New 'Quantum Leap' honors predecessor

The original "Quantum Leap," which ran for five seasons and 97 episodes from 1989 to 1993 on NBC, is one of the most well-built shows in the history of television.

It used its sci-fi premise of Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) time-traveling within the span of his own lifetime, by "leaping" into the lives of other people, to stage a stealth anthology series.

Each episode, the time, the place and just about all the characters except for Sam and his holographic best friend, retired Navy Adm. Al Calavicci (the sadly departed Dean Stockwell) would be different, which opened the show to limitless storytelling possibilities.

The original "Quantum Leap" was like a slightly more secular version of "Highway to Heaven," and I say "slightly" since it was heavily suggested that Sam's leaps were guided by God, and as blue as Sam's language usually got was his once-an-episode overwhelmed catchphrase of "Oh, boy!"

All of which makes this year's revival, which was seven episodes in as of Halloween, a strikingly different approach to the same concept, even as it's managed to retain the upbeat, humanistic spirit of the original.

Our leaper this time is Dr. Ben Song, played by Raymond Lee with much the same charming mix of everyday hunky hero and boyish genius next door that Scott Bakula brought to Sam Beckett, but Ben's onscreen support team is much more expansive and prominently featured than Sam's, which consisted almost exclusively of Al.

While Sam and Al were easily as emotionally close as brothers, Ben's holographic guide is his fiancée, Addison Augustine (Caitlin Bassett), who sparks off her partner with the unforced chemistry of coworkers turned lovers, and they balance each other nicely as mutually respectful equals, even in the midst of playful teasing or heated arguments.

The rest of Ben's crew is so well-rounded that I don't mind their stories sharing what feels like almost the same amount of screen time per episode as Ben's adventures in the past.

Nanrisa Lee plays Jenn Chou, the reflexively suspicious and formidable head of security for the Quantum Leap project, while Mason Alexander Park, who's so intimidatingly alluring as Desire of the Endless in Netflix's "The Sandman," is endearingly dorky as Dr. Ian Wright, who works with the Quantum Leap artificial intelligence, Ziggy (as in the original series, voiced by Deborah Pratt, ex-wife of fellow executive producer Donald P. Bellisario).

But the real MVP of the extended cast is Ernie Hudson - yes, Winston Zeddemore from the "Ghostbusters" films - who's spent decades honing his skills at contributing to the dynamics of ensemble casts, without detracting from or outshining their primary protagonists.

Hudson heads up the Quantum Leap project as Herbert "Magic" Williams, a Vietnam veteran whom Sam had leaped into during the original series episode "The Leap Home (Part 2)," who then restarted the Quantum Leap project to try and bring the still-missing Sam back home.

Team Quantum Leap is given more to do than merely support Ben, because while Ben suffers from a similar partial amnesia to what Sam experienced, Ben's missing memories include the reasons he was working behind his teammates' backs, with Al Calavicci's renegade adult daughter Janis (Georgina Reilly), who harbors a hidden agenda of her own.

It's a fascinatingly Philip K. Dick method of creating tension between these teammates, as a partially amnesiac Ben works with the rest of the Quantum Leap crew to solve the mystery of why his pre-amnesiac self would keep such significant secrets from such close companions.

Another fun aspect of the modern "Quantum Leap" is watching it speed-run through the milestones of the original series. The white Sam Beckett didn't leap into a person of color until the seventh episode of his first season, while the Asian Ben Song did it in his second episode. Sam didn't leap into a woman until his second season, while Ben did it in his fourth episode. Sam first leaps beyond his own lifetime at the end of his third season, and encounters another, adversarial leaper during his fifth season, while Ben does both in his fifth episode.

And while Sam Beckett saw a ghost in season two, tussled with the devil during a nightmare (and met a young Stephen King) in season three, discovered a mummy's curse was real in season four, and even leaped into a man claiming to be a vampire in season five, Song's very first Halloween episode tasked him with performing the exorcism of an apparent demon.

The current "Quantum Leap" has floated the working hypothesis that all of Ben's leaps are designed to guide him toward a destination, and while I've been burned by modern serialized TV storytelling before - every time the 21st-century "Battlestar Galactica" claimed of its Cylons, "And they have a plan," it was a lie - but I'm willing to follow the examples of Sam Beckett and Ben Song, men of science who nonetheless took things on faith occasionally.

One sad note is that Scott Bakula has told the media that Sam Beckett won't be appearing in this iteration of "Quantum Leap," because while I can sympathize if it's too emotionally difficult for Bakula to come back after the death of Dean Stockwell, I know I'm not the only old-school fan who would be delighted to see Sam finally return home.

You can catch the new "Quantum Leap" Mondays on NBC and Tuesdays streaming on Peacock, which also hosts the complete run of Classic Coke "Quantum Leap" episodes.

Author Bio

Kirk Boxleitner, Reporter

Shelton-Mason County Journal & Belfair Herald
[email protected]