I have some questions.
What’s happening to Ben’s body while all this is going on?
In the original Quantum Leap, when Sam leaped, his body was left behind in the waiting room or whatever it was called. Sam leaped into a new body and the person he displaced chilled in Sam’s body in the waiting room. Occasionally Al would say he had to go interview the leapee in the waiting room for more information, or some such.
Is that happening here? If Ben’s body is laying around somewhere, no one’s mentioned it. We haven’t heard a word about David or Who’s-Their-Face from Ep. 1 that Ben leaped into. Did the sequel just decide, eh, never mind, too much hassle to do it that way, and retcon that? It wouldn’t hurt my feelings any to have a little clarification on that score.
If Ben’s body is still around somewhere… does that mean Sam’s is, too? Like, what happened to Sam?
We know Sam “never made it home.” But what happened to Sam’s body, assuming that hasn’t been retconned out?
Even if the original Quantum Leap Project was defunded and shut down, there would still have been Sam’s body to contend with, regularly hosting new leapees as Sam continued jumping. What happened to the body? Did Al take him home and install him in the guest room?
If that’s the case… man, I feel like there’s just a whole monstrous pile of fridge horror sitting right there, quietly festering away in the background. Like… Sam’s body sitting in some room somewhere, hosting one confused leapee after another, with Al and his wife checking in from time to time, everyone involved growing older and sadder as time passed.
That’s assuming Sam kept successfully leaping without Al’s help, too. You have to figure that at some point, no new leapee turned up in the body, and it just laid there and died. Either Sam had failed a leap or died himself, out there somewhere, alone.
Jesus. Thanks, Quantum Leap. There’s a nightmare I didn’t need.
What happened to the previous incarnation of Ziggy?
Did Al lose access to that too, or is that what all that computer equipment in Al’s kid’s basement was – a hacked-together version of the old Ziggy, possibly something Al was using to keep tabs on Sam until he couldn’t anymore?
What‘s the timeline here?
The original Quantum Leap was set in the “near future.” I don’t think they ever gave a solid year. I have to admit I haven’t seen the show since it first aired and I’m relying solely on memory and what I can Google here. And since the original recipe aired pre-Internet, there isn’t a whole lot to Google.
At any rate, the original show’s timeline was always pretty wishy-washy. I assume the writers never nailed that down on purpose so they’d have some room to play if they needed it.
I read somewhere that the original show was set about six years ahead of IRL time. So, the show premiered in 1989, meaning it was set around 1995-ish. It’s been 30 years since Sam leaped, apparently, meaning the new show is set in 2025-ish.
How old is Ben Song? The actor, Raymond Lee, is 35, so I assume the character is around the same age.
I’m asking because in theory, leapers can only jump in their own lifetimes (I think there were a couple of pre-Sam’s-life jumps in the original show that were handwaved in, but those were pretty uncommon and tied to fairly-unlikely-to-be-repeated flukes). The overlap between Sam and Ben’s lives has to be pretty small, so the opportunities for Ben and Sam to bump into each other have to be thin on the ground, is what I’m getting at here.
Also, one random question – I wonder if the “evil leapers” are going to show up?
Sam bumped into an “evil leaper” (or did they call her a “dark leaper”? Something like that) once on the show. A woman who was leaping through her lifetime, “setting things wrong that once went right,” as it were. Pretty sure we only saw her once, and it was never followed up on in the show. It would be kind of neat to pick that thread up again eventually.
Wait, one more random question – is Ian nonbinary?
I know the actor playing Ian Wright, Mason Park, is nonbinary – is Ian, also? I don’t think I’ve heard anyone use any pronouns for them on the show so far, so I’m not sure. Just curious.
Notes & Thoughts 