“People Don’t Just Jump Into Other People’s Lives.” “Well, My Friend Does.”
When a show reaches season 5, the writers often try to shake things up. That’s the case with the original Quantum Leap’s fifth season. Unfortunately, not all of those attempts actually worked well for the show.
One of those changes was teased in the cliffhanger at the end of season four. Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula), who is still leaping through time into people’s lives in an attempt to change things for the better, has leaped into Lee Harvey Oswald, the first time he’s become a real person. We see exactly what happens next in the two-part season opener. Sorry, but this shouldn’t have been more than one episode at most. Sam keeps leaping into various points in the man’s life, but Oswald’s personality seems to be infiltrating Sam more and more. The result wasn’t compelling drama but more an analysis of a man who committed unspeakable evil. Maybe it was cathartic for the Baby Boom generation as they try to understand why he did what he did, but it certainly wasn’t for me.
Over the rest of the season, Sam jumps into two more famous people. His leap into Dr. Ruth in the 80’s is as uncomfortable for him as it is for me. On the other hand, his leap into Elvis is a pure delight as he has to help a woman without impacting The King’s career.
Another change is that we spend more time in the “future” of 1999, you know, the time that Sam leapt from. This does give Al (Dean Stockwell) something different to do other than the hologram that is trying to guide Sam through each leap. I enjoyed this is in the episode when the criminal that Sam had leapt into escaped and Al had to track him down and bring him back before Sam could leap. On the other hand, most of the time, it didn’t add anything to the episode. Fortunately, they only did this a few times.
Then there’s the trilogy. Sam leaps into the life of Abigail as three different people at three different times in her life. The storylines there got repetitive, and Sam’s obsession/”love” for her as an adult got to be a bit much. Even the twist they tried to give it at the end rang hollow given the ending of the series.
Finally, we have the Evil Leaper episodes. The first time she showed up, the authors clearly wrote themselves into a corner and out of time since everything got magically fixed, which bugged me. Fortunately, I thought things worked better there when they brought those characters back for two more episodes later in the season.
Yes, the majority of episodes this season are still one offs. Some cross the line into lectures more than some of the previous seasons have been, especially the episode about women’s rights. That episode was especially harsh coming after it did after the episode where Sam leapt into a bigamist. That was supposed to be a funny episode, but it wasn’t. It was just cringe. Then there’s the episode about the vampire, which was just strange.
There were episodes I enjoyed, like the previous mentioned Elvis episode. I also really enjoyed it when Sam became his great-grandfather during the Civil War. And the episode about alien sightings was fun.
Which brings us to the series finale. I will be discussing what happened, so if you don’t know and don’t want to be spoiled, skip the rest of the paragraph. I fully sympathize with the producers who were not informed the show was going to be cancelled for sure until after they had filmed the show. Apparently, there were several endings filmed, and the one we got was the network’s decision. So I will blame the network. That episode was…interesting. They often go for something different for the season finales. I like that Al got a happy ending, although Al without his womanizing because he’s happily married doesn’t seem right. And we can choose to believe that Sam chose to keep leaping to help people, which was kind of what they were hinting out in the episode. Knowing what was coming as far as the ending of the series, it didn’t hit as hard as it would have when originally aired. But still, I would have liked to see happy endings for both of them.
The choices that I struggled with this season are all on the writers. The acting is still top notch, with Scott Bakula doing a great job carrying every single episode and Dean Stockwell providing the comic relief. As far as guest stars, they were uniformly great. We had quite a few before they were famous appearances this season and some familiar at the time names as well. Among those I recognized were Willie Garson, Brooke Shields, Jennifer Aniston, Beverley Mitchell, Melora Hardin, Megyn Price, Robyn Lively, and Neil Patrick Harris. The Brooke Shields episode was another fun one, and a bit of type casting, as she played someone marooned on an island.
Looking at the misses in season five, it’s obvious why this was the final season of Quantum Leap. There are enough good episodes here that fans will want to watch them. But it’s average overall.
I loved watching this show with my mom when I was a kid. I remember the three-parter best, and it was one of my favorites.
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