Quantum Leap (1989-1994) starred the hunky Scott Bakula as Sam Beckett, a scientist who gets randomly zapped into the bodies of people who lived during his lifetime.. He then helps them solve the personal crisis of the week. In 97 episodes, he jumped into all sorts of people, once a dog, once himself, but never anyone gay (although, in a "controversial" 1992 episode, he jumped into a naval academy cadet and saved a gay classmate from homophobes).
I watched the first episode of the 2022 reboot, to see if they have maintained the hunkitude or increased LGBT representation, or both.
Prologue: We hear about Sam Beckett's time-jumps. Attempts to bring him home always failed, and eventually the project was abandoned. Until now.
Scene 1: In a darkened lab, a woman wearing a scorpion ring types furiously into a computer. When her calculations are complete, she texts Ben Song (Raymond Lee, top photo), who is being congratulated by various people at a fancy apartment. He stops to kiss his wife in an extremely tight close-up (we even see their drool), and suggests that they sneak out for sex. Ensuring that we know he is heterosexual from the first moment! What are they afraid of?
The female bodyguard interrupts the smooch to complain that "Ian's about to take out the DJ because he won't play the Kinks." Ian is an androgynous person with fluffy blond hair, a pink suit, and nail polish. They are played by Mason Alexander Park (Desire in
The Sandman), who is nonbinary in real life. They are not really threatening violence.
The work team consists of Wife, Female Bodyguard, Middle-Aged Black Guy (Ernie Hudson, one of the original
Ghostbusters), and the only named character so far, Ian.
Ben is asked to make a speech. He talks about how much he loves his wife, and kisses her a few hundred more times.. I fast foward through the schmaltz.
Seene 2: In the lab. Ben puts on a skin-tight white suit (nice bulge) and climbs into a gyroscope. He awakens in working-class clothes, driving a car, with David Bowie singing on a small portable tv. The guy next to him says: "Desperate times, right?"
"How did I get here?" Ben asks. Didn't he expect to time-jump? Isn't that what he climbed into the gyroscope for? The guy misunderstands and answers: "A million bad decisions." He then puts on a ski mask and goes to rob a store or a bank.
Ben climbs out of the car, disoriented. Walkmen. Telephone booths. The Goonies and St. Elmo's Fire playing at the theater. I don't think I'm in Kansas anymore. A poster tells him the date: July 13, 1985, the day of Live Aid (a global concert to benefit Africa). He checks his wallet: this body is Nick Rounder, from Pennsylvania.
Ben's wife, Addison, approaches. "Why did you leap? We weren't anywhere near ready for a human subject!" He doesn't know her, or what a leap is; he's lost his memory! She explains: "I'm a hologram from the future. You're a time-traveling scientist...." Then the robbers emerge with a casket and expect Ben to be the getaway driver.
Problem: he can't drive a stick shift. Addison teaches him how. He also doesn't know how to get to "the restaurant on York." She checks her GPS. Why couldn't they abandon the robbers and go off on their own?
Police chase through Philadelphia. They arrive at the restaurant hideout. Ben's friend asks why he acted so weird. The Scary Guy in Charge looks suspicious.
Scene 3: Addison is zapped back to the lab, due to a kink in the system. Ian tells her what she already knows: they could send things to the past, but not bring them back. So why did Ben suddenly grab a skintight suit, turn on the gyroscope, and zap away, knowing that he would get stuck? "Maybe he figured out a way to come home, but his memory is wiped."
Middle Aged Black Guy comes in, reassuring the General that the power surge was completely normal; everything is going according to plan. "Say hello to James for me." Is the General a woman, or a man with a same-sex partner?
They wonder some more about why Ben zapped into the past -- and wiped the security cameras, so no one would see what he was doing.
Scene 4: Back online, Addison returns to 1985, and asks Ben why he leaped without telling anyone. He doesn't remember. "The system sends you back to people who need help, so if you help Nick the Robber, maybe it will bring you home." Wouldn't that create a time paradox?
She explains all about the Quantum Leap project, for him and for the audience. He accepts the "you're a scientist from the future inhabiting someone else's body" explanation very quickly. Of course, he was surprised by the 1980s technology and culture, so mayb,e he remembers some things about 2022.
The other robbers tell him that it's time to open the crate: C-4 Explosives. They're going to blow up a building! The Scary Guy (Michael Malarkey) suspect that Ben/Nick is getting cold feet, but his buddy vouches for him.
They are very chummy. Maybe they are a gay couple? "Ok, but if you scfew this up, I will kill you."
Scene 5: Back at the lab, everyone scurries to look up Nick Rounder. No record of him in Philadelphia in 1985. But the C-4 went off in front of the Museum of Modern Art on July 13th, the day of Live Aid. No one was hurt.
"Why would he go back in time to stop an explosion that didn't hurt anyone?" Ian asks. Maybe no one was hurt because he stopped it?
Meanwhile, in 1985, Ben/Nick and his Friend walk out into the street, arguing about whether they should go through with the bombing or not. Suddenly Friend's wife and daughter show up. Darn, I thought they were a gay couple. They finished the dialysis treatments early, so they decided to stop by. Ok, Friend's got a dying wife, so he needs money. Not quite as cliched as a dead wife, but close.
Sorry, the guy has not yet been named, and no one in the cast listed on IMDB looks like him.
Addison zaps in with the dets: Ben's purpose in 1985 is to keep his friend, Ryan (finally, a name!), from being killed tonight.
Ryan is played by Michael Welch. I didn't recognize him on IMDB because his photo depictes a young teenager, and this guy is well into his 30s, with a red beard.
I'll stop the scene by scene there.
Beefcake: Just Ben's bulge in a white suit.
Gay Characters: Ian is nonbinary, but no info on their sexual orientation.
Heterosexism: Incessant. Dying wife, "you mean so much to me," and so on. Making the wife Ben's holographic companion will only increase the heterosexism.
Mysteries: What was Ben being congratulated for in the first scene? The project wasn't nearly ready to launch.
Why did Ben decide to leap?
Why save Ryan in particular; the end-of -episode wrap-up just mentions that he and his wife and daughter lived happily every after, but doesn't tell us why Ben cared about him.
The woman typing furiously in the first scene does not belong to the group -- who is she?
Up Next: Ben is an astronaut just before liftoff. And of course he knows nothing about flying spaceships!
My Grade: D.
