Review by C.J. Bunce
We’ve lived a lifetime in seven days.
Tapping into beats of the best run of TV’s Doctor Who, the second season of the return of Quantum Leap arrived even better than the first, a season we ranked as the year’s best science fiction series. Donald P. Bellisario’s vision continued in a faithful, worthy follow-up, testimony that the best sequels come from creators who truly understand and appreciate what came before. For Quantum Leap that meant good guys doing good deeds as the story driver for every episode, along with using the latest cutting edge science to achieve that good. What better use of science fiction is there?
Sam Beckett may be gone, but his legacy is thriving. Actor Raymond Lee’s Dr. Ben Song continued to “right what once went wrong” making Bellisario’s unique brand of time travel his own, arriving at what may be the best reboot yet. At the same time the series introduced new characters that brought the entire franchise full circle in its last two episodes.
Will the series be renewed for a third season? It seems highly likely. The writers certainly gave it their all, delivering the kind of compelling cliffhanger that should leave studio execs–the real decision makers for greenlighting another season–wanting more.
When you think of time travel and TV, many sci-fi fans will quickly point to the six decades of BBC’s Doctor Who. So why not look to that series for some pointers? The original Quantum Leap did that with its time traveler and companion, Scott Bakula’s Sam Beckett and Dean Stockwell’s Admiral Al Calavicci. In the reboot first season the story began with modern day Chuck Yeager and former Army intelligence officer Caitlin Bassett’s Addison Augustine as the intended leaper and Raymond Lee’s scientist Dr. Ben Song in the assist role. The fun arrived with the swap–the frenetic Ben leaping instead of the disciplined, military-trained Addison. But in Season 2 the series tapped into Doctor Who of the Matt Smith years, where the Doctor of that series had two companions–Amy Pond and husband Rory Williams. Fans of Doctor Who will no doubt recognize how Quantum Leap plants the story in this year’s season finale where Doctor Who left Amy and Rory–specifically their final ending after their encounter with the Weeping Angels. The result is a great blend of science fiction and romance–something we don’t see every day.
That second companion this season was of course Eliza Taylor as Hannah Carson, who has key run-ins with Ben over seven days of her life–seven days that springboarded her career in math, science, and eventually quantum physics–to be able to have a critical impact on the Quantum Leap program itself and Ben’s journey home. The parallel love stories of Addison and Peter Gadiot’s new character Tom Westfall and Ben and Hannah were just what the series needed, all driving to this season’s climactic finale, shepherded by a surprise antagonist played by genre favorite James Frain.
Interwoven in the fabric of this science fiction story are all kinds of throwbacks to the 1989-1993 show, which battles Doctor Who for the greatest time travel series ever to hit the small screen. That began with Magic, an original series “leap host,” played now by ex-Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson, who is the anchor for the show, bringing the necessary fandom credibility. The other big hook is incorporating the daughter of Dean Stockwell’s Al Calavicci, played by Georgina Reilly (Murdoch Mysteries), also daughter of Al’s girlfriend in the series, Beth, played by Susan Diol, who Star Trek fans will know as the EMH’s Dr. Danara Pel in one of Voyager’s best episodes.
The series could have continued as an anthology of “leaps of the week” like the original. But it doesn’t only do that. For half of each episode viewers at last got to learn the other side of the project, which was mostly veiled in the original. The point of this series is the same: Help the leaper find his way home. And that retrieval effort is often more compelling than the trademark body swap of the past. Allison and Magic worked with key members of the secret Quantum Leap project. The technical brains behind the project is Dr. Ian Wright, played by Mason Alexander Park, who sci-fi fans already knew from Cowboy Bebop as well as The Sandman. Park plays Wright like a futuristic wizard–they have a unique style that evokes Michael Sheen’s suave and flashy showman in Tron: Legacy. Also on the team is Nanrisa Lee (Star Trek: Picard) as ex-cyber con turned project security expert Jenn Chou. Each member of the team has their own secrets, and unlike the original, more than one character gets to help the Leaper as the hologram. In the finale the writers provided a good throwback for Ziggy, the know-it-all computer from the original, we now know as “A.I.” Sure, it would be incredible if Bakula returned for an eighth season, but he doesn’t need to. The series stands by itself now.
Don’t let this series pass you by. Catch up with both seasons of the new Quantum Leap now, streaming on Peacock, as well as the original first five seasons. It’s one of the best science fiction fixes you will find on television.
