I just watched it on Netflix. For a low-budget pilot, it's okay, but no more than that.
The tech used reminded me of 'Fringe' (which had an parallel universe) and as the story continued, i felt i watched another episode of the 90's series 'Sliders' with a main cast of 4 and a companion (who now is played by 'dad').
Sure: cliffhangers are very well executed nowadays, but the originality, the story itself, it all has been seen before.
6/10
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True, 'Parallels' looks slick, has all the latest CGI effects and the pace is different. Nevertheless, the story is not new. We've seen it all before.
shareWell that's true for pretty much every story. Writers will obviously draw inspiration from things they've read before, consciously or subconsciously.
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I did like Sliders, but yeah, it jumped the shark and this will probably do so as well, if it gets picked up. It will either get mundane because it refuses to be adventurous (dragons and psychics) or it will have to get more ambitious as time goes on.
yes, it's been done before. it's been done before Sliders (Fantastic Journey is probably the first one I remember). I will watch more of this if it gets picked up. But it's not something i would actively fight for. Other than Wu's character, I don't really care for any of the leads so far.
I don’t need you to tell me how good my coffee is..
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...I think there's a lot you can do with a multiverse concept without ending up too fantastical.
Sliders had to have a "goal". Hoping to get home centered the series around a common idea. Something very simple and easy to understand. All of us would want to go home. Exactly like Voyager and Quantum Leap focused on getting home. I actually think many people commenting here are misremembering Sliders. It was a GREAT sci if show when it was on Fox. When Rhys Davies left the show, the quality nose dived and it jumped the shark. The core cast was excellent and they fit well and they got smarter with more experience. Sliders had so much it could've gone. Then got lost in the kromagg silliness. Infinite universes to explore and they had episodes focusing on game shows and just dumb stuff the last two seasons. But make no mis take I loved that original cast and it still haunts me to this day how they managed to F up that show. Sad.
One of the things I hated about parallels is how stupid the characters are. If they are continuing the series, I hope they smarten them up fast. Also I worry if they have enough diversity of characters. I think the cast is a little dull. The Asian chick spices it up but they really need another element to travel with them and the main guy is frankly dull. I'll take brainy Quinn Mallory over him any day. I also think the plot and writing was incredibly clumsy. Seriously ,.. They're waiting to be executed but taking the time to discuss their feelings about their childhood? Sliders were always figuring a way out of a fix. Not wrestling with their feelings at a critical moment. It definitely got better at the end but the fathers refusal to answer even basic questions was almost forcefully stupid. Being cryptic just to be cryptic. So supernatural. I am obsessed with the parallel universe concept. But to this day it's never been done constantly at a high level. Not with Sliders, Star Trek, fringe, whatever. I would like to see this show go to series but only if they are going to get top shelf writers and visual effects. Otherwise why bother.
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What would you say is the original? Just curious.
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What would you say is the original? Just curious.
Yeah quantum leap had the same idea, although it was not different worlds but the same idea trying to get back to Sams own body but it was along the same lines.
There is nothing really original these days because every good idea has been thought of and that goes for all forms of entertainment, just look at video games, the same genres year after year, the world is saturated with copy paste stories and ideas.
There is nothing new, only new ways to present it. How well it is presented is the important issue. If you only want to watch something uniquely new never before told seen or discussed, you are in for a lifetime of disappointment.
shareIf these plots are really based on the multiverse theory, then there are an infinite number of universes and so everything would and does happen, including dragons, etc.
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There is not a single one, however, where that mosquito has grown to the size of a baseball, learned to speak, and now rules over Iceland.
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It's just semantics.
It's possible to disagree and still be polite. You're also not disagreeing very well.
For instance, you're at level 1 - Ad Hominem:
http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
Dragons/unicorns could be real via genetic engineering. Maybe on one Earth the scientists have no morals?!
Something clever and/or profound.
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Instead, they just wrote down a list of "things that we don't have on Earth" and stuffed them into episodes to see how crazy it looks.
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You seem like you know what you're talking about concerning the actual theory of a multiverse. So I have to ask a question that has been bugging me for a long time. If every choice any of us makes can create a new reality, doesn't that mean very little effort and energy goes into creating entire universes? For instance I can type a random letter, let's say the letter "V". Does that mean by doing that I created 25 other universes, each in which I chose a different letter? All those universes, each with all the matter in that universe, all created because I chose to reply to this topic. Not a whole lot of effort on my part, yet my decision created an awful lot of stuff.
shareI'm not sure there's a concrete answer to the question. It seems like there's pretty easily a dozen "serious" theories based on theoretical physics, cosmology, and philosophy. Then factor in many more semi-serious theories, thought experiments and fictional interpretations and you can pretty much take your pick of explanations.
I think some fictional multiverses create some kind of rules about multiverses revolving not around infinite creation, but around the ability of multiverse travelers' ability to resolve specific multiverses when traveling -- you're limited to selecting a multiverse by it's level of differentiation from other immediately parallel universes. The difference in universes where you type a different random keystroke are too small to matter, so if I travel to the V universe or the P universe (based on your keystrokes) it's basically the same universe since those changes have no significant differences in outcome.
I think some handle differentiation by positing that multiverses can merge -- you my create 25 different universes with each keystroke, but because they don't generate any differentiation they merge into a single coherent universe, sort of like the flow of water.
I read a kind of old science fiction series called "Paratime" that had as part of its cosmology a large but finite number of multiverses. At the expansion limit, the multiverses would collapse into a single universe and then begin re-expanding.
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Only the most radical theories on the multiverse would include such things as dragons.
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I agree sliders started out good but got really bad the last season. Parallels has a chance to be really good. I'm glad it is not time travel but just parallel worlds.
The Constance Wu character is interesting also. What is she? Why are there three of them?
I liked it. I would like to see more episodes. It's a little bit lost, a little bit fringe, a little bit battlestar galactica 2nd series, I little bit of every popular or near popular TV SCI FI for the past decade.
shareYup! I thought of Sliders after reading the premise then, after watching it, I tried to describe Sliders to my wife and I basically described this movie/pilot. The basic formula only really deviates in that its a building and not a device that opens a wormhole. 4 companions travel ('unwillingly') to other versions of Earth which could be dramatically different or just slightly. They foolishly separate and there is always the danger that they won't make it back to meet up and 'jump'. Sliders is obviously a kind of campy show for the most part but I remember some of the storylines being kind of dark. Watching this makes me want to go back and watch Sliders over (Sliders binge imminent).
Sliders, like most popular sci fi shows, probably borrowed heavily from Star Trek. Which is fine because it took the idea and recreated it in a different way. Ultimately it is about visiting strange and interesting worlds though. I understand that in Sliders/Parallels its still Earth but because it could be infinitely different it may as well be an alien world. Sliders did play more with the doppelgänger scenario but I have seen that in Star Trek many times (Deep Space 9 does a whole Evil twin story line from an alternate universe for example). However, you couldn't say Sliders is the same basic show as Star Trek because its really not. I think you could say that Parallels (so far) seems to be almost an identical formula to Sliders and its basically a rip-off. I would much rather see a revival/remake of Sliders than this. Having said that, this show has by definition infinite potential for storylines.
***Spoiler Alert***
As far as the Cliffhanger moment at the end, I was not surprised at all and actually thought we were supposed to already know that about the asian chick. This idea of multiple doppelgängers that are also travelers and the tinkerer guy are really the only intriguing things in this show for me. Sliders was a nerd show most likely made by nerds for nerds. This show seems to be trying to do the same thing but for the mainstream. Could be good but I doubt it.
"Something clever or profound"
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Yeah that is true that they didn't really make getting back to the building a big deal in Parallels. But if I remember right the asian chick did make it sound like if you aren't in the building by the time it jumps then you've missed the boat. Which I don't really understand if the building remains on that version of Earth after the people have jumped, why can't they just catch the next boat? or is it more like their is one building that can jump and it becomes the other buildings when it gets there? In which case what would happen if someone was already in the building or what if you wrote some graffiti in the first building then jumped, would the graffiti still be there? The Tinkerer's people said the building is dangerous and they stay away from it. Do they mean it is dangerous when it magically appears or is it always there? If all the other building are always there of all the variations of the world and can survive nuclear blasts unscathed etc then wouldn't people take a little more interest in them? Like hey guys have you ever noticed how on earth every single building in the world is pink... except that one?
I have to admit I barely remember Sliders except that I liked it despite how cheesy it was and the idea had a lot of potential. I'm just not totally convinced the writers thought this through all the way and that may be why we are seeing it as a pilot and not a tv show.
BTW, thanks for the sticker. I wasn't saying I was particularly clever for figuring it out, I just thought we were supposed to already know.
Something clever and/or profound.
Apparently, once the building jumped, it jumped to its copy on another world, thus making it active, and the one on the world it just left became inactive. And with all the endless worlds out there, I don't think it would jump to a world it has been before.
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In multiple Earths, there wouldn't be just one building doing this weird thing, but infinity/infinity buildings (or was there really just the one Earth prime that developed this thing, for some reason)?
There would thus be multiple buildings from multiple original Earths shuffling around.
Kind of like how in Sliders (getting back to the thread topic) there were multiple Earths where Quinn had developed the sliding method. The device itself might differ. And other people had invented sliding too, even the annoying Kromaggs (I hated those episodes).
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The issue with all shows like these are that they state their weakly-defined premise and then proceed to violate it within a few episodes. Fantastic Journey was one of the worst - eliminating half the cast in an off-screen event that sounded ludicrous coming from a stranger to the established cast.
What SLIDERS had going for it was that it was FUN. And then FOX Executives wanted to mimic any hit movie that came out and ruined the show's premise with dinos, dragons & magic nonsense. It never got back on track and became more of an inter-dimensional "A-Team" pulling miracles out of scrap yards.
I agree that what's always frustrating about these shows is that the characters never take precautions, never prepare for the dimensional jumps, never assemble emergency kits of tools, snacks, water, pocket knives, rope, etc.....they just NEVER LEARN. After two run-ins they should know - stay away from the LAW in any world. They should know - NEVER tell the truth or even joke about their origins. In this regard, I prefer what was done in STARGATE. The universe is a dangerous place - they travelled ready to give as well as they got. They collected, analyzed, & integrated what they found to stay as safe as possible.
I would enjoy another show that had this kind of attitude.
One of my favorite lines from SLIDERS is in the 5th season: "Did you think the battery in the remote would last forever?!?"
I watched it and enjoyed the pilot, hence the reason why it was on Netflix.
Most sci-fi series have handled the situation before however Sliders was a little different, every episode was another earth. Had alot of issues from drinking to drugs, now this new show comes out and instead of calling it sliders it's called Parallels.
Sliders, still my favorite series to date.
Sometimes I wonder if Remy may pop in at some point, it would explain a few things. I would like to see Jerry to have an ongoing role on it, explaining that someone enhanced his characters idea.
okay that's a pipe dream, however it could work. Quinn selling his technology only to find out that instead of sending a person it's a whole building.
i know it sounds dumb but it's my theory
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Sliders is one of my all time favorites as well. But I don't see it being tied to this show however.
Sliders wasn't perfect and it was best with t he original four. They had chemistry, compelling characters, comedy, fun, smarts and they became a family. The show had serious problems when David Peckinpaw took over, who completely ruined the show.
I did enjoy some of the later episodes, there's a few gems among them. But I always wish it was the original four. The show lost its continuity, the recurring characters, the tie ins from one show to another, the fun brief snippets of different worlds at the beginning and end of a show.
Flaws and all, its a show I find myself coming back to every now and then!
Parallels has potential, but I find myself irritated at how stupid they are. Except the Asian woman who's name escapes me at the moment. Didn't mind Tinker either. I guess. So far I don't find them very likable. When watching Sliders pilot episode, it wasn't too hard to like the characters for me.
This is just my opinion of course.
I have to agree; total ripoff. Slightly updated but identical premise.
shareBut even Sliders wasn't terribly unique -- Star Trek did at least two "parallel Earth" stories where history evolved differently, the Roaring 20s earth where it was run by 1920s gangsters and the Nazi planet where Nazism became established. I think science fiction writing is littered with parallel universe stories.
And it's not like any narrative concept hasn't been done to death. The ideas aren't unique in any realm. I even remember a high school English teacher pretty easily defending the idea that Shakespeare's works largely represented the entirety of dramatic narrative possibilities -- basically, anything you could think of had a narrative that Shakespeare had already done. The changes were just setting and language.
It really just matters *how* they're executed, not that the concept is unique. Just because Dirty Harry hunted a serial killer in "Dirty Harry" doesn't mean that "Silence of the Lambs" wasn't unique, and just because "Dragnet" followed two cops around doesn't make "True Detective" any less interesting.
Because this really is a TV pilot and not meant to be a self-contained narrative, we don't really know whether it would devolve into just "alternate earth of the week" or whether they would just end up in a lot of universes not much different than ours and the time would be spent trying to figure out who dad was, what the building was, what Earth prime was, etc.
For all the fun that Sliders was the first season or two, it was never very sophisticated and really just was focused on the alternate-world-of-the-week, fun but kind of lowbrow results.
But even the lack of uniqueness isn't really a weakness for parallel universe concepts, as the wide-open nature of what a parallel universe could be means you can still posit unique universes as well as warp the rules of the concept in interesting ways.
ITA. It's all in the details - what you make of the premise.
In programming, you can have an object( the building ) and generate instances of that object that are identical in all manner and behaviors, yet move and occupy different spaces. Any change to the original object will be reflected in all the instances immediately. Delete the original object, and all the instances will disappear. I would imagine the building to work in this manner. The original object building would displace the instance of the building on each Earth ( in a pocket dimension, perhaps ) for 36 hours. The rumbling is part of the "refresh" stage wherein all the other buildings are updated to match the original.
Time Tunnel was cheesy as heck, but I loved that show in the 60's. The chrono-nauts were tagged with a radiation bath before their first journey that allowed the lab to track their location in time. Perhaps in time the radiation killed them before they got home?
RE:Trek - I think Miri's world (plague killed all adults) was the first Alternate-Earth in the show. It even had the same physical dimensions and contenents.
- Omega Glory featured post- US vs. Russia apocalypse where "yangs" were misquoting the constitution.
- Bread & Circuses featured a Roman society that lasted 2000 years+ and Christianity was just getting a foothold.
Check out The Twilight Zone for a gazillion alternate-Earth stories.
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Star Trek is a pretty bad example, though.Stupid writers eh! (-;
The original writers never understood that humanoid
doesn't mean that something looks exactly human ....
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The movie was overall good. As far as sliders, at first I thought the same, but we can not throw out saying one show is like anther because of one similarity. In the case... Dimensional Travel. The only relation here.
Aside from the fact you have 'Core World' and the one in Sliders who actually created the Sliding Tech. The ugly mofo's. But not entirely sure they created the tech initially? With what's his name accidentally creating it to, yet... his family from another world (like this movie). And picked up/stole the tech from them like this movie?
Sliders at it's time was really good. Looking back, yes... very cheesey and plenty of nonsensical theories. I have been screaming and yelling for an up to date version of the idea. Hopefully this is the one. If not, patiently waiting for next candidate!