What Would You Change? • Genesis

Date: 03/15/2004
From: SynthIA

• PhantomDennis wins a Frogger high score save kit! "The kit that Seinfeld's George Costanza would have died for." [http://www.brasington.org/arcade/hs2/frogger/]
• ThomasMalthus wins a "Clock" that opens a "Big Hole!"
• Recall317 wins the ability to transform into any animal! But mostly a jaguar, 'cause that one morphing sequence cost us like half a million bucks.
• DieselMickeyDolenz wins an invisible box!
• MissingSliderRyan wins a Mr. Scrubbo sponge!
• SlidersRocks (WWYC: DinoSlide) wins a metric ton of brain fluid! If you ever contract Rickman's Disease, you're covered!
• sliderules (RG: Stoker) wins "And the Hits (Sorta) Just Keep On Comin'," a collection of the greatest crappy hits of the '80s!

=====

I was sorely tempted to reverse the premise of this game, as was previously done for "Time Again and World," "Exodus Part 2," and "This Slide of Paradise"... but hey, we all need a challenge now and then. And yours is to restrict yourself to changing only one aspect of "Genesis."

SYNTHIA: Me? Well, the one thing that would go a long way towards making this episode tolerable is if Peck had *acknowledged* the differences between these Maggs and the originals somehow.

BLINKER: Personally, I'd remove all references to Wade becoming a breeding experiment. Completely unnecessary, and just 7>:-#ing sick.

___________________________
Synthetic Intelligence Avatar #385D

The "Resistance"

Date: 03/16/2004
From: ThomasMalthus

Beginning Text must be resisted.

If any Earth deserved a "Pilot"-style revolutionary underground, it was this one. The war with the Kromaggs couldn't have been over for more than a few months. So why are there only two rebel fighters in all of Los Angeles? Or was it just that Quinn and Maggie didn't bother to find any more? Heck, the next episode, "Prophets and Loss", has a better organized resistance movement.

Peckinpah: Well, I guess that proves that religion inspires more hatred in people than thinly veiled fascism run amok.

ThomasMalthus

Prove it!

Date: 03/16/2004
From: DieselMickeyDolenz

Beginning text MUST END!!!!!!!!!!

I'd have had Quinn at least question whether he'd found home. He accepted the idea that he had found Earth Prime (not to be confused with EarthPRIME) far too easily for my taste. Think about it. He's had to slide to several other worlds because the timer malfunctioned at the end of TSoP, so why would he automatically trust it now? He arrives in a world that doesn't resemble his own in the least, possibly due only to the Kromag invasion, but maybe not. He makes no effort (a recurring theme for the season) to verify *any* of this world's history from before the invasion. Maggie nearly died her last time on Quinn's Earth, but has only the slightest hint of difficulty for the briefest moment here. Possibly the only reason she had any difficulty at all was due to the fact that she *expected* to not be able to breathe. The Rembrandt he finds here has undergone the hideous Kromag-induced torture of having his mustache removed. The "mother" he finds here tells him this outrageous story about him being adopted from parents from another dimension. Everything about this episode screams, "you didn't find home yet!" but he accepts it all because of... a braclet.

The sum total of proof that this was the correct world ends up being a piece of Wade's jewelry. Well, I guess that should settle any question. After all, we've certainly never been to any other worlds where there was a Wade double. :roll-eyes:

DAVID PECKINPAH: They're "Alternates," dammit!

DMD

The Boy with the Thorn in His Side

Date: 03/16/2004
From: Recall317

Lalalalalalalalalalalalalalala

I disagree with SynthIA. I can tolerate the Kromagg shift in Genesis as it's gradual. The first two guards they encounter are silent and do look a lot like the Invasion Maggs. The mindgames are still there. I'm forced to conclude that Peckinpah did watch Invasion and took notes. It's Common Ground that fundamentally changes the Kromaggs for the remainder of the season.

I cannot agree more with Blinker. Wade's banishment to a breeding camp was a terrible decision the show could not recover from. So it has to go.

Obviously, this is not what I would have chosen to do had I been doing a 4th season for Sci-Fi so there's a temptation to just junk the entire episode. But it really is pretty good, definitely the best work Peckinpah did during his run. I'd just prefer it not be Earthprime that's destroyed. Make it a different dimension. Quinn is tracking the world Rembrandt and Wade went to so there's no break in continuity. The same goes for the crazy Quinn from another planet angle. Mrs. Mallory's story may be true...it's just a different Quinn that was left on this world, not ours. Quinn decides to assume his double's identity in the hopes that he can defeat the Kromaggs once and for all. So nothing is lost by swapping out earthprime for any other world, and you don't alienate your fan base from episode 1 by doing so.

R317

Just one Change

Date: 03/16/2004
From: PhantomDennis

While I had many changes in mind, the first would have been to make it a two-parter. Not only would this ave allowed more many changes to make the story complex, and give the missing Wade a better send-off, and introduce Colin right off the bat, It also would rid us of the episode "Prophets and Loss", that alone would be a big improvement.

There's only one thing to do...

Date: 03/16/2004
From: sliderules

Change BT. It smells like gym socks!

Well, the one thing I would have to change in "Genesis," Sci-Fi first attempt at a Sliders episode, would have to be that thing that was missing from Rembrandt's upper lip. No, not the groovy thing every human has. No, not his nose ya shmuck!

BRING BACK THE 'STACHE!

Not only do chicks dig it, but it disappeared without any good reason. Did the Mags cut it off a torture, or is this not our Remy? We'll never know. But if it was still there, problem solved!

~sliderules
"Don't mess with the 'stache, you dig?"

Occam's Rewrite

Date: 03/17/2004
From: Callie21V

Sci-Fi's rewritten code gave us BT, and therefore sucks.

I'm just going to replace the teaser. If the rest of the ep changes as a result, well that's *its* fault!

When "This Slide of Paradise" aired, I quickly deduced the most likely beginning to Season Four... assuming, of course, that the cliffhanger was only meant to build suspense over how the group would reunite, rather than to do away with two of Peck's least favorite sliders.

My answer was that contrary to Quinn's assumption, it's not the tracking device that steered them wrong, but the co-ordinates in Rickman's timer. Maybe he erased them (whether unknowingly or maliciously), maybe they were corrupted when Rickman slid early, or maybe it had to do with the burnout in ToSoD. Whatever the case, Wade and Rembrandt land on Future World, the others track them, and ta-da, you've got the gang back together for another season.

Could this premise still have been done without SL? Um... sure! Have Wade turned into a text-only AI on Future World or something. Heck, have her move into the timer and occasionally provide cryptic advice in six-letter LCD messages. ANYTHING beats rewriting the series' history and expunging its soul. >:-I

>>> C/21

I've got one. ;-)

Date: 03/17/2004
From: MissingSliderRyan

BT needs to make a change also.

How about we lose Wade's necklace? Maggie can breathe on Earth Prime? I think not. It's a parallel world and besides is Quinn that observant? He ignored Wade most of the time by this time.




MSR

Original URL http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.cgi/1/5/545/4067791
Nominated by Blinker