This episode was really interesting until the end. Sam just solved the problem by having young Al leap back into himself to the day of the problem so the problem never happened.
Meanwhile Sam is sitting there four days in the future with nobody to leap out of.
You could tell the series was winding down at that point.
It's kind of a paradox - so we have, let's call him Bingo-A, the Bingo Sam first leaps into, and sends further back into himself. By leaping into his earlier self, which we'll call Bingo-B, Bingo-B would be sent forward to the Waiting Room.
From there, one of two things would have happened; one, by completing his mission, stopping Chip from seeing Marcy, Bingo-A leapt back to the Waiting Room, and Bingo-B leapt back to just before Sam leapt into him in the first place; and when Sam leaps out, it Bingo-A in the Waiting Room who returns to his own time.
Alternatively, Bingo-A doesn't leap out before leapt in, and he becomes caught in a loop of being perpetually sent back in time, only to be leapt back to the Waiting Room by Sam's arrival, and leapt back again. This would leave Bingo-B in the Waiting Room when Sam leaps out, returning him to the point in time Sam left.
Somewhere in all of that, I think it would be interesting if Bingo-A, in being leapt back in time, becomes another leaper himself; albeit one who doesn't fully understand what is happening, and without benefit of an observer to tell him the future, but still managing to put right what once went wrong.
"Sorry, I mistook you for a corpse."
Thank you so much for explaining that to me!
The show offered no explanation except "we are making great strides in Quantum leaping", without even explaining what they were doing.
I really appreciate it, thank you!
It might've been a paradox, but I assumed that as the project was being controlled by some kind of higher power/god things like this could be sorted out. There was a higher power controlling the leaps, so he could straighten anomalies out through God-like power.
A bit of a cop out ending perhaps, but if God (or Al the barman) is controlling leaps, I assume he has the power to return both Als to their own parts of the time line post-leap. I know in the last episode we find out that Sam could return home if he wishes, but we still need somebody controlling the leap. Sam didn't know any of the people he leaped into, so wouldn't have been able to aim himself into their lives a day or so before something drastically bad happened to them. So, in some sense God is still controlling him.
Another confusing example is The Leap Back. Al is inhabiting the body of Tom Jarrett and gets knocked unconcious. Sam, back at the project, enters the Accelerator and leaps into Tom Jarrett, bringing Al back home. Wouldn't that have confused matters back at the project? Tom Jarrett is presumably in the waiting room in Al's body. Sam leaps in, and Al is returned home. Al's body back at the project is inhabited already by Tom Jarrett. So wouldn't Al exchanges places with the person who leaped instead?
Anomalies like this, I just rectify by explaining to myself that Project Quantum Leap is no longer controlling the leaps. In the three way leap mentioned above, he can control it so Al returns to his normal body, and Tom Jarrett leaps out of of Al's body and into Sam's.
Sam didn't know any of the people he leaped into, so wouldn't have been able to aim himself into their lives a day or so before something drastically bad happened to them.I want to say that in a Quantum Leap book I read many, many years ago - Quantum Leap Prelude, which was about the story leading up to the creation of Project Quantum Leap - there was a mention of Sam having various news articles strewn about his office. I may have imagined that detail, but I want to say that laid the seed for a concept that I've always thought would have been interesting; which is that on some level Sam had learned about all, or almost all of the circumstances that he would later leap into. Reading them in news paper articles, or seeing them on the news; and some of them he might have actively remembered, some of it subconscious, and of course after he leaped the first time, the holes in his memory kept him from every really remembering that he was ever once aware of those events before arriving. You get some elements of that in "Play it Again, Seymour" where Sam had read the mystery novel based on the events the person he leapt into was living. Imagine watching "Unsolved Mysteries," and unconsciously absorbing all the major details of those events; and then be put into a position to set them all right.
What about THE LEAP BACK where Sam leaps out of the insane asylum WITH THE CLOTHES. So the other guy leaps back naked.
share