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Quantum Leap (2022)
Season 1, Episode 10:
Paging Dr. Song
Written by Deric A. Hughes and Benjamin Raab
Directed by Tessa Blake
Original air date: 1/9/2023
February 8, 1994
Ben leaps into Dr. Alexandra Tomkinson, a first-year medical resident in a Seattle hospital. He's there to save three people — Kimberly Cole, Louis Tann, and Eli Jackson — following a train accident, while standing up to hospital bosses who are using a dangerous experimental drug called Respiratrex on patients.
Meanwhile, Magic and Jenn work on getting Janis to tell him about Ben's leaps, which she agrees to do, but on the condition she talks to Ben first.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – Medicine:
- Exam rooms don't typically have signs with the patient's name.
- There's no such thing as "stage two glioblastoma." A glioblastoma is automatically a stage four tumor.
- Ben uses a defibrillator to restart Kimberly's heart, instead of correct an arrhythmia.
- Dr. Harper gives the operating room staff a quick As You Know speech about the viability of Jeane's heart. There's not really an in-universe reason for him to do this, since the entire OR staff would know this.
- Awful Truth: Ben has to break the news to Louis that his wife Jeane is brain dead, shortly after having a conversation with Louis about her. Addison tells him that she once had to deliver news to a mother that her only son had been killed in action.
- Being Good Sucks:
- Ben has a breakdown about how tough his leap tasks are, admitting that — unlike Addison, who had been preparing to become the Project's leaper — he's just not cut out for leaping.
- Janis says that she didn't want to be on the run or in the Project's custody, and she's rather bitter that she had to throw her life away, but she's helping Ben for the greater good of all.
- Big Brother Is Watching: The implications of Janis' warning about information said out loud are in the same vein as The Dead Past. Namely, that in a world with time travel and holograms, anything said out loud can be used against you by someone with less-than-benevolent intentions.
- Bittersweet Ending: Louis' wife dies, but he finds peace knowing that her heart was used to save Kimberly.
- Calling Parents by Their Name: Sandra does for Eli.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Addison suggests that there is a reason that Ben has to save the three people, and he realizes what it is: Louis needed to live in order to consent to donating his wife's heart, to save Kimberly. This, in turn, finally convinces Sandra to reconcile with Eli and help him with his cancer.
- Dark Secret: Janis wants to talk to Ben to tell him not to tell anyone why he leaped. She then settles for telling Addison instead, saying that the reason can't be said out loud since the people who sent Martinez could learn that information, with the implication being that openly stated info would be fair game for another leaper or hologram.
- Death Notification: Addison tells Ben the story of when she had to do this for one of the soldiers who died under her command, who was his mother's only son.Addison: She opened that door and she took one look at me and that Army chaplain and...she knew. And my mind just went blank. My carefully planned-out speech was gone. But in its place, the right words came to me. I told her that her son sacrificed himself for this to be a better world. And that there's nothing more noble than that. And I told her that...I told her that her son was a hero. And that for myself and everybody who knew him, we were forever changed because of how he lived his life with hope and courage. I told her the truth as it came to me from wherever the truth comes from.
- Fling a Light into the Future: Discussed; Janis tells Addison that Ben must not tell her why he needs to save her, because in a world with a time travel project, the people who sent Martinez back in time would be privy to that information if it's spoken out loud.
- Gender Bender: Ben leaps into Doctor Alexandra Tomkinson.
- Godzilla Threshold:
- Magic brings Janis to the Project knowing that she's a potential liability, and she even points this out. He says he's willing to take that chance if it means helping Ben, although he does decline to allow her to speak to Ben via the Imaging Chamber.
- Janis then requests to speak with Addison instead. Addison only very reluctantly acquiesces because she wants to help Ben and get more information about the future.
- Janis says that she had a life before Ben asked for her help, and that his reason for coming to her was so compelling that she felt like she had no choice but to help even though it would cost her everything.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Janis slugs another shot of tequila after she realizes that she mentioned the "order" that Ben has to follow.
- In Vino Veritas: Janis thinks this when Jenn brings a bottle of tequila into the interrogation room. Jenn says that it's a mea culpa for what happened in Belize.
- Have We Met Yet?: Janis looks momentarily panicked when she realizes that Ben was recognized by another leaper, saying that, "there's an order that has to—" before catching herself.
- Magical Defibrillator: Ben shocks Kimberly twice to restart her heart and bring her back. However, her heart is so badly damaged by the Respiratrex reaction that she doesn't have much time left, and requires a transplant.
- Man, I Feel Like a Woman: As this is Ben's second leap into a woman, he comments on the fact that he's still not used to wearing bras.
- Medical Drama: The genre of the episode.
- The '90s: Specifically, February 1994; Addison points out that they're in Seattle during the height of the Grunge era.
- Not Himself: Ben is a little less cautious about acting as his leapee this time, and other characters notice that "Alex" is acting off. For instance, he gets an odd look from Sandra when he tells Louis that he met his fiancee at work, he gets an odd look from Nurse Carolina when she realizes that "Alex" had asked about patients that hadn't previously arrived yet, and he gets called out as "psychic" by nearly everyone when he starts spouting off info passed down from Ziggy that Alex shouldn't logically know.
- Nothing but Hits:
- The song playing after Ben delivers the baby is "In the Meantime" by Spacehog.note
- The song playing when Ben tells Louis about Jeane's brain death is "Into Dust" by Mazzy Star.
- Oh, Crap!: Janis when Jenn tells her about the leaper that Ben met during his fifth leap.
- Properly Paranoid: Janis' refusal to say anything about Ben's reason for leaping, and her reasons for her refusal, make perfect sense given how her father and Sam directly experienced Thames spying on Sam for Zoey.
- Shout-Out: Dr. Sandra Turk seems to be named for Dr. Chris Turk.
- Three-Month-Old Newborn: The baby that Ben delivers at the beginning is clearly a few months old, and conspicuously clean.
- Time Travel for Fun and Profit: Implied by Janis' statement that, when quantum accelerators exist, anything spoken aloud is fair game for someone else to use for whatever purpose.
- Title Drop: From Addison at the beginning, when she first pops in on Ben.
- Title In: "1994" is shown in large text at the beginning.
- Worst Aid:
- Ben isn't a medical doctor like Sam was, so he doesn't have the skillset for handling patients. He still delivers a baby successfully, though, and he's able to help a few other people with Addison telling him what to do.
- Dr. Harper is okay with the side effects of Respiratrex, since the drug firm is sponsoring the hospital, and pooh-poohs Ben's suggestion that Kimberly's underlying condition would make the Respiratrex fatal. Sure enough, Kimberly's reaction is so severe that they just barely manage to bring her back, and it permanently damages her heart and she requires a transplant. Ben and Sandra have to rush to stop Dr. Harper at the end when he goes to operate and use Respiratrex on Kimberly again.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Addison gives Ben a pep talk at the end to tell him about all the good he did on the leap: he saved Kimberly's life, he helped Louis find peace knowing that his beloved wife's death wasn't in vain, he saved Eli by way of giving him hope through reconciliation with Sandra, and he saved countless people from dying after word gets out about Respiratrex's dangerous side effects.
- You Do Not Want To Know: Janis warns Addison that knowing what will happen in the future is a very dangerous thing. "I'm sorry that I'm not particularly sympathetic to your ignorance, but in this case, I can promise you: ignorance is bliss."
Janis: Because the problem with information is that the only place we can really keep it secret is in our mind. Because once you say it out loud to someone else in a world with a quantum accelerator, everyone knows, including the people who sent Richard Martinez. You want to help Ben, you will tell him to trust no one. Even you.
