Quantum Leap (2022)
Season 2, Episode 1:
This Took Too Long!
Written by Martin Gero
Directed by John Terlesky
Original air date: 10/4/2023
1978
Ben leaps into the lavatory of a cargo plane, leaving him distraught at the discovery that he did not return home. He soon has bigger problems, though, when a SAM locks onto the plane and brings it down, forcing him and the surving crew to find a way to signal for help in Soviet territory.
Tropes:
- Artistic License – History: The crate is said to be from Germany; in 1978, Germany was still divided. Russia is also called that rather than Soviet Union or USSR.
- Call-Back:
- Ben initially (and mistakenly) assumes that his mission is to safely land the plane like he did in "The Friendly Skies."
- The new saga sell more closely parallels the ones used in the original series, both in content and being voiced by Deborah Pratt.
In 2017, the military gathered a small group of scientists to try and bring the Quantum Leap time travel program back online. Five years later, believing it was the only way to save his fiancee's life, Dr. Ben Song risked everything when we entered the accelerator to travel back in time. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driving by an unknown force to change history for the better. Ben believed he would only need to complete 18 leaps before he could return to the place and people he calls home. But something went wrong, and for reasons unknown, Ben did not leap home... - Continuity Nod: In his flashback to Addison's test, Ben mentions Sam's wife, who in the original series was only spoken of in her two appearances: "Star-Crossed" and "The Leap Back."
- Decoy Convoy: The vitally important German crate whose recovery was essential for the mission turns out to be one of these, just filled with bricks.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: For the first time, a leaper has to go through an entire episode without the aid of a hologram or any knowledge of what happened in history originally. The closest parallel is the original series finale, "Mirror Image", but in that case, Sam had help from Al the bartender and fellow leaper Stawpah. Here, Ben is completely alone.
- History Repeats: Like a quarter century earlier, Project Quantum Leap was disbanded after they lost track of the leaper.
- Never Trust a Trailer: Early trailers for the episode show a shot of Addison in a Fermi suit getting scanned, making it look like either she is preparing to leap back to save Ben, or is possibly the Addison from the original timeline that leaped and somehow returned to the altered timeline. In fact, the shot comes from a flashback sequence from 2018 where Ben and Magic talk while some early accelerator tests are run.
- Nothing but Hits: Subverted; both "Jumpin' Jack Flash" by The Rolling Stones and "On the Road Again" by Canned Heat were released in 1968, a full decade before this episode is set.
- Not-So-Final Confession:
- Enock begins to offer one about a "betrayal" to Ronny when he believes that he is dying while trapped under wreckage but doesn't finish before he is pulled free. Ronny asks him what it was about a few times later on but Enock never elaborates.
- When Bailey stands on a mine pressure plate, believing that he has no escape, he confesses to the rest of the squad that he was assigned to be on a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits group because he was outed as gay.
- MacGuffin: The mysterious "crate" is set up as one, but then subverted when the crate turns out to be a decoy.
- Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The squad is this, with one member having "pissed off" a generalnote , Perez (Ben's leapee) embezzeled petty cash, the Abrams brothers smuggled contraband in Vietnamnote and Grier was... not born a man. This actually ends up cluing Ben into their cargo being a decoy.
- Shout-Out: Before the crash, the team speculate as to whether the cargo might be an ancient alien artifact. Martin Gero would never be involved in a show featuring something like that!
- Spotting the Thread: Upon realizing that his entire squad is a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits, Ben realizes that they would not have been entrusted with transporting genuinely essential cargo and that their crate is a decoy.
- Time Skip: Not revealed until the end, but for Project Quantum Leap three years have passed since the previous episode.
- The Unreveal: We never learn about Enock's "betrayal."
- Weight and Switch: Done with each member of the squad taking turns in exchanging places in descending order of weight until the commander (the lightest of them) can be switched with a collection of bags filled with sand in order to avoid a sudden change in the load that would have detonated the mine.
- Wham Line: "Ben, it's been three years."
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Since this is a couple of leaps after "The Friendly Skies," Ben initially thinks his mission is to save the plane from crashing. Instead, his mission is to ensure the survival of the plane's surviving passengers after it crashes.
- Year Outside, Hour Inside: From Ben's point of view, it's only been the duration of a single leap before he hears from Ian. For Ian and the rest of the project, it's been three years.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Grier — having learned that she was commanding a team to transport a worthless decoy — laments that she will never be respected by her country despite her willingness to serve. Ben tells her that her dedication will lay the groundwork for women of the future to serve proudly.
