The New Quantum Leap Pays Faithful Homage to the Original

It’s been practically 30 years since Scott Bakula’s Dr. Sam Beckett vanished into time (and from the airwaves), however Quantum Leap—a well-liked present throughout its five-season run—has since maintained a cult following. It’s no shock NBC has dipped again into the time-travel effectively with a reboot, which premieres at present.

This new Quantum Leap is definitely a sequel along with being a reboot. Sam and his companion, Al (the late Dean Stockwell, to whom the premiere episode is devoted), each get referenced by the brand new characters, and the reliably unreliable supercomputer that powers the present’s sci-fi tech remains to be named Ziggy. But Quantum Leap ‘22 is, at least at its outset, a more elaborate production. The cast, which includes a lab team toiling in the present day, is larger; the production values are as slick as what you’d count on to see from a Twenty first-century prime-time NBC collection; and there’s additionally a background plot past the principle character’s time-leaps poised to introduce amplified intrigue into the proceedings.

However, “July 13, 1985″ is still the first episode of a new show, and therefore spends a lot of time explaining to viewers just what the heck is going on. Fans of the original series will recall episodes opened with a spoken intro explaining its concept as well as a title sequence showing scenes from Sam’s adventures—plus, Sam was given voice-overs to further explain how he was feeling (usually perplexed) as he tried to figure out a) who he had “leaped” into, b) where and when he was, and c) who he was supposed to help in that particular time period, which would trigger his next jaunt through space and time. He wasn’t totally alone—he had Al, a hologram who only Sam could see and hear, and who’d show up with his handheld gizmo that connected them to Ziggy’s vast repositories of historical knowledge—but he didn’t know how he was ever going to make it back home.

The new show is, well, it’s very similar once it gets past its own set-up. It begins with on-screen text that borrows from the original series’ opening: “In 1995, theorizing that one could time-travel within their own life, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. After years of trying to bring him back home, the project was eventually abandoned… until now.” In short order, we meet Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee of Made for Love, Top Gun: Maverick, and Kevin Can F**k Himself) and his fiancée, Addison (Caitlin Bassett), who also happens to be his co-worker at a top-secret military lab staffed by time-travel nerds. Magic (Ghostbusters’ Ernie Hudson) is the benevolent boss, along with fellow eggheads Jenn (Nanrisa Lee) and Ian (Mason Alexander Park). They’re all pals and we first meet them at Ben and Addison’s engagement party, a joyous evening until Ben, who’s been receiving text messages from someone who insists they are “running out of time!” peaces out to… hop into the Quantum Leap accelerator, even though it’s not ready for anyone to use without running into some major glitches.

Naturally, this seemingly idiotic decision freaks everyone out, including Ben himself, who pops up in July 1985 with amnesia (a side effect of leaping), something that Addison—who’s able to follow him through time as a hologram, just like Al followed Sam—helps him cope with, though she doesn’t explain her personal relationship with him (she does, however, inform him that she was supposed to be the one doing the time-traveling). Thanks to glimpses of media—did any circa-1985 theater programmer ever decide to screen a double-feature of The Goonies and St. Elmo’s Fire? What would that audience even look like?—we soon learn he’s in Philadelphia and is a dude named “Nick” who’s about to serve as a getaway driver for an elaborate heist. With Ziggy’s help, Ben and Addison are able to piece together what’s going down; it involves a big explosion and the Hope Diamond, but—like the intricacies of the time-travel tech that got Ben there in the first place—the crime is really a MacGuffin. As in the original Quantum Leap, the real reason for “July 13, 1985″ is in order that Ben may also help one particular one who’s been wronged by the timeline, and set issues proper.

If this feels like a violation of every thing about time journey, particularly the half about not meddling with the previous, lest you irrevocably alter the current—effectively, Quantum Leap has a special viewpoint. Going by this primary episode, the brand new collection will preserve to the unique present’s normal take that fixing a fallacious previously can really enhance the long run. We gained’t spoil Ben’s first mission, however we are going to notice that so far as leaps go, it’s a reasonably straightforward one for him: Nick is round Ben’s age and appears to be a little bit of a lone wolf, and a metropolis circa 1985 isn’t too jarring of a setting. As Quantum Leap followers will bear in mind, Sam usually awakened in circumstances that required fast fast considering past “oh boy, who am I?”—together with being a Black man in Los Angeles on the day of the Watts riots, a pregnant teenager, a horror writer who meets the precise satan, a psychiatric affected person receiving shock remedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Sam’s personal Civil War-era great-grandfather, and a chimpanzee about to be despatched into outer house.

It’s not but obvious if Ben’s personal journey will probably be fairly so stunning, or whether or not it’s going to pinball wildly between personas that supply the present an opportunity to dabble in each social commentary and outright goofballery. It’s additionally unclear how the present will deal with issues if Ben leaps into somebody who already has a romantic accomplice, as Sam usually did—and the way Addison may react to that. In the primary episode, at the very least, Ben doesn’t have any voice-overs, so we don’t get perception into his frame of mind as he grapples along with his unusual new circumstances.

While there’s already quite a bit happening with Ben’s problem-solving plotline, Quantum Leap makes it apparent that the rationale why he jumped earlier than the machine was prepared goes to develop into an necessary thriller. He left solely a cryptic video message behind, and the time-traveling model of Ben has no reminiscence of 2022, so he can’t provide any perception. With the undertaking’s authorities overlords already anxiously sniffing round, the group he left behind should puzzle via his motivation, the secrecy round his actions, and ferret out a shadowy confederate who’s absolutely going to come back into sharper reduction because the present progresses.

Taken as a complete, it could be quite a bit to soak up, particularly if you happen to weren’t already aware of the basic collection. But Ben is a likable hero who retains that Sam Beckett high quality of being an affable, quick-thinking super-nerd who genuinely desires to assist folks. The pacing, amplified by rapid-fire modifying and propulsive music, retains issues shifting even via the avalanches of exposition. It stays to be seen if Quantum Leap will put its emphasis on Ben’s do-gooding travels via time, like the unique collection did, or if it’s going to proceed to divide its consideration between previous and current—although given the ensemble forged, particularly with a star like Ernie Hudson in a key position, that does appear probably. Will the tip outcome yield an excessive amount of whiplash between storylines, or will the present department out and convey Ben dwelling sooner or later, permitting Addison and the others their likelihood to do some leaping? And will Dr. Sam Beckett himself make an look someplace alongside the best way? We’ll be handing over to search out out… and in addition to see if Quantum Leap 2.0 can dare to prime that chimpanzee episode.

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

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