The Quantum Leap revival is here, but is it worth your valuable watching time? Find out in our Quantum Leap review!
Advertisement
After 29 years, Quantum Leap is back, continuing the story of the same time travel project that sent Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) into the time stream. Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) is the head of the new project that spent five years trying to figure out what happened in the original program and send a new leaper into the past.
Within the first few minutes of the premiere episode, Song is in 1985 and part of a criminal crew in the middle of a heist. The old Quantum Leap trope of figuring out what he is there to fix is there, and knows he won’t be able to leap again until he solves the problem he has arrived to fix.
Another connection to the original series is that the military head of the project is Herbert “Magic” Williams (Ernie Hudson), who was someone Sam leaped into in season 3 of the original series in the episode, “The Leap Home, Part II (Vietnam).” In the first episode, there is no mention of his experience, but he’s there. The AI Ziggy is still active and about as helpful as it was in the original in crunching everything without emotion to its conclusions.
The first episode spends a lot of time on the setup of multiple storylines and very little time on the actual leap of the week. Whereas the original series mainly just dealt with Sam and Al (Dean Stockwell), there is a whole team back at the Quantum Leap project as well as a mystery that needs to be solved about why Ben leaped. There is a lot going on, and with this many characters in play, it feels as though the leaps will continue to take a bit of a back seat to the action.
The production values are also, sadly, not great. It looks to be about the same quality as the original series, which is fine, but with nearly 30 years having passed, it’s a bit hard to accept them in 2022. While not every show can have the shine of say a major Netflix series, it feels as though a bit more effort could have been put in to update the general look at least a little bit.
It’s hard to judge a series such as this when it is trying to build off of the love of the original. Fans had, and still do, a deep love for the original. There is a part of you that says we should give these new characters a chance, but at the same time, it feels a bit like some kids in their backyard dressing up and playing “Quantum Leap.”
If you were a fan of the original, it’s worth sampling, but go in with your expectations in check.
Quantum Leap premieres on NBC on Sept. 19.
Disclaimer: NBC provided us with the premiere episode of Quantum Leap for this review. We watched the episode in its entirety before beginning this review.
