Quantum Leap/Headscratchers

The Just Bugs Me page for Quantum Leap: Violating Bellisario's Maxim since 2009.

• Has Sam ever leapt into a person who met him while leaping, at the same time? Would he be able to see both Als? Would each Al be able to see the other? Aside from special effects budget providing the obvious answer, could each Sam see the other as himself?
  • As far as I know, Sam never leaped into another participant in one of his own leaps. The closest he came was leaping from one person directly into another person in the same place (as in "Double Identity"), but the leaps were still linear rather than crossing over.
  • I have a theory that, at one point several years after the finale, Sam leapt into his father during the events of "The Leap Home: Part 1". This is the only in-universe explanation I can think of for why John is played by Scott Bakula instead of the guy who played him in the pilot.
• Bellisario's Maxim and all that, but... When the show first debuted, everyone assumed that Sam was taking over the body of those he leapt into. Then this was altered to Sam switching places with someone, but their "aura" surrounding Sam (and vice-versa) making him look and sound like the person he replaced. All of which is a roundabout way of asking how the hell Sam could wear clothing that was often vastly too large or small for him? Or why people who touched him couldn't spot the disparity in the way Sam's built and the way the real person should be - especially when Sam leapt into a woman.
  • The aura was also supposed to extend to touch (people thought that bits of him that they touched were closer or further way than they really were), though it could have been creatively interpreted as the aura making him shaped like the person except for things that would have harmed him (missing a leg or eyesight). In at least the first episode where he leapt into a woman's body, the clothing was visibly altered to fit him- which just makes things worse. It Just Bugs Me that they changed it from Grand Theft Me to an Alternate Appearance Aura just to make it easier to wrap up certain plots (The original blind pianist episode could have been handwaved/justified by Sam seeing things without having to filter it through the body, or leaving it as his mind thinking instead of Jimmy's brain, and avoiding all this in the first place).
  • Well, there is something to the physical body thing, Sam was able to recognize Alia (The Evil Leaper) when he runs into her (but oddly enough he can't see through is own aura). Of course, a hole in the physical body transferring thing has shown up a few times. One I can remember specifically was when he lept into the chimpanzee and was able to fit in various chimp-sized devices (and couldn't swim due to the low body fat of a chimp).
    • Incorrect: Sam could swim while he was leaped into the chimp. He did so in order to save the Girl of the Week, and it got remarked on afterwards. He did still fit into the chimp-sized gear, but this is really nothing new; his host's clothes always fit him as though made for him whether he leaps into a teenager or a wrestler. It's just more noticeable when the host is a woman or a chimpanzee.
      • If Sam's body is leaping, and he winds up in a chimp meaning his body has to shrink, wouldn't that cause his body's density to go up, presumably higher than that of water, since his mass would be the same, but his volume would go down, which means that would cause him to sink--ah never mind...
      • If that's the case, then why was it that Sam could still fight really well no matter what person's body he inhabited. There were times when he was in a woman's body and he'd still be able to fight off several attackers, a feat that would not be likely to be accomplished by most men.
  • What bugged me about this was that it went through a few changes. Over the seasons, it wasn't consistent. First, there was no mention of the person being in the chamber back in the lab, then it was the person being in the chamber, then it even became the person looking like Sam in the chamber.
    • The best part about the series though is that pretty much ALL the inconsistencies can be explained by ripple effects in the time line from his leaps.
• A pretty minor thing, maybe a case of Fridge Logic, but in the first episode of the second season, Honeymoon Express, back in 1999 Al is in court trying to get funding for another year for project Quantum Leap, however the senator says, the only proof they had to confirm the Quantum Leaping actually happens is Al's word. But I thought: What about the person in the Waiting Room, that Sam replaced in the past? Couldn't they call him to court as a witness. Of course he would look like Sam, but simple questions ("What is your name?", "What year is it?", "What's your profession?") would suffice, especially if they repeat it a few weeks later with another "leapee", that's a complete other person... Maybe a psychologist could help to determine it's really not Sam, but someone else. Instead they don't even MENTION the persons they get in exchange for Sam, who look like Sam to everyone, even though it would contradict the claim that Al is just making it all up...
  • Other times it's suggested that the people Sam replaces (who then take his place at Project Quantum Leap) don't take on his appearance whole he takes on theirs.
  • Occam's Razor being what it is, having someone who looks and sounds just like Sam Beckett claiming to be someone from the past probably wouldn't be particularly convincing. The board would either take it as an act put on by Sam out of desperation to keep his funding, or take it to mean Sam had just snapped.
  • One wonders why Al didn't just have Sam send some sort of letter to the committee from the past to verify his presence. The age of the letter or package or whatever, along with its place of origin, could be verified with some degree of ease.
    • He actually pulls this stunt in the episode where he and Al switch places and Sam ends up stuck in the imaging chamber because the handlink went back with Al. He had Al mail a letter to Project: Quantum Leap's secret location to have them unlock the chamber. (Why such a thing wouldn't have a panic button or emergency door release is a different question altogether).
• It just bugs me that Sam never got home. Does he eventually die of old age? What happens to his "host" when that happens? Without Al, what happens to the person in the waiting room?
  • Since it's Sam's body that is leaping, he is presumably still aging (as is pretty much confirmed in the last episode). So given another forty or fifty years of leaping in his subjective time, its possible he eventually does just die of old age. Assuming is isn't killed on a leap before then.
  • I would say that if Sam died while on a leap, his dead body would leap back to the future (possibly just before his actual death) and the leapee would return to their own time unaffected.
    • "Revenge of the Evil Leaper" confirms this. Zoe is shot and killed, and the man she leaps into gets up like nothing happened right after.
• OK, so I get the whole theory behind the time travelling (Sam's life a loop, the loop is balled, Sam leaps between the strings in the ball and thus back and forth in time), but where in that does it imply that he should leap into other people? Shouldn't he leap into himself every episode? I mean, yeah he did in one episode, but that was considered extraordinary.
  • I think the idea was that the time machine was supposed to operate by letting you go back to times within your own life. Instead,the machine didn't work as intended and instead sends the user back in time to a point within their own lifetime, except it's not them. So, it's supposed to work as you detailed, but the whole premise that the machine isn't working properly is why that happens.
  • That sort of thing is probably Applied Phlebotinum or because A Wizard Did It.
• In one episode (I believe it was called "Killing Time") Sam leaps into a man who's taken a woman and her daughter hostage. In the present, the leapee is able to get a gun and force Al to let him out of the waiting room. On their way out, they run into Gooshie who nonchalantly says "Hello, Dr. Beckett." and becomes surprised when the leapee then points the gun at Gooshie, who still thinks it's Sam Beckett. 1) Shouldn't Gooshie know that, even though the person looks and sounds like Sam, it isn't Sam? And 2) even if he did think it was, shouldn't he be a bit more excited since it would mean Sam was back? I mean, isn't that the whole premise of the show, and the main focus of what they've been trying to do at Project Quantum Leap for the past four years?
  • That used to bug me, too, but after rewatching it recently, it dawned on me that Gooshie is joking. Although Gooshie is mentioned in nearly every episode, we seldom get to see him, and this is the only episode in which his character is fleshed out. Despite Al's insults, we see that Gooshie is very intelligent and has a good sense of humor. He probably addresses EVERY hapless soul in the Waiting Room as "Dr. Beckett" because he doesn't yet know who they are.
• What bugs me is all of the behind the black moments that appear at the end of the episodes to leave a cliffhanger that is quickly resolves at the beginning of the next episode. This happens more than once with camera crews or stage shows where the camera crew and film crew would have been completely visible to Sam.
• I just watched the episode 'Blind Faith,' in which Sam leaps into a blind concert pianist who has to save his host's love interest, a young woman with an overbearing mother, from being strangled by a serial killer. While this is a worthy mission for Sam, there is one event in this episode that really bugs me: the woman who was strangled before his love interest was his neighbor. Seriously, we see Sam go home to his host's apartment, and he passes a sexy French blonde out walking her dogs. In one of the next scenes, the blonde is killed. Are we to assume Ziggy didn't see this one coming? All Sam would have had to do to save her was accompany her on the walk; odds are the strangler was only targeting solitary women, and even if he did attack with Sam present, he knows tae-kwon-do. What's more, his neighbor--and her death (or disappearance)--are never mentioned again.
  • It seems that it may be that Sam leaps to right specific wrongs, and apparently can't right every single wrong that's happened during his life. For example, when he leaps to Dallas in November of 1963, he can't save President Kennedy from being assassinated, but Al reveals at the end of the episode that apparently he was there to prevent Jackie Kennedy from being killed too, not to save the President. Granted, that still doesn't explain why he can't save the President or the neighbor, or why Ziggy wasn't at least aware of what happened to the neighbor.
    • Fridge Brilliance moment! What if the God/Time/Fate/Whatever thing has an endgame based on the ripple effect? It would explain why changes in Sam's personal past always seem to end up giving him the exact skills he needs for each leap. If that's the case then saving the neighbour or Kennedy would be counter-productive as saving them wasn't what he was sent there to do. Suddenly it's not "Set Right What Once Went Wrong" it's "Create the most desirable overall timeline". But maybe this belongs in WMG.
• Since PQL is based around Al and Sam's brainwaves, I always assumed Al saw Sam as himself. However, in the episode where Sam leaps into Samantha the sexually-harassed secretary, the running gag is that Al sees Sam as Samantha and finds him/her attractive. So does Al always see Sam as the person he's leaped into, or was it a glitch just involving that one leap?
  • It's an inconsistency in the story. Sometimes, Al says he sees Sam. Sometimes, he says he sees the person Sam replaced. Another example of when Al sees the other person is when Sam jumps into a younger version of Al. Al says he sees himself in the chamber.
  • I don't recall any mention of Al seeing Sam as the Leapee after "What Price Gloria." Fanon is that the events of that episode caused the project to adjust Ziggy and the, uh, holoemitters so that Al would see Sam as Sam from then on.
    • Inconsistencies abound! I seem to recall in one episode Sam sees Alia leaping. He then asks Al if that's what he looks like when he leaps and Al replies "I don't know Sam, all I see is the person you've leaped into" or words to that effect. Yet in one episode Al is standing on the top of a building in a thunderstorm and starts to glow blue. He then remarks to Sam, "Look Sam, I'm leaping!". How would he know?
      • That was from the last episode, Mirror Image The exact words are: Sam: "Al, when I leap, do I turn all blue and tingle with electrical energy?" Al: "How would I know? When you leap, I go back to the Imaging Chamber."
    • The "rules" seem to change in each episode depending on what's needed to make the plot work.
    • One of the books describes it as Al seeing Sam overlaid with the faded image of the person he's leaped into.
• What happens when Sam leaps out and the "leapees" return to their bodies? Does Al fill them in as to what happened before they leap back, is there liberal use of hand-waving which causes them to share relevant memories with Sam, or do they leap back having no idea what just happened?
  • Al usually ends up talking to the people in the chamber and he tries to calm them down. I don't think it's ever addressed how the person fits back into his/her body after Sam leaps out after solving all the problems for that person.
  • I always assumed that they remember doing what Sam did but didn't remember why they did it.
    • I think the concern Al and Sam may feel is gone when they move on to the next problem.
  • It seems like Sam's leaping would cause more problems for the person than he fixes.
    • Especially when you consider that the person not only has no recollection of having participated in some historically-significant or personally-significant event and add in the fact that the person also has a story about being in a chamber for a period of time while someone else occupied his or her body. I think this would put the person in the same category as all the people who claim to have been abducted by aliens and suffered an anal probe.
      • We have seen how a leapee reacts to being returned in "Double Identity": they don't seem to remember anything, or that any time had passed at all.
    • Case in point: Season 4, "Raped". As psychologically satisfying as it was to see Sam kick the shit out of Kevin, couldn't Kevin just later squeal that Katie hunted him down and beat him up in revenge? They'd believe him again, too.
    • Considering Kevin went to her house to "teach her a lesson?" His believability isn't very high.
    • OK, so he says she invited him over to apologise, then kicked the crap out of him.
      • He's also not the sort to openly admit that he got the ever-loving shit beaten out of him by a woman, especially once that he already overpowered.
      • Kevin had gone over to try to rape her again. It's likely that this time, there would be enough evidence to finally put him away, since it was witnessed by the leapee's parents.
• In the pilot episode (which happens to be about a pilot), why didn't anyone on the Air Force base notice or say anything about the 80's model car driving near the flight line in 1953? This car goes by in the background as Sam and Al talk prior to Sam's flight of the X-2.
  • When you say "Why didn't anyone on the Air Force base notice or say anything," I presume you're also referring to the camera operator, the director, and most of the crew, in addition to the characters in the show.
  • Yes, anyone - production assistants, actors, directors, and anyone else who might have noticed that an 80's model car was in the shot in what's supposed to be 1953.
• Why does Sam always leap into the person's body at inopportune times? How come he never leaps into a body while they're sleeping (which he should really have a 1 in 3 chance of doing)?
  • A good teaser.
  • Sam actually does leap into somebody whilst they're asleep. If I remember correctly, he's dreaming about Deep Space Nine's Terry Farrell naked on the beach, which shocked the hell out of me at the time because it used to be shown at 6pm in the UK.
• In "The Leap Home, Part II", it shows Sam mowing down a bunch of Viet-Cong with a machine gun. I mean, I know he leaped into the middle of a war, and that the Viet-Cong wouldn't have hesitated to kill him, but it still seems a bit un-Sam like. At least he could have shown some remorse or something later.
  • When Sam leaps, parts of his personality sometimes switch with the leapee. This is a plot point in a bunch of episodes, and remembering that clears up a lot of these character inconsistentcy problems.
• In one episode, Al wants Sam to change a big part of history in order to keep the project funded. His belief is: if the history books change, that will be proof the project is working. The problem with that is: everyone but he and Sam will believe the changed history books, having no memory of the event that did not happen. 'No, really, committee, I swear, in so-and-so, this big thing happened, but Sam changed it. You can look up the rec- Oh.' And Al not seeing the Fridge Logic would be fine, but not one member of the committee or Sam himself sees it, either.
  • Agreed. Besides all the above, if they needed to prove the project was working, wouldn't it have been simpler and less risky to invite a member of the committee to enter the imaging chamber?
    • It's possible that only Al (and Sam) can actually use the Imaging Chamber since the project is based around their brainwaves. In one episode when Sam goes crazy, they have the project's psychologist enter the chamber to help. Sam can't hear her talk, and it's unclear (but it's implied) that the psychologist cannot actually see or hear anything Al can, as it looks like he's directing her where to look. (And don't think about when other people use the chamber).
    • However, the leapee from "Raped" is a notable exception. Sam couldn't possibly testify at the trial against the rapist, since he wasn't actually there, so he testifies as a proxy--Al brings the leapee into the Imaging Chamber and mentions to Sam that they really had to amp up the chamber's broadcasting power so the victim could hear the cross-examination and accurately answer the questions.
• Even allowing for his being able to leap only during his own lifetime (we won't bring up the "Oh look, he has the same DNA structure as his great-grandfather" get-out clause to get him into the Civil War in "The Leap Between The States"), how can "The Color Of Truth" and the first part of "Trilogy" both kick off on August 8, 1955?
  • I see no reason to think he can't leap into the same time period twice but in two different locations. Too bad Sam didn't have the idea to drive to Red Dog to meet his past self, just to see what would happen.
• This mostly bugged me during Bloodmoon, but why is it that no one ever notices when Sam doesn't speak with the proper dialect, or that he was speaking with an American accent? Certainly the fact that Nigel was suddenly speaking with an American accent would raise a few eyebrows?
  • Presumably Sam takes on the voice of the person he leaped into and not just the appearance to others.