Universal Studios
What’s the name of that timey-wimey show about the non-white time traveler with resourceful companions and plots dealing with modern problems in past and future settings?
Oh, you know! The one with a character named Dr. Song. Who? Doctor what?
No, no, no. Quantum Leap! That’s it!
The original Quantum Leap was a favorite series of mine three and a half decades ago. I even liked the controversial final episode that ended with “Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home.”
A couple of years ago, NBC premiered an official follow-up—a continuation more than a reboot—and yet for some reason, I never caught a single episode.
This past week, though, I’ve been down with a mid-winter cold—NOT COVID this time—and I have just binge-watched all 31 episodes of the recent Quantum Leap series.
Like the original, it’s a clever way of doing an anthology series while still maintaining a regular cast to whom viewers can relate.
The premise deals with a time travel project by which a person can “leap” into the past by temporarily inhabiting the bodies of other people living then. A couple of major problems are that there’s no way to control the leaps nor to bring the leaper back. Another issue is that the leaper’s memory is affected to different extents.
The original program had its creator, big, burly white guy Dr. Sam Beckett, as the leaper and he had a holographic sidekick named Al from his own time who could help him out to complete his tasks to leap.
Oh, I forgot to mention. In order to leap again, he has to change some detail of the timeline in order to help someone before his mission can be considered completed.
Y’know, when I write it like that, it sounds pretty convoluted. But I swear, it worked! Quantum Leap ran five seasons.
Version two here has the project re-activated a few decades later, ostensibly in an effort to find Sam Beckett.
We get Korean-American Dr. Ben Song as the leaper here with the wonderfully named Addison Augustine as his holographic companion most of the time. Therein lies the seed of what’s different about this version of the series. You see, Addison, fresh out of active military duty, was trained to be the leaper, but just before that happened, her boss, her boyfriend, Ben, left a party to go to the lab and leap himself.
Worst of all, he forgets why he chose to do that.
Thus begins a wonderfully clever and entertaining serialized backstory featuring the various members of the QL lab attempting throughout the run of the series to figure out what Ben’s up to, keep Ben alive, and deal with multiple soap-style issues among themselves that affect the project.
With the backstory issues tying in more and more to Ben’s various plights as the series continues, I honestly found myself feeling on some episodes that the main plot was interrupting my time with the more interesting secondary plot!
Like Sam before him, Ben leaps into the bodies of numerous people of different races, genders, and professions. Over the show’s run, these include, among others, an astronaut, a boxer, an aging Mexican gunslinger, a chef, a girls’ basketball coach, a navy sailor, a flight attendant, a bank teller, a UFO investigator, an accused witch, an international spy, a firefighter, and a race car driver. The witch episode and the naval episode are highlights.
Ben Song’s portions of the episodes range from gripping to rather pedestrian, but they’re always saved by the charismatic performance of series star Raymond Lee. Early on, we’re shown that Ben has a “super power” to be able to persuasively pep talk anyone. This comes in handy right up to the concluding episode.
The series seems to have had a particularly good budget or else some amazing CGI effects. Possibly both. While a backlot studio street corner is obvious in several episodes, others, like one set in Cairo, look as though they might actually have been shot on location!
Some of the episodes were clearly based on hit movies, including The Exorcist (a super creepy episode), The Terminator, and The Towering Inferno. Others go out of their way to deal with the woke issues of our day, couched in sci-fi terms in the way of The Twilight Zone and Star Trek. For instance, there are mentions of AIDS, mental health, child abuse, LGBTQ, trans and non-binary issues, drag queens, addictions, abandonment, Nazis, and women’s issues. Some are contextually anachronistic but only occasionally feel out of place. Also anachronistic are the minority characters seen in prominent positions in past times where that was extremely unlikely to have happened.
The nature of the series requires different guest stars every week. Only a few had I heard of—Dean Cameron, Brandon Routh, Jewel Staite, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Tim Matheson. It’s Matheson who stands out. As an actor pretty much all his life, he comes from a different school than the generally realistic modern styles of acting everyone around him is doing. In the end, he’s like Peter O’Toole in My Favorite Year, charming to a fault, a tad roguish, and used to having things his way.
The best performances on the series overall, though, come from its supporting cast. Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, The Crow) brings the perfect blend of gravitas, authority, and personal magnetism as Magic, the head of the project. Over time, we learn that Magic is an alcoholic. We also learn that he reactivated the Quantum Leap project due to the fact that Sam had leaped into him in Vietnam back in the day. The core project members are clearly his family, and, as such, he sacrifices for them when needed.
That core project family consists of Addison, Jenn, and Ian. Addison, Ben’s hologram you’ll recall, is played by Caitlin Bassett and she is particularly impressive, especially when one considers that this is her first television acting role! Her character’s military background on the series essentially mirrors her own real-life history. In one late episode, she’s given the chance to show just how badass she can be and it makes me wish we’d seen more of that. She also kills on a number of deeply emotional scenes, though, too. As I wrote above, Caitlin Bassett is impressive all around.
Nanrisa Lee plays Jenn, a genius ex-convict and head of security for the project. Although her character falls through the cracks at times and is not given as many major scenes, Jenn is integral to the over-arching plot. She is often teamed in both serious discussions and light-hearted sibling-style banter with Ian, easily my favorite character and my favorite actor on the show.
Mason Alexander Park, a non-binary performer so perfectly cast as the androgynous Desire on Sandman, here plays the non-binary scientist, Ian. Charming, witty, and the smartest person in any room, it could have been just a standard central casting part, but Park instead creates a wholly-rounded character with deep flaws, bitter tears, and fierce loyalties. They are the one who holds out for Ben against all odds, even into a post-apocalyptic future. To me, both the character and the actor make the show.
And then there’s Hannah, played by Eliza Taylor. In order to break things up with the leaps, the second season sees Ben running into a woman off and on in the past. In their first outing, after she helps his mission, he recommends her to a program he knows from history is forming at Princeton.
In a later episode, he runs into her again. After explaining who he really is and why he always looks different, the two begin to fall for one another and Ben begins to encounter Hannah more and more often on his leaps, unknowingly setting up what would turn out to be the series’ big twisty conclusion.
The Quantum Leap soundtrack features some great major songs from the likes of Bowie and the Stones and definite A-list production values and acting. Besides the occasional anachronisms, there are piddly little things such as how do the holograms cast shadows or why does their hair blow in the wind? And what about the rest of the project staff? You see them in the background walking around or sitting in chairs, but they’re never involved in any group discussions or anything else. Who are these people? It’s like they’re invisible to Magic, Jenn, Ian, and Addison!
Very minor complaints for a series that was as enjoyable as the original and even better produced. Clearly, the show was setting up a third season at the time it was canceled so while the ultimate conclusion we see is not a happy one really, it’s fitting and feels right.
And that’s what Quantum Leap is all about—making things right.
Booksteve recommends.
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