Does anyone remember that television programme, Sliders, from way back when? It wasn’t so great that I can more than only vaguely recall it. In Sliders, Annoying Fake Physics Student invents some sort of way to travel between parallel universes, but neglects to include a way to get back to his correct timeline. That’s all to the good because he and Special Sidekick Team Including Fat Professor discover some kind of threat to the “Prime” Earth (ours), which they wouldn’t have if they had included a “back” button in their universe browser.
Naturally all the “parallel” worlds they visit are actually enormously divergent from ours, but often in amusing, slightly dangerous (occasionally VERY dangerous) ways. Somehow, Annoying Fake Physics Student and Special Sidekick Team Including Fat Professor manage to eat and clothe themselves in the meantime. In one very HI-larious episode, they even stumble on (get this!) a world almost exactly like ours…BUT DOMINATED BY WOMEN. Total role reversal, with dependent weepy men obsessing over relationships, the whole nine yards. I mean, can you imagine the opportunities for hilarity with a premise like that? Heh, female dominated world, har har. Needless to say, Fat Professor in particular strikes a blow for MANkind. Yeah, that’s the spirit.
Anyway, I just had an idea for a knock-off show, we’ll title it provisionally Slippers. In Slippers, our protagonist (male, of course, if it’s ever going to make it to air) is an art history student who discovers, quite by accident, a special psychic power: the ability to “slip” into other parallel universes, but only if that universe is very similar to the one which he came from with. That means, only very trivial differences. For example, someone somewhere ate a donut rather than a muffin, but otherwise their day was exactly the same.
In fact, our protagonist realizes that he might have been “slipping” between parallel universes for a long time before he noticed it—-when his coffee suddently emptied in his hand because he had drunk it in the “next” universe slightly faster (but nothing else different happened). There’s some room for some eye-catching special effects and camera tricks here. As he learns to control his ability, he starts “slipping” in a more controlled fashion between different universes in what will be a long-running search for his “home” universe. Of course, part of the problem (and a source of hijinks!) is that detecting how the universes he has entered differ from his original one or even whether he has actually reached his original universe.
In one cliffhanger season finale, Art History Student will actually decide that he has finally reached “home” and marries his girlfriend. Fast forward a number of years, when he’s at home having dinner with his 7 and 9 year old children. Art History Student (now Unionized Civil Servant Government Moocher) will announce to his kids that he and Mummy are taking them on a trip to Europe! And he can’t wait to show them the Eiffel Tower.
Older child: “Daddy, what’s the Eiffel Tower?”
Unionized Civil Servant Government Moocher: “Hold on, let me Bing it up for you on my Palm Treo 2020.”
Bing: [whatever Bing says when it can’t find a search result, I have no idea, who uses Bing?]
Unionized Civil Servant Government Moocher: “Oh my gawd! I’ve been in this universe for a decade and I never noticed that the Eiffel Tower was never built!?! I MUST GET BACK TO MY OWN TIMELINE.”
Because, you know, everything else is exactly the same. He just made a slightly larger “slip” than usual. Eventually he will start to wonder what exactly happens to the versions of him already in the timelines he enters…at some point by the third season.
I am ready to sign a contract with any interested director. Just contact Dawg, he’ll send you my deets.
