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

[Reverend]

Does he though? We only see him tell Tom that he can see into the future. The other characters fluctuate between referring to him traveling through time or simply seeing the future, but we never find out what details Sam gave up. (Although his sister does refer to "swiss cheese memory" so I grant you it's quite possible that he gave them a fairly full account.)

I'm not saying it can't have happened, I'll just revert to my original sentence, "Personally, I wouldn't consider Tom calling Magic 'Little Brother' as proof that he somehow knew that Magic was actually Sam." Evidence maybe, but definitely not proof.

Hey, I'm not making a high court case of it, just saying it's open to interpretation. Honestly I doubt the writers put all that much thought into it to begin with.

 

[Tom]

The new show did not address the fact that the guy Ben leaped into should be in the waiting room? When Ziggy was down in the beginning of the episode, and they were looking for information, they should have just questioned the guy in the waiting room?

On the old show, in regards to the waiting room, when Sam went leaping off on his own, I guess he then always leaped as himself, like he did to talk to Beth in the last episode.

 

[Amaris]

The new show did not address the fact that the guy Ben leaped into should be in the waiting room? When Ziggy was down in the beginning of the episode, and they were looking for information, they should have just questioned the guy in the waiting room?

On the old show, in regards to the waiting room, when Sam went leaping off on his own, I guess he then always leaped as himself, like he did to talk to Beth in the last episode.

There doesn't seem to be a waiting room in this one.

 

[Marc]

The new show did not address the fact that the guy Ben leaped into should be in the waiting room? When Ziggy was down in the beginning of the episode, and they were looking for information, they should have just questioned the guy in the waiting room?

mentioned up thread this time around (well as this point in the production) there's no waiting room.

 

[Christopher]

mentioned up thread this time around (well as this point in the production) there's no waiting room.

So where are the Leapees (term courtesy of the QL Wiki)? Are they floating in temporal limbo somewhere? Or is Ben somehow sharing their bodies?

 

[E-DUB]

Perhaps "God or time or fate" is making sure that the effects Sam's leaps don't "butterfly" too far afield. And perhaps some of Sam's leaps are correcting things that were done (offscreen) by the "Evil Leaper".

 

[Tosk]

Hey, I'm not making a high court case of it

Neither am I, just having a discussion.

 

[Jayson1]

The new show did not address the fact that the guy Ben leaped into should be in the waiting room? When Ziggy was down in the beginning of the episode, and they were looking for information, they should have just questioned the guy in the waiting room?

On the old show, in regards to the waiting room, when Sam went leaping off on his own, I guess he then always leaped as himself, like he did to talk to Beth in the last episode.

They might be out in the world in Ben's body somewhere. It just came to me but when Sam first leaped the first guy wouldn't have been in the waiting room either. He would have been in the leaping chamber. If you have no security you end up with some guy in a empty building who might just walk out of the building being all confused. They might also be leaping to a waiting room away from the building. Sam could have shown up soon as Ben leaped and talked that guy into following him to another location.

 

[Awesome Possum]

The logic of the original show was always sketchy at best. IIRC the general idea is that the Leaper is always physically switching places with the person they're leaping into (with the leapee being conveniently deposited at PQL.) Were it gets weird is the whole mirror image thing where everyone; including the two temporally displaced persons, cameras (but somehow not animals, very small children, or the mentally unwell?) sees the image of the original person in their place.

The explanation was that their aura stayed behind. Which is how Sam was able to walk despite leaping into a double amputee once. Although some episodes would contradict this.

I had the Quantum Leap encyclopedia when I was a kid, I practically memorized it.

 

[Christopher]

The bit about animals and babies being able to see Al's hologram always struck me as a writers' adaptation to real-life circumstances, i.e. the fact that you couldn't direct an animal or a baby to pretend they couldn't see or hear Dean Stockwell.

 

[JD]

That would make sense from a production standpoint, but from an in universe point of view, that doesn't really make sense to me. I was under the impression that Al wasn't actually there, that he was being projected to Sam's brain or something.

 

[Reverend]

The explanation was that their aura stayed behind. Which is how Sam was able to walk despite leaping into a double amputee once. Although some episodes would contradict this.

I had the Quantum Leap encyclopedia when I was a kid, I practically memorized it.

An "aura" which can fool people, photochemistry, video recording etc. but not chimps, toddlers and people suffering from schizophrenia? Like I said it's all very hand-wavy magical silliness. Which is fine of course; the point of the show was the personal human stories, the sci-fi meta-narrative was mostly just there for window dressing.

 

[Tosk]

Like I said it's all very hand-wavy magical silliness. Which is fine of course; the point of the show was the personal human stories, the sci-fi meta-narrative was mostly just there for window dressing.

Exactly. There are "rules" but they are really only there to let the show tell stories. Most of them don't really make a lick of sense. My fave was how Al could go elsewhere and observe events in real time that Sam was not present for. How does the logic of that even work?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Fiction people much in the same away a helicopter can go mach 1 if you disengage the rotors and use jet engines haha

 

[Jayson1]

Even though Sam is controlling his leaping I think the final episode shows that God has played a active role in helping him leap. Thus things like clothes fitting and whatnot can be seen as God interference.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Even though Sam is controlling his leaping I think the final episode shows that God has played a active role in helping him leap. Thus things like clothes fitting and whatnot can be seen as God interference.

That's up to ones personal interpretation. That bartender also known as GFTW God Fate Time Whatever, I don't think it was literally God

 

[Reverend]

God, fate, time, Sam's future self...Ziggy. It really doesn't matter. The only important part was that what Sam was doing was for some objective "good". That what he did made the world an incrementally better place than it had been. That's the basic premise of the show boiled right down; "put right what once went wrong".

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

God, fate, time, Sam's future self...Ziggy. It really doesn't matter. The only important part was that what Sam was doing was for some objective "good". That what he did made the world an incrementally better place than it had been. That's the basic premise of the show boiled right down; "put right what once went wrong".

That's right. I love the original series for what it is.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The non binary Character.

Ian.

What if they had been the Leaper?

Slipping into and out of bodies might have been an experience.

Whether that's an interesting experience or a horrifying experience is a serious question.

On one hand they have actual experience with being in the wrong body, and on the other other hand being in a new wrong body might add to existing trauma.

 

[Christopher]

That would make sense from a production standpoint, but from an in universe point of view, that doesn't really make sense to me. I was under the impression that Al wasn't actually there, that he was being projected to Sam's brain or something.

There's an old folk belief that animals have a "sixth sense" or some kind of psychic ability, because people don't realize that animals' normal five senses are just a lot more acute than ours, so they can hear or smell things beyond our awareness. I think QL was going on that belief, and suggesting that babies had a similar sixth sense or intuition that we lost as we grew.

And yes, Al was being projected to Sam, but there must have been some sort of signal doing the projection, so theoretically it could have been detected by the right kind of receiver.

Exactly. There are "rules" but they are really only there to let the show tell stories. Most of them don't really make a lick of sense. My fave was how Al could go elsewhere and observe events in real time that Sam was not present for. How does the logic of that even work?

My impression was that they used the link between Sam and Al as an anchor, but once they established the link, they could use it to scan a certain distance around Sam's location. They just needed to know where and when to look. I think The Time Tunnel worked the same way. Once they locked onto Tony and Doug in the past, they could "widen the field" of the Tunnel and observe events elsewhere in that place and time.