The... Gripe: Sliders

So, I was walking up the road to get a copy of todays newspaper when for some reason I began to think of the 90's tv show, Sliders. You know the one, the fat kid from 'Stand By Me' is an uber-genius and discovers a method to travel between parallel worlds that he ends up calling 'Sliding'.

Anyway, I was thinking about the whole premise of the show, that they're trying to get home after the sliding thing goes wrong causing their device to open a portal at intervals of differing times. So one world they might have two days to wait, or another might be as little as two minutes.

The first episode of the second season ended with them landing on a world that could possibly be theirs after receiving it's coordinates from an alternate fat kid, and they had about a minute to discern whether they were on their world or not.

The newspaper in the letterbox doesn't give any clues, as on this world OJ Simpson was tried for a double murder, the Raiders are playing out of Oakland and the Cleveland Indians actually made the World Series.

Could that much have happened since they left? Well, gee, I don't know. Maybe they need something more tangible to figure out if they are on their world.

So, how did they try to figure out if they were on their world? Well, you see... the front gate of the fat kid's house was always squeaky on his world. And luckily, they arrived out the front of his house. Take a look:

For those that couldn't be fucked watching it, i'll explain. He tests it out... and alas, it isn't squeaky... which means... this can't be their world.

They decide to slide on.

After they've slid away, his mother walks out with the gardener who shows her that he has fixed the squeak with a bit of oil.

Wow.

They just moved on from their world because they couldn't really be fucked to check for anything else apart from a fucking gate.

This seriously was one of their major tests throughout the show as to whether they were on their own world or not.

"Is the gate squeaky?"

If the gate was squeaky, they would usually try to settle into "their" lives until they realise that something isn't right... like the President is a Nazi, or something along those lines.

One thing that I find a bit stupid, is the fact that they just keep sliding like it is their only way to get home.

Why doesn't the fat kid who is an uber-genius who invented the intra-dimensional sliding system in his fucking basement sit the fuck down on a really good world, and build a new fucking device? He surely must be able to build it again, seeing as he could have the resources of a rich blues singer at his disposal, and he has the fucking Professor along with him to give him a hand.

Not to mention... he might have a parallel version of himself who could offer a hand with building the fucking thing.

Really. Why the fuck slide?