ORBzine - Quantum Leap TV Review
[ Season 1 !Season 2 !Season 3 !Season 4 ! Season 5]
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 1]
Lee Harvey Oswald - October 5, 1957 - November 22, 1963 (1)
Shown 22 Sep 92
This Season the episodes start with an exposition voice-over, then goes into a jazzed-up titles sequence. The music is more jazz-pop style than the original version, a change later imitated by Bakula's other famous show, Enterprise . Also, there appears to be more of an emphasis on sex and violence. In fact, most if not all of those clips were already in the Season 3 credits, but the music certainly makes them more apparent.
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is Lee Harvey Oswald. He starts by authenticating the suspicious photo of Oswald with the rifle ...
Bellisario, the Producer, wrote this episode himself. He knew Oswald - they were both in Japan together when he was USN and Oswald was USMC. Bellisario never believed all the conspiracy theories, such as in the films JFK and Ruby, which came out about the time this episode was made. He portrays the Oswald he knew as a Lone Nut. Watch out for the second-last scene of this episode, where Sam-as-Oswald is confronted by a Marine Corps Sergeant played by unknown actor Matthew Charles Nelson. This character's name-badge is Bellisario - evidently an example of the author inserting himself into a story, although admittedly it is life imitating art!
If this portrayal of Oswald is true and accurate, it is far more frightening than any CIA/Mafia conspiracy theory. Oswald is a Marxist fanatic, obsessed with the Proletariat, and is renowned for his abrasive, anti-American, undisciplined attitude. Yet not only is he allowed to join the USMC - a heavily-armed branch of the US military that regards itself as an elite and prides itself on Patriotism - but at the height of the Cold War he is made a radar operator on the most secret USMC project, the U2 spy-plane!!!
Willie Garson ( Stargate SG-1 ) is Lee Harvey Oswald, back in the imaging chamber. He and Sam have had their neurones mixed, so Oswald gets Sam's science know-how and Sam becomes aggressive and short-tempered. This is especially a problem when Sam loses his temper while talking to Al (Dean Stockwell - Battlestar Galactica ). In all fairness, Al is quite annoying and provides distraction rather than information. However, everyone sees Sam-as-Oswald talking to his invisible friend.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 2]
Lee Harvey Oswald - October 5, 1957 - November 22, 1963 (2)
Shown 22 Sep 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) has his neurones still scrambled with Oswald's. Al (Dean Stockwell - Battlestar Galactica ) and Ziggy try to save them, but only make things worse. For the first time we see the interior of the base - well, a corridor anyway.
Sam-as-Oswald leaks info on the U2 to the Soviets. The Gary Powers incident is due a few months later, and was subject of an episode in Season One.
Al has a number of crazy theories about the Kennedy assassination, many of which blatantly contradict each other. Since Al is an Admiral in the US Navy, and Ziggy has access to every Top Secret database in the Pentagon, one might imagine that he would have access to enough forty-year-old data to disprove the crackpot theories. However, as usual the character is played entirely for laughs. A pity, because Bellisario is usually keen on making the US Military look so perfect.
The plot churns onward, towards the inevitable denouement. Oswald takes a practise shot at a senior member of the US Military-Industrial complex. Nobody in that part of Texas will defend their home with a gun, but they do not need to because they all seem to let dangerous man-eating dogs run wild off the leash.
Finally, Oswald gets to the Book Depository. Will things end up like in Red Dwarf: Tikka To Ride ? Can Sam prevent the assassination - or will our hero be the one to pull the trigger?
The twist ending is a bit of a non-sequitor. Firstly, Sam jumped into the wrong person and should have been a Secret Service bodyguard instead. Secondly, Al can now remember what happened before Sam changed history. How can Al remember things that contradict what Ziggy tells him?
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 3]
Leaping of the Shrew - September 27, 1956
Shown 29 Sep 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is Nikos, a Greek sailor adrift in the Aegean. Sam has been outside the USA before - to Japan and Vietnam in the US military, for example. But this ep is still a first.
Sam is stranded with a spoilt American heiress ( Brooke Shields ), on her honeymoon. She is the shrew of the title - a stuck-up bitch, playing hard-to-get. This is a deliberate piece of stunt casting, because she is best known for her role in shipwreck romance Blue Lagoon.
Sam mentions the planet Venus, and the Greek god Zeus. Perhaps the magical powers behind Quantum Leap are the Olympians!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 4]
Nowhere to Run - August 10, 1968
Shown 6 Oct 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is a crippled Vietnam veteran. He is unhappily married to Judith Hoag , best known as April O'Neill in Teenage Mutant Ninjas 2: Secret of the Ooze . Luckily, he is being cared for by Jennifer Aniston in a tight sweater.
Sam is ordered to save the life of a suicidal Marine. The actor is the TBG from Spin City, but he previously played a character called Samuel Beckett in China Beach, a show about a US Military hospital in the Vietnam era!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 5]
Killin' Time - June 18, 1958
Shown 20 Oct 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is in a jam in 1958. He is a Serial killer with hostages - a woman and daughter who do not try to escape or kill him. They are the least of his worries. The local redneck sheriff is a shoot-first kind of guy at the best of times, but it turns out that his daughter caught a bullet in a shootout with the suspect. Sam has to help the hostages develop Stockholm Syndrome before the Sheriff saves the State the cost of a trial!
The REAL killer (a twitchy fellow) somehow pulls a gun on Al (Dean Stockwell - Battlestar Galactica ). Perhaps it is the same pistol that Al used to torture Lee Harvey Oswald with. However, that looked like a Glock 9mm and this seems to be a Colt 1911. It could also be from one of the USMC guards in the base, although it is never explained.
The killer escapes from the hi-security base, into 1999 USA. The nearest city to Stallion Gate, new Mexico, has a skyline that includes the Library Tower from Los Angeles. Its ground level is a concrete underground, like the city in Total Recall (1991) . He meets a cheap streetwalking hooker who wears a fairylights dress and edible bodypaint. She lives in a voice-activated luxury apartment ... Or perhaps it is just a cheap fleabag motel where she takes the johns.
To pad out the episode's running time, Al loses track of the killer. Luckily, the killer is homesick for the 1950s so he breaks back INTO the base! This is lucky, because Al must return Sam's body to the chamber before Sam can Leap out.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 6]
Star Light, Star Bright - May 21, 1966
Shown 27 Oct 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is an old man who thinks he saw a UFO.
The grandson, Morgan Weisser ( Space: Above and Beyond ), wants to be a musician while his father forces him to go to College. Yes, this is family-based rather than a pseudo-thriller ep.
The MIBs from Project Blue Book (ok, a shrink and a USAF officer) investigate. They even use Sodium Pentathol, and get more info out of Sam than they expected! For example, for Sam it is 1st May 1999.
This is at least the THIRD time we have seen Sam talking to his invisible buddy.
More importantly, this show contains a couple of ironic coincidences. Firstly, the plotline involves MIBs from Blue Book - a plot out of X-Files . And when Morgan Weisser was in that show, he played ... Lee Harvey Oswald, who Sam leaped into only half a dozen episodes ago!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 7]
Deliver Us From Evil - March 19, 1966
Shown 10 Nov 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is Jimmy again, a couple of years on. The retarded - oops, special - guy from ( Quantum Leap [Season 2, Episode 8] ).
This time the problem is not Blue (Michael Madsen - Reservoir Dogs). No, it is worse. The brother (a dirt-poor working-class manual-labour dock-hand) is married to a middle-class, college-educated woman. She has discovered Womens' Lib, and the marriage is falling apart.
Sam discovers that he is not the only Time Traveller in the era. And he has a lot to learn about women!
Because this episode takes place directly after the Blue Book story, is it possible that Sam's interrogation lead directly to the creation of the Evil Leapers? Sam never bother to investigate the Devil, the Ghost, the Bigfoot, the Vamp or the UFO ... but maybe someone else was studying the time traveler!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 8]
Trilogy Part I - August 8, 1955
Shown 17 Nov 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is a redneck sheriff in the Deep South.
The small hick town has a hell of a body-count. Dead men in swamps, entire families murdered by crazy women who get committed to asylums, young girls who die in mysterious circumstances ...
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 9]
Trilogy Part II - June 14, 1966
Shown 24 Nov 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is Deputy Sheriff of the same Dixieland town as last time. He is engaged to marry the now-adult girl fom the previous ep. His brain is so swiss-cheesed, he is unstoppably horny.
A young boy runs away from home. His mother is an absentee bitch, and he is much closer to the babysitter - Sam's fiance!
A lynch-mob, led by the eeevil mom (and the firestarter from last ep), try to kill Sam's fiance.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 10]
Trilogy Part III - July 28, 1978
Shown 24 Nov 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is an OAP lawyer, still in the Deep South. Abigail, the girl from the other two eps, is now a single mom. She is on trial, facing the electric chair!
Sam must solve the deaths in the first ep, and the murder that the trial is for. Unfortunately, every time the OP lawyer in the waiting room has a heart attack, Sam has one too. Or something equally contrived.
The soon-to-be-orphan is called Sammy Jo. Named somehow after Sam Beckett, who is apparently her biological daddy! Sam's mind being swiss-cheesed, he will forget this in the next leap. Bloody reset button!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 11]
Promised Land - December 22, 1971
Shown 15 Dec 92
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is a hick farmboy. He and his brothers start a siege in the local bank, after the manager forecloses on their family farm.
This is like the Great Depression of the 1930s. Honest farmer folk cheated out of their land by big-city money-men.
This all takes place in Sam's home-town. Naturally he sides with the farmers, because he blames himself for his family farm being lost.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 12]
A Tale of Two Sweeties - February 25, 1958
Shown 5 Jan 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is a bigamist. And a con-man, compulsive gambler, and twit.
Sam has two wives, each with a son and daughter. He has to keep them apart, then choose one. He has a cunning plan, but refuses to tell Al (Dean Stockwell - Battlestar Galactica ). Dramatic tension, you see.
Sam also owes two Grand to a bookie. He is so short on cash he steals cutlery from the hotel he is staying in, but somehow Sam remembers the results of a horse race!
Shockingly, it seems that if either wife left the stupid con-man she could immediately trade up and get a rich, successful husband. No womens' lib or careers, of course - that is in the next ep!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 13]
Liberation - October 16, 1968
Shown 12 Jan 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is a middle-aged housewife caught up in the Feminazi Revolution led by a violent man-hater. His/her teenage daughter is also involved - illustrating how the issues are those of a teenage temper-tantrum!
The man of the house expects his wife to do a few household chores. Unlike unmarried people, who let the laundry fairy take care of everything. Worse, he refers to his spouse as Sweetie - the BASTARD! I just sock'em on the jaw and shout Pop goes the weasel!
Women in the workplace do not get equal promotions or pay. Possibly because in this ep they do not EARN it.
Modern-day USA has equal pay and conditions for women, and child-care facilities, and takes this situation for granted. The stated reason being, If companies want the best female talent, they must pay the price. Pure selfish greedy capitalist motivation, nothing to do with Socialist altruism!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 14]
Dr. Ruth - April 25, 1985
Shown 19 Jan 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is Dr Ruth, a radio shrink who gives callers relationship advice. Yet another piece of stunt casting, a sign the show outlived its three-Season lifespan.
She/He/It must get a bickering couple of co-workers together. They are both insecure. So are most people in the ep, in fact.
Sam must also protect a man from a clingy bunny-boiler. Is this a reference to the film Fatal Attraction (released circa 1985, when this is set), or yet more man-bashing crap like the previous ep?
This is one of the few eps to largely feature the alternate personality. Dr Ruth counsels Al (Dean Stockwell - Battlestar Galactica ), sorting out his relationship with Tina (who he has been shagging since the pilot, but who has having an affair with Gushy). Al is still hung up on his first wife, see?
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 15]
Blood Moon - March 10, 1975
Shown 9 Feb 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) wakes up in a coffin. Not buried alive - well, not buried, anyway. He is a Bela Lugosi lookalike dressed in evening garb, and Al (Dean Stockwell - Battlestar Galactica ) thinks the guy is a vamp!
Ian Buchannon ( Sliders S3, Alias S3 ) arrives as a dinner guest. And a suspected vampire and murderer.
Erzebet Bathory was apparently a man, even though Hammer made Countess Dracula . Wow! Sam somehow changed history 400 years ago!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 16]
Return of the Evil Leaper - October 8, 1956
Shown 23 Feb 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is a college boy who thinks he is a superhero. Out to right all wrongs in a self-richeous way - just like Sam.
As the title implies, the Evil Leaper pops up and tries to turn local bully Dougie Howser ( Starship Troopers ) into an even bigger twit.
The running time is padded quite atrociously. The end segment drags on forever ... and the end credits are slower than ever.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 17]
Revenge of the Evil Leaper - September 16, 1987
Shown 23 Feb 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) and Alia are convicts in a womens' prison. They have been accused of murdering another inmate, and Alia has lost her memory.
Zoe is now the Evil Leaper. A token Black Guy is now her hologram, a sort of villainous Al (Dean Stockwell - Battlestar Galactica ). Like Zoe he wears futuristic clothing.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 18]
Goodbye Norma Jean - April 4, 1960
Shown 2 Mar 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is now chauffeur to Marilyn Monroe. Yes, yet more Baby-Boomer wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Marilyn is due to do a film, then OD. Sam disrupts this, then turns it back the way it used to be. Nothing really gets solved, there is no solution to the ep. No real purpose to it.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 19]
The Beast Within - November 6, 1972
Shown 16 Mar 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is a Vietnam war veteran. Just like in Deer Hunter, four small-town buddies joined up together. They all served in the same unit, where they happily committed war crimes. Unfortunately, none of them had a happy ending (so far).
The Sheriff is now married to the boss's widow, and stepfather to the boss's young son. The son is obsessed with taking a photo of Bigfoot, so he runs away from home and hangs out with his dead dad's homeless buddies in the hills.
Four episodes ago, Sam encountered pseudo-vamps. Here he has a brush with Bigfoot. Although Al (Dean Stockwell - Battlestar Galactica ) purports to believe in such things, no attempt is made to catalogue or scientifically explore the paranormal. One would think that a project of the scale of Quantum Leap would actually so some science.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 20]
The Leap Between The States - September 20, 1862
Shown 30 Mar 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is his own great grand-father.
A Union officer, he is sheltered by a Southern woman ( Kate McNeill ) and her slave.
The Confederate Home Guard, as in Cold Mountain, chase Yankees, runaway slaves and sympathisers. Plus, they are after the women. Especially when Sam gets them drunk!
Season 5 loved to step outside the show's basic premise. There are only a couple more eps to go ...
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 21]
Memphis Melody - July 3, 1954
Shown 20 Apr 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is Elvis Presley.
Last time he was against the South, this time he sings Dixie. Apart from that, this is not exactly a pro-South ep. The villain is yet another Southern Gent.
Sam must help a woman get a singing career, instead of becoming an unhappy homemaker. Feminism over family values - something this show has never managed to balance. Every single person must be forced into marriage, but every wife must be given a career!
Sam, a Carnegie Hall pianist and fun-loving DJ, does not even TRY to be a good guitarist. His lacklustre approach almost costs Elvis his career!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 22]
Mirror Image - August 8, 1953
Shown 5 May 93
Sam (Scott Bakula - Star Trek: Enterprise ) is himself.
He is stuck in a tavern where Bruce McGill (who appeared in the pilot ep) is bartender. Other recognisable guest-stars are Steven McHattie ( X-Files ), John D'Aquino ( SeaQuest, Xena ), Richard Herd ( V ) and Morgan Shepherd SeaQuest, TNG ) - in fact, McGill is the only one he DOESN'T recognise!
