Welcome back, leapers! After today, you’ll be seeing these appear in our Boomb Tube recaps, but for today, we’ve got a full review of the Season Two premiere, “This Took Too Long.”
1. Sturdy
There’s a reason that procedural shows have existed for decades now: when they’re done well, they’re gripping and easy to digest. This is a really good procedural episode, as it does all the important things well and trims away a lot of the fat. In addition to Perez, the person that Ben leaps into, there are four new characters introduced, and the audience gets a good sense of who they are without wasting too much time on them. Sure, each one gets a monologue-ish moment that doesn’t feel super natural, but they are quick and to the point, so what more can we really ask for?
In fact, because of the lack of Project Quantum Leap stuff, this may be the single most procedural episode of either Quantum Leap series thus far. For this one particular episode, it works really well. If this trend continues, it will likely pose diminishing returns.
2. The reboot structure inverted
Over the summer, we didn’t do our Summer TV Binges like usual, so I didn’t get my fix of ‘classic’ Quantum Leap, but I did watch a few for a project a friend and I are working on, and something became very clear after being accustomed to the structure of this series versus the original. The shows are, obviously, similar, but in the average reboot episode, there is roughly half the episode that doesn’t happen within the leap itself. In the original series, with only a handful of exceptions, 100% of the episode takes place within the leap itself. And so, while this episode did have three flashbacks, this felt far more like a ‘classic’ episode, even without any Addison stepping in for Al.
The original series, and this one, also loved telling military stories, as they are easy for the audience to understand, and give the leaper an easier, more structured life to jump into. So, basically, what I’m saying is that this is a very, very ‘classic’ feeling episode.
3. Revelations
One last note on how this episode feels like an original series one: the social issues. The original Quantum Leap made sure that the show was addressing issues like racism, sexism, and treatment of the disabled. This episode gives voice to the sexism and homophobia experienced by these soldiers in the military at some point in the past (yeah, without Addison’s intel we just had to guess when during the Cold War this is happening) and, as mentioned earlier, the monologues that reveal them are a little clunky. But the original series seemed to insist on being on the right side of history, and this episode throws back to that, too. I don’t mean that as a negative, and I think that more art should take the responsibility of defending the oppressed.
But it could be done cleaner.
On the subject of revelations, there was one left unsaid here, which is a strange bit of ambiguity from a show that rarely trades in that sort of writing. One of the soldiers was trapped under a piece of wreckage, and when he thought he was dying, he was going to reveal a ‘grand betrayal.’ After he’s saved, he doesn’t ever say it. The whole sequence is treated as a joke, but hear me out: Ben is going to leap back into this crew at some point, and that revelation will be revealed. It feels like they purposely left that bit unbuttoned, but I can’t imagine they’ll do so forever.
4. Kylo Ren Ben Solo
This episode reinforces just how good Ben has become at handling these situations. He had no intel and still managed to, not just once, but three times save the day through his ingenuity and ability to relay important information quickly and clearly. I felt, at times, like Ben was too good at this last season, but if he’s going to be without Addison in his ear for a little while longer, it is good that he is this competent.
Continued below5. The Time Jump
Ian’s appearance at the end of the episode reveals a three-year time jump in the ‘real’ world, with Project Quantum Leap shut down. This is a great monkey wrench to toss into the series, even if it seems hard to believe that Magic and co, specifically Addison, would ever give up looking for Ben. I also love how Ian’s role in the series keeps being reinforced; at first, they were the clear comic relief and deus-ex-machina interpreter, trading quips with Magic frequently and giving folks the info that needed to be passed along to Ben.
But Ian has become the lynchpin of Project Quantum Leap in some ways. I’m very interested to see how they are used in this new, post-Project world.
