Quantum Leap

80s sci-fi nostalgia

Jun 23, 2025

I unapologetically love “Quantum Leap,” both the 80s show, and the recent sequel series.

Quantum Leap poster, featuring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell

I didn’t watch the original QL much when it was actually on the air. It was a weekly TV show at a time when I wasn’t watching much TV, doing my Max Fischer impression, being too engrossed in high school speech & drama, marching band, writing, working part-time at Spencer Gifts, going to the dollar cinema, playing TTRPGs, video games…

… basically just about everything but watching regular ol’ TV.

I didn’t have a particular bent about it, I was just too damn busy. And, for me, before “Twin Peaks” made the scene, there weren’t tons of shows worth losing your evenings over.

(Except season 4 of “The A-Team.” And “The Simpsons.” And “21 Jump Street.” And “Werewolf.” Shit. Maybe I was still watching too much TV…)

But I did happen to catch the final episode of QL, which aired the summer I was working at Disneyland, and I had more time to kill, which put the whole series in perspective for me.

For those that don’t know, “Quantum Leap” was about a scientist, Dr. Sam Beckett (no relation to Samuel Beckett), who invented time travel. And let’s face it, you wouldn’t have a show unless Dr. Beckett did something monumentally stupid, so he basically went for a test-drive of his time machine, and it shot him into the past, with no way back.

So, he gets stuck in the past, as the voiceover says, “Striving to put right what once went wrong.” Sam’s co-workers were sorta guessing at this last part, figuring if they solved whatever problem Sam’s host was facing in that time and place, he’d be leapt out, and eventually, back home.

Though that seems an awfully large and unsubstantiated hypothetical.

Every week, he’d solve the problem, just to be leapt into somebody else in another era with a problem. They seemed pretty sure that one day it would work. Like drug addicts. Just one more hit…

Now, here’s where things get 80s-TV wonky.

Beckett didn’t just travel into the past. He’d “leap” into the body of a person who lived in that time period. See, it wasn’t just a clever pun, it was for reals a plot point! Beckett would look in the mirror and see the person he’d “leapt” into.

Yeah, it’s stupid, I only barely try to make it make sense in my own mind. But it was the best part of the whole idea. Go figure.

This being the 80s, QL tried to keep a fairly loose continuity, to allow things to happen in the story that didn’t necessarily jive with the sci-fi bullshit they’d established. The “rules” were very loosey-goosey. Sometimes, Sam would leap into a blind person, and yet, he could still see. Other times, he’d leap into a disabled person and would share their disability.

Weird.

I liked the actors, Scott Bakula and the always-welcome Dean Stockwell, they were the glue that made the show work, when it probably shouldn’t have. I loved that at the end of every episode, you’d get a little preview of the next episode, seeing who he was going to leap into next. I’d enjoy the show when I saw it, but never enough to keep up with it.

Until the final episode.

In “Mirror Image,” Sam leaps into a small mining town, looks in the mirror, and sees… himself. So that’s a jarring start for him. Add to that, everyone in this town is somebody he’s encountered before, except they’re different people. And there are other leapers here. And ghosts. And a bartender named “Al” that Sam suspects might be God, the one who’s been shunting him all around time.

See, to keep the tension up, the writers had established that “some force,” which might be God, was the one controlling all of Sam’s time travel. It was a question I’m sure they never actually planned on answering.

(Still haven't, two series later.)

So God, or this bartender, whoever he is (played by the equally always-appreciated Bruce McGill), sits down with Sam, and has a talk with him about why this is happening. And I love this exchange:

AL: Why’d you want to travel in time?

SAM: To change the world.

AL: To make it a better place?

SAM: Of course.

AL: To put right what once went wrong?

SAM: Yes… but not one life at a time.

AL: (to himself) I’ve got Mother Teresa here. (to Sam) Do you really believe that all you’ve done is change a few lives?

SAM: Basically, yes.

AL: At the risk of overinflating your ego, Sam, you’ve done more. The lives you touched, touched others. And those lives, others. You’ve done a lot of good, Sam Beckett, and you can do a lot more.

Sam Beckett, the egotistical mad scientist who wanted to change the world on a massive scale, was forced by God, or whoever, to do it one person at a time, and his good deeds rippled out through history.

I loved that idea then, and I love it now. And I’m the most cynical, dyed-in-the-wool-glass-half-empty motherfucker up in this bitch.

Something about that idea, about one man trying to make a difference, it was almost Christ-like in its metaphor.

And so, when I later went back and watched the entire series, it was with that in my head. And damn, if it didn’t make the series that much more enjoyable for me. Yes, shit was still goofy and didn’t always make sense. But Sam Beckett, who had seemed a little naive and somewhat dense with his can-do attitude, became a much clearer hero for me. Even the guy who didn’t want to change the world one person at a time felt compelled to do it.

Just like other favorite shows of mine: “The Fugitive,” “The Incredible Hulk”... “Werewolf,” again…

And the new reboot/sequel show a couple years back seemed determined to follow in its footsteps.

This time around, Dr. Ben Song is the one stuck in the past, ostensibly to find out what happened to Sam Beckett, but also to solve a mystery that involves him and his friends in their present.

I wrote about this on thefacebook a couple years back:

The new ”Quantum Leap” has its flaws - it’s often overwritten, overlit, and over-produced, like a lot of network shows. But it has the same heart as the original, which I was real skeptical of it matching. The original was earnest almost to the point of naïveté, often saved by the performances. The new show is much the same, but it keeps the same principle as the original - we change the world one person at a time. And because it trusts the audience more than they did in the 80s, they go full-bore into all the different story possibilities, which is great fun.

All this to say, the latest episode, where our heroes try to save the life of a trans teenager, was sweet and timely and needed. And personally, Mason Alexander Park is one of my favorite discoveries of the show. If you’re a fan of the original, and were on the fence about watching, waiting til somebody recommended it, go forth and enjoy!

Sadly, the show only lasted two seasons. Probably not a surprise, I don’t think it had a huge audience. It seemed to have died an unnoticed death.

(And, sadly for Mason Alexander Park, who I mention above, one of the rare non-binary and transgender actors in the mainstream, their other show “Sandman” has also been cancelled because Neil Gaiman turned out to be a prick, so a double helping of horseshit.)

The show will probably linger in limbo for another several years. Studio execs seem to love the concept, but can’t get it off the ground. Hopefully I’m alive when they finally resume the narrative, I have my own opinions on what’s bouncing these folks through time and space, and I don’t think it’s God.

But you’ll have to ask me my thoughts in person, or hire me to write it.😈