This isn\u2019t the first time I\u2019ve tried to rewatch Quantum Leap. I\u2019ve never seen the series from beginning to end, and while I\u2019ve likely caught most episodes, a few years ago, I decided to sit down and do the whole thing from the start. I had no plans to review it\u2014it just seemed like a good idea at the time.<\/p>\n
I got through \u201cGenesis\u201d just fine, but I tapped out at \u201cStar-Crossed,\u201d because I found the premise too cringey for words. I\u2019m glad I had a chance to revisit it. This isn\u2019t one of my favorite Leaps; every episode of the show walks a narrow line between \u201cendearingly sincere\u201d and \u201ccorny as hell,\u201d and both \u201cStar-Crossed\u201d and \u201cThe Right Hand Of God\u201d often find themselves on the wrong side of that line. But it\u2019s considerably better than I remembered it, due in no small part to Bakula\u2019s seemingly inexhaustible charms.<\/p>\n
This time Sam finds himself leaping into the body of Gerald Bryant, a washed-up literary professor who\u2019s apparently made a career out of seducing his female students. The \u201cseduction\u201d in this case being a young woman named Jamie Lee who\u2019s more than willing to kill herself (or at least romanticize killing herself) in the name of love. Complicating matters, Sam soon learns that someone he knew as his real self, Donna Eleese (played by Teri Hatcher, who presumably had a contract to appear in every male-led \u201980s show as a lost flame), is also on campus. We learn from Al that Ziggy is theorizing Sam is meant to stop Gerald and Jamie Lee from getting married and ruining both their lives, but Sam is determined to try and set things right with Donna, no matter how uncomfortable that might get.<\/p>\n
\u201cStar-Crossed\u201d is a stark reminder of how perspectives change. These days, a show or movie about a seedy middle-aged man taking advantage of a much younger woman would (hopefully) be presented with a better understanding of sexual politics and power dynamics. Here, Jamie Lee\u2019s infatuation is played mostly for laughs. Given that we\u2019re watching Sam in the prof\u2019s shoes, it\u2019s not as uncomfortable as it might have been; we as viewers know that Sam won\u2019t take advantage of the lady, and his efforts to disengage himself, which only seem to pull her in further, really are funny. There\u2019s no darkness in the relationship, not even when Sam inadvertently suggests a lover\u2019s suicide pact, and it helps that Leslie Sachs looks more age appropriate than the setting might suggest.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t what made me cringe on first viewing, though. What really got under my skin was Sam\u2019s fixation on reconnecting with Donna, which requires a considerable amount of suspension of disbelief to buy into. Sam\u2019s motivations are even purer than they initially seem, but I still winced through most of their initial conversation, with Sam following her to work at a campus restaurant and then more or less forcing her to pay attention to him with his increasingly ludicrous comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a bit where he tells her to look into his eyes to prove he\u2019s not the man she assumes she is, and it seems to work on her well enough that she becomes uncomfortable enough to leave work early. At this point, speaking for myself, I likely would\u2019ve given up the pursuit; when someone gives you that clear an indication of disinterest, it\u2019s time to move on. But Sam, full of puppy love from their yet-to-be relationship, keeps at it, eventually winning her over via the romantic lure of astrophysics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s awkward, and in my head, I\u2019d imagined a scene where they\u2019d actually slept together, which would\u2019ve been deeply uncomfortable. But as I said, I did Sam wrong in my assumptions. He\u2019s able to remember Donna leaving him at the altar in the future, and theorizes that, because Donna\u2019s father abandoned her as a child, that she\u2019s simply re-enacting that trauma from the other side in order to avoid being hurt again. So, with Al\u2019s reluctant (and creative) help, he decides to track down Donna\u2019s dad and arrange a meeting between the two, in the hopes that it will \u201cfix\u201d Donna\u2019s psychological problems and, eventually, allow her to commit to marriage with his real self.<\/p>\n
Confused? It\u2019s a bit of a temporal tongue-twister to be sure, and it\u2019s also pretty shallow as psychology goes; while people are absolutely shaped by their experiences as children, the assumption that Donna can be healed by such a simple, obvious step feels a little too convenient. But then, that\u2019s kind of the show, and just realizing that Sam was trying to help her in the long run (even if that help meant as much to him as it did for her) went a long way towards improving my appreciation of all of this.<\/p>\n
We get plenty of great Al content here, further establishing his relationship with Sam as well as suggesting some potential antagonism with the people in the future responsible for the project. Al threatens Sam that if his behavior continues to violate protocol, someone might bring down the ax; this allows for some fun tension (as Al has to find a way to help Sam without immediately revealing that help to the people observing him), but it also doesn\u2019t bear a whole lot of scrutiny. There\u2019s no way to stop the Leap project at this point, which is likely why Sam made his first jump to begin with. The biggest threat they have is taking Al away, but then they\u2019d have no contact with Sam at all.<\/p>\n
I honestly can\u2019t remember how this particular idea develops, if it develops at all. We learn bits and pieces about the future (and we do get at least one episode set there), but most of what we know is just to provide a little more context for Sam; apart from Ziggy (the computer) and Gooshie (the programmer guy with bad breath) and, of course, Al himself, none of the names stick around long.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Which is fine. While it\u2019s fun to try and piece together an idea of where Sam came from out of the various clues Al drops, the real focus is always on the present, whenever that may be. \u201cStar-Crossed\u201d also gives us the first of what will be many Forrest Gump-esque twists of our heroes happening to stumble their way into world history. In his efforts to reunite Donna with her estranged father, Sam inadvertently gets the Watergate burglars caught, leading to Nixon\u2019s downfall. All that and he convinces Jamie Lee to stick with her meathead boyfriend. Not a bad bit of work.<\/p>\n
Stray observations<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u00a0Looks like we\u2019ll have to wait a bit for the classic opening narration to stick; for this week\u2019s two episodes, Sam himself provides the narration explaining the show\u2019s premise. It\u2019s fine, but I think the other narration is better.\u00a0
\n\u2022 \u00a0Given the timing of the jump, it looks like Sam\u2019s real purpose was to make sure Jamie Lee and the professor didn\u2019t get married.\u00a0
\n\u2022 \u00a0It\u2019s interesting: Sam is in a fine mood after getting Donna and her dad back together, and while Al points out that this might just make Donna stick with her first attempt at marriage (the one before she met Sam), Sam is optimistic that he\u2019ll win out in the end. Despite the fact that Al should know one way or the other, he neither confirms nor denies Sam\u2019s hope. (We do find out what happened eventually, but I won\u2019t spoil it here.)
\n\u2022 \u00a0Bakula really does make this work so much better than it might have. There\u2019s a fundamental sweetness to his performance on the show that makes it impossible for him to feel predatory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Right Hand Of God\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally aired 4\/7\/1989<\/p>\n
In which Sam learns how to throw a punch<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s where the series really begins to test your tolerance for corn. While the opening crawl tells us that Sam has jumped into a boxer in October of 1974, most everything that happens in this episode feels like it could\u2019ve been copied from a B-movie in the \u201950s, with little updating between then and now. A group of nuns buys the contract of a down-and-out boxer prone to taking dives, and everything hinges on a big title bout\u2014the only problem being, Sam has never boxed a day in his life, and while Al knows the moves, being a hologram severely limits his ability to spar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Right Hand Of God\u201d is where we find the series settling into its most basic form. \u201cGenesis\u201d had the novelty of being the first leap, one which required a fair amount of time and exposition for both Sam and the audience. \u201cStar-Crossed\u201d mixed up a regular leap with Sam\u2019s personal life, perhaps as a way of easing the audience into the premise; our hero isn\u2019t just leaping through time, he\u2019s getting a second chance with the love of his life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGod,\u201d though, is where Quantum Leap arrives at the formula that will define most of the episodes going forward. Sam jumps into a new person at a funny or awkward moment (here, it\u2019s in the middle of a boxing match where the other guy has been paid to take a dive); he adjusts to the situation as Al provides background details; the two of them take a guess at the crisis that needs to be resolved before Sam leaps; Sam resolves said crisis (often in a clever and unexpected way); and then we get that flash of blue-light and a glimpse of where our hero is going next.<\/p>\n
In Sam\u2019s opening narration for this episode, he compares himself to the Lone Ranger, a reference that dates the series as much as anything else (I\u2019ve heard the term \u201cBoomer nostalgia\u201d before, and that\u2019s pretty much what we\u2019re working with here). It\u2019s not a bad comparison, but in order to understand why Leap feels at once familiar and completely new, it\u2019s worth looking at how it fits in the context of the television adventure shows which preceded it.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not sure what was the first series to introduce the concept of a wandering hero, driven to travel the world in a way that conveniently gives him an opportunity to fix other people\u2019s problems on a weekly basis. It\u2019s a clever way to provide the novelty of an anthology series with the emotional stability of a recurring familiar face. Before Quantum Leap, there was The Incredible Hulk, which followed David Banner as he hitchhiked across America, trying to stay one step ahead of an obsessive reporter and his own big green secret; before Hulk, there was The Fugitive, featuring falsely accused Dr. Richard Kimble on the run from the law as he sought the identity of the one-armed man who murdered his wife.<\/p>\n
Leap wasn\u2019t even the only wandering hero show on TV when it originally aired. MacGyver was still going strong, and The A-Team (which offered four heroes for the price of one) had only been off the air a couple of years when \u201cGenesis\u201d premiered. What sets Leap apart from the rest of these shows is the way the premise directly addresses the format, literalizing what was typically just an assumption. Kimble and Banner would end up trying to help people in whatever small town they found themselves in because they were good people in a bad spot; Sam does the same, but for him, helping others is literally the only hope he has of ever achieving his own goals.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a neat trick, and one could imagine a version of this series where Sam didn\u2019t start off as a hero; one where he was forced to learn empathy and kindness in order to save himself, like a long-form version of Scrooge\u2019s Christmas ghosts. But the version we got works just as well, and I like how the show more or less elides why it\u2019s necessary for Sam to accomplish a goal before leaping. Most of the time, our heroes are too busy trying to figure out what needs to be done to worry about why they need to do it, and because they keep their focus on the task at hand, audiences do too. Sam mentions a higher power that may or may not be God at one point, but that\u2019s about as specific as it gets, and the show is all the better for its simplicity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for this specific episode, it\u2019s a relief to have something so simple after the high-concept shenanigans of \u201cStar-Crossed.\u201d I said it was corny, and I meant it, but I\u2019ll admit to having a fairly high tolerance for corn; and the mix of Sam\u2019s idealism and Al\u2019s mild cynicism makes the cliches easier to appreciate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Still, it\u2019s hard to ignore just how cliche dependent this particular outing is. Not only do we have a beautiful, faith-driven young nun to inspire Sam, we\u2019ve got the beautiful stripper girlfriend with a heart of gold, the trainer who\u2019s tired of his boxers taking dives, and the gruff gangster who plays by his own rules. The episode also reveals one of the basic limits of the premise: the one person out of all of these who could use some character growth is the boxer Sam jumps into, the guy hanging out in the imaging chamber while Sam goes and makes better choices for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGod\u201d feints at darkness without ever being that interested in delivering, but the straight-faced sincerity of it won me over by the end. It\u2019s not a classic, but I appreciate how it was necessary to do something more basic this early in the run. We\u2019ve established the bounding box, we\u2019re setting viewer expectations. In the episodes ahead, there will be plenty of chances to push at the edges. For right now, there\u2019s nothing wrong in enjoying nice things happening to nice people: escapism at its most absolutely pure.<\/p>\n
Stray observations<\/p>\n
\u2022 \u00a0There\u2019s a lovely moment where Sam tells Trixie, the boxer\u2019s girlfriend, that she\u2019s a stripper and that stripping is a profession, not an identity; sex workers were typically either victims or punchlines in this era of television, and having the hero express a fairly modern perspective on the industry is indicative to the show\u2019s ongoing efforts to treat everyone with dignity.
\n\u2022 \u00a0Sam uses future knowledge to bet on the Muhammad Ali\/George Foreman fight in order to make enough money so that everybody ends up getting what they want. (He also wins the big fight with a little help from Trixie and Sam, but this seems less important, money-wise.)
\n\u2022 \u00a0I\u2019m always curious what it\u2019s like for people when they return to their own times after Sam leaps. I think we get some kind of explanation down the line, but one of the reasons I love this show is the number of things it leaves up to the viewer\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This isn\u2019t the first time I\u2019ve tried to rewatch Quantum Leap. I\u2019ve never seen the series from beginning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514797,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,75,348],"class_list":["post-514796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514796\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514797"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}