Unknown Facts • Slither

Date: 03/09/2004
From: SynthIA

The renamers of "The Other Slide of Darkness":

• Recall317 wins a pair of sunglasses, a full tank of gas, and half a pack of cigarettes!
• PhantomDennis wins "Napalm in the Morning," the new fragrance from Chanel!
• ThomasMalthus wins time!

SYNTHIA [rummaging through Prize-Sac®]: Uh... I don't know if we have time.

BLINKER: *Make* some.

• And, um, Grizzlor would have won something, had he renamed "The Other Slide of Darkness!"

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"Slither." What *didn't* we know?

SYNTHIA: That checkerboard jacket Remmy's wearing? It's the same one from "Young and the Relentless," after a whole lotta bleach. Blake and Jackson deemed this all the continuity the episode needed.

BLINKER: That trampoline slide at the end? It *wasn't* motivated by a desire to get Maggie's chest jiggling.

SYNTHIA: Whoa, whoa! Keep it plausible.

___________________________
Synthetic Intelligence Avatar #385D

This one's an open book

Date: 03/10/2004
From: Recall317

It is true there's very little we don't know about Slither as there's very little that went into it. Script revisions? Precious and few. But what we sometimes overlook is that the entire episode was filmed in the span of seven hours. Production began at 3 p.m. to get in all the day scenes, and wrapped at 10 to pick up the night scenes. We can even see the filming at dusk when Maggie and Wade go to the airport.

"That's the beauty of filming everything on existing sets located within a half-mile radius of each other," said Tony Blake.

As for the level of acting, what could you reasonably expect with just one take? "It was like night at the Improv," said O'Connell. "If you mess up, just keep going. When you put in context, this episode really isn't that terrible.

"Oh, who am I kidding?"

R317

One girl in all the world...a Frozen One

Date: 03/10/2004
From: ThomasMalthus

Beginning Text enjoys slutsicles!

My unknown fact? The original script called for magic *stakes* to be the major problem in South America, as they annoyingly build tiny fences around their victims and then poke them to death. Quinn naturally wants to get his hands on these stakes just in case they run across another vampire world.

However, once they decided to air "Slither" before
"Stoker" that plot point went out the window. Instead, a line was inserted into "Stoker" where Maggie chastises Wade for not letting them bring weapons (namely, the stakes) from one world to the next. Again forcing a change was "Dinoslide", aired between the two episodes and thus making the continuity between them seem stilted and pointless. So then they just threw something together with snakes and that's how we got "Slither".

ThomasMalthus

That reply title line really would have looked better in front of "The Breeder". But then again so would anything else.

What would Conan do?

Date: 03/10/2004
From: MissingSliderRyan

BT would best be out of the way when the Barbarian decides to cut off the snake's head.

Peck: We wanted to get Gary Oldman on there so I had an idea to try to get JRD to talk to Harrison Ford for a cameo also. We wanted Harrison to tell the Sliders to "Get off my plane!" but that was nixed when JRD never returned my calls. Gary Oldman never did either. I wanted him to be the male triadder snake's voice. Oh well. At least we got some T & A.




MSR

The rest of the story...

Date: 03/10/2004
From: DieselMickeyDolenz

Beginning Text. Very dangerous. You go first!

This marked the first time PETA really got after the Sliders production team. The radical group was mollified with proof that no dinosaurs were harmed in the filming of "In Dino Veritas" a year earlier, but this time nothing could hold them back when several snakes were unaccounted for at the end of shooting. Though a full investigation was launched, the snakes were never found. Odd, but all Kari had to say during her interview over the incident was "mmmmmmmm," "oooooooohhhhh" and "I like the big ones!"

DMD

You Can't Run Away from the Snake

Date: 03/10/2004
From: PhantomDennis

Did you know that "Anaconda" is basically the same story as "Hamlet"? I'm sorry, you'll only probably only get that if you're an EARLY EDITION Fan. (In the episode "Teen Angels", Gary has his flaky sort-of college grad bartender Patrick Quinn (Billy Hurley) substitute teach a high-school class. The lesson is to be about Hamlet which Patrick has never read. He asks the class to tell him what they think the book is about, and based on their answers he decides that it's basically the same story as "Anaconda". And procedes to base the rest the class on the discussion of "Anaconda"

He later tells an incredulous Gary that "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "MacBeth" are basically the same story.

Now for the Unknown Fact: contray to public opinion this episode is not based on the movie "Anaconda" which was in theaters at the same time, but the computer game Slither.

Slither is one of those generic computer games. You've probably played under one incarnation or another. Perhaps under a different name such a "Viper" or "Sssnake". Basically you control a "snake", left, right, and forward, (If you move backward, the snake, inadvertedly turns his head inside out and dies.) avoiding wall and obstacles trying to run into boxes contiaining points and growing each time you do.

The scene with the door was a homage to the snake running into the box. Blake and Jackson originally intended to end with Quinn tricking the snakes into turning themselves inside out by going backwards, but Peckinpah thought a happier ending would give this episode a warm family feel.

Blake and Jackson also submitted a script based on "Adventure", but a script full of "What shall I do now?" and "You do not see that object here?" caused Peckling deep Post-Traumatic Stress flasbacks of never being able to finish Zork.

Snakes alive!

Date: 03/20/2004
From: Callie21V

Kyra dead, but still breathing.

Fact: The surprising mention of Bennish and his drug habits in "Sole Survivors" was inserted to set up his even more surprising return in "Slither," or as it was originally titled, "I Got the Hippie Hippie Snake." However, Peck deep-sixed the plan on the excuse that he hadn't realized Gaffney would have to be *paid*, and the hilarious consequences of Bennish mistaking a triadder for a hookah were lost to us.

>>> C/21

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/4067775
Nominated by Blinker