When last we saw "Sliders" - many, many months ago - one of the main characters (played by Jerry O'Connell) had just been shot and seriously wounded.
But that seemingly endless cliff-hanger (the episode first aired in March 1995) won't reverberate through the show for long - or so the show's executive producers and stars told television critics recently."I think we've got a pretty clever way of hooking this new season into the last one," said executive producer Jacob Epstein. "And Jerry is here, so that ought to answer something for you."
Without giving much away, all of the Sliders are indeed back for the show's second season, which begins Friday at 7 p.m. on Ch. 13. And the sliding starts all over again.
The premise for the show is as intriguing as ever. Young genius Quinn Mallory (O'Connell) has discovered a way to "slide" between dimensions - to travel from one Earth to another.
But in the show's original pilot, something went wrong with his equipment and he and his fellow sliders couldn't get back to their own Earth. They're bouncing from dimension to dimension on a search for home.
Along for the ride are Quinn's friend (sometimes girlfriend), Wade (Sabrina Lloyd); his physics professor, Maximilian Arturo (John Rhys-Davies); and former pop singer Rembrandt "Crying Man" Brown (Cleavant Derricks), who was accidentally sucked up in a sliders' worm hole with the others.
The four actors have created a great chemistry as they travel from dimension to dimension - sort of a cornerstone on which to build each week's wildly different adventures.
On Friday, for example, the Sliders find themselves in a world ruled by black magic. And they may also find a way to make it home.
Again, without giving anything away, there's a great plot twist in the episode's final moments.
Upcoming episodes will find the Sliders on a world where time is going backward for them and forward for everyone else. And one where J. Edgar Hoover "sort of had his way with the country" after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. And one where the Earth is being invaded from outer space.
The idea is to take the audience to alternate realities that are just slightly askew from our own.
"The whole point of the show is that it's got to be relatable. It's got to be our world, but just twisted two degrees to five degrees," Epstein said. "We're experimenting now with opening it up a little bit more."
The only real change from last season, however, is that the Sliders adventures will be more personal.
"It won't be so much the Sliders saving the world week to week," Epstein said. "It will be more intimate challenges, and things on a smaller scale."
And while the show will maintain its emphasis on action and adventure, it won't leave social commentary behind.
"The great thing for me is that it works as an adventure, but it also works as a satire," Epstein said.
"We can constantly do allegorical things that sometimes they're so subtle we're not sure if anybody is really seeing it out there, but we know it's in there," said creator and executive producer Tracy Torme. "And that gives us a very unique opportunity because we can say things about here because we're not here, we're somewhere else."
And all that traveling somewhere else makes it fun for the actors - not to mention the fact that they not only get to play their regular characters, but often appear as alternate versions of their characters.
"From an actor's point of view, one of the worst things about television is that it can become very monotonous working on it," O'Connell said. "You're doing the same thing. On a show like `Sliders' I haven't experienced it yet."
"You never get bored," interjected Lloyd.
"Because of the premise and the fact that we get to play dual characters - our doubles - and the fact that we are traveling to a different world, a different setting, a different location every week, it keeps us on our toes," O'Connell said. "I'm having a blast on this one."
And, with any luck, O'Connell will continue to have a blast beyond the 13 episode Fox has ordered for this season. This is one show that deserves to be around for a while.
LEARNING EXPERIENCE: O'Connell allows as how, amidst all the fantasy, he has learned something from his time on "Sliders."
"The character I play . . . is a physics genius," he said. "Math and sciences were not my strong point growing up. And it's been a very educational show for me.
"I'm hoping my 10th-grade math teacher catches the show so she could see how much I've improved."
TUBE NOTES: Ken Wahl will return as federal undercover agent Vinnie Terranova in a two-hour "Wiseguy" TV movie on ABC later this season. (The series originally aired on CBS from 1987-90). Also returning are Jonathan Banks as McPike and Jim Byrnes as Life-guard.
You may recall that Wahl quit the show in 1990 after fighting with the series' producers. He left to become a movie star. You may have also noticed that he didn't.
- Arthur Kent, the former NBC reporter best known as the "Scud Stud" for his gulf war coverage, has joined CNN as a correspondent.
Kent was eventually fired by NBC after battling with his bosses.