Leaping back to a hit of yesteryear (Quantum Leap)

Member Name: bilbob20

Product:	Quantum Leap
Date:	26/04/09 (80 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good storylines, good writing and characters that its easy to like

Disadvantages: It became predictable

Back in the 80s, before we had a thousand channels the world over, most of us had to settle for a limited choice in television programming. Whether you'd like to admit it or not, television was a far more exciting promise. The quality of television itself may not match many of today's high quality tv shows, but this was a simpler time before CSI had dozens of spin offs, before soaps were on all year round on a daily basis, and before there were just far too many American TV drama's too be bothered trying to choose from. Television suffers now from saturation. Maybe thats why us TV buffs are so excited by our favourite classic tv shows hitting the DVD shelves.

Quantum Leap is the brainchild of Donald P Bellisario and first hit our screens in 1989 and ran for five years. The opening episode showed Dr Sam Beckett stepping into the Quantum Leap accelerator for the first time, against the wishes of his team. When he opened his eyes, he found that he was trapped in the body of an airforce pilot, with no memory of how he got there or even his own name. Throughout the episode he protested to everybody around him that he wasn't who they thought he was, only he himself could see Sam Beckett in the mirror reflection. To everybody else, he was just the man of whoever's body he had slipped into.

Sam finally found enlightenment in this pilot episode when a hologram from the future came through and introduced himself as Al(bert). Al was one of Sam's team on the experiment and has now been granted the job of moral guide to Sam as he leaps through time into various different bodies. Sam's quest, it would appear from the initial episode, is to leap into these bodies to change the path of history and save the loved ones of the body he leaps into. It was a daring premise for a tv show that would have both fictional elements as well as playing with factual historical events through its 5 year run.

The pilot was an exciting introduction to the characters of Sam and Al, creating just the right amount of growth in its guest characters to make Sam a character that we routed for. If the show hadn't been as well written or as well made its most likely we wouldn't have cared about the supporting characters that mostly only made it into one episode. If we didn't care about the people who were being saved, how could we buy into Sam's own agenda, which was nearly always about sving somebody close to the person he became.

They were also given support by a handheld computer that Al carried with him as he slotted in and out of Sam's presence. Known as Ziggy (a person who was largely unseen until the final episode), he was a communication from the future who would give Sam his assignments. More often wrong then right, it was often left to Sam's own intuition to work out why he had leaped into a certain time and place. From the second episode, where Sam leaped into a lethario professor of English literature, we were already given a warning shot about Ziggy and of course Sam's own motives.

Most of the episodes would centre around a fictional story created by the show's writers, but they were very clever about introducting certain little factual tidbits to make the timeline more authentic and to convince viewers that Sam was where he was supposed to be. The show created these worlds very vividly, leaving us under no doubt that Sam had genuinely leapt into a by-gone era.

What the show also attempted to do though was focus on certain historical events that are so famous it is quite difficult to re-create them. In one episode, we are presented with the plight of Lee Harvey Oswald. When Sam slips into his body, the show takes a slightly darker turn as he becomes Oswald in not only body but in mind and spirit as well. Presenting itself as a 6 year assessment from 1957 to 1963 we see Oswald become more and more disilusioned and eventually plan the assassination of John F Kennedy. Whilst episodes like this add nothing new to the myth or indeed the facts, it's brilliantly crafted with subtle little changes that allow Sam to achieve his goal but not change anything about that fateful day in Dallas.

Scott Bakula takes on the role of Sam throughout the entire run, and its his face that the audience see, even though we are quickly convinced that he is in fact the various characters that he becomes. In order to do that, the writers had little mirror shots in each episode where we get to see the actual person who he has leapt into. Eventually, it was revealed that those people were in a holding chamber back in the future where Sam had leapt from. Bakula is a trouper, whilst not the greatest actor in the world, in that he is prepared to take on these many different characters that sometimes required him to dress as a woman or a policeman or a priest or any other guise that the episodes may require.

In Al, Dean Stockwell is a relentless scream. His references to the great many female conquests that he has overcame is an ongoing part of the narrative, and makes a more rounded character of somebody who is essentially nothing more than a hologramic informer. In this, we are allowed to get to know Al as well, so much so that the pilot actually opened with a scene of Al stopping to seduce a damsel in distress rather than with Sam who the eventual narrative would focus on. Stockwell is a decent actor who has been seen in many different roles, but its most likely this one that has given him recognition. Not bad for a character that isn't even really there.

The show has continued, despite being cancelled in 1993. Fans lap up every convention, whilst the recent DVD releases of the 5 series' ensure that the show continues to play to a worldwide audience. The recent repeats on freeview television haven't hindered its popularity either. The story of Sam Beckett has also found its way into a continued series of paperbacks for those of you who couldn't get enough of the story on the small screen.

When the show ended in 1993, the final episode scattered little elements from its run and from Sam's future. By then, the show had run out of steam. Some ongoing drama series' continue to evolve, but unfortunately Quantum was always going to write itself into a corner. For the same reason that Murder, She Wrote finally nailed itself to the ground, Quantum Leap ran out of idea's. A show cant continue when everyweek the premise is almost exactly the same. The story's themselves were well written, but the premise never deviated. Opening with Sam leaping into a new body, the credits would run, then he would save the day and leap again. After 5 years, that becomes predictable and the writers obviously felt it was a good time for Sam to leap home. Rather than giving the show a happy ending though, the writers came up with something a bit different to send Sam and Al on their way.

I enjoyed this show at the time, and having purchased the DVD's still think it was decent television. It doesn't match up visually to anything the sci-fi world throws out today, and its bizarre vision of the 21st century mirrors most of the stilted empty vision of the future that science fiction churned out in the 80s, but with nods to the real past, its easy to quickly relate to Sam and his conquest.

Summary: An excellent show from the 80s that continues its lifespan in repeats and DVD releases