Welcome back leapers! This week, Sam is a in a glam rock band and a bounty hunter. Let’s go!
1. A very special episode (for me)
When I first got really into this show, it was in college, when Syfy would show reruns at 4pm on weekdays. My freshmen year in college, I would watch it religiously, and syndication uses the season 5 credits, so there was always a shot of Sam in full facepaint rocking out. My friends and I got obsessed with this episode, and it was ultimately a let down when I finally saw it, if only because it couldn’t live up to the hype in my head.
But this episode is pretty good! It features some really bad fake-rock music, but that’s par for the course. One thing I am interested in is the time-frame for this. “Glitter Rock” takes place in April 1974, just months after KISS’s debut album hits stores. They were far from an overnight success, and it took them years to be headlining arenas (let alone ones with 80,000 fans which sort of kind of don’t exist, at least not indoors), so it’s interesting to set this in an era that would have a non-KISS essentially doing their bit before most of the world saw the ‘real deal.’ In the Quantumverse, were KISS ripping off King Thunder? Is there no KISS in the Quantumverse? Oh, what a better world that would be!
2. Mr. Beckett, you’ve got a lovely daughter
The slimy manager of the band is played by Peter Noone, the lead singer of Herman’s Hermits, a minor 60s band with hits like “I’m Into Something Good,” “I am Henry the VIIIth, I am,” and “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter.” He still pops up on SiriusXM and, for awhile, was a VH1 staple around the time that this episode was being filmed. He’s not the world’s finest thespian, but he more or less holds his own, that is until he has to don makeup at the end, and it looks as ridiculous as you’d imagine a 50 year old, squat, cherub-cheeked dude in full face paint would look.
In other fun casting news, the other prominent member of King Thunder, “Flash,” is played by Jon Gries, who is someone that most people don’t know the name of (no disrespect, Mr. Gries). But, he has a crazy memorable turn in a favorite cheesy 80s film of mine, The Monster Squad, where he plays the human who turns into the Wolf Man. It is truly an amazing and unhinged performance.
Of course, most folks who aren’t obsessed with Fred Dekker films will recognize him as Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. I prefer my reference.
3. Multiple suspects
While Quantum Leap doesn’t Columbo you and show you the crime up front, there are usually only a handful of ways an episode can go. One of the nice things about “Glitter Rock” is that there are three legitimate suspects for who is going to stab and kill “Tonic,” the lead singer Sam leaps into. The episode does a nice job of highlighting each one and giving a plausible motive, as well as cast some doubt. It’s one of the better mysteries that doesn’t end in a deus ex machina that the show would ever do.
4. Horndog Al, back at it
In both “Glitter Rock” and “A Hunting We Will Go,” Al does his usually blue balls routines, but in “A Hunting We Will Go,” he takes it a step farther. Since the person that Sam’s bounty hunter has caught, Diane, bears a resemblance to Al’s fifth wife, that’s all he can talk about all episode. His advice almost gets Sam killed, because Al is so focused on how he used to bang someone who looks like here.
This is also a bit of a throwaway plot point; we’ve seen Al’s real romance be a part of the series before, and that was a touching, lovely moment. But here, I kept expecting the other shoe to drop. Diane is on the run; maybe she changes her name to Maxine? Or maybe Al’s feelings for her send Sam down the wrong path? But the opposite happens, his gut feeling turned out to be correct, but that doesn’t bear on on the plot at all. It’s just a weird touch.
Continued below5. It Happened in Handcuffs
While you may not instantly think ‘screwball comedy’ when dealing with a bounty hunter story, this episode very much has the feel of My Man Godfrey or It Happened One Night. It’s got all the tropes: the woman being ‘in charge’ and questioning the masculinity of the man, some light slapstick comedy, and witty banter between the two principals. It’s not exactly to the quality level of the great screwball comedies out there, but it was a fun twist on what looked to be a very different episode based on the teaser and the title.
The Oh Boy God Teaser
Sam leaps into a man mere seconds away from being executed.
