Quantum Leap’s Showrunner on How the New Series Updates the Classic

Quantum Leap is again—or not less than, a reboot-sequel that introduces a complete new forged into the present’s preexisting time-travel set-up. Rather than Scott Bakula’s Dr. Sam Beckett, the brand new collection follows Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) as he leaps between a long time, serving to out individuals in want, whereas his lab crew again in 2022 tries to determine the best way to get him residence.

At a latest press occasion forward of the NBC collection’ premiere subsequent week, showrunner and government producer Martin Gero (Kung Fu, Blindspot) spoke to io9 and different shops in regards to the present’s much-anticipated return. In explicit, he centered on how its authentic characters and contemporary strategy to the fabric, blended with some returning components, will hopefully please each old-school followers and Quantum Leap newbies.

“Deborah Pratt, one of the original creators and executive producers of the show, was with us every day on this version. We’re so lucky to have her,” Gero stated. “She really says that the four tenets of Quantum Leap are hope, heart, humor, and history, and [new lead character] Ben really inhabits the first three of those. He’s an incredibly hopeful character. He has a tremendous heart. The show is about empathy at its core, and he has a ton of that to give. And then also, and most importantly, because we wanted to make a really entertaining and fun show, is the humor. The humor was a big part of the original Quantum Leap [and] it’s a really important part of this one. And I think this entire cast, Ray especially, has really taken that on, [in] trying to find a grounded way to bring an incredible amount of hope, heart, and humor to these episodes.”

The new Quantum Leap absolutely acknowledges the existence of Dr. Sam Beckett. While Gero wouldn’t touch upon whether or not the character may play an element within the new collection ultimately (Bakula said today on social media that he has no involvement within the new present), he and his fellow creators knew from the beginning that they didn’t wish to do only a straight reboot of the collection. “The show is so iconic and beloved, it felt crazy to just do a version with a new Sam and a new Al [Dean Stockwell’s character in the original series]. It would set up to fail, essentially,” Gero stated. “For all of us that were involved at the beginning, it really made sense for this to be a continuation of the story with a brand new set of characters—one that could honor the old show, pay service to the old show, but have a really low bar for entry for new viewers. And I think that’s the tightrope we’re walking, right? We want all of the rabid fans of Quantum Leap to watch the show and have it feel like Quantum Leap. Like, ‘Yes, this is Quantum Leap.’ It’s an evolution of Quantum Leap, but it [still feels like the original show].”

He continued. “But also we know there’s an enormous amount of people that are vaguely familiar with the title and are just going to check the show out clean. We didn’t want to weigh the show down with a lot of mythology immediately that would make it feel like ‘Oh, I need to watch 90-plus episodes of Quantum Leap before I can start this.’ So this you can start fresh. And then slowly over the course of the season, there’s an enormous amount of backstory and mythology from the original show that we’re really excited to share with fans—but it’s done in a way that it will feel like a different view on past events for old fans. And so it’s new information for them, and for our new fans, it just feels like we’re still in the middle of the story and it’s coming out organically.”

One huge distinction that OG Quantum Leap followers will discover in regards to the new collection is that Ben’s co-workers within the time-travel lab—Magic (Ernie Hudson), Jenn (Nanrisa Lee), Ian (Mason Alexander Park), and Addison (Caitlin Bassett), the latter of whom occurs to be Ben’s fiancée and his Al-style hologram helper—are additionally an enormous a part of the story. In the premiere episode, which io9 considered previous to the press convention (we’ll have a evaluate up quickly!), the motion is pretty evenly divided between Ben’s journey to the previous—which he does with out telling anybody, on tools that’s not fairly able to deal with his actions—and his understandably confused and anxious crew’s work within the current.

“The original Quantum Leap is basically an anthology series with a very thin through line. Obviously [there was] a lot of character development, but not a lot of serialized stories. And I think everyone kind of felt, from the studio side, the network side, like they needed some sort of serialized aspect,” Gero defined. “I think the modern day part of it allows us to have that flexibility to [ask] ‘Why did Ben leave? What’s going on? Why didn’t he tell anyone?’ That mystery pulls you through week to week without alienating casual viewers. The idea is for it to be pretty balanced. It will mostly be the leaps; every now and again, if there’s a huge event that needs to be talked about in the present-day, it gets closer to like, 40% of the episode. But the show’s called Quantum Leap and we’re going to be focusing predominantly on the leaps.”

Quantum Leap premieres September 19 at 10 p.m. ET and PT on NBC; it’s going to stream the following day on Peacock.

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