Is it time for "Quantum Leap" to make a comeback?

I got to admit that "Quantum Leap" was my first sci-fi love. It wasn't enough to make me a fan of the genre, that wouldn't happen until my final year in high school when I started to watch "TNG" and then the other Trek shows and then orther sci-fi shows. "Quatum Leap" I think though was the first thing I would record on vcr tapes and even in school I would sometimes type in a random number and if it said something like 1967 I would try and come up with possible people that Sam could leap into and would happen in that year.
I'm currently rewatching it and while it is fun it is a very dated show. It screams "80's tv" big time! Plus it relies on some very outdated concepts when it comes to romance such as the idea of a guy and woman who yell at each other and seem to hate each other but that is just masking the truth that they are both in love.
With that said I would enjoy a reboot. I heard years ago they were going to do it with a female leaper but nothing happened and then there was talk of a movie and that didn't happen, either. Me I wish they would do something and I would like them to do it soon so we can see Sam and Al again, at least in small parts which might not happen if they wait to long and Stockwell dies because he is getting up their in age. I also like to see how Sam has adapted to a lifelong pursuit of leaping and how Al is doing with his family and if they ever meet in the new timeline Sam created in the final episode. I would like to think they were destined to be friends.

Jason

 

I'd rather see a different take on the leaping between time/worlds premise. Currently, I'm reading through the Exiles, which is a run of marvel comics. I'd love to see that adapted for tv, though it would probably be difficult, and it would have to be done by Fox, which isn't necessarily a good thing. Otherwise, I'd go for something new (or new to me - there may be other things worth adapting) that can completely invent itself from the ground up.

 

I don't ever want to see a version of QL that doesn't involve Bakula and Stockwell. They ARE that show. It can't be done without them.

 

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BECKETT!!!!!!!!!!

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HA! That's what I wanted to post. Also, last decade they essentially tried it with "Journeyman", which also featured a guy time travelling through people's lives and changing history for the better. It lasted 13 episodes.

But in truth, Quantum Leap is really just another variation on the "stranger comes to town" TV trope that has been going on since TV was TV, and which Westerns made stick. Every week, our lone cowboy would mosey into town, beat up the bad guys, win the girl, and mosey right on out again. Al is the loveable sidekick / exposition / comic relief, and we all had a grand old time.

IMO that formula is the tired part of it, and why a reboot of any form would not work out. QL is a product of its era, and time travel had very little to do with it other than to get Sam and Al from one fix to the next; there was a LITTLE bit to do with the project itself (continuing funding, retrieving Sam, etc.) in the first season, but really it's the show's glory years in the middle that had little to do with sci-fi stuff other than as an excuse to do a period piece every week. It's only in the last season that they really started adding in sci-fi elements and event episodes (Evil Leaper, guy escaping from waiting room, the "Trilogy" run, and the whole Lee Harvey Oswald thing), as the show's format started wearing on the audience and the showrunners.

A case could be made to reboot it to a more modern sort of cowboy series with more continuing elements and such (Supernatural comes to mind, but IMO that's more an exception and not the rule nor the bar to aspire to), and make it more like This is Us, perhaps. But as people above have already posted, QL would NEVER be able to escape the shadow that was the chemistry between Sam and Al. It did indeed make the show and is a once in a TV lifetime event, IMO.

Mark

 

That's true and I'd like to agree, but I suppose you could say people said that in the late 80s about a new Star Trek without Shatner or Nimoy.


If they ever do make a new Quantum Leap, I'd like to them to actually figure out what the "rules" are of leaping before they make the show, and not just make it up and change it like the original does to be fair. That irks me a bit when you watch some episodes.

 

Oh, I've seen them, but it's just too... well, no need to be insulting, but it's not good.

 

I don't think it would really be possible to bring it back, with the way TV is today the whole format would have to be so completely changed that it wouldn't really be recognizable. There have also been a lot of similar shows since the original QT, so unless they came up with some really unique hook to make it stand out, it would probably end up feeling rather generic.
I have to confess, I've been rewatching the show off and on for the last few months, and other than a few standout great episodes, I haven't been that impressed. Most of the stories were just not that interesting.

 

I think the time has passed for any continuation of the Bakula/Stockewell QL.

Could a reboot work, sure it could work the only question is what form it would take. Part of the reason it worked so well was the chemistry between the leads so you would first have to get that same chemistry again between the leads.

But I might actually add in elements of the 5th season i.e those around the project into the series straight from the start. You could then do flashbacks into the characters lives before the events of the leap and what drives them. Sure they did that in the original series by exploring the chracters back stories like. in "M.I.A." and "The Leap Home"

 

And how likely do you seriously think it would be, that the Bakula/Stockwell chemistry could possibly be re-created with any other actors? It's ABSOLUTELY unique.

 

I'm getting tired of reboots. So I would vote no for the reboot. Some idiot Hollywood producer would probably want to reboot it as a comedy movie in the likes of 21 Jump Street. No way.

 

I think it's possible to create a new dynamix, akin to Sam and Al, but obviously different. What would be good if there was a way to transition....possibly having an episode that ends in Sam's death, to finally fully hand it over to a new generation

 

I love Quantum Leap and long wished it would return. Not so much now. I prefer to just enjoy the episodes there are. It was made when TV was different, and I don't see it working the same ever again. (And I doubt Dean is up to it these days.) That said, if they did it like Doctor Who, where it's a new start and a continuation at the same time, I would definitely check it out. I couldn't not.

 

I think it would be okay if it was different and the actors also had different dynamic between them. To me the main thing you got to keep is people leaping into people and having to fix their problems. PLus someone helping out as a hologram from the future.
You can really expand on that idea if you want though and maybe have more than one leaper. So life in the present more and what is going on with the quantum leap project. Expand beyond the idea of just traveling in your own lifetime. I would keep the idea that God is sort of behind the scenes directing the leaps. I also kind of like the idea of doing more of that stuff we saw a little bit off where Sam would sometimes have memories of the person he leaped into. Plus it would be cool if the present day would always alter. Kind of like the idea of a running joke where everytime you go t the present we find out the president of the United States is a different person. Start out with logical options like Hilary Clinton or Bernie Sanders and then start really go wild with choices such as Charles Manson or Betty White or Andy Dick. You would never run out of weird choices. I would also like a loose arc. Maybe something to do with a evil leaper maybe the main character has cancer or some disease that he/she has to deal with while also trying to change the past for the better, each week.

Jason

 

I think a series with Sam's daughter leaping to find him and bring him home would work. No, not because I want to cast somebody based on their genital, but rather he had a daughter (well, that's what I recall).

It's been decades, the project has been mothballed and dismantled, but with increased terrorist attacks, the government wonders if it can "leap" a person into another In a controlled way, to collect intel and even stop attacks before they occur.

Sam's daughter muscles her way into the project, having studied it relentlessly ever since Al told her they lost her dad.

However, the project is stopped at the last minute (I'll leave reasons for it open to interpretation), but she sneaks in, fires it up. Al catches her, but can't violate the rules, but gives her helpful hints to get things working. Security raids the place just as she leaps out.

And with each leap she finds herself alone, no help, trying to find her dad and becoming heart broken at people and events she encounters, helping them as her dad did.

This goes on for a year or two, before suddenly Al appears. The project has been put online.


There's my breif outline for a pilot. Who knows, maybe a decade from now I may actually write it.

 

I love that idea but I think you got to have a hologram helping her out at least by the middle of the first season. To me that is one of the key elements of the show and waiting 2 years is to long. Of course when she does meet her dad then you got to wonder where it goes next. You shouldn't , Laura Palmer, the search to long and also have something to replace it when she does find him.

Jason

 

OK, I know what I said in my last post, but this actually sounds pretty good.
Since the finale revealed that there areother good Leapers along with evil Leapers , maybe the big arc could be a war between the two groups with Sam as the leader of the good side. I could see the potential for a whole mythology built around the different leapers and the hows and whys of what they do. Didn't Sam figure out a way to control the leaps in the finale? If so maybe they could have him and his daughter specifically going to fix things the evil leapers damaged.

 

If they ever do restart QL, I'd like for these questions to be answered:

- Who the hell started the Evil Leaper project, and what is Lothos?
- Just what is that final episode really all about, anyway? Is "Al the bartender" God?
(Actually I don't think the bartender was God. I think he was Captain Braxton. And yes, I seriously do think it. Not just because it's the same actor, I literally mean the same character.)
- What was Project Star Bright?
- If all of Al's failed marriages never happened (thanks to Sam fixing things with Beth in the final episode), then what happened to all those leaps where said marriages directly affected Al's behavior and advice to Sam?
- Cut the crap about Sam never returning home. Give him a vacation!

 

My thinking is portraying the girl more realistically than some 110lbs chick who has no real emotions and can take down 200lbs men. She's alone, has no one to depend on and has to do it on her own, learning as she goes. Things will get real bad, but just as it appears there Is no hope, that's when Al shows up. I figure government bureaucracy will take a year or two in reality to get it going again. Having it tougher will add a layer of brutal reality to that the original show couldn't necessarily have since it was lighter in tone as required no doubt by executives.

Evil Leapers will feature as major players in my version of a spin-off. And she won't even know they're Evil Leapers and find herself screwed over and those she tried to help, maybe sometimes screwed over as well. Perhaps even Evil Leapers going back and undoing things Sam did in the original series; can't have all that good, after all (in their thinking).

Just as a Quantum Leap leaper sees the reflection of the person they leap into, so will she as well, so even if she runs across her dad, she may not even realize it. That's my plan, at least.

As It Plays Out in My Head:
In a tragic season two or three finale, she finally realizes she's found her dad; there's an emotional hug and crying, with a lovely rendition of the opening monologue music before the main credits in the original series, but after they part, Sam is shot in the back by an Evil Leaper just as she leaps (out of her control), leaving us to wonder if Sam died. If the person dies, Sam dies as I remember it.

This will lead to some kind of leaping trail (technobabble) that Ziggy3.0 and Al can then start tracking, ultimately leading to recuing her daddy and bringing him home against all odds and the Evil Leapers.

 

He did have a daughter, Sammy Jo. Although she'd be in her 50s by now, which makes her an unlikely choice. Unless they set the new series earlier than "now".