The Exodus is the infamous two-parter of the 90s multiverse exploration series SLIDERS, a series that was frequently plagued by executive meddling, pointless cast changes, and ridiculous story lines. It holds a special place in my heart as it’s first two seasons are amongst the best speculative fiction I’ve ever seen and I do actually have some sort of soft spot for the third season even if it (and season five) are the worst.

The Exodus has a lot going against it…death of a fan favourite character in Professor ArtUro, gobbledegook science jargon, the characters all being incredibly self-centred and mean-spirited, a weird serial killer/coma victim subplot…there’s a lot to cut out or generally minimise, and evidently I haven’t been the only one who’s considered this. Apparently the Earth Prime online community tried their hand at the Exodus fanedit, I found it on Vimeo and it’s inspired me to do my own version.

I think they tried to be too ambitious with the edit, attempting to ignore some of the hokeier moments and, in what I feel was a missed oppertunity, cut out Quinn returning to his home Earth. This was a seminal moment for me and I thought one of the better moments of the two-parter, ruined all too quickly by Maggie’s ludicrous “allergy” to an Earth. In my version, Quinn and Maggie return from Quinn’s world with no problems and they decide that Earth is where the population of the doomed Pulsar Earth goes.

Arturo’s death is now re purposed in a way that gives him some dignity and underlines the triumph of the Sliders with a tragic setback…they have made it home at last, but feel compelled to return to their usual adventures in order to bring Rickman to justice.

Maggie’s husband is killed off-screen, as Rickman tells Maggie he was killed by the rioters.

The whole Rembrandt/Malcom subplot has been removed, they still meet and Rembrandt does still bond with him, but the whole drama with trying to get him on the list or whatnot is edited out.

I retained some of the cheesier elements because Sliders is pure 90s cheese and it would feel hollow without some of that being in there. It’s not really a very joyful story as it is.

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