Oh boy: Remembering the original “Quantum Leap”

At least once every episode of the re-boot of “Quantum Leap”, I find myself wondering what would Sam do, or alternatively, will he finally appear?

When I first came upon “Quantum Leap” back in 1989, I was really confused by the premise initially. When I figured it out, the show wasn’t a science fiction spectacle as much as it was a vehicle to tell heartwarming stories. Occasionally it made a point, or drew attention to a certain issue.

In its four-plus years on television, it became one of my favourite shows, with specific episodes I can vividly remember to this day.

I think back to that time I first stumbled onto “Quantum Leap” every time I watch Ben Sung leap through time in the re-booted "Quantum Leap".

From left are Dean Stockwell and Scott Bakula, 

he two stars of the original "Quantum Leap.

Source: https://www.imdb.com/

(May be subject to copyright)

Leap home
During the 1988-1989 school year, I didn’t go home that much. That changed Easter weekend in March of 1989. I had arranged my schedule so I had all my classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and none on Tuesday or Thursday. That meant, with Good Friday and Easter Monday off, I had a six-day weekend.

I took the opportunity to go home, so I hopped the Greyhound graveyard, milk run through the night and arrived in Lethbridge about 9 a.m.

That Easter Sunday night, I was flipping through the three channels we had on the farm, and came upon this show just starting on Channel 7.

At first I was not sure I understood it. This guy woke up face down in bed. It was Scott Bakula, an actor I had seen before, most notably in a “Disney Sunday Movie” called “I Man”. He looked in a mirror, but the reflection was not his own, it was someone else. Weird.

He soon discovers he is a test pilot in the 1960s. Then a hologram named Al appears, played by Dean Stockwell, and starts to explain things. The man is Sam Beckett, a genius who invented a time machine. He entered this “quantum accelerator” and is now leaping through time, but only the period that his own life spans. Al is the hologram, assisted by Ziggy, the computer brain behind the time machine. They discover Sam must fix something in time in order to leap home.

Sam does manage to fix what went wrong and does leap out – but he doesn’t go home. Instead, in the second hour of this series premiere, he leaps into the body of an aging minor league baseball player, where he must again right history.

He leaps again, but I didn’t get to see the next episode, because I had returned to university and never had much time for television.

Interestingly, when I got back to res, I ran into Dave Turnbull, one of my floormates on Fifth Kelsey. He too had watched the premiere of “Quantum Leap” when he went home to Calgary for Easter.

I think we agreed we’d watch “Quantum Leap” the next week, but never did.

It wasn’t until I went home again the following school year when I picked up the trail again.

Football players and the Queen Mary
The next episode I saw, was in the second season, 1989-1990, in early January when I was home for Christmas. Sam leaped into the body of a high school football player named Eddy Vega. He is the quarterback, and Eddy’s best friend Chuy is his receiver. Sam has to make sure Chuy doesn’t throw an important game, so they can earn college scholarships. Of course Sam succeeds.

After the school year ended, I went home in May of 1990 and saw another episode of “Quantum Leap”. This time Sam leaps onto the ship the “Queen Mary” where he has to reunite a man and woman, when the woman is about to marry a gangster.

There would be one more episode in 1990, a Christmas episode guest starring Charles Rocket as a Scrooge-like figure, that was part of the third season of Quantum Leap in 1990-1991.

The creators also did something really cool. At the end of each episode, when Sam leaps into his new body, the first words out of his mouth every time are, “Oh boy…”

A week’s worth
In the summer of 1990, I saw this mysterious ad announcing “it was coming.” I never found out until a year later what “it” was.

It was “Quantum Leap Week”, where NBC played an episode a night for a week in the summer.

It was brilliant, because it was an instant introduction to the show. Obviously, I didn’t see it in 1990, but I did in 1991 and the shows were all excellent.

In one, Sam leaps into a male stripper who saves a hearing-impaired dancer and helps her meet a major choreographer, played by Debbie Allen. In another, he leaps into a lounge singer saving him from a contract killer. That one was really cool, because Sam sings this amazing song with his partner called “Somewhere in the Night”. In a third, Sam leaps into a children’s show about science. He is in the body of the sidekick of the host of the show. In it, Sam discovers the host, played by Richard Herd, has the same theory of time travel that Sam does. At the end of the episode, a young Sam Beckett writes into the show and has his letter read on air.

They were all excellent.

Parting thoughts
The show would run for five seasons, including an intense amazing, season five premiere when Sam leaps into the body of Lee Harvey Oswald. My whole floor in res gathered in the fall of 1992 to watch it.

Although it seems to be a science fiction series, it is actually a lot like its creator Donald Bellisario’s other shows such as “Magnum P.I.” and “Airwolf”. It is full of action with some light humour interspersed, interesting characters, and it tackles some tough issues.

I never really liked the ending, although I could live with the fact Sam kept on leaping, and never got home.

That actually set up the new series nicely.

It also gives me hope that maybe for Sam, his next leap will be the leap home.