Series Description

Quantum Leap was a 60 minute sci-fi series on NBC about Dr. Sam Beckett, a scientist who has lead a project to build a time machine. When he's threatened with losing his funding for the project, Sam decides to try using the untested machine himself. The experiment works in that Sam is sent into the past. He finds, however, that his mind is inside someone else's body and he can't remember who he really is or how he got there. His only contact with the present is through Al Calavicci who can only appear in the past as a holographic projection.

Quantum Leap Cast

Scott Bakula .... Dr. Samuel (Sam) Beckett & John Beckett
Dean Stockwell .... Rear Admiral Albert (Al) Calavicci

Quantum Leap Trivia

The people that Dr. Beckett "leaped" into each had something that went terribly wrong in their lives. Speculation was that something, possibly God, was sending him to correct whatever had gone wrong. Once Sam fixed the problem, he thought he would return to the present but ended out simply leaping into another troubled individual.

The leaping could only take place during Dr. Beckett's lifetime. He could not leap to a time before his birth.

Dean Stockwell actually "Leapt" backward through time 28 years before Scott Bakula in episode #80 of The Twilight Zone, "A Quality Of Mercy". That episode co-starred Leonard Nimoy who would also leap into the past again years later on the original Star Trek TV show!

The season one finale episode of Quantum Leap was a teaser for the episode "What Price Gloria?" and then for some unknown reason, that episode was not the first one aired in season two.

If you like it when writers goof up, here's a good one. Episode #22, "All Americans", originally aired on January 17, 1990. Al said that he was watching the Steeler play in the Superbowl. That game actually took place in 1996.

The executive producer of the Quantum Leap TV show, "Donald Bellisaro" and his family took a much more active role in the show than is typical. In episode #19, "A Portrait for Troian", the person that Sam sees when he looks in the mirror is Donald Bellisaro. In episode #21, "Another Mother", the part of Teresa is played by Troian Avery Bellisario, daughter of Donald and Deborah Pratt, co-executive producer. By the way, the opening aerial segment for "Another Mother" was the same as the one used in the 1982 movie, "Poltergeist". Troian Bellisario's name is also used in episode #19 (noted above) and her mother, Deborah Pratt, performs the title role! Episode #68, "Ghost Ship", highlighted the character, "Captain Cutter", who was the central character in Mr. Bellisaro's previous series, "Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982)". In episode #75, "Lee Harvey Oswald," we saw a young lieutenant with a name tag, "D. Bellisaro". Donald Bellisaro actually served in the military with Lee Harvey Oswald. In the final episode, the bar was designed to look identical to a bar that Donald Bellisario's father had once owned.

In episode #45, "Piano Man", Sam performs several original songs which where written by and actually performed by Scott Bakula!

There was another "family" connection during the series. We saw Scott Bakula's daughter Chelsy in episode #94, "Memphis Melody." Also in this episode, Scott Bakula played a young Elvis Presley. While Elvis was offstage, we heard an announcer state that the saxophone player that just finished performing was "Bill C. from Hope, Arkansas - a reference to President Bill Clinton!

In the May 30, 2004 issue of TV Guide magazine, Quantum Leap was ranked the 15th best cult series of all time.

Unfortunately for fans, there was no final "wrap up" episode aired. They simply tacked on a message at the end of the last (otherwise typical) episode stating that Dr. Beckett never made it home.

Quantum Leap Opening Narrative

(Deborah Pratt as Narrator:)

"Theorizing that one could time travel within one's own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett lead an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top secret project known as Quantum Leap. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett prematurely stepped into the project's accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was maintained through brainwave transmissions with Al, the project observer who appeared in the form of a hologram that only Dr. Beckett can see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, bringing things right that once went wrong and hoping that each time that his next leap will be the leap home."