I think I can imagine your surprise. Five seasons of Sliders? Really? And, I know, it does seem kind of incredible. But you know what’s more incredible? I recently watched all five seasons on DVD.

And, yes. That may be the most embarrassing and depressing sentence that I have ever written.

I mean, it’s Sliders! But I -- like so many of us -- somehow missed watching the final season when it aired on television, and for some reason decided that it was a journey I needed to complete; however, I couldn’t quite remember all that had gone before, so a little catch up was in order. Which meant four seasons of Sliders over successive weeks, and then I finally reached Season 5. Another weekend and then I watched the final episode, at which point I realized… never in my life have I wasted more precious time on something that so little warranted it--and I’m including, here, a misspent childhood reading those Sweet Valley Twins books.

If you never saw Sliders, then I envy you. If you watched it a little, but left it to its own plot devices early on, then I congratulate you. If you, too, have watched all five seasons -- and perhaps, like me, even paid for the privilege -- then I pity you.

‘Cause Sliders may well be the worst science fiction TV series of all time.

Sliders had a very troubled history. FOX canceled it after its first 10 episode season (and, really, it’s hard to blame them), but then somehow agreed to bring it back after a furious flurry of Save Our Show letter writing. And they then aired it for two more seasons. (Okay, and yet Firefly… seriously, FOX. What is up with that?) However, Fox caused more than a few problems for the series themselves, airing episodes out of intended order; an order which the DVDs (unlike those of the similarly maltreated Firefly) unfortunately maintain. Which means that relationships develop at odd paces, continuity errors abound, and there is a real feeling of disconnect between events. And that is really, really annoying.

After its second cancelation by Fox, Sliders moved to the Sci-Fi Channel, where it served out the remaining two seasons with what seems to have been an even smaller budget and even crazier production staff. But at least that craziness was carried out in the correct order.

Oh, look, the original concept’s not bad. Not bad at all. Season 1 sees Quinn Mallory (Jerry O’Connell), a technical genius with a nice smile and floppy hair, create a portal to alternate realities by using esoteric formulae having something to do with string theory. (Technically, it’s an Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky bridge. Eh. Whatever.) Taking along his college supervisor, Professor Maximillian Arturo (John Rhys Davies), his not-quite-girlfriend Wade Welles (Sabrina Lloyd) and -- by pure, unlucky chance -- former Motown pop sensation Rembrandt "Cryin' Man" Brown (Cleavant Derricks), the Sliders travel from dimension to dimension, interfering with all kinds of societies and cultures and the lives of their Mirror Universe counterparts, attempting all the while to get back home. (They lost the co-ordinates to their home Earth -- “Earth Prime” -- in their first outing, naturally).

At first glance, Sliders is basically Alternate History come to disturbing life; it’s Harry Turtledove’s entire back catalogue and Ideas Notebooks and probably some of Stephen Baxter’s, as well. You’ve got your “England won the Revolutionary War” and your “Texas is an independent nation” and your “Egyptian pharaohs still rule the world.” It’s intriguing -- if very poorly executed.

Season 3 changes the formula, with episodes becoming more pastiches of various sci-fi tropes and truisms (like, say, the men have the babies, or an insane scientist creates creepy animal hybrids) than true explorations of alternate realities. And it is in Season 3 that the revolving cast list begins to manifest; oh, it’s no Lost, but of Sliders’ original four stars, only Cleavant Derricks manages to make it through all five seasons. In Season 3 we bid a fond farewell to Arturo (FOX unaccountably fired the awesomely talented John Rhys Davies) and Wade (who’s developing relationship with Quinn became a very sudden non-event). We also bid a not-so-fond hello to alternate-Earth warrior Maggie (Kari Wührer) and then -- in Season 4 -- alternate-Earth Quinn’s brother Colin (played with stunning ineptitude by the star’s real-life brother, Charlie O'Connell). In Season 5, both O’Connells exit stage left, the task of playing Quinn (now called Mallory to differentiate between the two versions) falling to Robert Floyd, and we get a new Slider in the form of Dr. Diana Davis (Tembi Locke). Seasons 4 and 5 are a whole new plot arc, with the ongoing war between humans and the Sliding-savvy Kromaggs (yes, they’re from an Earth in which Cro-Magnon man became dominant) taking a very prominent role. And a tedious, ill-conceived, utterly soul-deadening role it is.

Season 5 of Sliders may be the most pointless season of television ever, with what has to be the most ridiculously unsatisfying conclusion given to any series. Though it does have one notable episode: “The Return of Maggie Beckett” (05.09). This sees Maggie a famous astronaut, presumed dead, which makes me think of Sam Carter in the Stargate movie Continuum, and is the only reason I have any fondness for this episode--or, indeed, season--at all. (And yes, the Sliders episode came years before Continuum, but I in no way consider that Brad Wright and co. took the idea from Sliders. ‘Cause, really, what are the odds that anyone but me has actually watched the damn thing?)

So, Sliders. Sliders is 88 episodes of hugely mistaken idiocy. And if I never see it again, not only will it be too soon, but it will clearly be in a parallel dimension. And maybe in that version of Earth, watching five seasons of this show will not have been such a colossal waste of time.

-- Rachel Hyland