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Before responding to the prompt below make sure you watch any two episodes of Quantum Leap, and read the Lecture Notes. Don't forget to cite your information if it is coming from another source. Even if you are paraphrasing (putting information into your own words), you still need to acknowledge where you found that information originally.
Prompt:
Quantum Leap focuses on the human aspect of time travel. How did the two episodes you watch emphasize that “human” focus? Why do you think the “science” and “technology” of time travel is de-emphasized in this series? What is gained and lost in doing so? (Be specific, make sure to explain how and why and use examples from the series to support your answers).
Soap
The lack of technological explanations don't clutter the story, which was popular in the 80's, seeing as how the opening to every episode needed to contain the entire backstory of the series for some reason. I suppose the collective memory of the people at this point in time was fairly low. An analogy could be the computers from back then compaired to recent computers. I guess I don't really believe this, but it's a thought. Honestly, as was popular with entertainment around this time, a main theme was God. There wasn't any technological explanations given, because the idea was that God willed the experiment to alter and that God decides when he jumps, and who he jumps into. The gain in this is that the audience doesn't need to think too hard, in fact the only downfall to this sort of setup is that some people are atheists, though it wasn't as popular a belief back then. As to the specific episodes I've watched, I watched season one episode four, The Right Hand of God, and episode nine, Play It Again Seymour. The God angle is really pressed in episode four, just read the title. But this episode also brings up a good point. The show isn't filled with all these strict morals, Sam has been known to sleep with the significant others of the people he jumps into. Not if he can help it, and they don't show it, but it is heavily implied. And Al comes right out and says he's sleeping around behind his wife's back. But that's beside the point. In The Right Hand of God, Sam snaps into a boxer who has just been signed over to a bunch of nuns, who are counting on his winning to pay for their new chapel. He makes the money, but he does it by betting on a big Muhammad Ali fight. In the process he restores the failing faith of one of the nuns, helps his coach get his honor back, and helps his body snatch-ee and his stripper girlfriend get the funds to finally open their donut shop. In the other episode, he jumps into a private eye who looks exactly like Humphrey Bogart, who was madly in love with his just killed partner's now widow and who is also the role model to a kid ironically named Seymour. He saves the girl, takes out the killer, and sets the kid on the path to writing the movie Casablanca. Now that is a worthy mission.
Julia
I watched episodes 7 & 8 of season 1 of Quantum Leap, "The Truth of Color" and "Camikazi Kid." In the first episode, Sam is transported into the body of Jesse, an aging black butler who lives in a small, pre-civil rights movement Alabama town. His employer and eventual friend is the elderly white widow of the city’s governor, and the supposed reason for his time travelling. Although there are quick references to the super-computer that predicts where, when, and why he should time travel, and his invisible companion Al is apparently a hologram, most technology in this episode is only briefly, if at all, acknowledged and explained. The entire episode focuses on the human aspect of time travel by diligently following Sam’s emotional struggles. He is constantly confronted with the injustice of the past and reacts with a modern sense of morality.
In the second episode, Sam becomes an awkward adolescent in the 1950‘s who must save his older sister, Cheryl, from marrying an abusive drunk. Upset by the connection to his real sister’s life, he lends his sense of valor to his host’s situation and challenges the monstrous Bob to a drag race. After winning with the use of future technology (nitrous tanks), he sends “his” sister off to the Peace Corps with a heartfelt “I love you.” He then gives the made-over female grease monkey (who has had a crush on him all along) her first kiss, before leaping to another time in a flash of blue light.
While investigating the technology of time travel can be intriguing, it is the emotional aspect of it that impacts the characters and the audience the most. While the episode may loose points in the eyes of those who seek specific and detailed analysis of time travel technologies, it glows in the sincerity and depth with which Sam and the people he meets interact. Whether he is changing the racist ideas of an otherwise gentle and kind old woman, or saving “his” sister from a future life of domestic abuse and misery, his expression of love, for those he has really only known for a few days, is real. The lasting emotional impression that this series creates by predominately focusing of the characters, instead of the technology, is what makes it so poignant.
Yat
I watched episode 15 and 22 of season 5. Episode 22, "Mirror Image" is the final episode of Quantum Leap. Sam leaped into a town of the moment that he was born. He was confused when he saw people that looked familiar that he might have met before during his time during time travel. Sam was talking to the bartender AI. He tried to convinced him that he had something left to do. Sam had realized that he had to help Beth. And he traveled to the moment of Beth dancing and told her that her husband was alive.Sam never returned home because that is going to mess up and change the time space and also he was trying to help someone.I think he had realized that the "human" focus of his time travel had decreased him from returning home but he decided to continue leaping for good rather than returning home. Obviously he gained a lot when everything he tried to travel back in time to help out other people, but at the end he lost the chance to go back home.
Andi
The two episodes I watched were “Private Dancer” from season three and “A Single Drop of Rain” from season 4. In the first episode Sam is transported into the body of a Chip ‘n Dale’s striper named Rod. Al gives him information about a deaf waitress working there as well. That she has dreams of becoming a dancer but is said to become a striper and die of AIDS instead. He is able to get her an audition in an up and coming dance studio and she is able to change her future. This episode emphasizes the human focus because he is really trying to help this young girl, knowing that without him she will surely end in destruction. Sam has never met a deaf person before and realizes how they are just like regular people and perfectly capable. Realizing that treating her like she needs help does not help her at all. In “A Single Drop of Rain” Sam in placed in the body of a conman rain maker named Billy heading to his hometown. When he arrives he is told that it is a farming town that has not seen rain for very long and runs the risk of dying out. He is also attempting to save the marriage of Billy’s brother. In this episode the human focus is not only the dying town in need of hope, but the dying family. Billy realizes how important rain can be to such a frail community that relays on it for its survival. Also how families can be torn apart, and how all people once in their lives crave a bit of adventure.
I think the science is de emphasized because it is not really the main focus of the story. Although the main plot of the show is him jumping from place to place, it is what he dos at these places that constitute the plots of the individual episode. Who he helps along the way makes the show more appealing as apposed to a man just jumping around caring only about him self. This is proven by the fact that he can not make his next jump until he helps the person he is destined to help. This gain the show an almost tender factor, this man in an effort to get home is helping and changing so many lives. On the other hand if he was just a man trying to get someplace and ignoring all of the trouble in between, his persona would change immensely. For instance, in “Private Dancer” the owners of the bar tells him to forget about the girl, But he puts his own work on the line to stop her from becoming a striper.
Joe
The “human” focus is to show the surreal aspect of time travel. Sam didn’t know what was going to happen when he first jumped, and he didn’t understand what was happening afterward. It also illustrates the reaction of the people around him, and how everything Sam does influences and affects them. I watched the first two episodes and he was confused as hell being in 1956. All he was trying to do was figure out where he was and whether or not it was real. He believed that he was in a strange dream and just waited to wake up. Unfortunately, he didn’t. He was in it to win it now, and had to become this test pilot in order to “leap” back. I think that the “science” and “technology” aspect of the time travel is minimized to make it more accessible to the audience. They don’t fully understand the situation so as Sam figures things out, so do we. It keeps it mellow without going over our heads. That allows us to grasp what is occurring in the series and not make it too complicated, which could easily alienate people.
Arielle
Season 1 Episode 3 - Sam the quantum leaper leaps into a professor’s body at Lawrence College in Ohio, a man named Dr. Bryant who was known for sleeping with students. A young student in his class whom was dating one of the school wrestlers was infatuated with Dr. Bryant while the quantum leaper was interested in his true love from his present life. He ran into his fiancé whom was twelve years younger. While trying to hook the wrestler and the young school girl back together he is on a mission to make sure his true love will have closer with her father who left her and her mother when she was younger in order for them to be together in the future. Season 1 Episode 10
We find out right away that Sam has leaped into a woman named Samantha’s body. The first time he has leaped into a woman’s body. Something completely knew for him. And he immediately was modest about his body when in the same room as Al who seemed to be very attracted to him/her. He had only spent two hours literally in women’s shoes and he realized that it was hard being a women. When a married man starts hitting on him/her at his/her job he knows Samantha only has a job there because her boss thought she looks good.
Samantha’s best friend thinks that she is getting married to the married boss that Samantha had just got hit on by but that was never the case. Sam tries to teach Gloria, Samantha’s best friend, that she doesn’t need a man to feel special. His mission is to save Gloria before she commits suicide after having to face the truth that her boss’s wife threw in her face. He saves Gloria just in time before the ledge of the building breaks while risking his own life. He teaches her a lesson as well as himself.
Both stories plot lines were based on love, one of the most powerful human affections, we see his emotion as he is viewed as a romantic professor and as his emotions unravel as a caring woman. In these series science and technology did not play a primary into these stories. We didn’t learn much about how or why he as traveling in time. We just knew that he traveled from another dimension into another person’s body and walked the land with his hologram friend Al. Emotions are something the audience can relate to. It is more appealing oppose to the scientific terms of time travel.
Chris
Star Crossed Lovers
Quantum Leap emphasizes the human side of time travel by dealing mainly with love and human relationships and the effects time can have on them. In this episode Sam leaps into the body of a college professor. He meets his fiancé in a=her younger student state. He realizes that she will leave him at the alter in the future because of the lack of a relationship with her father. So Sam finds him the day before he would leave and subsequently die in Vietnam and tells him he must see her and tell her he never planed on abandoning. Sam hopes that this will strengthen her relationships with men and will ultimately enable her to fall and stay in love with him later. He realizes though that she may find love before ever meeting him. He is faced with the dilemma of fixing her so completely and running the risk of never getting to benefit from his handy-work. But he loves her to much to let her suffer so he brings father and daughter together so they can have some closure.
This episode is definitely all about love and its ability to combat time. There isn’t much mention on the science behind the leaping, Al mentions Ziggy and his calculations but nothing is really revealed. I very much appreciated the drama that these interactions created. The way the father desperately wanted to let his daughter know that he loved her and never meant to abandon her but was afraid of opening those wounds right before leaving for war. When he was faced with the possibility that he might not ever get the chance to apologize though he began to have his doubts. He way Sam had to chose between helping his true love find love whether he was on the receiving end or not. I was surprised at how well written this episode was and am somewhat disappointed in today’s television.
Camikazi Kid
In this episode Sam travels to the 60’s and inhabits the body of a teenager. His sister is on the eve of her wedding to an abusive alcoholic who fills her head with false hopes of working in the peace corp. Sam thinks he has to save her from this abusive relationship by proving to his sister that he’s a bad guy and he is only expects her to settle down and have his children. Sam goes about proving it by challenging him to a race for “pinks.” Sam wins the race thanks to the use of Nitrous Oxide. I liked the human elements in this story. The way Sam loved his sister so much and wanted to save her from an unfair fate. I also liked the way Al used the hieroglyphics to get a secret message to Sam. Its nice to see a show about big science and industry using all its might to help love find its way.
Kelvin k
Ep 6 and 7 of Quantum Leap are emphasizing every detail of different human based life stories. Sam, who's main character, is experiencing these difference like racism and romance with godfather's girlfriend. It appears he has to warn himself with full of tension because he's seeing things like other's life troubles. These time space changes his mind with full of question and losing his character. Since he travels time through someone else's time. It appears the science and technology term or language doesn't have any affect for the Quantum Leap, which it is focusing more toward the human psychic. Somehow these scenarios are trying to fix every regrets of wrong history of America. These gains the big change with gratitude from people who suffer and revolution and no lost.
Mike
I watched episodes 1 and 2 from season 4, within the episodes Sam and Al take on different roles involving love and other human emotions in order to visualize impossible events as a way to act out improbable, ideal at times, scenarios. In the first one, Sam becomes the hologram because of a lighting bolt that reversed the roles of Sam and Al. Al is now the one who is affecting the world while Sam tries to reunite with his lost wife after memories of his wife reappear, but he obviously can't return home because of his situation. Al is trapped in 1945 in order to save a former POW and his girlfriend. The episode revolves around Al's circumstances and Sam's untouchable love for his lost wife. I think they focus on the 'human' as a way to visualize romantic scenarios. And as a way to create a narrative that involves characters battling the hands of time in order to change what was wrong.
The show doesn't pay much attention to science, although when it does it becomes quite confusing. It is as if they are masking the time travel by using large words, and pseudo-science. The time travel station is quite hilarious creating a sort of 80's, neon-stimulated environment filled with digital looking objects and sounds. The quantum time travel is run by Ziggy the talking computer-like machine. Ziggy guides Sam into these vague situations to keep the story interesting leaving Sam and Al to figure out what they must do. Another reason, science is de-emphasized is to appeal to mass audience not concerned with science but human relationships. People find more interest in the human relation than in the actual science of time travel,although the time traveling is what makes the story interesting. I don't think much is lost in creating a pseudo-scientic narrative because virtually all pop-culture must fill in the inconsistencies of time travel theory as a way to make it believable.
Wonwoong
I watched Episode 3, the right hand of god. The main character, Sam goes back to 1974, and he goes into champion’s body who is winner of Golden grove. He knows the plot of manager, and Sam gets a completevictory against society’s corruption. Quantum Leap focused on human romance, courage, and so on. I think the reason why science and technology emphasize these drama is Sam’s time travel is the mental movement. If Sam controls other’s body through his invention, it would be a kind of hypnosis. Obviously, He gained a lot of other’s experience, and may learn what life is and how to change it, but he always lost the chance to go back to his home. In my opinion, he may also lose his personality as he goes into other body again and again.
Cristina
"Camakazi Kid" June 6, 1961 (Season 1, Episode 8)
Sam has been transported into the body of a scrawny, awkward teenager. His mission is to prevent his older sister Sheryl from marrying her abusive fiance Bob. After the wedding Sheryl plans on joining the Peace Corps with Bob, answering President Kennedy's call for service. Bob is misleading Sheryl and has no real intention of going, especially since he has been made partner at his dad's used car dealership.
Sam decides the only way he can make Sheryl see what a mistake she's making is by challenging Bob to a drag race. Sam has the modern advantage of a nitrous oxide tank and wins the duel. Bob becomes enraged after losing and tries to run Sam over. This makes Sheryl realize what a monster he really is and cancels the wedding. She joins the Peace Corp where she will meet her future husband and organize a food co-op in Chad.
"Double Identity" November, 8 1965 ( Season 1, Episode 6)
Sam leaps into the attic of mob king Don Geno and has just finished, as Al puts it, bing, bango, bongoing with Teresa, Geno's girlfriend. Sam is inhabiting the body of Frankie, a hit-man for Geno. Outside of the attic, the classic Godfather wedding scene is playing out in a lovely south Brooklyn estate. Geno suspects Teresa is cheating with Frankie and death threats are thrown. Sam avoids getting knocked off but cannot figure out what he must resolve or why he can't leap back. After a plate full of Italian mob stereotypes the we finally get to the point in the third act. Sam thinks he is going to leap back by re-creating the scene he leaped from. He returns to the attic with Teresa and has a heartfelt conversation on why she should stop tramping around and value herself more. The leap happens, only Sam now inhabits Geno's body. It is then he realizes his mission is to give Frankie and Teresa his blessing to get married because they truly love each other. After he publicly offers his blessing and releases Frankie from the mob, Sam finally leaps out of Brooklyn.
Sam's job is to "put things right that once went wrong." His altering of the past is more individual and personal. Because of this, the show Quantum Leap has a more human focus. In the episode "Camakazi Kid," Sam spares Sheryl from a marriage filled with domestic violence. As a result she joins the Peace Corp to better the world. In the episode "Double Identity" Sam allows for true love to blossom and takes one less hit-man off the streets. These changes appear small when looking at the big picture, but the outcome leads to a better society. Baby steps is the motto for Quantum Leap.
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