Quantum Leap
Season 1, Episode 1-2:
Genesis
Al: You're part of a time-travel experiment that went a little... ka-ka.
Sam: A little ka-ka? How little ka-ka?
Al: Well, you're here! That's great! It’s Nobel Prize time, you should be proud.
Sam: And…?
Al: And... we're experiencing technical difficulties in retrieving you.
Written by Donald P. Bellisario
Directed by David Hemmings.
Airdate: March 26, 1989.
Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Doctor Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top secret project, known as QUANTUM LEAP. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Doctor Beckett prematurely stepped into the Project Accelerator and vanished.
Sam awakens to find himself in 1956, in the body of an Air Force test pilot working to break Mach 3. Sam is assigned to fly the experimental aircraft, but even with partial amnesia he is suffering as a side-effect of time travel, he knows that he has no idea how to fly a plane.
Tropes:
- 555: One of the only things Sam remembers after leaping is his office’s phone number. In 1956, the era of telephone exchange names, it doesn’t work.Sam: What’s wrong with the phone?Peg: Honey, you’re dialing too many numbers.Sam: Too many? Maybe not enough. What’s the area code?Peg: Area code?
- Bedmate Reveal: Sam not only wakes up in an unfamiliar room, but alongside a woman he’s never see before.Sam: (thinking) I don’t even remember going to bed with this woman whoever she is. And whoever she is she’s certainly… pregnant. VERY pregnant!
- Casual Kink: One of Peg's friends mentions that her test pilot husband sometimes wears his goggles when they make love. Despite the sideways glances from her friends, she simply states "I think it's sexy".
- Catch-22 Dilemma: Variation: Al remarks to Sam that, given how smart he is, he potentially could've figured out how to get himself home... except Sam's brain is now currently swiss cheesed.
- Cool Car: The first scene has Al driving a futuristic-looking car.note
- Cursed with Awesome: The conclusion Sam reaches about leaping after managing to talk with his dad in 1968: While he is stuck jumping around time, not knowing when he'll go home, he still has the opportunity to do some good.Sam: (narrating) You know, maybe this quantum leaping... isn't such a bad deal after all. Getting a second chance to put things right, to make the world a better place. Who knows what I can accomplish before I'm done.
- Cutting the Knot: After saying he was able to help Sam fly the X-2, Al admits there is no way Sam could land it, even with his help. So, they opt to have Sam eject once they break Mach 3.
- Down to the Last Play: Sam is the last batter for the Waco Bombers. Partially subverted in that he strikes out, but gets to base when the third strike becomes a wild pitch and a series of errors allow him to round the bags.
- Evil-Detecting Dog: While Sam is not evil, Tim Fox’s (Sam’s second leap) dog sees Sam for who he is and keeps barking. Sam tries to stare him down, which appears to work, until Sam realizes that Al’s sudden appearance led to Scare the Dog.
- Foreshadowing: During one of attempted flights of the X-2, Tony admits that he could have sworn he smelled coffee brewing. In addition, you can clearly hear some kind of bubbling sound as the X-2 was approaching Mach 3.
- Halfway Plot Switch: Despite the majority of the episode concerning Tom Stratton's X-2 flight, the last 18 minutes of the second episodenote sees Sam leap into baseball player Tim Fox in 1968, and is meant to help his team win their final game of the season. In fact, Sam leaps in right before he's meant to go up to bat. One gets the feeling that this was done because the pilot was too short.
- I Meant to Do That: Sam’s line gets snagged while trying to show Mikey how to fly fish. Sam quickly invokes this trope, saying that he was showing him what not to do.
- Male Gaze: One of the first things the viewer is treated to are the long, shapely legs of a sexy woman standing beside her broken-down car.
- Mirror Reveal: After Sam leaps for the first time his brain is "swiss-cheesed" so he doesn't know who he is or what he's doing there. When he first sees himself in the mirror he jumps back, apparently having a mental image of his face which isn't the face he's looking back at.
- Really Gets Around: Air Force pilot Bill “Bird Dog” Birdell is always on the prowl. The fact that he never sleeps at the B.O.Q. is widely known.
- Post–Wake-Up Realization: Sam's swiss-cheesed brain doesn't know that he has leaped into the life of someone else until he goes to the bathroom and looks at himself in the mirror to shave.
- The Prankster: Tom Stratton, the man Sam has leapt into, is notorious for this. When Sam says he has forgotten how to fly, all of this friends think it’s his latest gag. They quickly join in.
- Rule of Three: Across both the Tom Stratton and Tim Fox leaps, Sam tries calling his family home three times, and it's only through Al telling him his last name that Sam succeeds the third time.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: It's seeing how distressed Sam is during the Tim Fox leap that pushes Al to go against Ziggy's orders and give Sam some information about himself. Namely, his last name.
- Stealth Pun: This is the pilot for the series. So naturally, Sam's first leap is into a pilot.
- Tragic Stillbirth: In the original history, Tom Stratton died flying the X-2, the stress of which induced Peg’s premature labor, leading to stillbirth. Sam averted both of these tragedies.
- Wham Line: When Al realizes where the bubbling sound in the X-2 cockpit is coming from.Al: It’s the fuel, Sam. The heat is boiling the fuel!
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Due to Sam being terrified of the prospect of flying, he demands to know what other options he has for leaping out of Tom Stratton. One of the scenarios Al gives? Freezing his brain "until all electrical activity has ceased".Sam: That's called death.
Sam: Maybe this quantum leaping isn’t such a bad deal after all. Who know what I can accomplish before I’m done.
