The second half of Quantum Leap season six is about to begin airing here on the West coast of the United States so it's time to post a mid-season review. Some of you on the East coast have already seen the latest episode and will consider this mid-season review late. Don't care. PST stands for "Preferred Standard Time".
Source of modified image
Oh, boy! Where to begin? Well, first off I have seen every episode so far but only once during the original airings. After a few months my memories of the episodes might have holes or as I call it the "Moldy Swiss Cheese Effect".
In my post reviewing the first episode of this season I made a few comparisons to Doctor Who. Here is one more for that list. In the Doctor Who series the TARDIS can travel anywhere in space and time but mostly remains on Earth. Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) disabled the safety features for the Quantum Leap Accelerator so he can now leap beyond his own lifetime but seems mostly restricted to within the territory of the United States.
I'll have another comparison for the Doctor Who list when Ian Wright (Mason Alexander Park) finally reveals that he is a renegade Time Lord calling himself "The Master".
I thought I was joking in my last review about the current era Quantum Leap project being located in a Google data center that the U.S. military seized under eminent domain. Apparently the facility really is located near or in a populated area and no longer the New Mexico desert. Herbert "Magic" Williams (Ernie Hudson) told Ian that they should go for a walk when Ian made his case for needing access to more past information about the project. Magic and Ian are at a park next time they are on-screen. Short walk. Herbert then tells Ian about Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) leaping into him during the Vietnam War and reading about it in a classified file years later. Magic didn't mention the part about his personality being channeled by Sam during the episode "Shock Theater". I guess Dr. Beckett leaping into a patient in a 1954 psychiatric hospital is still classified information. Crazy, right?
During this season of Quantum Leap there have been three main mysteries:
- Why is Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell)'s adult daughter LARPing as Carmen Sandiego?
- Evil Morty...I mean Leaper X.
- Why did Dr. Ben Song leap (other than it was a way to escape 2022).
Al's daughter Janice (Georgina Reilly) seems to be working with Dr. Ben Song toward whatever his goal for leaping is. She appeared as a hologram and almost warned him about something before Dr. Song leapt from 1934. Janice did some repair work on Al's original handlink so she probably built her own Imaging Chamber or Dr. Song helped her with it.
In past Quantum Leap episodes it had been established that Al's neurons and mesons were tuned to Sam's so only Sam (with a few exceptions) can see and hear Al as a holographic observer. In the "Raped" episode Dr. Beckett testified in court by proxy for the Leapee Katie. Al explicitly stated that it took enough power to light up St Louis for a month for Sam to see and Hear Katie in the Imaging Chamber. But let's ignore all that. The writers of current era Quantum Leap obviously have.
The second mystery seems mostly solved. Dr. Song had a run-in with another Leaper while in 1879. The other Leaper apparently thought Dr. Song was stalking him and since the restraining order won't ne invented until the 20th century the Leaper had to take matters into his own hands.
Once the other Leaper revealed that he knew who Dr. Song is but Dr. Song doesn't know the other Leaper the staff of Project Quantum Leap did a reverse Uno and put the recording of Leaper X from the Imaging Chamber through facial recognition software. They discovered that "Leaper X" is a marine in 2022 named Richard Martinez (Walter Perez). Now the Quantum Leap project can stalk... err, "surveillance" Richard Martinez in 2022 so that in a few years the marine can leap back to 1879 and confront Dr. Song for stalking and it becomes an infinite self-consistent time loop.
Why did Dr. Song even leap in the first place? Ian thinks that Ben is trying to go to the future. Or as we non-quantum physicists call it "waiting". I guess Dr. Song's philosophy is that if you aren't using terawatts of power to go a few years into the future then you aren't doing it right.
Ian's hypothesis is that like a gravitational slingshot Dr. Song is leaping around to gain the time travel equivalent of momentum to blast into the future.
Again, just like the current era writers let's ignore the fact that Dr. Beckett spent five seasons leaping and except for simu-leaping with Alia he couldn't get past late 1985 after originating from 1995.
Anyway, the series left off with Dr. Song remembering that he's leaping to save his fiancée Addison from something in the future he is ware of somehow. Maybe she gets Irumodic Syndrome from Captain Picard. Who knows? I'll just have to watch more Quantum Leap on NBC to find out.
Source of image: A Clockwork Orange