They'll be dancing (well, leaping maybe) in
the streets now that the first season of Quantum Leap, voted
one of the 25 best cult series ever by TV Guide, has come to
home video, a decade after its final year (1994) on the air (the
pilot episode was released on DVD in '98). And why shouldn't they?
This is a show, called "an imaginative diversion" by one critic,
with a good premise that's cleverly and skillfully conceived,
written, acted, and produced--ample evidence of which is spread out
over three discs, each containing three episodes (plus some fairly
meager extras) from the first season.
Scott Bakula, in the role that made him a star, plays Sam
Beckett, a scientist who's part of a time-travel experiment that
"went a little... ka-ka." Unable to return to his own time, and
aided only by Al (Dean Stockwell, whose rapport with Bakula is one
of the series' most appealing elements), his cigar-smoking,
peculiar-dressing, sex-obsessed, holographic "enabler," Sam "leaps"
unpredictably from one time period and person to another, usually
completely out of his element (as a pilot, a boxer, a cowboy, an
English lit professor, even an elderly black man in segregated '50s
Alabama) and always in a situation that needs to be "made right"
before he can leap onward. Generous helpings of humor, drama,
physical action, and sentimentality (this is TV, after all)
keep things moving, as do references to many other classic films and
genres (Driving Miss Daisy in "The Color of Truth,"
Casablanca in "Play it Again, Seymour," boxing in general in
"The Right Hand of God") and what creator Donald Bellisario calls
the occasional "kiss with history" (Sam crosses paths with the young
Buddy Holly and Michael Jackson, among others). It doesn't all work,
as Quantum Leap occasionally becomes too cute and facile for
its own good. But that and the set's paucity of bonus material
(limited to one passable featurette and brief episode intros by
Bakula) are the only real shortcomings of a boxed set that will
likely earn multiple spins in the DVD player. --Sam Graham
The pilot episode. In 1995,
Sam Beckett, desperate to prove his
time travel theory before the project runs out of funds,
leaps before the kinks are worked out of the machine. He
ends up leaping into Tom Stratton, the pilot of the
experimental
Bell X-2 aircraft, and has to pretend to be the pilot
while trying to fill in the holes in his "Swiss cheese"
memory. Later, Sam leaps into
minor league baseball player Tim Fox, and has to win the
game. The pitcher that Sam faces looks like a young
Nolan Ryan. This episode does not have the usual opening
monologue and theme song; rather, it begins with
Al Calavicci flirting with a girl until he gets word
that Sam is leaping.
Note: This episode was originally referred to as 'Pilot'.
The title 'Genesis' has become more common in syndicated
re-runs, especially in its two-part version.
Brushes with history: Sam leaps into
Tom Stratton exactly 2 weeks before the Bell X-2 crashes
on September 27, 1956.
As Gerald Bryant, a lecherous
old professor at a
private college, Sam's mission is to stop a young coed
from ruining her life by entering into an ill-advised
marriage with Sam's host, but along the way, Sam tries to
change his own history by reuniting Donna, the woman who
will later leave him at the altar, with her father before he
ships out to Vietnam. A young
Teri Hatcher guest-stars as Donna.
Brushes with history: On June 17,
1972, Sam tries to bluff his way past the security
guards in the lobby of the Watergate Hotel. He is
ejected, but Sam manages to find a door with a piece of
tape over the latch. He and his future wife sneak in,
but the guard, noticing their car, does a check of the
outside doors and reports a break-in.
Sam is Clarence "Kid" Cody, a
crooked boxer who must win the championship in order to win
the money that his new managers (a group of nuns) need to
build a new
church. This episode has no major brushes with history,
and Sam is also clearly getting better at fitting into
character, and changing his character's behavior, without
arousing suspicion.
Sam leaps into Daniel "Doc"
Young, a
veterinarian in rural
Texas, and must decide if he needs to win the love of a
wealthy
Texas rancher or save the life of an important animal.
The secret to Sam's leap indicates that this episode
specifically takes place just outside of
Lubbock, Texas.
Brushes with history: Sam inspires
Buddy Holly to write the song "Peggy Sue", and as it
transpires it is revealed that was what he was there to
do.
On the eve of the
Northeast Blackout of 1965, Sam leaps into
Mafia
hitman Frankie LaPalma -- and later leaps into Geno
Fescotti, the Mafia don, hence the episode's title -- as the
Quantum Leap project tries to bring him home. The episode is
the first to give a clear indication that Sam & Al's mission
might be to align their fictional timeline with the viewer's
timeline, as there would be little other reason to trigger
the
infamous power surge in the Lewiston Robert Moses power
plant.
Sam leaps into Jessie Tyler,
an aging black
chauffeur in the
segregated South. He must save his wealthy white
employer (the widow of the former
Governor of Alabama) from dying in a car crash, while
persuading her to play a more active role in the civil
rights movement. This is the first episode where Sam has no
love interest — his host is a widower. Al has his first
experience being noticed by a human other than Sam, although
she only perceives him as a ghostly voice. (This episode is
partly an homage to the play
Driving Miss Daisy.)
Sam leaps into Cameron "Cam"
Wilson, a high school nerd who must prevent his sister from
marrying an abusive man - an incident that reminds Sam of
the fate of his own sister. The subject of
domestic abuse pervades the episode. There are
occasional
screwball moments, such as a "brush with history" with a
toddler
Michael Jackson.
Jason Priestley guest stars as a popular kid who has
little respect for Sam's host.
Sam leaps into private
investigator Nick Allen looking for the murderer of his
partner in a world akin to a
Humphrey Bogart film — or possibly, Sam suggests, a
mystery novel. His host bears an uncanny resemblance to
Bogart, leading to a "brush with history" with a young fan:
Woody Allen.
Claudia Christian plays Sam's love interest. The
episode, and therefore season one, ends with Sam's
first-ever leap into a woman. However, the second season was
being broadcast in a different order than expected, so the
episode to which this teaser alluded, "What Price Gloria?",
became the fourth episode of season two.
