Welcome back to my episode-by-episode recap of and reaction to Quantum Leap. The spoilers ahead are only through this episode. I provide a short summary at the top, a long and much more thorough recap below that, and a reaction section at the bottom.
My previous episode recaps can be found HERE.
THE NOT-TOO-DUSTY RECAP:
Episode summary via quantumleap.fandom.com:
Sam leaps into Future Boy, the sidekick of 50’s TV superhero Captain Galaxy. Al informs Sam that Moe Stein (played by Richard Herd), Captain Galaxy, is mentally unstable and that Sam is there to have Moe committed to prevent him from accidentally killing himself while trying to hop a train. Therefore, it initially looks like Sam has to help Moe’s estranged daughter Irene get him put into a mental hospital as he is a danger to himself.
Sam doesn’t think Moe is unstable and he feels that he is there for another purpose and that having Moe committed is not necessary. After talking to Moe, Sam learns that he is building a time machine and that Moe’s theory of time travel is an incomplete version of Sam’s own String Theory, which was the basis for Project Quantum Leap. Sam shares the rest of the theory.
Sam represents Moe in a mental competency hearing, but Moe loses and is sentenced to a mental hospital. Before he can be taken into custody and committed, Moe escapes and races back home to try his time machine, the Time-o-nometer. At first it looks as though Moe is going to Leap the same way Sam does, but the machine doesn’t work.
Moe explains to Sam and Irene why he wanted to travel in time; when Irene’s mother discovered she was pregnant, Moe was ready to give up acting and settle down. However a rave review he got for a theatre performance caused him to be inundated with job offers and Moe, feeling a duty to provide for his family, took them and spent much Irene’s life on the road. Moe now regrets not having been there for her and wants that time back. Irene tearfully forgives her father, and decides not to send him to the hospital.
Moe decides to move in with Irene, bringing Captain Galaxy to an end. Al tells Sam that Moe has a happy retirement living with Irene. At the end of the final episode, Captain Galaxy responds to one last reader letter (sent by none-other than a young Sam himself) and explains his theory of time travel that now includes what Sam shared earlier. Before Sam can react to this, he leaps.
REACTION:
This episode fell pretty flat for me. I am sure that there is a portion of the QL fanbase who likely enjoyed this one because they felt that this story was cute, or a fun homage to the futuristic 1950s television that Quantum Leap‘s creators likely grew up watching. Those fans are not wrong to feel that way. The scene where Sam does a live action commercial, as a scrub sponge, was pretty funny. However, I could not get onboard with the story because too much of the plot here doesn’t make sense.
Mo Stein is depicted as a dreamer, a highly successful actor, and an inventor. The show implies he has a relatively firm grasp of string theory – so much so that his own theory of time travel is not far from Sam’s (more on that in a bit.) When he makes the final test run of his time machine, it seems almost to work. Simultaneously, though, he is depicted as someone who is out of touch with reality and legitimately a danger to himself and others. We never see him discuss physics when questioned by a psychiatric professional or a judge. Some of his scientific beliefs seem so fringe as to be silly.
If Mo is a misunderstood eccentric genius, the episode needed to show us how and why the misunderstandings are happening. Instead, we get a character who moves between genius and crackpot, depending on what the plot requires in that moment.
I also did not like the corny and far too easy way that the dispute between father and daughter was resolved at the episode’s end. Mo’s daughter goes from not having a relationship with her dad, and being ready to put him away in an institution, to warmly inviting him to live with her in the span of about 10 seconds.
We have to wonder why the older Sam does not remember watching the Captain Galaxy show as a kid. If that’s the show that gave him his time travel idea, and if it’s a show he enjoyed enough to send it fan mail, shouldn’t he have recognized it as soon as he arrived in the Leap? If I ever Quantum Leap onto “Kids Incorporated” I’m going to know where I am as soon as I see young Fergie, Mario Lopez, and/or Jennifer Love Hewitt.
One interesting element of this episode revolves around the paradox it creates. During the leap, Sam discusses time travel with Mo and shares with him the idea of a balled up string theory. Then, as the episode ends. we find out that a young Sammy Beckett – who wrote fan mail to Mo Stein – asks how time travel works and is told about the balled up string theory. As a result, we get to conclude that the already time-traveling Sam gave his younger self, via Mo Stein’s show, the idea behind Quantum Leaping.
If you’re going to have a time travel show, it’s important to include a few good paradoxes.
Anyway, so yeah, overall this was a misfire for me. The teaser for the next episode seems to imply that Sam is going to be a Chippendales dancer next time around. Oh boy.
My favorite (only?) closed time loop joke is in Futurama when at the end of Bender’s Big Score they tattoo the time code on Frye that started the whole caper so “everything makes sense”.
That was a good one. Futurama is such a smart show.