It’s a Good Slide

Of the many hats Sliders producer Marc Scott Zicree has worn, one is as author of The Twilight Zone Companion, a comprehensive episode guide of the classic sci-fi television show The Twilight Zone. And if you happen across its most recent edition, you’ll find some Sliders content in the review of one of the Twilight Zone’s most famous episodes, “It’s a Good Life:”

In 1998 when I was writer-producer on Sliders during its fourth season, I met with Bill [Mumy] and we discussed a potential Sliders episode where its main character Quinn Mallory and his friends would slide to a parallel Earth which consisted solely of Anthony’s small town and which would serve as a sequel to “It’s a Good Life.” Although I even outlined the story, sadly nothing came of it.

While the Sliders have visited many worlds that felt like adventures in the Twilight Zone (including much of the third season), this would have been a trip to a specific episode, breaking new and potentially treacherous new ground for where the show could go.

Sliders enjoyed parodying other intellectual property, particularly in the first season where the show went so far as to have Rembrandt appear on a twisted version of “The People’s Court.” But it never entered a fictional world, at least not on television. All of the third season movie homages were careful never to place our heroes in the actual world of Twister, Anaconda, Nightmare on Elm Street, Junior, or Species. (I could keep going, but you get the idea.)

The comics, however, took greater liberties. Darkest Hour had the four land in the fictional town of Castle Rock so Quinn can steal money from Vern Tessio, the kid portrayed by Jerry O’Connell in Stand By Me. While technically every fictional universe exists in an infinite multiverse, I find these crossovers unsettling and, in-show, reality breaking. It’s okay if the Sliders run into a new character played by David Duchovny or even Duchovny playing himself; it’s way less okay if they encounter Fox Mulder.

Let’s assume, however, that the Sci-Fi Channel signed off on Zicree’s idea and proceeded with a sequel to “It’s a Good Life.” What might it have looked like?

First, it helps to ground ourselves in the premise of the original episode. Bill Mumy plays Anthony, a six year old child with basically all the powers of a god. What he lacks is wisdom, experience, and most importantly—empathy. His is a reign of terror. He can read minds and punish anyone whose thoughts offend him. He can do anything to anyone but his most consistent from of punishment is to send offenders to the cornfield, a mythical place where no one is ever heard from again.

The remaining residents are forced to live as Anthony sees fit. He doesn’t like modernity, dogs, or singing. His are naturally the whims of a child, but a spoiled child who brooks no discipline. Even his parents have no control over him. The populace is reduced to praising his every word and deed for fear of the cornfield. In the episode, one resident has enough and pleads with the people to kill Anthony while he distracts him. But none dare. The episode ends with Anthony recklessly killing all the town’s crops and the doomed people applauding it. “Anthony, it’s real good.”

By the time the Sliders would arrive, it would be forty years later. There are a lot of approaches one could take, but let’s assume the simplest—Anthony is still a complete sociopath terrorizing a community of his own making. He has not really matured. He’s still a spoiled monster demanding praise for everything he does and meting out punishment for even the tiniest of offenses. The arrival of the Sliders would intrigue him, as these are the first “new” people he has encountered since childhood. He may even be solicitous at first, but his bad old ways would take over. And the concept of sliding would enthrall him. It would quickly become clear to Quinn that Anthony can never gain control of the timer, even if it means destroying it.

Which Slider would be the first to be banished to the cornfield? Odds are it would be Rembrandt, who would unwittingly sing a tune and draw Anthony’s wrath. Maggie would likely be the next to go as she would refuse to praise him. That would leave Quinn and Colin to somehow trick Anthony into returning their friends and escaping unharmed with the timer. The inevitable coda would be Anthony forming a vortex with his mind, posing a potential threat to the multiverse.

But…do we have to imagine this episode? Didn’t we actually get this very episode in the form of Data World? For what is Archibald Chandler if not Anthony? He is an all-powerful computer capable of reading the minds of our Sliders. His hotel has a set of very strict and arbitrary rules, and anyone who runs afoul of those rules is sent to the recycle bin. Rembrandt triggers Chandler when he sings in public and ends up getting muted. Sure enough, Maggie’s deleted by the end of the second act. It’s up to Quinn and Colin to somehow trick Chandler and, well, you get it.

I admit—“Data World” isn’t very good. But neither is it written by Zicree. And there is no guarantee Zicree would have followed the simple outline proposed here. With his deep knowledge of the Twilight Zone, he would have likely come up with something far more clever. And, had it been successful, who knows what madness it might have unleashed? The Sci-Fi Channel had a deep reservoir of dormant IP the Sliders could have stumbled their way into. It’s possible we could have found ourselves longing for “Dinoslide” during the fifth season.