With the upcoming series Enterprise I was wondering does anyone else watch Scott Bakula's previous series Quantum Leap.
Posted by Wes1701E (Member # 212) on :
Ive seen every episode. The last one is the best.
I wish the bastards never took it off the air.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
Yeah. If Bakula was still in it, then without his star power they might never have got bloody Enterprise off the ground. . .
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
I've never seen "Quantum Leap," ever. I especially haven't seen the one where he leaps into Al that has Terry Farrell & Roddy McDowall in it.
"You've never seen it, either." "No."
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Terry Farrell actually does a nude scene of sorts in that ep. Now, I don't know if it's actually her or a body double. But when Sam first leaps in, she walks up to him on the beach in the nude. The camera is blurry in just the right places.
I thought the last episode was confusing as hell. They managed to contradict a bunch of details about leaping. But they had been doing that all along. But I did like the ep. Kinda sad, but good.
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
It was a body-stocking. 8)
Posted by PsyLiam (Member # 73) on :
"They managed to contradict a bunch of details about leaping."
Out of curiosity, what were they? I started watching it quite late, and quite irregularly, so I'm not an expert.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
There was always the contradiction about whether or not Al could see Sam leap. They had fairly clearly decided that he could, but then in the finale he said that he didn't know what it looked like.
There was also the controversy as to whether Al saw Sam as himself or as the person he was supposed to be. There were episodes where he clearly saw Sam as the person he leaped into, but then there were others where he seemed to see just Sam.
I'm not sure if they touched on that last one in the finale because he didn't leap into anyone.
And we never really found out where or when Sam was in the finale. They ended up finding him on the day of his birth, but how could all the people from his previous leaps actually have been there. There was something hinky going on but they never explained it. Getting Susan Diol back to play Al's first wife was a nice touch though.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
My favorite is when Sam and Al switched places. Though I don't know if he leaped into his own body or Al's.
Another contridiction is that in the opening credits they say he vanished, yet his body still exists in the present. Only soul traveled back in time.
Posted by Wes1701E (Member # 212) on :
i dont remember that part.
Also, i always assumed Al knew what Sam's 'host' was because they would leap into the waiting room. Weather or not Al sees the true sam in the waiting room or in the holochamber is up for debate.
In the waiting room, a person looks into the reflective bench and sees sam, and sam looks into a mirror and sees that person. On second thought, i belive that al sees the true sam thanks to holographic technology.
Posted by Stingray (Member # 621) on :
Damn, why does somebody always beat me to the point I'm going to make?
The people in the waiting room always saw sam, like Dr. Ruth and Lee Harvey Oswald.
And I haven't seen every episode, only a few and many a long time ago. But the one where they switch places and were Sam leaps into Al were the best I've seen.
Didn't they also reveal that his leaping was controlled by a higher power which ahd always been speculated?
Posted by Dr Phlox (Member # 680) on :
"Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished .... He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home."
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
"Theorizing that one could travel to Neptune and back within six minutes, Captain Jonathan Archer stepped into the Transporter Pad and vanished .... He woke to find himself trapped in the past before any other Trek series, facing canon facts that were not his own. His only guide on this journey is T'Pol, a Vulcan observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a young woman. And so Captain Archer finds himself transporting from planet to planet, striving to screw up Trek continuity and hoping each time that his next transport will be the transport home."
Posted by Vogon Poet (Member # 393) on :
*LMAO@Hobbes* Genius, Hobbesy. . . 8)
To futher muddy the issue, you had the "evil leaper" eps (two I think?) which had a girl forced by some organisation (including a female hologram mentor, bit of an Anne Robinson character) actually forcing her to leap in and make things worse. . . Did they ever explain that?
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
I don't think so. Basically I think it was suppose to be good vs evil. Sam was being leaped around by God to do good. While what's-her-name was being leaped by Satan to do evil.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Hobbes: It wasn't just his soul leaping around. His body actually traveled through time. This was made abundantly clear in the episode where he leaped into a pregnant woman. Sam and Al went through the whole process trying to figure out whether or not it was possible for Sam to be carrying the baby.
Basically, their bodies switch places in time. They look like each other to everyone because of the "physical aura" that is left behind.
When Sam and Al switched places, Sam looked like Sam, Al looked like the guy he leaped into, and (presumably) the guy he leaped into looked like Al.
The evil leaper: They never really explained how or why she was leaping around, only that it was controlled by (what was presumably some kind of evil intelligent computer) Lothos. Sam eventually freed her from it's control by forcing her to leap with him instead of under Lothos' control.
Oh, and just a little side note...Jennifer Aniston was in one of the later season epsiodes. Damn, she was hot.
[ August 20, 2001: Message edited by: Aban Rune ]
Posted by Wes1701E (Member # 212) on :
i think you got some characters messed up there.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Who ya talkin' to Wes?
I didn't get any characters messed up.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
I noticed that the same actor from the premiere episode also was in the final episode. I wonder if this was intentional or not. If so, perhaps this guy, Bartender Al, wanted to observe Sam's first leap by leaping too.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Hey, you're right...I never noticed that Bartender Al was also...what? the pilot-that-Sam-leaped-into's commanding officer? in the pilot?
I know he played someone on the base and I remember him knocking on the metal plate in his head...
Or maybe this was just another instance of people in this final leap looking like people Sam's met before. The bartender definitely knew something about Sam's leaping, but we never found out exactly who he was, did we?
Posted by Dr Phlox (Member # 680) on :
It kind of baffled me. It should have been a two parter.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 138) on :
The episode was "Genesis" and the character was named Crazy Ernie, a ground control officer or something. Sam didn't recognize Bartender Al like he did the others. I'm think he also leaped into Ernie to observe Sam's first leap to see if he was up to the challenge.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
That could be...I'll have to go back and watch it to see if he says anything that they may have picked up on for the last ep.
Posted by Dr Phlox (Member # 680) on :
Sci fi aired the final ep a couple days ago. They started from the beginning on Tuesday. Tommorow they are airing the fourth episode, I believe. Check your local listings. Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
Aban gots no cable. But I know I have both the first and the last episodes on tape. I'm watching a tape of some of the later shows right now. This morning I saw the Dr. Ruth episode while I ate breakfast Posted by Dr Phlox (Member # 680) on :
That's one of my favorites.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
It was ok...though there are a couple major nitpicks I have:
1) When Dr. Ruth leaps out, the Vampire guy immediately leaps in. Al said once, that, from his point of view, it takes over a week for someone new to come into the waiting room.
2) At one point, Al leans over and kisses Dr. Ruth on the cheek, reinforcing the idea that Al, for some reason, can see both Sam and the person he switches places with for who they really are.
3) When the Vampire guy leaps in and takes Dr. Ruth's place, the clothes she had on suddenly fit him, even though they made those clothes specifically because the regular body suit didn't fit Ruth.
I know...I'm a sad little man...
Posted by Dr Phlox (Member # 680) on :
If it's his body why do we see the person he leapt into in the mirror. Many aspect of Quantum Leap for those who don't frequentlty watch are confusing. Anyway today on sci fi or yesterday since it is now 12:21 they showed the one where he's a boxer and is trying to get money to build a chapel for Sister Angela.
Posted by MeGotBeer (Member # 411) on :
QL was never consistent about whether he leaped into other people's bodies, or whether he leaped in his own body but just looked like the people into whom he'd jumped.
Or something like that.
Posted by Aban Rune (Member # 226) on :
It was very clear. Sam's body actually traveled through time, as did the other person's. They physically switched places in time. As I explained before, the reason they look like each other was due to the "physical aura" that was left behind. That comes from the episode where Sam leaps into a pregnant woman.
If Sam's body doesn't physically travel trhough time, how could he have walked when he was a Vietnam vet with no legs, or had a daughter by a woman in "Trilogy, part 3"?
