Returning to an old classic can be a mixed bag. Especially when the ideas a revival of a cult classic without any of the original stars returning. Quantum Leap was one of several of those shows to dip back into an old idea and give it a new life to modern audiences and in it’s first season it was a surprise hit thanks in part to being a next chapter for the government funded time travel project that mixed the old theme with new ideas.
In the original series Sam Beckett spearheaded a project to create the Quantum Leap accelerator as a way of travelling through time. With funds running low, he used himself as a test subject and found himself swapping places with people throughout recent history, course correcting time and making everyone’s life a little better. Guided by companion Al, a holographic projection from Sam’s time, the Quantum Leap project ended up being a weekly adventure series until the finale where it was revealed Sam was lost in time and never returned home.
Picking up on that idea, the revival had a new team behind the project and with it, new ideas on how to tell the Quantum Leap story. Retaining the adventure of the week style of the original, the sequel series mixed the adventures of a new leaper alongside the mystery of why he chose to make the leap as the team back home work to unravel their friends hidden motivations. Which oddly worked quite well by mixing a wider cast working in the background.
This time round it’s Ben Song that’s leaping through time and throughout the first season it was discovered his leaps were being coordinated for a purpose. By the end of the series, much like Sam, Ben never made it back home as he risked himself and some timey wimey shenanigans which culminated in a fight against another leaper from the future, the team lost him. It was a tough act to follow and season two opted to pick up where Ben left off. But not the rest of the team….
Whats fun about the Quantum Leap revival is the fact the teams back home. We always knew Sam has a team behind him, but with the revival we have the main players of the project trying to keep things on track. While everyone fought to keep the project running and to keep Ben safe in the first season, Ben had been lost for three years by the opening of the second. For Ben only one leap had passed. For the team, they’d moved on.
Even Ben’s holographic guide and fiance Addison had accepted Ben as dead after two years. Only the conscience of the group, Ian, was the one that never gave up, using shady new technology to track where Ben’s last leap took him and kick off a new series of problems with the time gap and the effects of losing Ben weighing heavy on the season.
With the first seasons mystery coming to an ending that saw the leap process being used in intriguing ways, the second season did feel a little flat in places. While there were good moments, from finding out how Ian found Ben and what that would cost the revived team and Magic showing how far he’d fallen while the project was shuttered, other elements damage the flow a little. Addison’s new fiance jumping into the team doesn’t mix as well. Partly because they gave him a ridiculously flat persona and partly because it forms a love triangle that doesn’t quite work.
Where the first season kicked off with a mystery that hell the show together, the season two arc focused far too much on that conflict between Ben and Addison which dragged the story down a little. Even with the ending showing the bigger picture, how long it took to get the ball rolling on the bad guy of the season made it all feel very rushed by the end which did let the season down as a whole.
But there’s still something quite nice about the season. Ben as the leaper makes for a more interesting character than he has any right to be. What could have been an easy by the numbers boring role gets lifted up by the confidence projected by Raymond Lee in the role. And continuing to play around with the concept, which includes encounters with the same person across multiple time periods, also helps uplift the concept overall sso that each of the story of the week adventures continues to build to a climax. Even if it did feel a little rushed and scattered a climax.
Each leap having it’s own theme and being unbound by the time limit of the original series does give the show plenty of variety, from the horrors of saving people form a burning building to witch trials in America’s early days. If anything the scope of the shows time travel antics increased with more variety in where Ben ended up, from one set pieces to racing around a 1980’s town.
But what makes it all really work though is the focus on two things; people and positivity. Sci fi is filled with drama and can often take a dark turn, so there’s something heart-warming about Ben’s deeply routed passion to making the world a better place and it often shows with more heart than the original story of the week style. The project back home adds to that in how they connect and support each other through the messiness of keeping the project – and Ben – alive through his journey.
In comparison to the first season, it did have the all too common curse of not quite living up to the first. But if anything it showed a willingness to try new things and use the theme to explore the very human impact of the mission in both Bens perspective as well as everyone coming together for him in the present. More importantly it’s one of a few rare shows that hangs on positivity, using it’s base concept to explore meaningful themes while still looking towards a happy ending.
There’s a lot of places Quantum Leap could have gone, and a cast that gel together extremely well. Alas the ending of Season 2 was all we’ll get from Quantum Leap as the series has been another to meet an early end.
If anything Quantum Leap was a much needed comfort show that kept you along for the ride will telling stories of struggle that leads to a happy ending every week. The second season may not have been as consistent as the first, but it’s still worth watching to see how even the end to Ben’s story as the leaper can put a smile on your face.
Quantum Leap is available exclusively to Paramount Plus in the UK & Europe. Season 1 & 2 are available now as part of the subscription alongside all of their Star Trek offerings including Strange NEw Worlds, Lower Decks & Picard.
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