From MadCap's Couch - Quantum Leap: "Genesis" (Part 1 & 2)

Alrighty, well... Twitter has spoken (not that I gave it much choice) and here we are to jump into a brand new series! After four series worth of watching and reviewing the adventures of a man who travels haphazardly through time and space, setting right what once went wrong and hoping that each leap would be the leap home (despite the fact he blew it up), I have decided to take the bold next step and... watch and review the adventures of a man who travels haphazardly through time and space, setting right what once went wrong and hoping that each leap would be the leap home.

But the American version!

You may remember that I was sort of doing this back in 2015-2016 when I reviewed the first two Seasons of Sliders before Netflix lost the rights to the series and it left streaming, but enough about my well-justified rage. Perhaps we'll come back to Sliders some day... although to give you some quick closure on that in case I never do:

• Season 3 was where things went completely off the rails in a variety of ways and none of them were very fun. Thank you, David Peckinpah for being sure that this show never recovered! You ass!
• Maggie Beckett (Kari Wührer) is annoying from the jump and suddenly trying to make her Wade did not help the show or make me like her character anymore. Her forced romance with Quinn only made it worse.
• The Kromagg redesign for Season 4 is dumb. The one from Season 2 may have looked like the Master from Buffy went on a crash diet and got way into weird-looking turtlenecks, but at least it didn't look like a bunch of Sontarans cosplaying as Nazis.
• When the O'Connells left, that pretty much should have been the end of it. Cleavant Derricks remains awesome as ever as Rembrandt "The Crying Man" Brown, but the new Quinn wasn't good and neither was the scientist chick who came with him.
• Also, Colin Mallory deserved better. #JusticeForColin
• A cliffhanger ending? You people knew the show was getting canceled! C'mon!

Got all that? Cool, because it has nothing to do with this review. Ha ha! Wasted your time!

No, instead, we're going to be looking at the two-part pilot for Quantum Leap (although it was originally a TV movie and later split into two parts for syndication). What is Quantum Leap? It's a science fiction show but, instead of doing the introduction like I would normally do, let's get into it just like the show introduces us to the concept.

I AM INTERFAAAAAAACED!!!

We begin on a dark desert highway at night. A man (Dean Stockwell) pulls up to a woman with a flat tire. After some flirting the man, who we learn is named Al, is told of Sam (Scott Bakula) attempting to leap - something that Al says is a bad idea being that not all the bugs have been worked out. Nevertheless, Sam has jumped and we join Sam in a bedroom. However, in a case of Same As It Ever Was Syndrome, Sam finds that this is not his beautiful house nor his beautiful wife... and he can't quite remember anything about himself, he just knows that this isn't his life.

He looks in the mirror and he sees someone else's face. When he tries to call his offices, he rings up too many numbers. His wife and his son don't know what an area code is. The coup de grace is Howdy Doody playing on television. Sam Beckett has traveled back in time.

He attempts to adjust to this, blending in as best he can. During his time doing so, learning that he's an Air Force pilot by the name of Tom who is about to undertake a flight of an experimental aircraft, Sam begins seeing Al in various places and no one else seems to be able to. This culminates in Sam and Al finally speaking at a bar on base, where we get some important details: there was a project, there's an AI named Ziggy involved, and Sam's name is... Sam.

Of note, though, is that Al can see Sam as himself whereas everyone else sees Sam like Tom. This includes Tom's pregnant wife Peggy, who is rather perturbed by her husband's sudden change in behavior. Sam attempts to integrate better, trying to figure out what it is that has happened to him and trying to write this all off as a terrible nightmare.

It is then we get a moment that touched me upon first viewing. Sam starts remembering things about his family: his sister married a Naval officer, their mother lives with her and Sam's brother-in-law in Hawaii, and Sam's father died in 1974. It is then that he realizes that his father is still alive and tries to call long-distance to speak to him. Scott Bakula plays absolute anguish as he attempts to remember the number... but can't. He can't even remember his father's name. As a little bit of a cosmic re-balance, however, Sam takes Tom's son Mikey fly fishing.

Cue Sam not being very good at fly fishing... and meeting Al once again, discovering that Al is pretty hollow literally. It seems Al is a hologram projected from the future, something that only Sam can see and hear. While he isn't able to tell Sam much, but Al is able to tell him that something went wrong and that Ziggy is working on ways to get him back. Sam has to make sure everyone believes that he's Tom or they may not be able to pull him back on Tuesday.

Sam drops the bombshell on Al - he'll be test flying the X-2 on Monday.

After a barbecue scene to show that fewer people believe that "Tom" is Tom than Sam thinks, Sam gets subjected to a psychological screening by his superiors (having expressed some issues with his memory earlier) and meets up with Al again, who explains a bit more about their project. He demonstrates with a bit of string, explaining that the idea was to move or "leap" between the days of a human's life out of sequence with respect to what came before or after, but always within that person's lifetime. Hence, because Sam was born before 1956, he can move or "leap" there.

"Hey, baby, I'm gonna be the worst Starfleet captain in a few years... you want in?"

As to why this is happening, Ziggy has a theory that Sam has been displaced by... something... to set right what once went one. On the Monday, Tom was killed during the flight of the X-2. The theory is that, if Sam manages to survive the flight, then he and the real Tom (who is currently in the present, though Al is vague about that as he is with most other questions) will trade places once again. Not the best theory, but Al believes it will work and (with him being an ex-astronaut) even offers to be Sam's co-pilot. As he puts it, the taking off and the landing are the hardest parts!

Later that night, Peggy comes to Sam and asks him to promise her something, but tells him that she'll tell him tomorrow.

After a bit where we learn that Sam used the psychiatric test to answer questions about himself (with the doctors thinking that Tom is trolling them), Al pops in at the last minute to help Sam fly the plane and they discover what has been causing the X-2 tests to fail - the heat from the plane is boiling the fuel. Sam hits Mach 3 and ejects at Al's direction... surviving the explosion and getting back to Earth in one piece.

However, Sam doesn't leap back. When he's brought back to the hospital, we learn that Peggy has gone into premature labor hearing about the crash. After comforting Tom's son, Sam leaps into action after learning that Peggy is several weeks premature and comes up with the most viable solution: get her drunk. Specifically, using a 5% ethyl alcohol concoction to stop the labor.

After finding out Peggy is a light-weight, we find that this has indeed worked! All is well and as Mikey throws Sam a baseball in triumph... Sam suddenly finds himself having just caught a baseball at a game... and gets heckled by the spectators for standing there looking confused. It seems he's gone from 1956 to 1968 and it's the bottom of the ninth. As it turns out, Sam has taken over the life of one Tim Fox, a professional baseball player for the Waco Bombers.

We learn that dogs (and, by extension other animals) can see Sam no matter the disguise, and Al returns to explain that while it's been only a few minutes for Sam it's been a week for them. Time does not move the same for both parties. However, Ziggy's theory appears to be correct - Sam setting right what once went wrong allows him to leap out. Al even tells him that history has changed - Tom lived and Peggy gave birth to a baby girl who was named Samantha. Al also drops a bombshell on Sam - he's the one who created the Quantum Leap project.

Sam has six doctorates and has been called by Time as "the next Einstein".

One neat part of the series going forward is this effect.

Also, we get Sam's last name - Beckett. With that bit of information, Sam is finally able to call his father, hearing his voice again for the first time since 1974. He fumbles through an explanation and gets to speak to his father for a bit, again with Scott Bakula being an absolute powerhouse as Sam gets some closure. After they hang up, we get a short exchange where Mr. Beckett and a young Sam head off together. The present Sam looks up to the sky, thanking... whatever brought him here... and with new strength heads out to find out what comes next, musing on what good he might be able to do with leaping.

Sam thanks Al, and heads out to go win this thing... and then promptly gets three strikes. However, due to the ball rolling behind home plate, Sam goes to broke and runs the bases and makes it to home. The Waco Bombers win and out Sam leaps once more... only to find himself in Doctor Jones' classroom from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

... I mean, it looks like it, but I have no proof that that's actually it.

And, with that, we have finished the first episode of Quantum Leap. I have to say, looking back at this episode of a show from 1989 in this the year 2022 (in case you're reading this later - hi, future people!), it really holds up very well. The pilot episode has an ironically timeless feel and the way we are introduced to the world and the concept of leaping is very well done. The audience gets to learn along with Sam in a way that feels natural. He's as much a stranger to this as we are, and thus it makes it easier for us to identify with him. The Swiss cheese memory block is also an ingenious storytelling device since, as we saw with him being able to stall Peggy's labor, the writers can basically add new skills to Sam's repertoire as they are needed. By that same token, however, we know that Sam isn't some sort of Gary Stu or the like seeing as he had - for all his intelligence - no clue on how to fly planes, needing Al's help for that.

Sam's little bit of catharsis here is both touching and a little tragic,
but it sets the tone for the series as both science fiction and drama going forward.

As much as I have praised Scott Bakula, I would be remiss if I didn't give special accolades to the late, great Dean Stockwell playing Al. While Al is a bit of a rake and seems rather incorrigible in general, he's a good friend to Sam and is genuinely trying to help him out and bring him back home. He even goes against Ziggy's suggestion and tells Sam his last name when his friend is clearly in a fit of desperation in what is a genuinely heartwarming moment. Stockwell's performance tells us that Al clearly wants to help Sam more and that the two of them are closer than he's allowed to tell him.

We also get a firm set up for the mythos of the series. Sam can only travel within his own lifetime, so no going to something like the 1800s (barring one instance we'll be getting to much later) or going into the far future or anything like that (likely also keeping the budget smaller with that) and the thing or things that he has to do there can be something as big as breaking Mach 3 or as small as winning a baseball game. Also, not explaining who or what exactly it is guiding Sam's leaps through time heightens the mystery and gives the audience something to speculate on.

All in all, this is a very auspicious start to the series that is beloved by so many people. One episode down, ninety-six more to go as we will indeed be coming back to Dr. Sam Beckett, watching him as he sets right what once went wrong and hoping that each leap will be the leap home...

See you... out there!