Quantum Leap to return. NBC picked up the sequel

masterjedi322 said:
Generally not impressed with the first episode... But to be fair, I'm a huge fan of the original and recognize there is nothing they can really do that will make this show live up to some of the diehard fans' expectations...

Some gripes:
-The acting wasn't all that great... In fact, I had to stop and wonder whether they were intentionally trying to mimic a cheesy 80s/90s TV show, or whether it was just that bad...
-Ben's amnesia seemed to come and go... It wasn't clear what he remembered or what we he forgot... Sometimes he was clueless and others he was totally fine and confident.
-Addison's role as the supporting hologram. Once they found out Ben was actually an undercover cop, why wasn't she pulling data on that? She just stood there... And a lot of times she was providing data to Ben, she wasn't even looking at the handlink...
-The leap itself - for the premiere of such a long-awaited show, I would have liked for them to have tackled something bigger than saving a dude who got shot as part of a jewel heist...
-The handlink - meh
-Seemed like they talked forever about getting Ziggy back online - more generally, too much time in the present and not in the past.
-Definitely missing the heart-string element that made the original so special

Kudos:
-Ernie Hudson! Magic being the character Sam leapt into in order to save his brother in Vietnam, I thought was a nice touch
-The nods to the original were generally subtle and not overly done, IMHO.
-I liked that they are building something in parallel to the primary mission. Although why would Al's daughter be the force behind the scenes trying to remedy the situation...? Where's Sam's wife? Or even his brother?

I personally don't see this show making it past one season. I think the writing is just lacking. And without Bakula coming back, they'll be hard-pressed to stand on their own feet.

Here's hoping I'm wrong...
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I think your spoiler Review was pretty much spot on - agree with everything except that I didn’t really like the scenes in the “present” and the distracting side plot. But given the acting skills and mediocre chemistry of the primary duo there’s no way they could carry the show themselves the way Sam and Dean did, so a larger cast was probably needed.
 
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Riddle me this, Batman: If Sam's "essence", "soul", "consciousness" (whatever) leapt into someone, that someone exchanged places with Sam. The "Leapie" (vs. Sam the "Leaper") looked like Sam and was held in the so-called "waiting room", shown on several episodes of the original show. And that "Leapie" was essentially a prisoner in the future at the Quantum Leap facility until the leap concluded and he/she was returned to their own bodies. Question: So what happened to the very last person Sam leaped into? Shouldn't there be SOMEONE (who looks like Sam) in the waiting room from the last leap...?
 
scottsusernames said:
Riddle me this, Batman: If Sam's "essence", "soul", "consciousness" (whatever) leapt into someone, that someone exchanged places with Sam. The "Leapie" (vs. Sam the "Leaper") looked like Sam and was held in the so-called "waiting room", shown on several episodes of the original show. And that "Leapie" was essentially a prisoner in the future at the Quantum Leap facility until the leap concluded and he/she was returned to their own bodies. Question: So what happened to the very last person Sam leaped into? Shouldn't there be SOMEONE (who looks like Sam) in the waiting room from the last leap...?
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I believe they did away with the waiting room to add to the storyline, using the quantum physics principal of "quantum superposition".

Basically, rather than using the waiting room (which was prone to a number of plot holes in the original series), Ben's mind takes the dominant place in whoever he leaps into, where as the original leapee's mind is suppressed until Ben leaps out, thus allowing them to not have any memory of leaping in and out of their own body. The podcast "Fate's Wide Wheel" covers this in better detail. Personally, I think this is quite an interesting story change!
 
This was... okay... Rough start, but I've seen some good shows start out with worse. Still fun, but the script was pretty clunky/expositiony, and man some of the effects in this REALLY weren't working. I've done better rotoscoping by myself in film class (where we, coincidentally, edited old Quantum Leap footage as practice.)
I very much agree with the others before me that the modern day stuff was lackluster, I wasn't at all interested in what was going on, but honestly I wasn't that invested in what was going on in the past either. I think a big problem with it was the pacing.

Overall, I have hope that it'll get better, but I'm not holding my breath.

Also, on Bakula not coming back for the show: I don't trust that completely. Liam Neeson said "I don't do TV shows" ahead of Kenobi, sooooooo time will tell.

Live commentary while watching:
Liked the opening narration, very happy this is a sequel rather than a reboot.

I definitely would have gotten rid of the opening showing Ben's life. If he's going to have amnesia, we should only know as much as him (in my opinion) otherwise, why does he not know what we do? (nevermind, we see later its to create drama in the present) Introduce him already in the past, confused and swiss-cheese brained. Though, maybe that's just me looking back at what the original was? I chose not to do a rewatch before jumping into this (last time I watched this was over a decade ago) but from what I remember, the most we got in episode 1 was Sam leaping, and then the information Al gave us.
So in that case, just starting at a point of "Who am I and why am I here" would have been way more interesting and intriguing than introducing all these modern characters— but maybe the show will go somewhere interesting with it!

Yay for the white turtle-neck time-travel suit!

Man the dialogue/chemistry when she first finds him and he says he has no memory is rough (chemistry over all is rough, dialogue clunky) but leaping in mid bank heist is a fun intro.

OH NO that green screen is so bad in the hologram room. How the heck did the original do it better? C'mon, guys, we have technology.

The wife who needs dialysis expositioning their money problems and showing up with their daughter right when Ben is trying to guess why he's doing this was COMICAL. Also, "Ryan's not a criminal"

GEEZ the rotoscoping in the car. Guys, I know we were going for the same feeling as the original, but did you have to make the rotoscoping look like it was from the 80's too? Sitcoms have looked better.

So you gave us both the visual exposition of the foreclosure and the sparknotes dialogue exposition, and then one scene later give us another summary? Why are you repeating yourself.

Ben you totally just screwed over they guy you leaped into by threatening this Romanian man.

If Ben just tells Ryan he's psychic we can just have a Quantom Leap + Psych mashup.

I feel like they keep jumping back to the present because they don't have enough story to do in the past, and yet they don't really have anything to do in the present.

I was under the impression that Ryan and Nick were good friends, was he actually just some guy who walked into his restaurant?

Ben, buddy, you're not trying hard enough with that friction.

YOU DON'T START A SONG LIKE THAT AND JUST GO TO COMMERCIAL BEFORE IT PICKS UP.

The hospital just took care of Katies treatment pro bono and Ryan got his restaurant back? Huh? Just a "It's not easy, but things get better for them." Would have been fine.

AL'S DAUGHTER??? I can get behind this legacy stuff.

EVEN THE MOTION TRACKING ON THE PHONE IS SKETCHY.

Fun leap cliff hanger, like the good ol days.
 
scottsusernames said:
.Question: So what happened to the very last person Sam leaped into? Shouldn't there be SOMEONE (who looks like Sam) in the waiting room from the last leap...?
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If I remember correctly, the final episode of the original series was a bit “metaphysical”. Sam leapt into his own body in a maybe real/maybe imaginary town. When Sam leapt no one arrived in the Waiting Room. He was given the chance to choose whether he wanted to go home or continue leaping. He chose to continue and at that point his connection to the Project was broken. Presumably any future “hosts” ended up in some “other” Waiting Room (the mysterious controlling force for Sams leaps was often referred to as “God, Fate, Time or whatever”.)
As for the current show, we’ve seen no mention of a Waiting Room. No hint that the new Leaper is exchanging places with anyone. They really glossed over the whole Time Travel explanation thing. We didn’t even get Sam/Al’s “time is like a piece of string” explanation. It was just “you time travelled and you look like someone else now.” They we’re REALLY vague.
 
I liked this second episode a bit better, but the plot in the past was pretty shallow. Picked up in the end, but felt rushed. They seem more interested in telling the modern day story around the mystery of why Ben leapt then the actual result of Ben leaping, and I swear the present had more screen time, and even when they were in the past they still spent a chunk of time discussing/expanding upon drama from the present. What should be the B plot (what's happening in modern times) is, at the moment, the A plot.

I just really don't think they're balancing the two stories well at all. I don't know that much or care about the people in the past, they're just props.
Willing to bet the code at the end, and the specific location Ben's trying to get to, is where Sam is, or that place Sam went to in the last episode of the old show.
 
I really enjoyed this episode, felt more like the old show. Apparently this was originally the pilot, but the network didn't like it so they reworked it to episode 3? Anyways, the primary drama of the episode stayed in the past and I enjoyed the solution/training they came up with for how he was going to try and win.
One small problem I had was we don't really have enough familiarity with Janis or Al's wife to really be invested in the betrayal. But the rest was good! And seeing Al's handlink again was cool but again they need to fix the rotoscoping on everything to do with the hologram thing.
Also thought Ian's clothes were vaguely Al-like this episode.
Screen Shot 2022-10-04 at 6.20.46 PM.png

Don't know if that was intentional or I'm just delusional
 
Starganderfish said:
If I remember correctly, the final episode of the original series was a bit “metaphysical”. Sam leapt into his own body in a maybe real/maybe imaginary town. When Sam leapt no one arrived in the Waiting Room. He was given the chance to choose whether he wanted to go home or continue leaping. He chose to continue and at that point his connection to the Project was broken. Presumably any future “hosts” ended up in some “other” Waiting Room (the mysterious controlling force for Sams leaps was often referred to as “God, Fate, Time or whatever”.)
As for the current show, we’ve seen no mention of a Waiting Room. No hint that the new Leaper is exchanging places with anyone. They really glossed over the whole Time Travel explanation thing. We didn’t even get Sam/Al’s “time is like a piece of string” explanation. It was just “you time travelled and you look like someone else now.” They we’re REALLY vague.
Click to expand...
Ben and the leapee now share the same body. Ben's mind/psyche/etc. just takes over. The waiting room was prone to quite a few plot holes.

I'm guessing, since they've started to reveal how Ben's trying to reach his destination in spacetime using a similar maneuver to Voyager II's gravity assist, they'll dive a bit further into the science behind Ben's method of leaping a little bit later on into the season. If they introduce too much techno-babble to early on, it might turn off newer viewers.
 
PhantomForge said:
I really enjoyed this episode, felt more like the old show. Apparently this was originally the pilot, but the network didn't like it so they reworked it to episode 3? Anyways, the primary drama of the episode stayed in the past and I enjoyed the solution/training they came up with for how he was going to try and win.
One small problem I had was we don't really have enough familiarity with Janis or Al's wife to really be invested in the betrayal. But the rest was good! And seeing Al's handlink again was cool but again they need to fix the rotoscoping on everything to do with the hologram thing.
Also thought Ian's clothes were vaguely Al-like this episode.
View attachment 1623071
Don't know if that was intentional or I'm just delusional
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I think it's definitely intentional. I've been seeing their costumes throughout the show online being called "Al-fits", a name I just can't help but love.
 
PhantomForge said:
I liked this second episode a bit better, but the plot in the past was pretty shallow. Picked up in the end, but felt rushed. They seem more interested in telling the modern day story around the mystery of why Ben leapt then the actual result of Ben leaping, and I swear the present had more screen time, and even when they were in the past they still spent a chunk of time discussing/expanding upon drama from the present. What should be the B plot (what's happening in modern times) is, at the moment, the A plot.

I just really don't think they're balancing the two stories well at all. I don't know that much or care about the people in the past, they're just props.
Click to expand...
I think you nailed the problem right here. They're splitting every episode between past and present and neither is getting enough attention. Part of the charm of the original was that each week we got to meet a new cast of characters, learn their stories and see them through Sam's eyes. Instead, we get a truncated time travel experience mixed up with a modern-day "spy" thriller type of show, and so much of the present-day plot-line is kind of generic.
We're essentially getting two entirely different stories crammed into each episode, and the only connecting tissue is, I'm sad to say, the least interesting member of the cast. There's some good actors and interesting characters here, but they aren't the ones we're seeing enough of.
I actually think the show would work a lot better if the snazzy computer guy (Ian?) was the hologram, and the dour fiance was the one doing the running around in the present. Then ditch Ernie Hudson's "security gal" sidekick altogether and pass her story-beats onto the grumpy fiance.
It's becoming clear that the overarching premise of this show is very different to the original.
Time Travel isn't the heart of the story, it's just the MacGuffin they're wrapping their corporate/military espionage drama around.
I'd be interested to see an analysis of how much of each episode is in the past vs the present and if that changes as the season progresses. I'll keep watching and hoping it gets better but so far I'm really not feeling invested in either storyline.:(

On the bright side, the ending of episode three does have definite "Evil Leaper" vibes. As silly as those episodes were in the original, they were also a bit of a guilty pleasure.
 
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Someday I should tell you guys about the worst date of my life that involved (albeit somewhat tangentially) Quantum Leap.
 
Apollo said:
Wow they are really grasping for straws already if they are bringing out the “evil leaper” sham! :D

How pathetic! :rolleyes:
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It’s not exactly the original evil Leaper it’s more the cliche “someone stole the tech and we’re going to have to chase them down and stop them”… which I guess is kind of what the Evil Leaper plot line was in a way, but at least they tied it into the Higher Power is in control theme.
But so far we’ve seen almost none of the “God, Fate, Time or Whatever is controlling the leap.” They’ve gone with a much more mundane “secret conspiracy” thing. I get the feeling they’re scared to bring in divine powers in case they offend people or something? Instead we get a much more generic “bad guys” theme. QL didn’t even have or need bad guys except for the brief Evil Leaper storyline which was like a three episode arc.
I guess I just hope that if they add a competing program it might at least tie some of the two disjointed plots more closely together.
 
Starganderfish said:
It’s not exactly the original evil Leaper it’s more the cliche “someone stole the tech and we’re going to have to chase them down and stop them”… which I guess is kind of what the Evil Leaper plot line was in a way, but at least they tied it into the Higher Power is in control theme.
But so far we’ve seen almost none of the “God, Fate, Time or Whatever is controlling the leap.” They’ve gone with a much more mundane “secret conspiracy” thing. I get the feeling they’re scared to bring in divine powers in case they offend people or something? Instead we get a much more generic “bad guys” theme. QL didn’t even have or need bad guys except for the brief Evil Leaper storyline which was like a three episode arc.
I guess I just hope that if they add a competing program it might at least tie some of the two disjointed plots more closely together.
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Thanks for the clarification and info. (y)
 
Just caught Episode 3, and it gave me a bit of hope that this show will find its footing…just hope it’s before they get canceled.

And I really wish they’d pick a direction with the new handlink. Sometimes it has a hologram above it. Most times it doesn’t, and Addison is just staring into space…oof.

On the bright side, my kids, who have never seen QL, watched the latest episode with me. With the tie-ins to the original series, they had a ton of questions. So afterwards, we watched the first episode of the original show, and they are hooked!

Sean
 

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