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!
Four episodes in and it's only getting better from here! We had some fun revelations in this episode that are going to be interesting going forward, but I will have to dock points for not including a gummy bear handlink in this episode. In fact we didn't see Janis at all, only heard of her actions, so that's interesting, considering she'd been in every episode thus far. But that's getting ahead of ourselves, let's start with a little recap.
Given the fashion of the ‘80s it took until the mirror shot to convince me this wasn’t just a gay bar
Ben has his first (as Ian referred to it) “gender-creative experience” and leaps into a woman for the first time! And he certainly has an easier time than Sam did, although I imagine it's because the '80s are slightly more progressive for women than the '60s. At the very least, Ben is allowed to wear pants. Ben is one half of a bounty hunter couple on the trail of a seemingly benign woman with a court date for outstanding parking tickets. His host's boyfriend also proposes to him, and Ben isn't quite sure how to respond, which causes some wrinkles in the leap since Ben has remembered that he left a girlfriend behind in 2022, although he doesn't remember who she is just yet. And back at the Project, Jenn is at work trying to figure out the story behind Ben and Janis' partnership and Magic confides his history with Quantum Leap to Ian, to the delight of likely all the fans of the original show who are watching. Not as much punching the air as from the gummy bear handlink on my end, but close.
I don’t know if this was the best plan, stage a break-in at your girlfriend’s dad’s place and leave her in the car doesn’t feel like the right vibe for a marriage proposal to me.
So, first things first, I absolutely loved this episode. I know I've liked every episode so far, but this feels like a big step in the right direction to me. The episode had some good comedy in it, even if it doesn't quite go as far as the original show when it comes to gender-bending humor, which is a double edged sword that I'll address a little bit later in this review. The guest cast was fantastic, with special notice having to go to both Justin Hartley and Sofia Pernas, who are both absolutely stellar in this. And what makes this episode great is that it feels like a classic episode, with the plot not being action-oriented, although there's plenty of fighting and running and chasing to go around. But the basic premise of the episode is about relationships, Ben having to take the reins for what might be a very important decision for his host and not knowing the right answer, but wanting love to prevail because he feels terrible about abandoning his girlfriend in the future. Little does he know that she's a lot closer than he thinks. I like it when the plots of the leap intertwine with the characters, even if I though that the “The answer is always right in front of you” was a little hackneyed in how obviously it was telegraphing the end of the episode cliffhanger being Ben realizing that he left Addison behind.
The sign of true love, matching gray jammies!
Speaking of Addison, we got to see some hologram stuff in the episode, first when Addison is run through by the drug dealer's goons and then again when Ben tries to grab her hand at the end. It's not much, but it certainly looks more convincing than when it happened to Al. (No disrespect to the old show but you always knew when hologram tricks were coming cause the shot looked different). And Caitlin Bassett really showed a full range of emotions when Ben was discussing the “woman he left behind” knowing full well that it was her but not being able to tell Ben that and it was so beautiful at the end when he realized it and they fully reunited. Now that Ben knows, how will that impact his leaps in the future? Part of why Al wasn't allowed to tell Sam about Donna (for those unaware, in the 2nd episode of the original show, Sam rewrote his own history and repaired the relationship between a former fiancee of his and her father, and in the revised timeline, their relationship eventually resulted in a marriage and Donna overseeing aspects of the Project. But until Sam returned briefly in Season 4's “The Leap Back”, he was unaware of it, because he typically ends up leaping into those involved with romantic entanglements and Sam's choir-boy mentality means that he would be hesitant to kiss someone or do whatever else it may take to ensure a leap's success. Ben and Addison seem more pragmatic, but it remains to be seen what toll that may take on their relationship.
Oh girl! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist)
Now, onto the “gender-creative experience”, the original show was a little shaky when it came to the episodes where Sam leaped into women, not only is it a lot of ground already tread by Scott Bakula back in the original show, but it can stray into uncomfortable territory in 2022. I'm not saying that what they did was necessarily sexist or offensive, but there was a lot of playing with gender roles in a way that I feel that comedy has perhaps moved on from since the original show. That is not to say that I don't think that Ben shouldn't find himself uncomfortable in the clothes, (of any leapee but especially women given the inherent differences in the design of the clothing) but I like that they're not taking the same approach as the original. The most we got was that Ben was wearing clothes where he wasn't used to wearing them, but it's not like he was in a dress and heels, he was an '80s bounty hunter, and not a '60s secretary so he wore pretty practical clothing. For the first cross-gender leap, maybe that was a tad boring, but hopefully we'll work up to it. With transphobia being a bit more front and center and being out of the '90s where crossdressing was the basis for a lot more humor than we remember, it's a safer way to go about it, although given that we've got Ian, I trust the writers to do that type of story correctly. Maybe he should be a bit more reactive to the situations, he hasn't really ever had time for an “Oh boy” moment because everything moves so quickly but I think we deserve one.
The dream of every Ghostbusters fan, to have coffee in the park with Ernie Hudson!
We finally heard Magic's backstory! Which I obviously already knew because I've seen the original show, but it was great to actually hear them say it and I like that we're always getting mentions of Sam and Al in the show. And it was so cool to finally hear what it was like for a leapee, that Magic felt a gentle nudge and allowed Sam to leap into him and then blacked out for a few days. Now, whether or not that feeling was the same for every leapee or just Magic (since he had some form of ESP prior to his experience) isn't clear, and definitely doesn't work when you consider when Sam leaped into bad people, who probably wouldn't allow their body to be taken over, but it's a neat explanation that the original show never gave us. And learning that Magic was the one who brought PQL out of mothballs because of his lingering recurring dreams of Sam Beckett was equally cool, although I'm wondering when we might get mention or appearance of Sam's wife Donna or his daughter Sammy Jo, given that they also worked for the original project and have a vested interest in bringing Sam home.
I guess this does explain why Ben started getting targeted Instagram ads for the Mount Wilson Observatory…
Jenn also has some impact on this week's episode, but it's mostly just telling Addison that Ben was off, presumably with Janis working on the new code, when he was supposed to be other places, which means that Addison has to recall every time Ben went off alone to do something, but also be prepared to find out that he was lying about where he was. Addison and Jenn get a good moment too, where Addison tells her that if Ben is doing this for a good reason, then he won't need to apologize and if it was for bad reasons, Addison won't need to forgive him. I also want to know when we're going to get a Jenn episode, because I'm very curious to know how she got onto the Project and what her deal is.
Like Batman, it only takes Ben ONE PUNCH!
I like that the episode is funnier and has a bit of a lighter tone, especially with that first bounty when the guy harasses Ben at the bar. Addison's crack about how that's about typical is also pretty funny. It wasn't quite a broad comedy, but it was definitely lighter than the all-action first two episodes and it was a lighter premise than the Vietnam PTSD boxing episode the week prior. A lot of these modern serialized shows (particularly Star Trek: Discovery) have every episode be about THE MOST IMPORTANT THING EVER and I like having a fun little goofy episode to balance that out, especially if we're going to have this overarching Janis plot line to contend with. Even the ending, which is ridiculous goofy and unbelievable, is still compelling to watch.
“You’re running an illegal drug cartel by yourself?” “What? Like it’s hard?”
If I had one complaint about the plot, is that the bounty plot is, perhaps not over-used, but certainly, nothing new, since I just watched an episode of the series Castle which had a very similar plot, detailing the death of a reporter who had stumbled onto a mythical cartel leader being killed for his troubles and the cartel leader's identity being revealed as a seemingly benign real-estate agent woman who Castle and Beckett had encountered earlier in the episode. And then in this episode, we've got Tammy Jean/Carla, seemingly being an unwitting pawn in a drug cartel's scheme, only to actually be the brains behind the operation. Although not too brainy, considering she allowed her car to get that many parking tickets while doing her illegal work. I'm not here to tell criminals how to do their job, but if you're gonna do something illegal, don't draw attention to yourself! That's not a bad thing that it's similar, but maybe I expect more out of an episode that they were clearly pushing very hard because of the inclusion of Justin Hartley and the revelations that the episode revealed about the characters. It certainly made more sense that Ben's leap was to stop a drug cartel rather than just ensure that a woman made it to her court date on time, but sometimes a simpler premise can be more fulfilling and I hope they don't fall back on stuff like this too much, because while it works for Castle, ironically, I want my time travel show to stay grounded in helping people rather than making large abstract changes. Ensuring the marriage of bounty hunters is more what I'm looking for rather than stopping a drug cartel.
Overall, the episode was great, I like how love prevailed and the revelations about Magic and this new Project were invaluable, as was Ben finally remembering the full breadth of his relationship with Addison. And it's very exciting, not only because we've got another episode coming next week, but because NBC has ordered an additional six episodes to make an even eighteen-episode order! This means that they've got more time to stretch out the story and hopefully it'll mean things will slow down and not rush as much.
As for the next episode...
