Great TV Shows #1: Quantum Leap

Just watched an episode of this and figured it deserved a quick note. Any respectable fan of Sci-Fi has to remember this one. The show ran for five seasons between 1989 and 1993 and starred Scott Bakula later of Enterprise fame and Dean Stockwell of er… well I’m not sure right now but he seems to show up in stuff all over the place. The series had a somewhat unique premise which many people have compared to Sliders which was absolutely nothing at all in any way whatsoever like Sliders. That premise being that some kind of time travel experiment taking place in the distant future year of 1995 going awry stranding scientist Sam Beckett in time. Not only this but in the bodies of complete strangers alive during his lifetime and having a strange quest to change the future for the better. Normally the show relies on a combination of drama and nostalgia to advance the plot but occasionally it also relied on Sci-Fi and philosophy which earned the show a wide fan base. It was also interesting to see Sam Beckett take back with him some of the enlightened morality and ideology of the ‘future’ and although it came off as preachy at times it was interesting to watch. The plot also didn’t have many holes in it, the time travel mechanisms were kept simple and the swiss-cheese effect was used to prevent Sam from having too much knowledge of his own life (and thus a true desire to return home which turned out to be important). I often always wondered why he’d only ever leap into Americans and considered it to be a big plot hole until I saw the final episode where he gets to meet the mysterious entity ‘God, time or fate’ that had been selecting his missions (in fact none of them). In fact the final episode of the show added a new dimension to the whole thing that was almost as confusing as an average episode of Lost but ultimately made a lot of sense. People regard the epilogue that he never returned home as a sad or even tragic ending to the show but I think it was kind of bittersweet, he sacrificed his life because he wanted to change the past for the better.

This was one of the better Sci-Fi shows over the years and the constant repeats on Sky bare that out. Still a good show even if its depiction of the future Sam came from was a little… weird. It would also seem that Hollywood, fresh out of ideas after all those Twin films has now finally decided to make Quantum Leap the movie! And it’s only taken them 18 years to get round to it, still it’s a good concept and should theoretically make a good film if they get it right.