*****ZIGGY-SIZED SPOILERS!*****

NBC/Peacock’s revived “Quantum Leap” just ended its second season, leaving the door wide open for a third, but given its uncertain future, this might be a series finale as well. The original Quantum Leap (1989-1993) was a time-traveling anthology series following the quest of Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) to right past wrongs and make the “leap home.” Sam was aided by his faithful holographic guide Admiral Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell). While Sam never made it back, that didn’t stop Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) from following in his footsteps decades later (“July 13th, 1985”), in order to save his fianceé (and hologram) Addison Augustine (Caitlin Bassett) from a deadly fate.

With the genius assistance of the late Al’s daughter, Janis (Georgina Reilly), Ben ultimately succeeded in his quest to save Addison (“Judgment Day,”), but was then flung him into a new series of leaps. The second season opened with Ben instantly embarking on a new leap, while three years passed in the present (“This Took Too Long!”).  Afterward, Ben learned that grieving Addison moved on with a new love in her life, Tom Westfall (Peter Gadiot), as Project Leap was disbanded (“This Took Too Long!” “Ben & Teller”). 

The project’s dedicated AI programmer Ian Wright (Mason Alexander Park) worked on their own (using questionable means) to locate Ben in the past.  When they succeeded, government liaison Tom helped reunite the project’s team, including security chief Jenn Chu (Nanrisa Lee) and project leader, Admiral Herbert “Magic” Williams (Ernie Hudson), who lapsed into alcoholism after failing to retrieve Ben (“One Night in Koreatown”).  Meanwhile, a rebounding Ben has fallen for a brilliant woman from the past named Hannah Carson (Eliza Taylor), whom he follows across multiple leaps (“Closure Encounters,” “Secret History,” “Nomads,” “Off the Cuff,” “As the World Burns”), even after she’s married and widowed.

The illegal means Ian was forced to use in order to locate Ben through time come back to haunt them (“The Outsider”), and the season ends with the team facing charges of espionage from the government and the wrath of a vindictive billionaire named Gideon Rydge (James Frain). G-man Tom breaks up with Addison (and the project) after her guilt with relocating Ben leaves her too conflicted to accept Tom’s marriage proposal (“The Outsider”).  And Magic is forced to resign in order to keep the rest of his team intact.  

This is where we begin the two-part season finale…

S2, E12: “As the World Burns” 

Written by Benjamin Raab, Deric A. Hughes and directed by Pamela Romanowsky, the penultimate episode of season 2 opens with Ben (Raymond Lee) leaping into a firefighter (“cool”) in 1974, the same year as the release of “The Towering Inferno.”  Once again, he reunites with a now recently widowed Hannah (Eliza Taylor), who’s living in a poorly-wired, high-rise firetrap of an apartment building with her young son Jeffrey Nally (Wyatt Parker), who’s grown deeply bitter following the death of his father in a car crash (not a heart attack, which Ben prevented).  After Ben (appearing as an older veteran firefighter) is able to convince Hannah who he really is, the two of them quickly catch up. 

Note: One of my nits with this episode was that whenever Ben stops to catch up with Hannah, the pacing of the story stops dead in its tracks, and the imminent threat of the high-rise fire cools. I found myself murmuring at the characters to remember that there’s a fire going on…

Ben then sees that the fire is spreading faster than realized, and with the fire crew outside severely shorthanded, Hannah volunteers to help Sam evacuate their floor of the building. As Jeffrey is taken outside with the others, the fire builds in intensity.  Hannah is suddenly pinned under debris, as Addison (Caitlin Bassett) enters the imaging chamber to tell Ben that the fire crew has lost track of young Jeffrey…who’s gone back into the building to retrieve his late father’s letters and other artifacts. Ben has to make the choice; save Hannah, or save her son. At Hannah’s insistence, he goes off to rescue Jeffrey…

Note: Felt like the story was setting the table for Hannah’s demise, which would’ve added a lot more punch to this episode, and to Jeffrey’s future resentment of Ben (SPOILER ALERT… but you knew there were spoilers going in, of course). To be honest, I’m not a big fan of Ben’s relationship with Hannah (more a Team Addison guy), and I think his throwing himself into the leaps instead of new relationships might’ve lent him a bit more nobility.

Among the items Jeffrey has found in the apartment is a letter Ben wrote to his mother in order to prevent his father Josh from dying several years earlier from a preventable heart attack. When Josh found the letter years later, he believed it was proof his wife had an affair.  This mistaken notion caused Josh to drive off in a rage and fatally crash his car. Meanwhile, as the pinned Hannah struggles to hold on, she knows Ben’s hologram Addison is nearby as well (per his instructions to stay with her), so she writes a complex computer code in the dust with her fingers; this code, seen in the imaging chamber monitor by Ian, is the missing piece needed to help Ian (Mason Alexander Park) bring Ben back to the present by swapping him with someone else—another leaper—to take his place.  

Note: I know Hannah is supposed to be brilliant (as established in “Closure Encounters” and “Secret History”) but her having just the piece of missing code that Ian needed reeks of deus ex machina.

In the present-day, Project Quantum Leap has lost Magic, who resigned rather than fire any one of his invaluable team. In his place, ex-con hacker turned security chief Jenn (Nanrisa Lee) is now in charge. Ian immediately recognizes Hannah’s hand-written code from the imaging chamber monitor, but needs more time and more power in order to make it work.  Jenn authorizes Ian (Mason Alexander Park) to illegally siphon electricity from nearby buildings in order to keep Ziggy and the imaging chamber working at full power.  

Note: Glad to see the otherwise underused Nanrisa Lee’s character of Jenn was given more to do in these final two episodes.

This action draws the attention of tech billionaire Gideon Rydge (James Frain), who storms into the building with a government security team, demanding that Jenn and Ian immediately cease and desist.  It was Gideon’s computer coding that Ian stole in order to locate Ben across time.  Now the powerful Gideon Rydge has used his power and government influence to take over Quantum Leap.  Gideon’s first act is to fire the entire current project team, and take over with his own…

Note: James Frain, a British actor, also played Spock’s father Sarek in the first and second seasons of Star Trek Discovery, a role inherited from the late Mark Lenard and Ben Cross.

In 1974, Ben manages to find Jeffrey in the burning apartment and struggles to get through to the boy, even borrowing a phrase used by his later father in order to coax his cooperation in leaping from the 20th floor apartment’s window.  As the fire envelops the rest of the floor, Jeffrey is forced to trust Ben, and the boy leaps into his arms.  Ben catches Jeffrey, and they manage to reach the fire engines in the street below.  There, Jeffrey is reunited with his mother, who was freed from the debris.  Knowing that Ben will inevitably leap once more after the completion of this mission, Hannah is worried they may never see each other again.  Ben leaps…

Back in the present, Addison returns from the imaging chamber to find Project Quantum Leap under siege. Struggling to resist, former soldier Addison manages to wrestle a gun from one of Gideon’s men, but is quickly outgunned by surrounding troops, and she’s forced to leave the building, along with Jenn and Ian.  Quantum Leap is now fully under the control of Gideon Rydge…

Note: Is it just me, or does the curly-haired blue-eyed James Frain remind anyone else of Brad Douriff as the Gemini Killer from “Exorcist III” (1990?

S2, E13: “Against Time” 

Written by Drew Lindo and directed by Chris Grismer, the final episode of the season opens with Ben leaping into 1976. He’s race car driver Rick Jarrett Jr.—the son of legendary racer Rick Jarrett Sr. (Judson Mills).  Unfortunately, Ben has leaped into the middle of a qualifying lap around the track. Ben’s inexperience with racing leads him to qualify dead last—much to the disappointment of Rick Sr and his daughter, Casey (Jessi Case). Exiting the car, Ben goes indoors, where he sees the elder Rick struggling to catch his breath.  Ben suspects heart trouble, and asks his ‘dad’ to drop out of the upcoming race.  Rick dismisses his ‘son’s’ worries.

Ben then sees a mysterious man staring at him from outside.  Walking toward him, a car passes harmlessly through the stranger, and Ben realizes he’s a hologram. Introducing himself, the man, of course, is Gideon Rydge, the tech billionaire who changed his named from Jeffrey Nally—the boy Ben just saved in the previous leap, and who managed to save a letter between Ben and his mother.  The letter was meant to prevent Gideon’s father’s heart attack, which it did, though Gideon believes it still led to his father’s death, who drove off in despair, believing that Hannah cheated on him. The hologram of Gideon then announces to Ben that he’s taken over Quantum Leap, and that he’s going to change history as he sees fit…

Note: It’s never explained how both prior versions of young Jeffrey were played by actors with brown eyes while their adult self (played by James Frain) clearly has blue eyes. A minor nit, but given the number of closeups devoted to both Frain and the child actors playing Jeffrey, it stands out. This is one of those things that a continuity person on set or in the casting department should’ve caught.

Meanwhile, Jenn, Ian and Addison are escorted out of the building at gunpoint.  As they make their way into the parking lot, they are intercepted by a large SUV, being driven by Magic and Al’s daughter, Janis Calavicci (Georgina Reilly).  Magic says they’re regrouping at Janis’ secret off-site imaging chamber, which she used last season to help Ben in his secret mission to save Addison.  Once there, they power up the equipment, and immediately get a lock on Ben’s location in 1976. Even Al’s widow (and Magic’s current paramour) Beth (Susan Diol) from the original series arrives with food and moral support for everyone.

Note: Nice to see the original series’ Beth (Susan Diol) return, as she was already prominent in the first season as Janis Calavicci’s mother (duh, self), and this season as Magic’s significant other. I find a certain elegance that the man her late husband credited with saving his life in Vietnam (Magic, via Sam Beckett) is now the man Beth ends up with after Al’s death; one more ‘gift’ (a gift of companionship) from the still-missing Sam Beckett…

Addison immediately uses Janis’ other imaging chamber, as well as Janis’ late father Al’s original hand-link to Ziggy (her heirloom).  Hologram-Addison then appears to Ben in 1976, where she brings him up to speed on what’s happened at project headquarters.  Ben is terrified that the megalomaniacal Gideon will make good on his threat to use time travel for his own personal means. With regards to the leap, Addison determines that he’s there to prevent Rick Sr. from dying of a heart attack the following day during his own qualifying trial. Ben then takes his race car to destroy a garage computer project created by teenaged Jeffrey; Ziggy predicts this event will shatter the teen’s confidence to the point where he never becomes megalomaniacal tech billionaire Gideon Rydge.   

Note: Okay, am I the only one who geeked out just a bit when Addison used the original series’ multi-colored, clear plastic hand-link?

Gideon’s team at Quantum Leap realize that Addison and the others are using an off-site imaging chamber and work to track its location.  Jenn realizes they need to counterattack by hacking their way back into Quantum Leap HQ.  Unfortunately, they can’t do so from outside, and have to enter the building in order to crack the security protocols.  Jenn, being a master hacker, volunteers for the dangerous mission.  Disguised as a security guard, she uses another guard’s passkey to gain entrance.  Just as she begins her hack, she’s surrounded by Gideon’s troops.  She reports her failure to Magic and the others, just as Gideon arrives and orders Jenn to drop her tablet and kick it toward him.  Jenn refuses…and she is killed by Gideon’s security forces!

Note: I’m not crying, you’re crying…

During Ben’s breakneck drive to Jeffrey’s home, hologram-Addison receives news of Jenn’s death over the hand-link and tells Ben. The two of them are devastated, but their grief only adds fuel to their mission.  Arriving at Jeffrey’s home, they enter the garage, where they see his sophisticated homemade computer.  Just as he’s about to destroy it, Ben stops—he feels it isn’t right to destroy an innocent kid’s future, even to save Quantum Leap.  Jeffrey then arrives and wonders what Ben/Rick Jr. is doing there; Ben comes clean, and tells Jeffrey the truth about who he is, and what happened between he and Jeffrey’s mother. Ben then tries to appeal to the boy’s better nature, explaining to him that right now, the two of them have a chance to save Rick’s own family from losing their father—a trauma Ben and Jeffrey both share. Arriving at the racetrack just as Rick Sr is having his heart attack, Ben and Jeffrey use a car battery as a makeshift defibrillator, they are able to revive Rick and save his life. 

Note: Too bad Obi-Wan Kenobi didn’t have Ben’s power of persuasion with Anakin Skywalker… might’ve saved us from the “The Phantom Menace.”

Doing good for someone else despite his own bitterness changes young Jeffrey’s life, and he begins to trust Ben. Just as the evil future-Gideon is preparing to enter Quantum Leap’s imaging chamber, he stops—Ben’s intervention is having a realtime effect in his own present.  Gideon disappears from the building, and history begins to reset around them, despite the ‘time bubble’ that’s supposed to prevent the team from feeling timeline changes. Addison exits the imaging chamber and finds herself back at Quantum Leap headquarters…where Jenn is still alive, because she was never shot in this corrected timeline. Jeffrey never became the bitter monster Gideon Rydge, either (and perhaps his eyes never turned blue…?).

Note: I liked the swirling lighting techniques and editing to show the timeline repairing itself around the Quantum Leap team; it was very theatrical (as in live theatre, not movies). I also found it interesting that leapers wear a white (temporally-resistant?) leotard when they step into the accelerator (as established in the 1989 pilot and the 2022 reboot), but Gideon wears a black leotard, because well…evil’s gotta evil.

Back at the racetrack in 1976, Ben says his goodbyes to Rick’s family, as well as to Hannah, who’s arrived to join her son.  His leap is successful, and he knows he will be leaving soon.  He still has feelings for Hannah, but he’s starting to believe that she and her son were perhaps part of something greater in store for him.  She gave the code that was seen up in the future, so perhaps it’s finally time for Ben to return home after all…

Note: While I wasn’t terribly fond of the Hannah subplot threading throughout season 2, it ultimately paid off better than I expected. Wish I could say the same for Addison and her rather soulless ex-fiancé Tom (Peter Gadiot), a superficially ‘nice guy’ who always had a look on his otherwise expressionless mug that suggested he might kill someone over a parking space, and we’d never know it. Okay, so I’m just a hopelessly romantic old fool who never stopped rooting for Ben & Addison. Sue me…

At Quantum Leap headquarters in the restored present, Ian has uploaded Hannah’s swap code into Ziggy, and all they need is another leaper to trade places with Ben.  Immediately Jenn volunteers, until Addison stops her—Addison was designated to be the project’s original leaper before Ben jumped the gun in order to save her life, so she feels that she owes him.  It’s also clear that she still has strong feelings for him as well, as evidenced by her refusal to accept Tom’s proposal. Addison then suits up in the familiar white leotard and prepares to enter the imaging chamber in order to trade places with Ben. The accelerator does its thing, and Addison is soon surrounded by the familiar, swirling blue energies of the Quantum Leap effect…

… she then finds herself in what appears to be World War 2 Europe, as people are fleeing into the streets.  Dressed era-appropriately, she sees Ben, and calls out for him.  As they rush toward each other, they realize they are finally able to touch, meaning they have apparently leaped into the past together!  They were not swapped out.  Despite being stranded together in the past, they are overjoyed at being able to touch once again.  They embrace, gushing over how much they’ve missed each other.   However, their joyful reunion is cut short by a rumbling explosion nearby, as they appear to be in the middle of a blitzkrieg. 

The End.

Note: Nice to see that Addison, the original designated leaper of the revived Quantum Leap project, finally gets to try on the white leotard and step into the accelerator for herself. I also appreciated the payoff of her and Ben being reunited, even it is during what appears to be a Nazi blitzkrieg (“Nazis…I hate these guys!”). It doesn’t explain why the swap code didn’t exactly work as advertised, but that’s a mystery for next season…if there is a next season (?). Maybe this coding error (*cough*) was a final gift to both of them from Hannah, who clearly figured out in the previous episode that Addison was the one for whom Ben was still pining.

Summing It Up

The second season hasn’t been as consistent as season one, with a couple of less-than-stellar episodes (“A Kind of Magic” was arguably a series low point, with a laughably anachronistic 17th century Massachusetts). I also haven’t been too crazy about Addison-Tom and Ben-Hannah, either.  However, I accept that ‘queasy-quad’ storyline was a necessary means to an end, and it ultimately worked itself out. “Against Time” was perhaps not as strong a finale as last year’s “Judgment Day,” but it resolves this year’s plot threads well enough, and it certainly ends with a dandy cliffhanger. 

While the original “Quantum Leap” was not exactly groundbreaking sci-fi either, it had two charming lead characters (Sam & Al), and its time-traveling anthology format kept a steady stream of fresh stories and ideas every week.  It was solid entertainment. The newer incarnation greatly expands the ensemble, giving fans both A and B stories; Ben’s leap usually provides the A-story, while the project’s team provides the B-story; though often times that priority order is reversed.  The project support team members are each interesting enough to hold an episode, as demonstrated over the past two seasons.

If this two-part finale is indeed the end of new Quantum Leap, it would be a real shame, since it’s one of the more enjoyable sequel/reboots in recent memory.  Granted, it’s not been as dramatic an overhaul as Ron Moore’s “Battlestar Galactica” per se, but it’s a likable and engaging enough continuation of the original, and it features a terrific cast of new characters.  While this second season has been somewhat less surefooted than the first, it still managed to stick the landing with an intriguing cliffhanger.

The season finale provides an interesting setup for a potential third season, with the series’ mythology entering uncharted territory, with Ben and Addison (the original designated leaper) leaping into the past together.  I can’t imagine how tangled things might get with two leapers occupying two seemingly unrelated people in the same era, but it’s an interesting and challenging prospect for the show’s writers to take up in a third season (one hopes?).  

If NBC does indeed cancel the series, perhaps it might continue for one or two more seasons on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.  That way it could at least get a proper series finale, and perhaps showrunner Dean Georgaris might even succeed in luring original series’ star Scott Bakula back for just one more appearance as Sam Beckett, closing the book on his character as well.  Even if Bakula isn’t lured back, I’d be happy enough just to see the new show’s wonderful ensemble getting their own resolutions.  They fully deserve it. 

Here’s hoping we do indeed see a “leap home” someday for the new Quantum Leap team.

Where to Watch

“Quantum Leap” is available to watch on Peacock streaming and on NBC.   For old-school physical media geeks like myself? Season 1 of the reboot “Quantum Leap” is also available on DVD and Blu-Ray, via Amazon and Barnes & Noble.