He seemed to get it pretty quickly though. He leaped in his own body to the exact time and place that he meant to. Although leaping inside Beth's house was a risky move. Luckily for him she was willing to listen to the strange man who suddenly appeared in her home.
No, because there's a brief scene where the character of Stawpah leaps out of the bar, and no one replaces him. Sam notices this, and says "That's probably because he was dead." So apparently, even leapers don't live forever.
I don't remember a single instance, but what if Sam got hurt? Would he also remained hurt during the next leap? What if he needed a dentist? It wouldn't even be possible to cure a cavity, since the dentist would see an image of the teeth of the person Sam had leaped into.
One episode involved Sam leaping into the body of a convicted murderer, who was sentenced to die by electrocution. At the very end of that story, Sam leaps just as the electric chair's switch is pulled.
There were at least two times that Sam got shot, and seemingly did not take the bullet wound to his next leap.
The dentist might see that, but what would the X-rays show?
I saw that as a last-minute change, by the episode's writers. "Mirror Image" was originally supposed to just be the Season 5 finale, and Season 6 would've been set up as Al becoming an additional Leaper himself. But at the last moment, NBC pulled the plug...so Donald Bellisario and everyone else had to quickly change the nature of the story. At least four endings to "Mirror Image" were scripted, and two were filmed. At the time NBC's decision was made, Scott Bakula, Dean Stockwell, and Donald Bellisario all openly expressed their anger about it...and as a fan, I can't say I blame them.
That movie was originally intended to be a season premiere and had already been filmed when the cancellation announcement was made, and this was in the days before you could toss finished product in the vault and get a tax write-off, so it made more sense for them to air it.
