Welcome back to our journey through the lifetime of one Sam Beckett, as we follow him through lifetime after lifetime of righting the mistakes of the past. This week: Sam leaps into an pseud-Ghostbuster and Bluto from Animal House. Let’s fire up the accelerator and hope that this leap is the leap that brings us home.
1. The lovely aroma of one’s own farts
In many ways, “A Portrait for Troian” is one of the most unique episodes that the show ever produced, but that is somewhat obstructed by how Donald P. Bellisario, creator and impresario behind Quantum Leap decided to make this episode one big tribute to his family. How so? Let me count the ways:
– Troian, far from a household name, is the name of Bellisario’s daughter.
– Troian Bellisario’s mother is Deborah Pratt, who executive produced the show.
– Pratt also plays the fictional Troian in this episode.
– The reflection of Sam’s leapee, Dr. Mintz, is Donald Bellisario himself.
Now, Pratt was an established actress in her own right, so it’s not like Bellisario was casting his un-trained wife like some proto-Kevin Smith, but it’s a part that requires a fair amount of nuance, and while Pratt (mostly) manages to pull it off, it seems like this may have been a role better suited for someone else.
That said, there are two interesting casting choices. A bit player that only I would give a shit about, Robert Torti (aka Freddie Fredrickson in That Thing You Do!), chews up all the available scenery as Troian’s mulleted brother Jimmy and effectively assumes the mantle of antagonist long before the audience is supposed to know he’s the villain. And then Carolyn Seymour plays a caretaker, but that’s not why she’s interesting. Later on in this series, through events I cannot recall, Seymour plays a recurring character that we’ll have a lot of fun talking about. More on that next year.
2. So wait, Al is just really quiet?
We’ve now seen both dogs and children be able to see Al in the (hologram) flesh thus far, but here, we get a semi-scientific way for Al to appear to others. The tools that Dr. Minz is using to track sound waves somehow amplifies Al’s voice to allow others to hear him. This is used to great effect in the episode’s watery conclusion, even if there isn’t really a good explanation for why this works.
3. For real real?
Quantum Leap is pretty good at creating scenarios that seem impossible and then logic-ing them away. Well, aside from the whole ‘leaping through one’s own lifetime’ premise, that is. This episode is predicated on Troian hearing the voice of her dead husband, and Sam goes to great lengths to prove that it is not actually a ghost. This is accomplished through Sam finding tape recorders set to let only those who can hear high pitched frequencies – dogs and, apparently, some women? – hear the recordings. This is all a plot by Jimmy, a cartoon villain who has gambling problems, to get Troian to kill herself so that he can inherit her husband’s fortune.
All of has enough internal logic to pass muster, but the last minute or so of the episode really throws everything for a loop. The house that Troian lives in has a lake that, apparently, everyone of her husband’s bloodline is cursed to drown in. Well, an earthquake happens (this is California in fiction, after all; earthquakes happen every day there!), and it dislodges some of the bodies from the bottom of the lake. One of them is Troian’s husband, giving her some closure. But two other bodies come up, too. These are ancestors from the mid-19th century, including the very character that Carolyn Seymour is playing. Sam and Troian look at each other with Conan O’Brien “Huh?” faces, before the camera pans to a window with Seymour in it, only to have her fucking disappear because she’s a real ghost.
Now, this show is science fiction, and there is already an established role for God in the series, so ghosts aren’t that far of a stretch, but it is still a little surprising to see the show basically say “yep, ghost are real.” If I recall correctly, this is the last time such supernatural chicanery is a part of the show, making it an even stranger element.
Continued belowA final note on the lake/all the drownings: this is also how Jimmy bites it at the end of the episode. You would think that a lake in southern California wouldn’t be so cold as to cause physical issues while swimming, so is it just that everyone who ever lived in this house is a shitty swimmer? Hire a lifeguard, come on.
4. Why not just call it “Animal House Parody Skit?”
I know that almost no one cares about the names of these episodes, but “Animal Frat” is so impossibly lazy. It’s bad enough that the entire episode is predicated on the audience having seen Animal House, but this title is a bridge too far. This seems like the name the producers were using around the office to talk about scheduling the episode. “Hey, when’s the fucking, oh what’s it called, you know, the ‘Animal Frat’ episode airing?”
An incomplete list of better titles:
Wild Thing Goes Mild
Eve of Destruction
Pledge Allegiance
Hell No, We Won’t Go
Protests and Keg Stands
From Frat to Tet
The One Where Sam Leaps into a Frat Boy and Helps the Anti-Vietnam War Movement
Anything, really, would’ve been an improvement.
5. Mixing time periods
As previously mentioned, this episode is a full-on Animal House pastiche, down to the first scene being built around “Louie Louie.” Animal House takes place in 1962, and so “Louie Louie” is slightly anachronistic (the Kingsman version came out in 1963), but it’s close enough to make sense. But by 1967, “Louie Louie” and “Surf City” would’ve been considered the height of lame by college kids, already passé by that point.
But the episode is intent on both being a total Animal House ape and also being an anti-Vietnam episode. And while, yes, Vietnam was a concern in 1963 for those on the left, 1967, this episode’s setting, makes a lot more sense as a time period. And so, while I guess it isn’t inconceivable that Sam’s frat is simply 5 years behind the times, it is a bit jarring if you have any real sense of the 60s as anything other than a monolithic era.
The Oh Boy Teaser
Sam is a suburban housewife! What sort of antics will ensue? You’ll have to join us next week to find out.
