Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

In the Earth Prime script collection, we have a lot of drafts of this episode. A lot of drafts. The funny thing, is, from the Outline dated September 25 to the Production Draft submitted October 13 to the second pink revisions from October 29…not much changes. It’s the exact same structure, and most of the same dialogue. The updates are just a re-working of a few scenes that they struggled to nail down.

But prior to September 25, wow.

Colin Mallory's introduction was critical to the success of Sliders' fourth season, and the writing staff spent a lot of time trying to break his entrance.We managed to acquire a few memos and beat sheets from Bill Dial and Marc Scott Zicree that provide insight into their thinking. And, strangely enough, the first memo we have from Dial trends very much toward what we eventually see. Teaser is basically the same, Act One is basically the same. But the rest of the story is missing. Dial muses maybe Colin isn’t the right name. Perhaps something more biblical would be appropriate? Jeremiah? Adam? Absolom? Ultimately, he settles on…Cletus. (Some folk’ll never lose a toe, but then again, some folk’ll…)

A week later, Dial weighs in again. Cletus/Colin is now Abel Allgood. (If Colin is Abel, does that imply Quinn is Cain? Interesting.) The teaser and Act One are still basically intact, but now Dial advocates for staying on this world for the entire episode. And if we’re staying, we need to know what we’re up against. Colin’s nondescript simple home now becomes a post-World War II community of survivors where the Trinity test went terribly wrong. Like the world of "Gillian of the Spirits," technology has not just been stalled but basically eradicated. Moreover, women have taken over and formed a matriarchy after the colossal failure of the men.

From there, however, Dial struggles to advance the plot. He rapidly veers into "Electric Twister Acid Test" territory without the novelty of the twisters and he knows it. He fears he’s set up yet another prison plot. Maybe a courtroom trial could save the day? He posits that, when the Sliders escape, Abel’s pants are set on fire—giving him an excuse to go pants shopping and marvel at all the zippers. I mean, that could work, right? Right?

Dial concedes that, while Pantsless Abel is fun, he doesn’t quite have it.

A week later, Zicree takes his shot and lays out a full four-act outline. The Teaser? Can’t beat a hang glider introduction, so that stays. Act One? Still pretty similar, but this time we leave the microdot out of it. In the absence of hard proof, Abel isn’t going anywhere. Besides, he’s engaged to be married to Ruth (Susannah). "They lock-lip in a major way." End of story. Except…we still have three acts to go.

Defeated by Abel, the Sliders give up and decide to help him build a power source for his inventions. But Quinn runs afoul of the technology rules. Ruth’s mother spies a diagram of a circuit and is able to recognize the devil’s technology. She lets them off with a warning, but Abel can’t help himself. He attempts to harness a storm, Benjamin Franklin-style, and ends up burning the place down. In the disaster, Ruth is mortally wounded.

The Sliders are banished and Abel is sentenced to death the same way he has almost surely killed Ruth—by electrocution by lightning. Abel, miserable, does not fight them. He wants to die. But honoring people’s wishes is not really something Quinn and Maggie are known for, so they and Rembrandt rescue Abel and drag Ruth with them out into the great unknown beyond the village.

This leads them to a destroyed city. In a somewhat common sci-fi trope, our backward community is not at the forefront of science, it’s a regression from some terrible calamity! In the ruins, they find medicine to save Ruth, but the townspeople have somewhat uncharacteristically followed them out into oblivion. Ruth’s mother sees the errors of her ways, but she is killed by the other elders. This elevates Ruth to the leadership…and they just listen to her for some reason. Ruth encourages Abel to join Quinn, presuming that he will return to her after he’s helped the Sliders.

I’m a bit flippant with my description because it is only an outline and it is veering dangerously close to "Electric Twister Acid Test," an episode that should have buoys surrounding it warning everyone to stay away. And everyone clearly agreed, because one month later, "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?" hit the reset button and returned to where it had begun. That said, the discarded world would sort of reappear in "Slide by Wire", so perhaps not everything was lost.

The outlines, memos, and beat sheets provided do set the stage for an intriguing alternate take. Had they gone the serious route, Colin’s introduction would have certainly changed how he was portrayed going forward. As Abel, Colin is a match for Quinn. He is strong-willed and makes his own decisions. Such a character would have demanded to be treated on equal footing from the drop, and perhaps would have resented being the butt of so many jokes. An actual rivalry could have formed, perhaps leading to a situation pitting one brother against the other.

Strictly from the perspective of this episode, though, I think they made the right choice.