Why Jerry O’Connell Was Barely in Sliders’ Biggest Hit Episode

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As a gamer who grew up in the ’90s, I can vividly remember the thrill of watching “Sliders” every week. The second season’s episode “In Dino Veritas” was one that left an indelible mark on my young mind, with its dinosaurs, suspense, and a twist that kept me glued to the screen. However, it wasn’t until I stumbled upon this fascinating behind-the-scenes account that I realized the intricacies that went into making this episode.

1996 marked the second season of the sci-fi series Sliders (currently streaming on Peacock), which was struggling with ratings. Jerry O’Connell played the lead role, but a mix of studio interference, outdated viewership practices, and the production of a highly successful Tom Cruise movie caused a significant reduction in the appearance of O’Connell’s character, Quinn Mallory, in one of the season’s most popular episodes.

In the seventh episode of the second season of “Sliders”, titled “In Dino Veritas”, the story commences with the sliders stepping into a world where honesty is the norm. Venturing through a portal, they find themselves in a thick forest of another dimension. No people are spotted, but they discover enormous eggs (unfortunately, these eggs are broken by mistake) and hear the growls of a colossal creature. Soon enough, an Allosaurus makes its appearance from behind the trees.

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Creative disagreements and consumer ratings led the sliders to a dinosaur world (sans Jerry O’Connell) in “In Dino Veritas”

By the second season, the show’s creator, Tracy Tormé, had been experiencing creative disagreements with the network regarding the series’ direction. At that time, Fox was still relatively inexperienced in original television production, and the network prioritized high ratings over the narrative’s coherence.

In previous times, the popularity of a TV show was partially based on viewing data provided by individual viewers. Each year, the Nielsen Company would send diaries to specific cities’ homes. Households would record their weekly viewing habits, and then Nielsen would travel from coast to coast, gathering these diaries. Today, this type of data collection varies, but the term “Sweeps Week” has significantly impacted how television programming is produced.

During Sweeps Week 1996, Tormé proposed broadcasting the episode “Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome,” where Quinn and the group mistakenly believe they’ve returned home, but later realize their mistake. Fox preferred a more spectacular option and opted for the dinosaur episode instead, backed by a marketing campaign heavily focused on dinosaurs to attract viewers, as Tormé shared in a chat with Earth Prime.

Upon seeing the promotion, he exclaimed, ‘Oh, oh no,’ because we can’t create a show like ‘Jurassic Park’ or ‘Twister’ as movies do. To him, this was concerning… Yet, it proved successful. This might be one reason we returned for another season; the ratings on that episode were impressive. Credit where credit is due.

Why Jerry O’Connell was hardly in Sliders’ most popular Season 2 episode, “In Dino Veritas”

Initially designed to save production expenses, “In Dino Veritas” was originally intended as a bottle episode, with most of it being filmed in a single cave setting. However, Tormé found that the dinosaur effects were cheaper than anticipated, leading to the expansion of the episode beyond the confines of the cave.

During this interim, the scriptwriters devised a practical reason to keep Quinn out of the camera’s view, allowing O’Connell to explore other talents. As the Sliders are fleeing from an Allosaurus, Dr. Arturo (John Rhys-Davies) stumbles, hurts his leg, and drops the timer for their sliding device. The group then seeks refuge in a cave, with Quinn going back outside to retrieve the timer, which was their sole means of escape. For the majority of the episode, we follow Wade, Arturo, and Rembrandt as they juggle dinosaurs and poachers on a prehistoric wildlife sanctuary. Meanwhile, Cameron Crowe’s 1996 sports film Jerry Maguire was being filmed simultaneously, and O’Connell took on the part of star quarterback Frank Cushman. Despite having sliding technology at his disposal, he couldn’t be in two places concurrently.

Tormé explained that they allowed Jerry O’Connell to take on a role in “Jerry Maguire,” which is why Quinn disappears from the cave for an extended period. During this time, O’Connell was filming “Jerry Maguire.” Later, they discovered they could create a more impressive dinosaur than initially thought within their budget. This led them to expand the story a bit and capitalize on the opportunity. Consequently, what began as a straightforward small-scale show evolved into one of their most well-liked and heavily promoted series.

Luckily, both Quinn (alongside O’Connell) arrived just in the nick of time for the finale of the episode and their journey to another realm. Don’t miss out on their further adventures, available now on Sliders, streaming exclusively on Peacock!

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2024-12-04 19:46