This list stack ranks the 62 episodes of both in an apples to apples comparison.

Also, I’ve never liked the clickbait-y drama of counting down top lists backwards, so I’ll take it from the top. (Besides, as memory serves there aren’t many bad episodes of Quantum Leap–though in my opinion two of them are from Season 1. There’s your encouragement to scroll to the bottom…)

Quantum Leap Episode Rankings
_{^{36 Episodes: First 18 of Original 1989 Series + First Season of 2022 Revival
26 additions: Season 7 (Revival S2) + OG S2 eps 11-22 + OG S3 Premiere}}

M.I.A. (Season 2, Episode 22)
A classic all around, from Al’s attempt to hijack the leap to the heartbreaking “Georgia On My Mind” dance. Al a little more goofy/jokey than normal before realizing the red-letter-date they’ve landed on, but I like the way it’s done as a clue by personality juxtaposition. Only real quibble is the two crooks overact their parts.

Against Time (Season 7, Episode 13)
Such a great episode, continuing the long tradition of strong Quantum Leap season finales (M.I.A, Shock Theater, A Leap for Lisa, Mirror Image, Judgment Day). It has callbacks to the original, callbacks to older revival episodes, a lot of heart, and runs with the planned alternate ending the original would have used had it been renewed all those years ago. This is a franchise firing on all cylinders. My only minor gripe is the whole “I changed my name!” trope that kicks it off, but since the rest of this episode is so amazing I’ll let it slide. Final fun fact: The leap date is July 3, 1976 — same as in the script I wrote in college almost 30 years ago.

Another Mother (Season 2, Episode 13)
A long time favorite that didn’t disappoint on my rewatch. “That’s not my mommy, that’s a man.” is a quote I think of far too often. Animals seeing Al may have been added for practical reasons, but the children under 5 rule is brilliantly introduced here. Refreshing to not see the gender swap played for laughs as they often were. Possibly the most scenes without Sam or Al present of any episode to this point.

Honeymoon Express (Season 2, Episode 1)
A soft reboot of sorts that cements the boy scout Sam juxtaposed against the wise-cracking, womanizing Al everyone remembers the series for. Features several scenes of Al in “the future” of the mid-nineties at a hearing to secure funding to continue the project. The two plots go well together, leading to a neat time-travel inspired twist ending. Interesting how showing both timelines was a rarity for the original series (and having time travel tie directly into the story even rarer) but a core component of the revival.

Jimmy (Season 2, Episode 8)
Such a fan favorite that the namesake character was revisited in three additional episodes, this leap with a lesson allows the viewer to walk in the shoes of a man with Down Syndrome. One of the first times Sam takes on characteristics of the leapee. Great scene where Al seemingly starts telling yet another story about one of his conquests before we realize he’s actually talking about his younger sister.

S.O.S. (Season 6, Episode 14)
Strongest overall episode of the reboot, rivaling many of the tried and true classics with a few nice callbacks. Perfect blending of past and present and serialized plot within a standalone leap story, including a neat trick of finishing sentences between time periods. Battleship setting feels epic and film-like. Favorite line: “If I asked a dumb question, would that distract you?”

The Color of Truth (Season 1, Episode 7)
Arguably the first classic leap with a lesson, it holds up without being too preachy even if it’s not exactly subtle. Features Al’s first side-mission separated from Sam and the first instance of someone hearing him. Fun fact: This is often remembered as a Driving Miss Daisy tribute/copy, but it predated the movie by several months.

Let Them Play (Season 6, Episode 12)
Ben Song’s first foray into a topical leap, this one makes the decision to put him alongside the subject as he becomes a basketball coach with a trans player–who also happens to be his daughter. A powerful episode that also gives the season-long mystery arc a big step forward.

The Friendly Skies (Season 6, Episode 17)
The penultimate episode of the inaugural reboot season leaps Ben into the body of a 1970s flight attendant for an airborne whodunnit–a high concept leap story I’m surprised the original never attempted. Pitch perfect script featuring heart/humor/hope and a number of clever twists subverting expectations and avoiding cliched tropes.

Pool Hall Blues (Season 2, Episode 18)
When I think about Quantum Leap, Ziggy drawing lines on the pool table and the iconic shot of Al watching the final ball go into the pocket from this episode are always among the first images to pop into my head. Grady is one of my favorite leapee sidekicks, we get a mini leap with a lesson with the bank officer scene and a fun random Sam at the piano moment. Aside from questionable use of slow motion in a few scenes at the club this one is flawlessly written & directed.

Somebody Up There Likes Ben (Season 6, Episode 3)
Ben Song follows in Sam Beckett’s footsteps, with the third episode for both landing them in the life of a boxer who needs to win a fight. Aside from the nearly identical leap-in punch-out it’s more than a remake, allowing the new series to hit a good blend of past & present day while also including a PTSD angle to fit in the aforementioned lesson leap the OG was known for.

The Leap Home, Part 1 (Season 3, Episode 1)
This one is a classic even with the leap itself outside of Sam leaping into his younger self. The set pieces around trying to save his family work very well, especially when he plays “Imagine” for his sister. I’ve always been partial to Sam’s mad angry dash through the cornfields. The makeup when Bakula plays his own father is cool in a BTTF 2 sort of way. Good continuity from M.I.A.

Off The Cuff (Season 7, Episode 9)
Another classic Alex Berger script, who also wrote “The Friendly Skies” in season 6. Natural evolution of Ben & Hannah’s story. Never expected to get a polygamy “lesson leap” subplot, albeit briefly (“A Tale of Two Sweeties” aside). Nitpicks: Too soon for a bounty hunter retread; why not just have him be a cop? Ian tells Addison she’s urgently needed in the imaging chamber, ignoring/forgetting the revolving door of holograms over the previous episodes.

Leap. Die. Repeat. (Season 6, Episode 11)
A very clever way of playing with the typical formula as Ben repeats the same leap through different leapees trying to solve a mystery Groundhog Day style. The new show is especially good at whodunnits even when not explicitly going the detective drama route, while also in peak form when the HQ storyline complements the weekly standalone story.

Disco Inferno (Season 2, Episode 2)
It pleasantly surprised me how well this one stood up in my rewatch. I remembered it as “the disco stuntman” episode, but it has a nice heartfelt plot of trying to steer his brother towards a career in music while also introducing memories of Sam’s brother Tom who died in Vietnam. In some ways this episode created the classic template for a strong standard leap story.

What Price, Gloria? (Season 2, Episode 4)
Sam’s first gender-creative experience was filmed for season 1, held back to be the season 2 premiere, and eventually settled in as episode 4 of the sophomore season. A little dated, but groundbreaking for its time and a classic in the spirit of The Color of Truth, Jimmy, and Let Them Play. Could Buddy Wright from this episode be the grandfather of Dr. Ian Wright in the new series?

Judgment Day (Season 6, Episode 18)
The season 6 finale opens in potential shark jumping territory but thankfully stays in the water. When the featured leap kicks in it’s one heck of a rollicking fun ride. I’m usually a persnickety stickler when it comes to time travel logic needing to make sense, but this episode is so much fun I’m able to suspend my disbelief more than normal. (I also hope/think/suspect some of the seemingly incongruent bits are actually secret setup for season 7; time will tell…) UPDATE: The time travel logic is actually brilliant.

Secret History (Season 7, Episode 6)
A questionable leap premise becomes a standout showcase for the entire cast. Rock/paper/hologram is a great bit, and Tom might be the best hologram so far and does the most hologrammy things. Shifting the mission from finding the formula to destroying it was clever. I’d like the Ian storyline better if it was outright blackmail vs. “you need to hold up your end of the deal” which feels out of character. I can sort of see the delayed leap out being GFTW influenced, but it’s a stretch. “The accelerator thought you needed a friend.” Awww. HINDSIGHT UPDATE: After the season finale, the bit here where Ziggy finds a report Hannah died in a lab accident fire breaks the logic of the overarching Gideon/microchip plot.

Ben and Teller (Season 7, Episode 2)
Fantastic leap story headlined by hologram Ian, great reunion with the HQ cast, decent introduction to new main character Tom Westfall. Favorite bits were the act break with the vault code, Ian embedded in the desk, and the tearful Ben & Addison reunion flipping/negating the titular pun in a cool way. Nitpicks: another delayed leap-out for subplot reasons and no leap-in to next week. Only 3 episodes of the OG didn’t conclude with the next leap-in (including the finale, excluding the cool waiting room transition from Dr. Ruth to vampire). New show has 7 out of 20 so far including both eps this season. It’s the only show on tv that doesn’t need a traditional spoilery marketing trailer. Use it!

So Help Me God (Season 2, Episode 9)
Sam Beckett channels Perry Mason in a tight courtroom mystery. The clever direction each time Al pops in is noteworthy. I always seem to confuse this with the priest episode based on titular “God” here.

Star-Crossed (Season 1, Episode 3)
Season 1 had its episode sequence shuffled vs. the originally intended production order, shifting this one to the post-pilot debut vs. later in the run. The story feels like it could’ve/should’ve been the first season finale with Sam trying to alter his own future & Al getting briefly fired from the project–though I can see why it was selected as a strong showing to air right out of the gate.

Fellow Travelers (Season 6, Episode 9)
The premiere of the second half of season 6 (man, tv schedules are weird these days) features another whodunnit, this one with Ben as a bodyguard for a 70s musician. This episode aired before the Daisy Jones and the Six tv show but after the book version. In my humble opinion as a nerdy music fan “Travelin’ On” is the best Fleetwood Mac imitation song of 2023. Sort of the inverse resolution to “Glitter Rock.”

Good Night, Dear Heart (Season 2, Episode 17)
Whodunnits are a strength of the new show, but the OG could also pull them off with this Edgar Award winning script. The murder mystery is nicely set up and executed, but the Laura Palmer-esque flashes Sam has are sort of random and unexplained. Other nitpick: Why set this leap in November to solve a murder from July 4th? Because it snowed when filming the final scene?

O Ye of Little Faith (Season 6, Episode 7)
A Halloween episode airing on October 31st starts off as a creepy horror show before morphing into a 1930s Agatha Christie style mystery. One of the coolest mirror image interactions of either incarnation. The cliffhanger reveal is a little bit of a stretch better on paper than in execution, but still gets style points for the effort.

This Took Too Long! (Season 7, Episode 1)
And we’re back! Everyone except Ben, that is. A different sort of episode blazing new ground for either series finds the leaper alone with no guide on his journey appearing in the form of a hologram only he can see and hear. In some ways it’s similar to how I always imagined a Sam centered revival might’ve kicked off. Also has some nods to LOST with a plane crash and flashbacks. The final twist (reminiscent of my old OG fan fiction for the Leap Back convention) sets that stage for what looks to be an exciting Season 7.

Family Style (Season 6, Episode 13)
Deborah Pratt wrote or co-wrote more Quantum Leap episodes than anyone else (20), including 4 already ranked above 36 episodes into this experiment. (Note to my future self — remember to update this as this experiment extends.) She added director to her QL resume with this tale of a family Indian restaurant set in 2009.

The Americanization of Machiko (Season 2, Episode 3)
Another strong showing from the beginning of Season 2 that pleasantly surprised me on a rewatch. Holds up better than I remembered, tackles xenophobia head on. Ending feels a little like an unearned cheat, but all in all a solid showing.

Atlantis (Season 6, Episode 2)
An epic leap situation and a nice easter egg callback to the original series via Samantha Stratton. The workplace drama subplot back at the project felt a little clunky but moved the plot forward. Missed opportunity for something like “Ziggy’s having trouble locating Ben anywhere on Earth…” since he wasn’t on Earth. Mildly amusing that Sam’s only astronaut leap was into a chimp who never left the planet, so this is sort of setting right what once went wrong.

Ben Song for the Defense (Season 6, Episode 15)
“Lawyer” feels like too obvious of a leaped there, done that concept. Here it works well by adding a 1980s backdrop, another dose of the revival’s whodunnit wheelhouse, and for the first time switching things up by letting head of security Jenn take a turn in the imaging chamber as the hologram. One of my main nitpicky complaints of the new series was Ben lingering on leaps longer than Sam would after his mission is done. This ep puts right what once went wrong with a borderline premature leap-out that’s really right on time when you think about it.

Nomad(s) (Season 7, Episode 8)
Great failed leap fake-out, though the fact they filmed this episode on location in Egypt before the strike started made it unlikely Ben would truly be stranded. Nice juxtaposition on Hannah waiting 6 years for Ben after Addison didn’t wait 3, as well as Hannah’s “I’m glad you get to keep doing this” immediately followed by Tom revealing “We can get him home!” Lou Diamond Philips does a great guest turn. “They’re in love” act break cliffhanger was a little forced, as was not remembering other outside of the country leaps on vehicles (Space Shuttle, Battleship, Airplane)

One Night In Koreatown (Season 7, Episode 5)
A powerful episode with some great moments, but also feels like it tries a little too hard in a contrived “script is too perfect” cookie cutter sort of way. “Since when do you speak Korean?” was hilarious. Missed opportunity to have Magic yell “Ian, center me on Dwayne!”. Why is there a bar in Magic’s office if he’s a recovering alcoholic?

Leaping in Without a Net (Season 2, Episode 19)
A fun one with heart. Nice mini-message about little people. Psychic seeing other souls in his eyes neat. Favorite random bit is Al standing up in a car and Sam asking him to pretend to sit like a normal person. There’s a continuity issue where Sam had no fear of heights as a stuntman, but a big phobia as a trapeze artist. Don’t think Swiss-cheese explains that away. Grammarian nitpick: I wish the title dropped the “In.”

As The World Burns (Season 7, Episode 12)
A hard one to rank since it aired back to back with “Against Time” as a 2-episode season finale. This one isn’t bad, but it’s also not in the same league as the one after it nor the other Hannah episodes. Still enjoyed it. Jenn’s promotion and Addison’s handling of the ending threat were good HQ bits. 9131 1/4 days is exactly 25 years including leap years. Curious if it means this leap takes place on the exact same day and month as “Closure Encounters” of if the math is just quickly estimated.

Paging Doctor Song (Season 6, Episode 10)
Great blend of the new-series mythology and an ER-style leap where 3 separate storylines converge in interesting ways. The leap-in to deliver a baby feels like a little bit of a cheat to add drama to the tag at the end of the previous episode, and Ben still lingers a little longer than he should after completing his missions. Other downside is it’s the only revival episode to not include Mason Alexander Park as Ian, as their scene was allegedly in the script but cut for time since there’s a lot of leap story going on here.

The Family Treasure (Season 7, Episode 10)
Goonies vibes in a fun romp with good callbacks to the rest of the season. Another outlandish leap that still has enough charm and heart to work as a whole. Love how the title seems to be a non-binary play on “the family jewels,” tying into the theme and a key scene. Well done, Ben Song.

Closure Encounters (Season 7, Episode 3)
Nice X-Files tribute with OG vibes and a kiss with history. Recap seamlessly worked into the final negotiation. Having “the plan” be to have the hologram spy/observe was a good twist underutilized on both shows. I wish we didn’t know Hannah would be recurring going in so it was more of a surprise later. Nits: Ben gets called out for acting out of character when he isn’t. Why leap in 300 miles away from actual mission aside from wanting to have that awkward car ride?

Animal Frat (Season 2, Episode 12)
Fun one with a solid script and good balance between the goofy fraternity and the more serious Vietnam related story. Al oddly doesn’t show up until the morning after Sam arrives. (He also sits in a chair and accidentally bumps into Sam.) Nerdy nitpick: The time travel causation seems a little off with this being one of those leaps where Sam seems to cause the history Ziggy said he was there to prevent.

Salvation or Bust (Season 6, Episode 5)
Full disclosure: I was a little nervous about deviating from the “within his own lifetime” rule but this one put my mind at ease. Same heart as a recent history leap and a story with good character & characters. Shock ending was cool; might have been better with a simu-leap between lines of dialogue. (“I know who you are…” <leap> “…stop following me.”)

The Outsider (Season 7, Episode 11)
Feels like a classic series leap. Neat how figuring out the leap date is becoming a puzzle, here making you do the math when Ben shows a day planner and says “this meeting was a couple of days ago.” Loved the fake commercial and the “Does he speak?” bits. A little predictable overall. Missed opportunity to tie Tom’s wife’s cancer into the weedkiller resolution. Second “they aren’t really dead!” twist in four episodes.

Catch a Falling Star (Season 2, Episode 10)
The leap itself and Sam’s mission feel like an afterthought, but the whole episode is so much fun with a theater production of Don Quixote (in Syracuse!) letting Scott Bakula sing. Subplot with the piano teacher is sort of a “Star-Crossed” redo. The ending with Sam & Al is a memorable, grin-inducing classic.

Stand By Ben (Season 6, Episode 8)
The new version is starting to find itself with a solid topical leap into a 1996 youth bootcamp. First time Ben overlaps with the original project. The teenagers referring to his “imaginary girlfriend” works well as a talking to a hologram coverup, and I especially like the subtle suggestion the group listened to an entire No Doubt album since shuffling required pre-meditation in the 90s.

Double Identity (Season 1, Episode 6)
Written to follow the pilot, Donald Bellisario asked to have it pushed back so as not to confuse viewers with a double leap so soon (and interestingly, for one of only two times ever). The “let’s try to retrieve Sam without really trying to figure out the purpose of the leap” plot makes a lot more sense under that scenario. This one is mostly a riff on The Godfather, but it’s so much fun I can let the movie inspiration slide. Also includes multiple instances of the classic “Al saves the day just in time” trope as well as the “you actually have one more thing to set right” twist ending.

Freedom (Season 2, Episode 16)
The grandfather is one of my favorite characters in the series and would have been a nice Mirror Image cameo. Jailbreak feels a little out of character for Sam but is necessary for the plot. The scalping threat is very out of character, but if taken as foreshadowing for how the leapee’s mind melds with Sam’s I can buy it. Random aside: I dig the guitar based musical cues throughout this one.

Genesis (Season 1, Episodes 1&2)
Middle of the pack, but if your pilot is the best episode ever you’ve got a problem. Exposition heavy as these things often are, it’s a great episode of television but not a great episode of Quantum Leap if that makes sense. Drags a little at times; probably better suited as an hour or ninety minutes vs. a full two including commercials.

A Kind of Magic (Season 7, Episode 7)
Good but not great. Sort of what I feared would happen when the “in his own lifetime” rule was removed. Not very period accurate, plus filming on the exact same Universal Backlot set as “Salvation or Bust” took me out of the story a little. I did like the sequence of three different holograms and the hat tip to “A Single Drop of Rain” at the end. The recurring “little bit funny” joke continues to amuse, and “Ziggy says there’s a 93% chance” fakeout was a clever trope inversion. “Will you be my hologram?” should be a Valentine.

What a Disaster! (Season 6, Episode 6)
Much like the original series had episode ordering altered post-production, this leap was filmed as the new pilot but later retooled to run later. Compared to the script, the present day scenes were scrapped and redone but ~70% of the leap was kept with premiere exposition cut and some clever edits for continuity. 1989 setting a nice nod to the OG. Personally I think this would have been a better inaugural leap, but I’m not a TV executive. Bonus points for the meta title referencing both the earthquake & online rumors this version of the pilot was scrapped because it was a disaster. (Spoiler alert — it wasn’t.)

The Lonely Hearts Club (Season 7, Episode 4)
Starts off as a silly little romcom, which is the kind of slapsticky episode I never liked in the original. Second half and especially the final act has a string of great scenes that saves it — book club, 2 Addison + Ben confrontations, “What if the accelerator isn’t broken?” question. The delayed leap out was avoidable if Neil didn’t enter his daughter’s house until after Ben & Addison’s conversation. Nit: Shouldn’t Addison & Ben immediately remember the 7 additional films in the new history?

Blind Faith (Season 2, Episode 5)
In this instance, a great script gets bogged down by some cheesy choices in cinematography and direction. (Example: The strangler’s first victim.) Minor qualm with not going deep enough on the topic of being blind–though when they did it was great. On the plus side, The Beatles kiss with history is seamlessly integrated into the plot. Sam goofing off with Al and nearly blowing the leap because of it was well done. Once revealed, the killer isn’t as obvious as it seems.

Her Charm (Season 2, Episode 15)
An episode with a different vibe for the original series. Nice twist with the leapee I won’t spoil here, an inverse of the twist in July 13, 1985. Sam uncharacteristically reveals who he is multiple times, and also oddly recalls reading about the original history which always feels a little like a cheat the few times it happens. There’s some comically bad music during the woods chase. Since leap out timing is a pet peeve I have with the new series I’ll admit this one also feels delayed, but GFTW needing the professor to arrive to ensure Dana was safe after Sam left checks my plausibility box.

Ben, Interrupted (Season 6, Episode 16)
A big mythology episode for the revival with a heck of a storyline, but a clunky script kept taking me out of the story as I shook my head at the way little moments were handled. (Janis back at Beth’s house for no good reason/Beth in the episode for 2 seconds; Addison asks Ian if Martinez can see her one scene after he clearly did; Ben’s far fetched escape; the shocking twist of a cliffhanger that’s all tell followed by a gratuitous tag that’s a bit of a cheat in hindsight.) Additional minor quibble: the frequency with which Ben’s name ends up in an episode title was becoming a pet peeve by this point.

Maybe Baby (Season 2, Episode 20)
Kind of a hokey episode that wraps up a little too neatly, but still entertaining. Weird Al has so little info on the actual mission, though I suppose the alias and the lying explains it. Downtown Julie Brown an awesome guest star both at the time and in retrospect. Guess Al forgot the dinosaur handlink trick in favor of sock puppets.

A Decent Proposal (Season 6, Episode 4)
My least favorite leap of the first batch of new adventures, mainly because it feels a little cartoony for Quantum Leap in a way I can’t quite put my finger on. Props for not making a big deal of the first gender creative experience, plus Magic’s “nudge” speech about being leaped into by Sam is an early classic moment that saves the episode from landing at the bottom of my season 6 list.

July 13, 1985 (Season 6, Episode 1)
The second take on a pilot episode that became the new series debut. Much like “Genesis” it’s exposition heavy by necessity, though has the opposite issue of being too short to fit it all in. The heist storyline is an odd choice for a premiere, bordering on cartoony like “A Decent Proposal” was. The undercover cop twist was a clever thing the original never did, though Sam did so once mainly to provide a fake-out leap-in of “he’s a hooker!” But nitpicks aside, IT’S THE FIRST NEW EPISODE OF QUANTUM LEAP IN NEARLY 30 YEARS! with plenty of fun callbacks to the original — and as you’ll see below better than half of the original Season 1 in my humble opinion.

All-Americans (Season 2, Episode 14)
In the first round of this apples to apples ranking exercise I declared “Camikaze Kid” the dividing line between good and bad episodes. This one challenged that premise but ultimately supported it. A by the numbers script with a few clunky moments but otherwise not bad. Out of character for Sam to tell the bookie “I think you’re why I’m here” (though that’s totally a Ben Song move). Seems the only reason Chewy had the conversation about throwing the game was because Sam had to do laps for talking to Al after the Jane Fonda workout. What happened in the original history?

Camikaze Kid (Season 1, Episode 8)
If you asked me for an example of an average / typical episode of Quantum Leap this pretty much fits the bill. Good but not quite great, yet hits all the beats of a self-contained plot where Sam & Al save the day, overcome a few obstacles and have a random kiss with history along the way. I’m really curious where this falls on the line of demarcation if/when I continue to expand this ranking list, but as of this initial writing I consider it the Mendoza Line of Quantum Leap.

Thou Shalt Not (Season 2, Episode 7)
Not sure what to say here except some you like and some you don’t is the beauty of Quantum Leap‘s versatility. Here I felt the scenario and theme were better than the episode. Al’s reveal of the leap purpose comes unusually late. The red herring about Sam’s host having an affair is good and the last 10 minutes save it from a lower ranking.

The Right Hand of God (Season 1, Episode 4)
A fun early episode that lacks the right amount of punch (pun intended). Some good bits tying in the streaker and the twist gambling resolution, but the show is understandably still finding its legs. The subplot about Al’s loud neighbor keeping him up at night is pretty lame, as is the somewhat forced Rocky montage. I gave them a pass for the Godfather episode, but can’t quite do it here.

Good Morning, Peoria (Season 2, Episode 6)
I always remembered this DJ episode as being a favorite, but didn’t really like it on the rewatch. Fun, but not very good. Best part is when proximity to the radio tower makes Al think he’s leaping.

A Portrait for Troian (Season 2, Episode 11)
I love the bit where Al makes ghostly noises since the electronic equipment inexplicably allows people to hear him, plus the first use of the later recycled “center me on Sam!” gag where Al reappears two feet from where he was standing. Also cool to have a Bellisario cameo as the leapee and Deborah Pratt acting. Otherwise, this episode is a train wreck. Trying to retcon Carolyn Seymour’s ghost into the Evil Leaper storyline as head canon is inadvertently intriguing.

Sea Bride (Season 2, Episode 21)
Way too slapsticky for my taste. Did Sam’s presence have any impact besides not getting his leapee killed? Who brings an umbrella on a cruise, let alone throws it away in the ship’s compactor? Weird cross between Seymour & Double Identity and a rare miss from a Deborah Pratt script. Also might have the most scenes without Sam or Al present of any episode. On the plus side, there’s a nice bit of M.I.A setup which the show doesn’t do between eps all that often.

Play it Again, Seymour (Season 1, Episode 9)
Honestly I’ve never really liked this episode. The Bogie references are overdone, the Woody Allen kiss with history unnecessary, and the overall hardboiled plot tries too hard to be something the show isn’t. Twist that Sam remembers reading the future novel this scenario is based on is an interesting idea that doesn’t quite work for me. Sometimes I’m surprised the show got renewed after this first season finale–but I’m immensely thankful it did.

How the Tess Was Won (Season 1, Episode 5)
Another one I chalk up to a show figuring itself out, this is basically Sam playing cowboy without a real goal in mind, culminating with the twist he’s really there to help Buddy Holly write “Peggy Sue” even though Buddy Holly didn’t actually write “Peggy Sue” himself. Al leaves Sam to ride Widowmaker alone, putting his life at risk? Al accuses Sam of having an affair with Tina? Sam’s there to marry Tess — but he failed, oh well. (And he never had a shot–strongly implied to be because he’s either hispanic, ugly, or both? WTF?) He’s also there for several days, but never looked in a mirror until the end? Leapee reflection has glasses Sam isn’t actually wearing? Ziggy knows when people cheat at cards, but gets who was cheating wrong? Just too many out of character oddities requiring suspension of disbelief. (I can see a version of events where GFTW put him there to give Tess the confidence to marry someone, but even that still feels off-brand.)

Figured I’d throw down some play by play reactions to the trailer (along with a few predictions) to get them on the record.

Check this out if you haven’t already, then meet me down below…

• The backward stuff here and on some of the teasers is a little lame, though I doubt any of it will come into play on the actual show.
• I love “Oh shit!” as the modern take on “Oh boy!”
• The new accelerator interior looks awesome, and I’m intrigued by the choice to show a lot more of the present day project than the original series did.
• A lot of the promotion has focused on clips of real historic events which were (mostly) a no-no in the Sam Beckett days until the final season. I’m starting to suspect they’ll come into play more in this one.
• The first leap-in disorientation and arrival of the hologram is pitch perfect, and the hologram glitching when people walk through Addison is a nice modern touch.
• My wife watched the trailer and said “He’s from 2022 but can’t drive stick?” I reminded her I’m from 2022 and can’t drive stick. It’s a stretch to say a hologram can teach someone who doesn’t know for the first time on the fly, but I’m betting he does know but swiss-cheese forgot and this scene is intended to show how lost skills can come back to him. (I don’t have a good excuse as to why I can’t drive stick.)
• “You’re the getaway man. Get us away, man!” is a funny line and very true to the spirit of the original series.
• Hologram Addison riding in a car with Ben is also a good throwback since Al often did that even though it never 100% made sense with the hologram thing.
• The original briefly had a “we’re not allowed to share last names so we don’t mess with time” thing they don’t seem to care much about here.
• “We’re in a relationship that you don’t remember and I can’t tell you about” is a nice take on the swiss cheesed leaper / observer relationship.
• The actress in the rockstar mirror shot looks really familiar to me but I can’t place her.
• It’s fun that a lot of the leaps they show here are similar to ones Sam had previously (rockstar, soldier, boxer, robber, astronaut (albeit Sam was a space chimp…)
• “Changing history for the better…” YES YES YES!
• That catwalk in the imaging chamber seems like it would limit movement of the holographic observer.
• Great casting on the new Gooshie. Also wondering if Ziggy will use they/them pronouns in a nod to the he/she switch mid-series last time around.
• Really excited for Ernie Hudson as former leapee Magic heading the project, taking on half of Al’s old role.
• “Find out why he leaped” is an interesting line, as is the big focus in the synopsis of the mysterious circumstances around Ben’s decision to step into the accelerator. My wild theory: Sam Beckett is ready for retirement but needs to find a replacement. So he leaps into Ben, steps into the Quantum Leap accelerator, and vanishes. We’ll learn this in the season finale or a later episode at the Al’s Place bar where Sam is now the bartender.
• “If you fail, there’s a 100% chance this ship will crash.”
• “It’s time to remake history” is a pretty perfect tagline for this.
• It was speculated that Sam would die if his host did, but God/Fate/Time/Whatever always seemed to leap him out the few times it came close to happening.
• One other random prediction: There’s an episode set during the 1989 San Francisco earthquake — originally intended to be the pilot but re-edited to air sixth after the network felt a better setup was needed. I think attempting to retrieve Ben causes the quake, much like trying to retrieve Sam caused the great northeast blackout of 1965 in the episode “Double Identity” back in 1989. Coincidentally, that episode of the original series was intended to air second but also got moved to episode 6 when Don Bellisario thought an episode with a double leap (seemingly to prevent Sam’s death) airing so early would confuse the heck out of people.

Lesser known BTTF dates include:

• January 1, 1885 (Doc’s trip to the Old West)
• September 2, 1885 (Marty’s trip to the Old West)
• November 12, 1955 (Enchantment Under The Sea / Lighting vs the Clock Tower / Biff gives himself the Sports Almanac)
• October 26, 1985 (The day it all started)
• October 21, 2015 (Marty & Jennifer’s trip to the future)
• October 26, 2015 (Doc’s first trip to the future, assuming “30 is a nice round number”)

In Timely Persuasion many of the actual time travel dates are vague — but there are some key red letter dates based on the narrator’s memories or bits of musical trivia:

• October 12, 1969 (WKNR DJ Russ Gibb starts the “Paul is Dead” rumor)
• September 18, 1970 (Jimi Hendrix found dead)
• April 7, 1994 (Eve of discovery of Kurt Cobain’s body; Tom Grant & Dylan Carlson search house)
• April 12, 2000 (Napster/Metallica copyright suit)
• September 10, 2001 (Trying to save sister)

As long as we’re on the subject, let’s extend the red letter dates to include some of my other favorite time travel tales:

• September 13, 1956 (Sam Beckett’s first Quantum Leap)
• September 9, 1958 (Destination of the time portal in 11/22/63)
• February 22, 1972 (Mickey Wade’s pills bring him here in Expiration Date)
• September 23, 1977 (Clare first meets Henry in The Time Traveler’s Wife)
• October 2, 1988 (Jet Engine & Frank the Rabbit travel back to this date in Donnie Darko)
• October 18, 1988 (Jeff Winston dies and starts replaying in Replay)
• October 26, 1991 (Henry first meets Clare in The Time Traveler’s Wife)
• December 12, 1996 (James Cole witnesses the death of his future self at the airport in 12 Monkeys)
• November 5, 1999 (Jacob travels back to visit Peter at the cafe in Trickshot)
• March 16, 2005 (Uncle Jim visits Danny Deakins in The Man Who Folded Himself)
• October 23, 2030 (The date of the future visions seen in the novel Flashforward)

• Been digging the new Back To The Future Game from Telltale.  It’s essentially BTTF IV, starting off 6 months after the trilogy ends in 1986 and has Marty bouncing back and forth between 1931 and the present interacting with a teenage Doc.  Right now I’m midway through episode 4 out of 5.  It’s probably worthy of a full post once the whole thing is done.
• Discovered yet another Ziggy iPhone app.  This one’s called Ziggy’s Time Traveler Emergency Reference and is basically a QL skinned offline Wikipedia viewer.  Pretty much right along the lines of the real Ziggy, though it won’t tell you when history changes via an edit to the wiki…
• The Beastie Boys short film Fight For Your Right Revisited features an unexpectedly awesome time travel twist, complete with BTTF DeLorean cameo.
• Been so busy I realize I wrote but forgot to post my annual year-end music best of list.  Wait, a minute, I got all the time I want! I got a time machine!  I could just go back early and post it…

Ask and ye shall receive:

Ziggy Lights-On

The game itself is just sort of ok, but the sound effects and the fact that it’s ZIGGY more than make up for it. If you’re a time travel nut like me, Ziggy says there’s a 96.8% chance you’ll want to install this app.

And in other time-travel iPhone news, check out:

DeLorean Time Circuits (iTunes Link)

Highlights:

“A Leap To Di For”
A brand new fan-made episode of the show.  I admit I was a little skeptical about this going in, but I ended up enjoying it quite a bit.  The story did a good job of following the blueprint of a Season 5 “historical” leap while serving as a potential reboot or revival.  There’s a great scene featuring a blue screen of death that toys with QL mythology quite nicely.  And the guy who played Sam really nailed it right down to speech patterns and mannerisms.  I give it a strong B+ overall.

Time Child
A work in progress Quantum Leap novel by executive producer and head writer Deborah Pratt.  She read 3 or 4 chapters that told the backstory of how Sammy Jo Fuller (Sam’s daughter from the 3 part “Trilogy” episode in the final season) realizes her lineage and strives to restart Project Quantum Leap and bring her father home.  Can’t wait for this to come out as a canonical story right from a primary source.

“Somewhere In The Night“
The first thing Scott Bakula did upon his arrival was perform this song live on stage with Velton Ray Bunch.  Bakula wrote it for the episode “Piano Man” in the third season.  It was probably the last thing I expected from this convention and thus a pretty cool surprise.  And I’m still kicking myself for not making this a Local Boy tune in TP…

Fan Fiction Contest
I wrote a story for this while taking a break from my new novel Duty Calls.  Came at a perfect time as I wasn’t really feeling the jury story so this gave me a new focus with a deadline.  My submission was shortlisted as a top-10 finalist, but I didn’t win. (Seems I came in at #5 if this list ranks them in order, but I’m not sure.)  Re-reading it a few months later I’m still proud of it which says something, thought I did notice a couple of annoying verb tense errors leftover from a last minute rewrite

All of the finalists will be published in an e-zine in a few weeks that I’ll link to when it becomes available.

Video Tribute to Dean Stockwell
Sadly, Al had to back out of the convention about a week beforehand for personal reasons.  He did phone in during one of the panels which was nice, but the half hour compilation of his best scenes they put together might have been my favorite part of the whole weekend.  Which is a nice segue into…

Disappointments:

No episode screenings & minimal clips
When the preliminary schedule came out only 3 episode showings were listed.  I was a little surprised since I was expecting a bit of a marathon, but these were 3 good choices (“The Pilot,” “The Leap Back,” and “Mirror Image”) and it made sense to go with the first, the last, and the convention’s namesake.  Throw in some clips with commentary by the wealth of guest stars in attendance (over 50 of them) and it would be a great QL fix.

But for some reason all of these episode screenings ended up being scrapped, presumably for time when panels or auctions ran long.  Aside from the aforementioned “A Leap To Di For” we didn’t see a single episode all weekend.

Clips were also few and far between.  There was a nice tribute to the late Dennis Wolfberg (aka Gooshie) that compiled all of his scenes.  Before each of the 6 guest star panels clips were shown from each actor’s appearance, but these clips were short and on some of the later panels they were not shown at all.  A few times I had to Google actor names on my phone and share the results with people around me when we couldn’t figure out who someone was.

Perhaps my expectations were out of line, but there seemed to be a missed opportunity for more.  For example there were 4 or 5 guests from the episode “Lee Harvey Oswald” present.  Showing that classic ep either in its entirety or as a sequence of highlights interspersed with discussion would have been great!

Even the Stockwell tribute time-traveled around the schedule until fans (especially the ones in my row) were practically begging for it in the closing minutes of the last day.  On one hand I can see how the majority of attendees probably own the DVDs and can watch the episodes whenever they want.  But there’s something to be said about the camaraderie of watching your favorite show amidst hundreds of like-minded fans in one place.  We got that in part during Al’s highlights, but it could have been so much more.

Too Much Non-QL Content
This was probably the part that annoyed me the most, primarily because it underscored the fact that we could have been watching episodes instead.

Sometimes it felt like I was at a Scott Bakula convention rather than a pure Quantum Leap Convention.  Stories and anecdotes often meandered into Star Trek a bit too much for my liking.  (I love Quantum Leap, but I loathe Trek in almost all of its incarnations.)  Even the auction items were at least 40% related to other Bakula projects.

More off-topic content included a presentation on how TV shows are made that revolved around Enterprise (to be fair the guy presenting worked on both shows), a magic show (amusing at times, but the relevency is still a little lost on me aside from a season 3 episode called “The Great Spontini”), and a lengthy video presentation on Deborah Pratt’s new Vision Quest book trilogy (but I’ll give her a pass for her other contributions to the convention).

Nothing was particularly wrong or bad about any of these side events in and of themselves, but because they seemed to take away from time that could have been spent showing episodes or clips they became disappointments.  I wish that the display room had a TV in it showing episodes the whole time as a compromise to my two objections.

Closing Thoughts:

But these quibbles aside, for the most part I enjoyed myself and was glad to have taken the time to reminisce about what was once my favorite show.  It also lead me to have my own Quantum Leap screenings at home to re-watch some of the episodes the panelists starred in for the first time in years.

What has really stuck with me over the last week was something an audience member said before presenting a question to Bakula & Bellisario.  Paraphrasing:

“Quantum Leap was my favorite show when I was 13, and to this day when I find myself in a tough situation I always ask myself ‘What would Sam Beckett do?'”

I hadn’t ever really given it much thought before, but I wonder if subconsciously I’ve done the same thing.  I know Quantum Leap was directly responsible for fueling my time travel obsession and thus was a big factor in the path that brought me to Timely Persuasion.  But was there more to it than that?  Did watching this show religiously at an impressionable age help make me who I am today?  In the words of Al the Bartender:

“The lives you’ve touched, touched others. And those lives, others! You’ve done a lot of good Sam Beckett. And you can do a lot more.”

Maybe there is a little Sam Beckett in me.

And maybe there’s a little Sam Beckett in all of us.

But that’s going to change this weekend.

As my Twitter trial by fire, I’m going to post periodic thoughts and updates from The Leap Back Quantum Leap convention today, tomorrow, and Sunday.

You can follow me at twitter.com/LBDG.

Stay tuned…

On the Timely Persuasion website, I periodically play around with “The Story” section at the top in an attempt to get the best mix of marketing bang plus factual synopsis.  At one point a few months ago I had a late night inspiration and tried a long, rambly, semi in-character and semi as-author version.  Days later I took it down and revised in a simpler direction.

In the interest of a complete permanent record, here’s that longer aborted version:

One early reviewer hit the nail on the head when they said the story of Timely Persuasion has “a premise that is very difficult to summarize in a review.”  That said, I’ll give it a shot below:

Timely Persuasion follows an anonymous music critic on a quest to save his sister from the relationship that ended her life. After a chance encounter at a bowling alley leaves him with the ability to travel in time, our hero uses his musical knowledge to “blink” through the years attempting to keep the couple apart by any means necessary. But is her husband Nelson really to blame?

Along the way he accidentally restructures his family tree, kick-starts his sagging love life, launches a new rock star, and crosses paths with the likes of Huey Lewis, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Billy Joel. Reliving past events through the eyes of his younger selves, he soon finds that correlation and causation are not always what they seem.

This story of death, life, love, and rock and roll defies genre conventions while paying tribute to the classic time travel tales that came before it. Fans of Quantum Leap or Back To The Future will love Timely Persuasion.

Another reviewer read a version of the above synopsis and had this to say:

To be blunt, Timely Persuasion‘s misleading plot blurb makes a fun novel sound absolutely cheesy. Happily, Timely Persuasion absolutely does not go down this road [and] ends up being much more enjoyable than the the above description had led me to expect.

So we’ve learned that I’m a better author than I am a marketer.  Let’s try this synopsis thing again:

Theorizing that his sister’s death was the fault of her husband, an anonymous music critic drank too much at a bowling alley….and vanished.

He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that omit him and driven by a guilty conscience to change history for the better.

His only guides on this journey are song lyrics, cryptic messages linking past and future that only he can see and hear.

And so our hero finds himself blinking from year to year, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next blink will find his sister safe at home.

Ok. That wasn’t much better since I just parodied the intro to Quantum Leap.  But it is a decent summary, and both QL and Back To the Future were heavy influences that the story pays respectful homage to.  One more try:

On the simplest level, this book is about music and bowling and beer and regrets and relationships and time travel.  It’s a love letter to a misspent youth, peppered with a soundtrack for the ages.  Contained in these pages you’ll find references and allusions to the music of (in rough order of appearance): Huey Lewis, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Harry Chapin, The Beatles, Blur, Carter USM, Cast, Supergrass, Black Grape, Oasis, James, Kula Shaker, The Wonder Stuff, Nirvana, Bob Dylan, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Possum Dixon, Pearl Jam, The Offspring, Rodan, Hole, Beck, Reverend Horton Heat, Butthole Surfers, Mighty Mighty Bosstones, 311, Jonathan Edwards, Soul Coughing, Metallica, G. Love & Special Sauce, Paul McCartney, Anthrax, Mary’s Danish, The Mr. T Experience, Bryan Adams, John Waite, Dinosaur Jr., The Moody Blues, Billy Idol, Paula Abdul, Britney Spears, Afghan Whigs, Guns N Roses, Jimi Hendrix, Don McLean, Pantera, Megadeth, Janice Joplin, Jim Morrison, Wilco and more.

Better?  Summarizing seems almost harder than writing the book was.  It’ll make a heck of a lot more sense once you’ve read it.  Let’s finish up by going back to something else that first reviewer said:

“Think Back to the Future.  Think The Butterfly Effect.  Think…oh just read the book already.  It’s pretty good.”

Sounds more like a blog post than a proper story synopsis, eh?

I’ve always felt that Al Calavicci had the sweetest time travel deal of any character.  He had all of the excitement and wonder, but as a hologram he didn’t have any of the danger.  No risk of injury, no risk of paradox, no risk of being stranded (though that did happen once…).  Virtually everything that could go wrong was accounted for.

Since I had given this a lot of thought over the years, and since it was never fully explored on the show, I decided this would be a good starting point for how my hero’s time travel “science” would work.  The problem lied in the fact that only allowing someone to observe but not interact made for a fairly boring story as a whole.  You could learn some valuable things just by watching, but there wouldn’t really be any way to “act” on what you learned in the past.  (Conversely, if you were able to “observe” the future you could act on what you learned upon returning to the present.  But I’ve never been a big fan of future travel in time travel tales.)  So I had a basis, but some modification was necessary.

Al’s rules did have a couple of notable exceptions.  Animals and young children could see and hear him.  I didn’t want to outright copy this, though giving the narrator some sort of interaction was necessary to move the story forward.  Then I remembered one of the most common “rules” of time travel fiction:  Avoid contact with your past self at all costs.  Sometimes this rule is implied but never explored, sometimes it results in an end of the world paradox, and sometimes it serves as a red herring to deliver a twist ending.  But generally speaking, every author (and scientist) tends to call it out as something you shouldn’t do.  And that’s when it hit me.

What if the only person you could interact with while time traveling was yourself?

It was a unique premise I hadn’t seen explored before.  It would nicely set up some tribute scenes in a Sam & Al interactive style.  It allowed the ability to change a timeline, but generally provided protection from paradox so long as you didn’t manage to get your other self killed.  Plus it fit logically with the “subconscious message from your future self” concept I had been kicking around and wasn’t quite ready to abandon.

It was perfect.