I never really made the Sam Beckett=Mary Sue connection before reading this thread. I mean, I knew that he was the perfect fan-fic crossover character, and had read some good 'Sam leaps into show xyz and keeps it from shark-jumping'. But calling him a Mary Sue really helped me put my finger on what used to irk me about some of the episodes, when his intervention seemed like he was a tool for alleviating a writer's white-guy guilt, or a sort of presumptuous hindsight like the writer was saying "If I'd been around, I could have save Monroe, Jackie O." etc.

I adored QL though. I'm especially fond of the episode where Al became the leaper, because sometime before the episode aired I'd been speculating with a friend about future episodes we'd love to see, and I'd brought up how funny it could be if they switched places, so when it actually happened at the end of Shock Theater, I just about died laughing. And I loved most of the drag episodes (though the one with the bra-burning housewife was one of my least favorites. Not a good look for Scott)

I can't wait for the dvd's. I really hope that they use the original season 1 opener, though. I know they redid it for season 2 and onward, and I always found the second version too over the top somehow (too emotional?). It's been so long since I heard the original, that I can't really remember what it was, but I just remember watching the season 2 premiere and cringing at the change. But the Deborah Pratt interview I saw about the season 1 dvd mentioned re-doing the 'saga sell', which made me nervous.

Does anyone know if Sci-fi will be resurrecting this show? I would love to see it again.

I'm not sure what you mean by "resurrecting" but Sci-Fi has been airing the old episodes for a while now.

For instance, on January 21st, Sci-Fi is airing all the eps between (and including) the premiere and ep 1.4. On Feb. 11th, they're airing ep 1.5-2.1.

Thanks for the info. I'll mark the date on my calendar.

De-lurking for just a second...

What annoyed me most about the final episode wasn't that Sam never returned home, because it always seemed to me that Sam made that decision. I was annoyed that Sam fixed Al's history. While it seems nice from a sentimental perspective, it changes the entire character of Al. Now, when I go back and watch old episodes, I have to remind myself that the "new" Al wouldn't say or do half of the things he did. He certainly wouldn't be womanizing the way he was, and much of his cynical edge would most likely be lost. I hate when shows feel the need to rewrite their own history (for example, Angel and Voyager.) Other than that, I loved the series, and I was pissed when it got cancelled.

I had a similar feeling -- I felt that by giving Al back his marriage to Beth, and the ominous "Sam Beckett never returned home" placard, it meant that Sam had erased their friendship. And, as important as Beth had been to Al, he'd proven over and over in the series that Sam was now the most important person in his life. In a way, I felt like it cheapened the sacrifices that Al had made, like giving up his shot at getting liberated in the Vietnam episode.

But I was also upset at the idea of Sam never returning home. I mean, aside from the fact that his poor wifey was left with nothing but Ziggy and the constellations, it was drummed into our heads every week in the opening credits that Sam is wishing for that 'leap home.' I agree that his decision to continue leaping was a noble act and a kind of logical progression in his growth as a heroic character, but it just did not satisfy me as an ending for the series.

Wait, I'm confused. The Al I knew always made it obvious in word and deed that he had quite an eye for the ladies -- Sam was always trying to keep him from spying on some when they undressed.

But a lot of Al's womanizing, and sexualization/objectification of women is traceable to his broken heart when he returned from years in a POW camp to find out that his wife (whose memory had kept hiim going) had given him up for dead and married someone else.

...and his so called "best friend" skip his turn to receive quantum help to save his older brother.

ETA: I love Dr. Beckett and all but that was the most cruel cosmic joke ever. I don't care if he in fact erased their frienship with that last leap, the "Sam Beckett never returned home" was the best thing he did for Al given the circunstances.

I vividly remember screeching in outrage at the "Sam Beckett never returned home" placard. Blech.

A reason why I love the "trilogy" of MIA/Leap Home/Vietnam. I think Al is pretty aware that the POW to be saved is him, and that would be all he has to tell Sam to send him charging to the rescue, even though it would likely cost Tom his life. I love it when he says, "What the hell. I get repatriated in four years."

I think I just sat there in stunned, teary disbelief. I'd always looked forward to Sam and Al finally getting to HUG each other after all those years of incorporeality, and then they went and ended it with a great big placard saying NEVER GONNA HAPPEN. Not only did Al never get to welcome Sam home, that placard to me said that Al was never going to figure out what had become of Sam (if the memory of their friendship hadn't been swallowed up by the alternate timeline, that is), and had never had a chance to say goodbye. The last conversation they had in the episode had no closure. Sam got closure, making the choice to go on leaping, and starting it off with getting Beth back for Al. But the last Al saw of Sam was him seeming to be in the middle of a nervous breakdown, and then he would have been gone entirely, and Al would think he'd failed him and never know that Sam was leaping voluntarily.

Maybe that's what really burned me about the episode. I didn't think that Al would remember both timelines (since he wasn't participating in the leap) so as far as he'd know, he would always have come home from Vietnam to find Beth waiting for him. So he'd never know what Sam had done for him, he'd only know that he'd failed to get Sam home.

But did it say that Al was no longer going to be leaping with Sam? Whether or not you add "Sam's unconsciousness" to the God, Fate, Time, whatever scenario, I think that the QL project was still going to be facilitating his leaps.

Sad as all heck, maybe, but I still think the end is perfectly appropriate. Real heroes make real sacrifices.

Plus, didn't it leave the show open for follow up? I mean, who would be that interested in the revival of a show when they thought everything was tied up neat and tidy? And, it elicited a deep emotional reaction from viewers -- something SOME shows around here could learn about.

Hmmm, which shows could you possibly mean?

Yeah, I think having an ambiguous, unsettling ending has made the show stick in people's minds even more than it would have just on the basis of being a really good show.

Word. I thought the ending was perfectly sad and perfectly appropriate, too.

The more I think about it, I'm not sure exactly how I reached that conclusion nqllisi. Aside from ye olde epilogue-placard-of-crushing-doom.

Maybe it was also a problem of expectations. Like when a show goes into a long hiatus period on a cliffhanger, and you have many weeks/months to imagine what's going to happen when the series picks up, but then when it does the episode glosses over some subplot that you had imagined the heck out of? So I'd had years of looking forward to a great reunion scene, only to find I'd never get to actually see it. I know it's a noble heroic ending for Sam, but I can't help that it left me feeling betrayed by the show's writers.

I'll just keep my fingers crossed that we really will be getting dvd's in the next year or two. I want to see the episodes without the syndication cuts for time. (I especially remember spotting the cuts during the Samantha Stormer episode -- like Al ogling Sam in the bathtub.) I would hope for a tv-movie or revival of the series, but as much as I'd like some more closure, I think I'm too afraid of it sucking to get completely behind it.

Have you guys heard anything about the QL TV movie supposedly (?) coming out this year? There's an IMDB listing and some speculation on the IMDB listing. Is this for real? And, if so, how much will it suck?

Sonneta, if you read a few pages back in this thread, you can see what some of our speculations are in relation to that very topic.

When the episode first aired, it was a pretty common specualtion. Many people felt that saving Al's marriage to Beth would write Al out of PQL, or somehow set Sam adrift to leap without any homebase support.

I guess I never made that assumption because I knew that they'd intended to have another season with both lead actors. Since they were obviously planning on keeping Al around, I never considered any other scenarios.

A nice hug would have been good, though.

SO WORD on that one!

I admit I was mad, I cried for every moment Sam’ll never have/had with his wife, the hug he’d never share with Al, the “genious” daughter he’ll never met (that obviously got forever stuck with the job of bringing him home), and felt disappointment cuz he went through all of this to save the life of a brother he’ll never get the chance to see again anyway. He won to never enjoy the sheer victory of it.

Then again I hated “trilogy” cuz - no matter how amnesic - Sam WAS married at the time he had his daughter, the “leap home” cuz his brother was more important for him than the life of the postumous pulitzer winner (who took Al’s picture) and his best friend and all those other moments when he could’ve done something for Al’s and he didn’t.


Despite it all I wasn’t. Al’s wife really loved him as much as Sam’s wife did (the one with "commitment issues" who may not even marry him if he wouldn’t have jumped) but she really believed herself a widow and Sam never told her otherwise when he had the chance. Al made the call for him on Vietnam. This was Sam’s chance to do the right thing, and he went for it. Mom told me back then that he may never had the chance to see his best friend again but he was there every time Al had a daughter and every day he share with Beth, that maybe Dr. Beckett never came home but he made one for everyone around him and it was okay to cry for it but not to be angry cuz knowing that everyone he ever love was fine because of him was the ultimate reward.

What Mara said about him never returning home.

I mean, the show is rooted in fantasy. Wishfulfillment, really. Everyone's lives gets fixed because of one man, and he gets what? Squat. Never being able to settle down, never even having a choice of where he moved to or moved into, and if reuniting Al and Beth meant that Al never joined Quantum Leap, he doesn't even have anyone to help him as the leaps got harder, or to just be a familiar face.




"Never" seems pretty final to me.



But, the amnesia absolves him of blame, I'd say. How can you fault a man for cheating on a wife he doesn't even know exists?



Did Sam even know that saving Tom would have an effect on Al's pow status in any way? I'm not sure how to phrase it. Of course he knew Al was a POW, but did he know he was one at that exact time, and was anywhere near that location? The only time Sam willingly and consciously refused to help Al was in MIA. What other opportunities did he have to help Al and didn't? And, I can totally understand him feeling that Tom's life was more important to him than the pulitzer winner. Getting back with Beth was more important to Al than whoever Sam was supposed to help in MIA.

Sam didn't know Al was one of the POWs to rescue until after the fact. As for Maggie winning the Pulitzer, she never would have won it without Sam's influence-- he's the one that got her on the mission. Else she wouldn't have gone at all, and never gotten the shot.

True, in a way Al's picture was the one who made her win the prize, still the fact remains that she'd have live a longer life with many more chances to win the award if it weren't for Sam.


I don't know, something tells me that Al & Sam had a bullet proof friendship, that no matter what Al would still join the program and he and Sam would still be friends. After all the only "leap" that ever change anything revolving Al's involvement was the one of his martial court on military school; Nina was still there, she was marry to that other guy in charge of Ziggi's program (who was still there too), the only thing that change was the Al hologram. So for me, Sam only got to work with a happily married with 6 daughters Al instead of the womanizer with 6 ex wives one.

I'm still made because he "got squat" though ;)


The "last leap" was a reharsal of one of the first ones, when Beth was heartbroken cuz she believed herself a widow and Al asked Sam to take her away from her second-husband-to-be. Sam didn't, he didn't even told her that Al was alive at the time, later on that's the point he chose as a "final destination" and finally ask Beth to wait a few more months.

That was MIA. That was the leap where he didn't tell Beth that Al was alive. So, that's still only one time Sam knowingly didn't help Al.

Ya'll are being too hard on Sam. Not only did he not know that saving his brother would sacrifice Al's rescue, but he didn't know it would result in Maggie's death, either.

bigmonster, I completely agree with you.

Trilogy creeped me out. Not so much because Sam was still married, but because of the wierd pedophilia/incest vibe. There was something bizarre about his relationship with little Abigail, and when he leaped from being her father to being the fiancee making out with teenage Abigail squicked me out to no end.

It took me a while to remember which episodes were involved in "Trilogy"--until the Abigail comments. But I had no idea she was supposed to be his daughter. I really liked that mini arc, but I think it may be totally different if I think she's his kid. Where does that piece of information come from?

In Trilogy part 1, Sam leaped into Abigale's father. Then, part 2, when Abigale was an adult, he leaped into her fiance, Will. They had sex, and Abigale became pregnant. Part 3, Al told Sam that there was a 99% chance (or some number like that) that Abigale's daughter, Sammy Jo, was his child as well.

I liked Trilogy, too.

It was the same episode?! So, it was only 2 times! Oh Boy I always remember it like there were more. Sorry.


I guess that’s what bothers me too (and the fact I couldn’t see part 2 the first time), it was almost as if he would’ve feel in love with a child, had sex with the woman and got to spend some time with their daughter. In three leaps he got an entire family life while Al was stuck with the exs.

Okay, so I'm watching "Genesis" for the first time and in the opening scene and dripping with innuendos, Al picks up some chick on the highway and gives her a lift.

He seems like a womanizer (but not offensively so) from the get-go. Throughout the first episode, he's constantly talking about picking up this broad or taking another back into the filing room. I don't see how Sam's actions turn Al into a womanizer since he was already one.

keckler I don't think anyone on the thread was claiming that Sam turned Al into a womanizer. He was certainly set up that way from the get-go. But the character maintained that Beth was the love of his life, and that all of his other relationships & marriages failed because he was still hung up on her.

I caught some of Genesis part 2 today as well (sick day. blah) and I think my favorite scene is still the one in the ambulance after Sam ejected from the jet -- where Sam is talking to Al, but the medic thinks Sam is talking to him. That scene just cracked me up when I saw it the first time in the initial run of the show, and still makes me grin.

Al was a womanizer from the get-go because he had lost Beth while he was MIA, like mara said. Al was a womanizer through the show, because despite additional chances, Sam never told Beth that Al was alive, so Al's history was unchanged through the first few years of leaping.

At the end, after Sam tells Beth, Al and Beth stay together. One would presume that Al might have a wandering eye, but didn't cheat (poor Tina). So if Sam were to leap back now into the pilot in Genesis, Al would likely be different. But because Genesis takes place before Sam's leap to Beth, Al is a cad.

I hope that helps. If I start thinking about how other leaps might have influenced past leaps, my head will hurt, and I'll have to go to bed.

Despite one chance. Sam only blew it for Al once when it came to Beth; and you can't really count "MIA" against Sam because he didn't know Al was the POW in question.

Well, one thing to note-- "Honeymoon Express" showed us that when Sam changes the past, Al is aware of the changes, even if he's not in the Imaging Chamber. So Al in the future may have his life with Beth, but remember also not having a life with Beth. Which I'm sure is very confusing.

Apparently they gave Al & Beth four daughters so they could switch the running joke in the next season from "Al can't keep his wives straight" to "Al can't keep his daughters straight."

This would have made me insanely happy.

I would have liked that (like in the movie Frequency, where Jim Cazaviel remembers multiple time streams) but I think they could have gone either way. I was going to say that Al didn't have two memories of his life with & without Sam's intervention during his murder trial as a cadet -- but then I remembered that without Sam's help, he would have been executed, so I guess that's not something he could remember.



That would have been cute. But part of me hates the loss of the ex-wives, the same way I hate the erasing of Connor from Angel, or the addition of Dawn on Buffy. Not because of any great love or hate for the characters themselves, just that I don't like it when the characters have different memories of events than we've been shown onscreen. It just irks me.

Vote for the QL Viewer's Choice Marathon to be aired on Feb 29th (Leap Year, Leap...yeah, it's quasi-funny).

You can pick up to six, although I'd be very grateful if everyone made "Black on White on Fire" one of his or her selections.

Done for you, baby.

I can't believe that I once thought I had seen all of these episodes. I don't remember most of them!

Thanks, Boss!

What surprises me the most is how late in the show's run most of my favorite episodes are. I figured they all had to be from the first or second season, but most are from the third and fourth. I guess QL didn't peak too early after all.

Okay, I voted. It was hard to limit to just 6, though. I did pick Black on White on Fire.

No pressure on anyone to change his/her mind, but I've always thought BoWoF is not only QL's best episode, it's one of the best episodes of anything, anywhere.

I also picked one of my sentimental favorites "Good Night, Dear Heart" which makes me cry every single time, and two parter "Leap Home" and another sniffly favorite "The Leap Back." And "A Leap for Lisa."

For Trekkies playing along, that means I voted for episodes featuring Gul Dukat, Tom Paris, and Jadzia Dax. And I think that's a coincidence.

You did skip the one with Janeway so it might be coincidence (or good taste).

I voted for BoWoF for you, plus any episode that had to do with Sam and Al's real lives and the Leap Back. I'll have to remember to set my vcr for the marathon.

You're right...just six is hard. I decided not to take some of the obvious ones ('cause I figure eps like "MIA" and "The Leap Home" will get more than enough votes). Even with that, I still could've picked at least a dozen episodes, including a surprising number from S5.

As for not recognizing episodes, I don't remember this "Curse of Ptah-Hotep"...anyone got a better description? 'Cause I'm sure I've seen all of these.

ETA A Scott Bakula interview I found on the same page.

Sam's an archeologist on an excavation in Egypt, scoffing at the curse of a mummy's tomb. There's some kind of rogue mecenary guy, IIRC, who's trying to steal some valuable gem from the tomb, and all I can remember for sure is there was some problem with Al and Sam being able to save the life of the bad guy, because Ziggy had problems with a new computer program she got from Egypt, and so that maybe the mummy's curse wasn't such bull after all.

What happened, as I remember, is at the same time that they triggered the curse that trapped them in the tomb, something went wrong with the imaging chamber, so Al was "trapped" as well in there. And it was new software from Egypt that did it.

I voted-- I tried to balance it out between the seasons, which wasn't too hard. I did do B&WoF, and didn't really feel any pangs of guilt on that one. I'm not sure if I'd make it in my Top Six, but definitely in my Top Ten. But "Last Dance Before An Execution" was a definite #1 for me.


I don't recall Kate Mulgrew being in an episode.

For some reason, I was thinking Janeway was in The Leap Between the States but she's not listed in sci-fi's guest credits so it's possible I'm imagining things. I do that occasionally.

I have a question about "Star Crossed," which I just saw last week -- Sam takes Teri Hatcher to meet her father in the Watergate apartments. They have to sneak in because the guards won't let them through and they manage to find an open door. Later, a guard finds that same open door and also finds tape sticking the lock down. They call the cops. So, since this leap took place in 1972, are we supposed to glean from those hints that the actual famous Watergate break-in was also happening while Sam was there?

I assume it wasn't Sam who stuck the door lock down with tape and that it was the actual thugs hired by G. Gordon Liddy?