George R.R. Martin’s pilot Doorways had a similar premise to Sliders and could have beat that FOX series to television if ABC had picked it up in 1993.
What Is It?
A woman from an alternate Earth is on the run from the minions of the Dark Lords, and a doctor from our Earth gets caught up in her parallel-world traveling when he tries to help her. Had this continued to a series, it would have likely followed these two traveling to a different Earth each week while being pursued by the leader of the minions of the Dark Lords.
Aired: ABC, 1993
Created By: George R.R. Martin
Starring: George Newbern, Anne Le Guernec, Robert Knepper, Kurtwood Smith, Carrie-Anne Moss, Max Grodenchik
Why Didn’t it Fly?
A couple of years before the alternate-Earth-traveling series Sliders bowed on FOX in 1995, this show with a similar premise titled Doorways made the pilot season rounds over at ABC, and it had some noteworthy names attached to it. Robert Knepper (Heroes, Stargate: Universe) was onboard as well as Carrie-Anne Moss (The Matrix, Jessica Jones), George Newbern (the voice of Superman in multiple DC animated shows), Kurtwood Smith (multiple Star Trek guest starring roles), Max Grodénchik (also multiple Star Trek guest starring roles), and more. Most interesting, though, is the creator and writer of the pilot: George R.R. Martin who was fresh off his stint working on Beauty and the Beast for CBS. This was earlier in his television writing career (he had also written for The New Twilight Zone and would do a ’90s Outer Limits episode) and before he had published a little book titled The Game of Thrones. So even though the pilot for Doorways seemed rather clunky (more on that below), I’m betting he could have pulled out some decent episodes if this did get picked up to series.
ABC execs were originally happy with the pilot and had ordered six additional scripts for the show. But ultimately it ended up getting cut from their schedule and the series never went forward. If it did, though, does that mean that Sliders would have never happened because FOX wouldn’t want a show too close to the ABC series? Maybe we should do some alternate-Earth traveling ourselves to find a reality where Doorways is a cult classic sci fi series and the creator of Sliders (Tracy Tormé) went on to write an acclaimed fantasy novel series . . .
Should It Be Rebooted?
The Doorways pilot delivered an interesting story, but the execution was flawed. It was ploddingly slow and quite cheesy, but that was not uncommon for genre entries of that era (seriously, go back and watch the first season of X-Files for some cringe-worthy moments). And the two leads didn’t really stand out as characters strong enough to carry a series. In fact, none of the characters made much of an impression apart from Robert Knepper as Thane. The parallel worlds aspect of the show had promise, but the idea of constantly being on the run from the Dark Lords could get old quickly.
Still, there was some potential to the concept, and it would be interesting to revisit it. If GRRM were to return to the property, it would be particularly interesting to see how he could expand on it in an environment with much better production values. But then he has a few other things he needs to finish up before looking back to this one. If another creative talent wanted to take a flyer on it, though, Doorways could turn into a decent sci fi series.
Interesting Fact: The year after Carrie-Anne Moss worked on this pilot she starred in a short-lived and little-seen Canadian sci fi series called Matrix (which had no relation to the Wachowskis’s movies). More on that one at this link.
Where Can You Watch It?
The pilot is available for streaming on Prime Video or you can buy it VOD. You can also track it down on YouTube, but the video quality may not be the greatest.
Read about more Sci Fi TV pilots that did not fly at this link.
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