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Will Sam Beckett Return Home? NBC Orders Quantum Leap Reboot Pilot

Gingerbread Demon said:
People today tend to get offended a hell of a lot more easily so I can see networks getting complaint letters and such. That's one reason. People just seem to have thinner skins today.
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You're falling prey to the recency illusion. People have always had thin skins. In my younger days, the uproar was over alleged Satanic images in The Smurfs and the like. And let's not forget Dungeons & Dragons, which sparked an intense moral panic over how it was corrupting youth with its violence and pagan imagery -- much like how Fredric Wertham stirred up a moral panic over horror and superhero comic books in the 1950s. It has always been thus.
 
Christopher said:
You're falling prey to the recency illusion. People have always had thin skins. In my younger days, the uproar was over alleged Satanic images in The Smurfs and the like. And let's not forget Dungeons & Dragons, which sparked an intense moral panic over how it was corrupting youth with its violence and pagan imagery -- much like how Fredric Wertham stirred up a moral panic over horror and superhero comic books in the 1950s. It has always been thus.
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Probably.

Touched By An Angel and Highway To Heaven two of the older shows that I seem to remember most which had angels in them
 
FreezeC77 said:
The interesting thing about that is that it's explained that all the days of ones 'lifetime' touch either so one can leap to any point in the past or future.

Don't think they ever lept into the 'future' though did they?
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Nope, but the theory doesn't explicitly forbid it. For the original series, one can rationalize saying that Sam never came home, so there was no future for him...
 
Skipper said:
And in one episode Jesus himself comes to save the day. I don't think it would well received today...
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It probably wouldn't have been well received earlier either, since religion was one of many subjects that network censors were uneasy with in '60s and '70s TV, for fear that people would be offended by depictions they saw as blasphemous. So references to religion had to be vague and indirect.

And really, I don't understand why you think it would be problematical today. Like I said, FOX and Netflix's Lucifer, which ran for five years and ended less than a year ago, starred the literal Devil as its protagonist, and featured God himself as a recurring guest star played by Dennis Haysbert in its final season, portraying him as a very flawed, emotionally distant father. It had also previously featured Tricia Helfer as God's wife, the co-creator of the universe, which must have really outraged the religious purists in the audience, but she was a featured character for a whole season and occasionally returned thereafter. Cain and Eve were also featured as series regulars, with Eve being a bisexual party girl who fell in love with Lucifer's female demon sidekick Mazikeen. It was like it was consciously designed to be as offensive to the Bible-thumping bluenoses as possible, but it was a hit on commercial TV for three seasons before moving to Netflix. If anything, Lucifer proves that TV today is far more permissive about religious depictions than it ever would've been in the 20th century.
 
Christopher said:
It probably wouldn't have been well received earlier either, since religion was one of many subjects that network censors were uneasy with in '60s and '70s TV, for fear that people would be offended by depictions they saw as blasphemous. So references to religion had to be vague and indirect.

And really, I don't understand why you think it would be problematical today. Like I said, FOX and Netflix's Lucifer, which ran for five years and ended less than a year ago, starred the literal Devil as its protagonist, and featured God himself as a recurring guest star played by Dennis Haysbert in its final season, portraying him as a very flawed, emotionally distant father. It had also previously featured Tricia Helfer as God's wife, the co-creator of the universe, which must have really outraged the religious purists in the audience, but she was a featured character for a whole season and occasionally returned thereafter. Cain and Eve were also featured as series regulars, with Eve being a bisexual party girl who fell in love with Lucifer's female demon sidekick Mazikeen. It was like it was consciously designed to be as offensive to the Bible-thumping bluenoses as possible, but it was a hit on commercial TV for three seasons before moving to Netflix. If anything, Lucifer proves that TV today is far more permissive about religious depictions than it ever would've been in the 20th century.
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Lucifer treated religion as a backdrop for his own mythology, but it's clear the authors didn't believe it any more than Jackson does in the existence of hobbits. I mean show with an evangelical message, as "If you believe in Jesus you are safe.".
 
Skipper said:
Lucifer treated religion as a backdrop for his own mythology, but it's clear the authors didn't believe it any more than Jackson does in the existence of hobbits. I mean show with an evangelical message, as "If you believe in Jesus you are safe.".
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But that's not what Gingerbread Demon and I have been talking about. We're discussing whether today's audiences were more "thin-skinned" than in the past and if networks today would be reluctant to depict angels or other religious subject matter that might offend the audience. The belief of the creators has nothing to do with that topic.

Indeed, the moral panics over things like D&D or "Satanic imagery" in The Smurfs happened because the bluenoses assumed the creators did sincerely believe in the things they depicted, since their mindset didn't let them grasp the concept of fantasy, of depicting something for entertainment rather than polemical purposes. So they assumed that works of entertainment that employed things like Greek gods or witchcraft or demons as story elements were sincerely advocating paganism or Satanism. The same thing happened with Lucifer -- moralist groups campaigned against it because they were convinced it "glorified Satan." But that didn't prevent FOX from airing it, which is the point.
 
c4ea9285e9531b44881fc8807f2a11f5


Link contains a "opening scene" spoiler in text/writing.
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/quantum-leap-teaser-transports-raymond-160000064.html
 
Trailer with a episode opening (the same as described in the above link)

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Like the previous clip, this looks cheap and cheesy as hell. I remain hopeful that these little bits were filmed specifically just for commercials. The original show certainly had some cheesy commercials, so it's not off-brand. ;)
 
That wouldn't bother me so much, the original show usually gave us the exact date on screen. But given the choice, I'd drop it.
 
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