Are they too good for their HOME?! ANSWER ME!!!!! If there's one thing I didn't see in that episode, it was the luster and energy and unpretentiousness that made the first two seasons glow. I was a little disappointed, to put it mildly.

So I went online and checked out the Sliders online fanbase immediately afterward. It was April 1999, and to this day I still can't believe it. Although it had been well over a year since "This Slide of Paradise," THAT was actually the FIRST SHOWING of the season finale. Shouldn't the season have ended LONG ago? Shouldn't this be, like, the fifth or sixth season? I also checked out "Sliders'" IMDb entry... What the hell? Jerry leaving? Charlie leaving? Who the hell are Robert Floyd and Tembi Locke?! "Derek Quade?!" "Diana Davis?!" Who the hell are THEY? I decided that, having just seen "Revelations," that can't be right. There's no "Derek Quade," and (since I hadn't been following the episode very closely) "Diana Davis" must have been that blond chick played by Kristianna Loken. The IMDb was just getting information from fans who didn't know what they were talking about. After all, I knew what I saw and what I saw was Jerry, Charlie, Kari, Cleavant, and that nondescript blonde chick. My denial would eventually give way to apathy.

At any rate, it was also that day that I first started lurking on this very message board. At the time, I didn't think I'd ever actually post. All this shit with "informant" and "TemporalFlux" and "TemporalFlux1" and "RealmKeeper" and "Slidersfreak" and "Executive" and "SlidingCptBridger" and "Cryin"... Too much shit for me to keep up with. Having already been that big a fan of "South Park" for a year, I didn't need to latch onto anything else.

Pretty similar

Date: 08/23/2001
From: Recall317

I had a rougly similar experience with the show. Lost interest when JRD left...even when I got Sci-Fi back in September of 2000, I forgot the show was even on. It wasn't until the Simpsons were dropped from the 6 o'clock slot on my local Fix affiliate that I even noticed Sliders. And the rest...is present.

R317

Original URL http://www.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/26580
Nominated by Joey_Starr