Tracy Tormé
Tracy R. Tormé, is an American screenwriter and television producer of such works as Saturday Night Live, Odyssey 5, Sliders, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Fire in the Sky and Carnivàle. His father is noted singer Mel Tormé, and he is a graduate of Beverly Hills High School.[1]
Sliders
Tracy Tormé is the co-creator of the show Sliders, but had conflicts with the Fox Network during the production of the show.
Tormé wanted the end of an episode to be linked to the beginning of the next episode, but he claimed that Fox did not allow him to do this because they wanted to air the episodes in their preferred order, and that linking episodes would force them to air them in Tormé's order. He also felt that this damaged the show's continuity. [1]
He claimed that Fox wanted an action-oriented show based on popular movies. He complained that with such TV shows, the viewer forgets what has been seen five minutes later. He also claimed that Fox did not want anything intellectual or political, and that they didn't want satire. He says he was embarrassed by the third season. [2]
Tormé says that by the third season, all his allies had been fired, and the other executive producers, the network, and the studio all wanted to go in a direction that he disagreed with. Tormé had gotten tired of fighting battles with the network. Also, his father was ill and Tormé wished to spend more time with his family. He walked away from the show. [3]
He has been critical of the changes to the characters of Sliders, saying that originally, Quinn Mallory and Rembrandt Brown were intended to be misfits but were then changed to be "action heroes" and were always getting into fights with people.
In the summer of 1997, after Sliders had been cancelled by Fox but before it was picked up by the Sci Fi Channel, Tormé said he would like to bring Sliders back to its original roots [4]. The Dimension of Continuity claims that Tormé had bid to reclaim control of Sliders in the fourth season (which is the first season on the Sci-fi Channel), but that he did not want to work with David Peckinpah, who had been contracted for another season.
Tormé did get to work with his dad, legendary jazz singer and composer Mel Tormé, in one episode of the series. Mel plays an alternate version of himself who is also a government agent in the 1996 episode "Greatfellas".
Political views
During an interview with Brad Linaweaver during the 1990s, Tormé said he has libertarian tendencies and that he voted for Harry Browne, the Libertarian Party's candidate for U.S. President in 1996. He finds the official Libertarian position too isolationist though he agrees with libertarians on 90% of domestic issues and says that if the whole world accepted libertarian principles, then there would be no need for an aggressive military. [5]
Torme has made connections between his politics and the television show Sliders that he co-created. He suggested that there has been a Libertarian tone to Sliders[6] and said, "If we ever had the Sliders find a libertarian world, it would be the closest they'd come to Utopia as far as I'm concerned." [7]
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He stated he is an ex-Democrat. Tormé has also said that he is sort of a radical animal rights person, sort of a radical environmentalist, and that he is to the left by nature. He opposes political correctness because he sees it as the great lie of the left. [8]
Other work
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In the world of Star Trek, Tormé is known as the creator of the Dixon Hill series. He wrote the first season episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation entitled "The Big Goodbye", in which the Dixon Hill series is introduced.
References
- ^ Koltnow, Barry. "`Fire in the Sky' hero still blazes alien trail in tiny Arizona town", Orange County Register, March 9, 1993. Accessed April 25, 2008. "In early November 1975, Tracy Torme was sitting in the library at Beverly Hills High School, listening to rock music on his headphones while pretending to read a book."
- ^ http://www.dimensionofcontinuity.com/bts.htm - Accessed February 4, 2006
- ^ http://www.earth62.net/transcripts/torme27jun97.htm - Accessed February 4, 2006
- ^ http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/dragon97/TracyTorme.html - Accessed February 4, 2006
- ^ Linaweaver, Brad; Sliders: The Classic Episodes. 1998. TV Books. New York. ISBN 1-57500-053-9. Pages 274-75.
- http://www.earth62.net/transcripts/torme15jun01.htm (reference for Tracy Torme's middle initial)
External links
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