Theorizing that one could produce a show about time travel within a single character's lifetime, Donald Bellisario led an elite group of TV writers into the desert to develop a top secret television series, known as Quantum Leap, a show starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell, where in each episode, Dr. Sam Beckett found himself leaping from life to life, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to put right what once went wrong, with his only guide on his journey being Rear Admiral Al Calavicci, an observer from the Project who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. After airing five seasons of temporal adventures and changing countless lives, the show vanished! Now, 30 years later, a new group of TV writers and producers are picking up where the original show left off, but the question for Quantum Leap fans remains, is this new show any good? Let's find out together!
First off, there will be spoilers ahead, so go check out the episode, it aired on NBC on September 19th and should be streaming on Peacock as you read this, so watch that and come back here.
It's weird to see things like newsstands and turntables be considered part of “history”, right?
Did you watch it? Great! Let's begin. First off, I want to say that I definitely enjoyed the episode. It wasn't perfect by any stretch, but I've been a fan of Quantum Leap for about eleven years at this point, so having it return, in any form, makes me extremely happy. And unlike Star Trek and its return, the network is giving it a chance to make it on broadcast TV instead of relegating it to an exclusive streaming service. Which is already a plus for me! So, I'll start by giving a brief recap of the plot in the event you're reading this and haven't seen it.
Project Quantum Leap has been revived and Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) is one of the leads working on the Project, alongside his fiancee, Addison (Caitlin Bassett), Ian (Mason Alexander Park) the lead programmer, Jenn (Nanrisa Lee) the head of security of the Project, and Herbert “Magic” Williams (Ernie Hudson) the head of the Project and a former leapee, with Sam having leapt into “Magic” back in Season 3's “The Leap Home” aka the one where Sam saved his brother from dying in Vietnam. During their engagement party, Ben gets a message from a mysterious figure who tells him that they have a brief window to work with and like Sam before him, Ben Song steps into the Quantum Leap Accelerator and vanishes. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that are not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. This time around, Addison is the hologram and Ben is in Philadelphia in the eighties, working as an undercover cop on a jewel heist to steal the Hope Diamond, needing to save one of the members of the crew, only in it to get money to pay for his wife's medical treatment, from being killed.
The cast from L to R: Herbert “Magic” Williams, Jenn, Ian, Addison Augustine
As a pilot episode, they picked a very safe leap. Apparently the original pilot featured the San Francisco Earthquake, but the network ordered a new pilot and this is the one that they went with. A jewel heist isn't the most unique premise, and it's something that could have been slotted down into any time period, whereas the best leaps on the original show were dealing with situations that could only happen in that specific era, such as episodes dealing with racism in the pre-Civil Rights south, or when he leaped into Lee Harvey Oswald, which naturally can only happen in and around the Kennedy assassination. And the eighties, as a decade, unfortunately isn't very visually distinctive. Yes, there is an eighties that looks cool, the neon eighties, but in the original show, any time that Sam leaped into the eighties, it was used as a backdrop for a more interesting premise, like “Temptation Eyes: February 1, 1985” where Sam encountered a woman with psychic abilities who could perceive Sam as himself as opposed to the leapee, all the while Sam was supposed to figure out how to prevent her from becoming the next victim of a serial killer. A jewel heist is not nearly as interesting, even in the eighties, and that brings me to my next point.
The episode moves at a breakneck speed. We meet Ben and Addison and then Ben leaps and then Ben is tossed right into it, and he has to drive the car and then he has to deal with the crew and all that other stuff. In comparison, “Genesis: Part 1 – September 13, 1956” has the episode open with Al finding out that Sam is leaping, we get the visual shorthand for time travel and then Sam spends about ten minutes of the episode dealing with having total amnesia and a different reflection and then Al shows up for the first time, but Al doesn't talk to Sam for another ten minutes and Sam has to figure things out on his own, fumble around without direction. Not to mention that Al can't tell Sam anything about the future or himself because the rules of the Project prohibit giving information to the leaper that they don't already know. I'm not against the concept of those rules being loosened, but to just dump everything onto Ben in that short amount of time, it's just unrealistic that he accepts everything as fast as he does. There was a lot of time to breathe in the original pilot episode so that the viewer could adapt to the premise, but I suppose the network didn't want viewers to be confused during that first commercial break so they insisted on dumping everything out in the first ten minutes, not to mention the fact that the episode was shorter than a standard episode, I watched it on TV and it ended at like 10:55, early enough for them to play an extended season trailer at the end, so the episode was already shorter than it should've been, usually a show ends closer to the :58 mark if it's an hour-long show, it should've been a two-parter to allow for breathing room, and then they should have at least been full parts.
Pacing issues aside, I really like all of the characters. Ben and Addison are both really interesting thus far, and Ben especially, given that he has reasons to leap that neither he nor Addison know about at this time (because of the Swiss Cheese memory effect). It was a little weird, because we didn't really get to know the real Sam before he leaped, but we got to see the real Ben for a little bit and it seems at odds with the charming, dashing, knocking out bad guys Ben that was on the leap. Was that part of the host bleeding through or does Ben have layers that we don't know about? I'm excited to find out! And as for Addison, we don't know that much about her yet, apart from the fact that she loves Ben and will do whatever it takes to bring him home. I'm hoping we'll see more of her character as the show progresses.
The original Quantum Leap had some interesting characters back at the Project, but they never really got a chance to shine, most only showing up once or twice. I think Gooshie was the only one who appeared more than once, but the new show seems to be intending to split the focus 50/50 on both Ben and his leaps and the Project, which I like, because one of my favorite parts of Quantum Leap fanfic and the tie-in novels were parts that included asides to back at the Project with Donna, Tina, Gooshie and Dr. Beeks, so I'm curious to see where things will go. I'm also curious to see how things will go specifically with Magic, considering that he's the first character we've met thus far who has a tangible connection with both the Becketts (having been a member of Tom Beckett's platoon in Vietnam) and with the Project, since Sam had leaped into Magic, so he may possibly have residual memories of being in the Waiting Room. We also get an interesting twist in the episode, learning that the mysterious figure who triggered Ben's leap was none other than Janice Calavicci, aka the daughter of Al, whose actor Dean Stockwell passed away last year (the episode was also dedicated to him), which was a nice touch they didn't need to add, but I appreciate that they're trying their best to make this a true continuation, featuring connections to the original, but not just re-doing the same show, if the pictures we saw of Sam and Al during the episode are any indication. (Plus I've seen some promo images from next week's episode that further that idea, with a character on the leap and a character back at the Project both having a connection to the original show.)
Our new Quantum Leaper, Ben Song! Huh, a time traveling Dr. Song, where have I heard that before?
And now for the pedantic Quantum Leap fan nitpicking! My first one is that there's no time dilation at the Project. Addison tells Ben that it took them a few hours to locate him, which I found hilarious that she was so concerned, the original Project routinely lost Sam for days and weeks on end, where Sam's leaps were instantaneous to him, the Project suffered from time dilation. That's a minor point, but it was interesting to note. The second one is that everything looks too sleek and modern at the Project. I know that the original show was made in the nineties and that was just how it was back then, if Star Trek was any indication, but I miss the gummy bear control panels and Ziggy being a blue orb. I did however like the redesign of the accelerator chamber, that looked dope. And the third is that they did a way with the concept of the Waiting Room. For the uninitiated, the Waiting Room was the place where Sam's hosts went in between the leaps, since Sam was replacing them with only their aura causing him to appear to be the host to the people around them. The new show is taking the approach that Ben and his host are occupying the same space at the same time, something about the law of quantum superposition or something. I might be in the minority, but I liked the Waiting Room and thought it opened up unique opportunities for the show, particularly if this new one intends to spend a lot of time back at the Project. However, I'm not going to say that it doesn't fit into the canon or anything, it's clear that this is a new Project Quantum Leap based on the old one (since it takes place in L.A. and not the New Mexico desert), so it's not out of the realm of possibility that they changed the method by which the leaper interacts with the past.
But apart from those nitpicks, I really liked the episode and am definitely looking forward to seeing more of the show as the season goes on. And I certainly hope that it will run for at least as long as it's predecessor, but hopefully longer. At least long enough for them to wrangle a certain former Starfleet captain to make an appearance. (I'm holding out for the cliffhanger Season 1 finale being Ben running into Sam and triggering the biggest “Oh boy” in the show's history)