To say that I’ve been looking for excuses to write about Quantum Leap my entire life is a little hyperbolic; it’s only been 20 years or so. I discovered the show in college, when I tried to arrange my class schedule in order to be back in my room for the 4pm airing on Syfy. It combines so many things I love in media: time travel, the idea of ‘setting things right,’ Dean Stockwell.
And so, for this year’s Summer Binge, I’ll be covering the first two seasons of the show. For those, unlike me, who don’t have the entire series on DVD, you can stream it for free on NBC.com. And so, without any further ado: Oh boy…
1. No preamble
I have only seen the pilot once before this, and I had completely forgotten that the series begins with almost no fanfare whatsoever. There’s a weird cold open with Al trying to get laid, taking advantage of a woman in a broken down car, when he’s called that Sam is leaping. We don’t know what leaping means, we get a quick look at the unbelievably named Gushy, and we’re off and running with Sam waking up in someone else’s body.
To combat the lack of context, this episode features a lot of Sam’s internal monologue, which is something the show would quickly do away with. It really is an unnecessary device, as because only Sam can see Al, he can do all his thinking aloud to Al. It makes sense why it was used early on here, especially as we are, along with Sam, figuring out exactly what is going on.
2. What’s missing
Two of the most important pieces of the show’s success are not yet present in the pilot. The first piece is the rapport between Sam and Al, and that is missing for a good reason: Sam is still, more or less a tabula rasa. If I recall correctly, a lot of this season is spent establishing that friendship. As someone who first caught the show in reruns, to me, there’s a lot of the tone that is missing in this pilot. Like I said, it’s not like it is the fault of the pilot, but it is noticeable if this isn’t the first episode you’ve seen.
The other missing piece? The iconic theme song/opening credits. Over the closing credits, there is a subdued version of Mike Post’s theme, but the full bore version has not yet debuted. Once it does, this will feel much more like Quantum Leap.
3. Grace under pressure
Sam does a particularly good job of keeping cool on his initial leap. As the show goes on, he becomes expert at this, but he is simply thrown into this situation and, more or less, manages to keep his cool. Sure, there are some moments where he seems insane, or where his [leaped into counterpart’s] wife thinks he has a brain tumor, but he never once runs from the house screaming.
This also establishes a term that is quite prevalent early in the season, which is “Swiss cheese brain.” Sam is able to pull some small pieces of information from his mind, but there are a lot of holes. For most of the episode, one of the holes was his last name. Having Al around helps Sam a bit, but Al is under instructions to not reveal too much about Sam’s past. And so, there are a lot of moments in the pilot where Sam is able to recall some arcane bit of knowledge, but can’t recall any major detail about his life before entering the Quantum Leap Accelerator.
4. A really effective pilot
This two-hour long pilot [really a little over than 90 minutes without commercials] is really an episode and a half, as Sam leaps out of his first body with about a half hour to spare. The first leap is an emotional one, dealing with not only Sam’s confusion about his current predicament, but also he’s thrown into a situation that has devastating consequences. Not only does he need to save the life of Tom, the man he leaped into, he has to do so while flying an experimental aircraft to Mach 3. And then on top of that, he has to save the life of his wife and/or unborn child.
Continued belowThis episode also shows that Sam is a really good man and, often times, better than the man he’s leaping into. Peggy, Tom’s wife, says that this is the most time he’s spent with their son since he was hit by a bus (? – I wasn’t sure if this was Peggy trying to catch Tom in a lie, but apparently not). And so, it begs the question: would everyone’s life be better if Sam just hung out in Tom’s body for the next 40 years? Al suggests this as a potential way to get Sam back home, but Ziggy – the computer, not to be confused with Gushy, the designer – suggests that Sam has to set things right in each of his leaps.
In his second leap, Sam leaps into a washed up minor league baseball player and, in reality, does very little. We’ll talk about what he does besides play baseball in the last thought, but here he strikes out, but when the ball gets by the catcher, he scores by running the bases completely and the team wins. Sometimes, the things that Sam has to correct are quite minor, but other times, they are quite literally life and death. This pilot shows both, and shows how much fun and how touching each episode can be.
5. There’s something about baseball and dads
After Al tells Sam that his last name is Beckett, Sam has enough information to use the phone down the tunnel from the dugout to call his family farm in Indiana and speak to his father who, in Sam’s timeline, has been dead for years. But here, his dad is still alive, and so Sam is able to talk to his father on the phone. Lucky for Sam, he has a great uncle who moved to Australia many years ago, and in this era without convenient telecommunication, he is able to pose as a different Sam Beckett, and have a heart to heart conversation with his pops.
Scott Bakula, who I have not praised enough yet, is great in this scene, where he has to act with a telephone and little else. He absolutely sells the emotion behind the scene, and I must admit, I got emotional watching the scene. Now, is it because my dad is no longer with us? Likely. Could it just be that Quantum Leap makes me cry? I’d say that’s also true. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I cry this summer, and I look forward to crying alongside all of you as the Binge continues.
The Oh Boy Teaser
Sam leaps into a college professor, replete with pipe, mid-lecture.
