Quantum Leap: Season 1, Episode 1: Genesis

Part 3! The leap OUT of Tom Stratton and the leap IN to Tim Fox, 3rd baseman for the Waco Bombers!

Part 1
Part 2

Sam (as Tom Stratton) stands quietly by the X-2 in the big hangar. There is a feeling of reverence in his gestures, and in the music. Reverence because it’s a beautiful machine and he has no idea how to fly it. He will have to fly it tomorrow. He will be dropped out of the belly of a big jet and be expected to break Mach 3. There’s a loneliness sometimes to the character of Sam Beckett – especially in this first episode when he doesn’t quite trust Al yet – and he’s more alarmed when Al shows up, rather than relieved. Al, who has basically had it with the Swiss Cheese effect, pops into 1956, standing right by the nose of the plane, scaring Sam half to death. They have this dialogue which, for me, encapsulates what is so funny and great about the show:

Sam: (startled at Al’s appearance) Can’t you just ‘fade in’???
Al: (irritated, gesturing all over the place in true Stockwell fashion) You tell me how to ‘fade in’ agitated carbon quarks and I’ll make the Scientific Journal!

It is in this scene by the airplane that Al finally catches Sam up to speed on “Project Quantum Leap” – using the piece of string as an example – although he doesn’t yet reveal that the entire thing is Sam’s brainchild – that comes later. For now, he just has to give him the basics of what is going on. A. I’m a hologram tuned into your brain waves. B. You can leap around in time within the span of your own lifetime. Sam starts to remember things – although pieces are missing. The name “Ziggy” is familiar to him. He is confused. But he’s starting to get into the swing of the thing. It’s in this scene by the plane that the whole “make things right” theory is spoken for the first time (although, thankfully, it is spoken by Dean Stockwell – who gives a cynical “whatEVER” spin to it, rolling his eyes apathetically – so it doesn’t come off as earnest, sincere, ie: disgusting.) Al is basically throwing it out there as a theory, good or bad as any other.

(Oh. And my favorite moment in this scene? Sam gets alarmed when Al walks THRU the plane. Grumbles, “Can’t you walk around it next time?” Al stops, with that flat dead look on his face that I find so funny – remarks, “You want me to walk around something that isn’t there?” He deliberately walks around the nose of the plane, with such an annoyed bored air, like: fine, I’ll humor you. “All right, I’ll walk around it!” It’s just the dynamic in that moment – and Stockwell’s face. Makes me laugh.)

So. Tom Stratton, we learn, was killed back in 1956 the following day trying to break Mach-3. Al thinks that Sam has to break Mach-3 and live. Sam’s panic starts to bubble up. Dude – I CAN’T FLY. “I can help you.” Al says. “You’re a hologram!” “I’m also an ex-astronaut.” I love this part of Al Calavicci: the military dude, the guy who is NOT a fuck-up, the one who knows how to do shit. The one who, even with being a wild man, respects the rules of something enough to learn how to do it, and do it well. Like fly a rocket, for God’s sake. It gives a great nuance to the character. He’s old-school. He went to MIT. He’s smart (and not just “street smart” – he’s book smart too), and kind of no-nonsense about things when it counts. It’s a nice balance. (Oh – and in the scene outside the hangar, as Sam is panicking, and Al is trying to calm him down – there’s a great moment where Scott Bakula imitates Dean Stockwell: “That’s called …’DEATH'” and he imitates Dean’s gestures. Al is a bit of a creature to be mocked, even though he’s smart, and Sam’s lifeline back to the present. I mean, the bolo ties, the silver shoes, the over-the-top gestures, the ubiquitous cigar … Seeing Sam DO Al back to Al in that moment is very satisfying and funny (“That’s called …. DEATH” I like Sam then. A lot.)

The next morning – SEPTEMBER 13, 1956- is the big day!

My question is this: Al doesn’t show up until AFTER the X-2 has dropped. Thanks a LOT, Al. As Sam is being strapped in, he looks around him, saying, “Al? Albert? Al?” Now maybe it’s just me: but don’t you think someone should have said something?? Like: Dude. Who is Al. You have a huge dangerous mission right now. Focus. FOCUS. And as the X-2 is dropped out into the wild blue yonder, we can hear Sam scream, at the top of his lungs, “AAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!” Bruce McGill, on the ground, is like, “Is there a problem?” And poof – this is when Al appears, in the X-2 with Sam … ready to walk him through the steps. But Sam has a couple of lines of dialogue with Al – like, “Where the hell were you?” Etc. Wouldn’t someone on the ground ask him, “Are you talking to us? Who are you talking to ?” Any conversation he has in that jet – anything he says out loud – will be heard by multiple people. But nobody says anything! And he says things that are obviously NOT about Mach-3 or whatever. Like Al, sitting there in the cockpit, basically on top of Sam (I love those shots) says, “Sorry I’m late. I was at a Lakers game.” Sam, rightfully so, is furious. “You almost didn’t get here because of a BASKETBALL game??” (Now: wouldn’t someone on the ground say: “Basketball? Who are you talking to?”)

Al, having left a woman named Martha back in his bed, sits there, and coolly walks Sam through the steps. He’s a hologram, so he can’t touch anything, of course – just shows Sam what to do, tells him which rockets to fire off, and also tells him what to say back to the dudes on the ground. This, for me, is classic Al Calavicci – and Tommy is right when he says that that character was “set” from this first episode. You know how sometimes you watch early episodes of a show that later becomes a hit … and you can feel the actors haven’t settled in yet? They’re still psyched to have a job – and THAT shows – or they’re working too hard – or the writing isn’t really there yet … The whole thing is still a bit unsettled. This is definitively NOT the case with Al Calavicci. I think a lot of that has to do with the writing, but naturally – most of it has to do with how Dean Stockwell plays it. I have no idea who Dean Stockwell is, as a man – but at least as Al Calavicci, he seems totally comfortable inside his own skin. He NEVER pushes, he never hams … he never tips over into maudlin behavior … He keeps Al’s edges sharp, a little bit jagged – and a lot of the humor comes from that. It’s wonderful to watch. First episode. It’s all there.

Then comes the tense “action” sequence where Sam is pushing the plane to Mach-3.

And with the explosion – we’re back in the little house – and we see the ubiquitous glass coffee pot – explode from the sound waves.

A metaphor, I suppose … we don’t see the wife’s reaction … but we see her coffee pot exploding, and that tells us all we need to know.

There is a MARVELOUS slow-mo shot of debris falling to the desert from the sky. SO well done. And then, we see Sam – who has ejected – AFTER breaking Mach-3 – crumple to the ground, his parachute billowing around him. Ouch. Ouch. It takes Sam a while to realize the import of what has happened … and how much it sucks. I mean, yay for Tom Stratton, but BOO for Sam Beckett! He peers across the desert and sees all the emergency rescue vehicles screaming towards him in clouds of dust, and the voiceover is back: “Why didn’t I leap? Al?? Why didn’t I leap???”

There’s a VERY funny sequence where Sam is in the ambulance, racing across the desert – the doctor is checking his heartrate, blah blah, talking to him … and poof, Al appears. The script here is great – because the doctor is talking, Sam is talking to Al, Al is talking to Sam … but the doctor only hears Sam’s responses of course – so he’s responding to what Sam is saying to Al … it’s a melee of dialogue and it’s very well done, very funny. Al, meanwhile, is chagrined and a little bit embarrassed because his big “if you break Mach 3 and live you’ll leap” theory obviously didn’t pan out. He can barely look Sam in the eye, and he is also distracted because he left “a dish named Martha” in his bed and if she wakes up “and finds me not there … without me even saying ‘good morning’ … that’s just … not nice …” Sam is dumbfounded. A DISH NAMED MARTHA takes precedence over why I didn’t leap? Are you kidding me??? But Al is gone. To take care of his complicated personal life, leaving Sam to figure the rest out. Which he does.

At the hospital it is revealed that Peg has gone into premature labor at the sound of the crash (coffee pot exploding). This is 1956. It is a situation of: save the mother’s lilfe or the baby’s life. The doctor explains to Sam that the nearest neo-natal clinic is in LA but he doesn’t feel he can risk moving Peggy. It’s dire. (I just have to give a shoutout to WK Stratton – who plays the military medical doctor. WONDERFUL actor, with a pinched-up funny face … he actually shows up again in Quantum Leap – in Season 5 – he plays a recurring role in one of the multi-part leaps, and Sam actually ends up leaping into his character in Part 3. He’s a lovely actor. And I love how he deals with Sam in these hospital scenes. Good stuff.) Sam, in the moments in the hallway, sort of realizes – without realizing it consciously – that he knows how to stop labor. He starts to babble technical terms at the doctors – but then says (what must be to them) very confusing things like, “Those didn’t come out til the late 70s!” Etc. Sometimes the reactions of other people are … er … NOT so realistic. Like: if I suddenly said I was a doctor, would someone believe me? Like – there is an argument in the hallway (again, wonderfully played by all parties – but just not realistic) – where Sam – who is supposed to be Tom Stratton – a PILOT – suddenly is talking like a doctor – and he’s so specific about it that the other doctors, who are faced with losing a patient, take it on faith and decide to try his suggestions. Uhm, can you say law suit?? Hahahaha. Oh, and there’s also a funny moment when Peg is having a contraction and Sam holds onto her and says, “Look at me – do what I do …” and he shows her a Lamaze breathing method, which she imitates – as everyone looks on, like: what the hell is THAT?

Of course, though, his suggestions work. They give her an IV full of Deenedrienke and diruefdkudextrose (whatevs) … which stops labor and gets her “instantly drunk”. Here is where Doris Day comes back into the picture. Peg, wasted, lies in the hospital bed, singing “Que Sera Sera” at the top of her lungs. The doctors are relieved, yet confused. How … how did he know … how …?

The “real” Tom Stratton is going to have a lot of explaining to do when he returns from the future.

That’s another weird unanswered thing from the show. When the real person leaps back – and Sam leaps out … how do they adjust to the new reality? Won’t everyone around them be like, “Man, you have been acting SO WEIRD for the last couple days …” How will they not remember sitting in that futuristic Waiting Room? I can’t remember if it’s ever explained or not … how they deal with the person who has leapt out … and how they “erase” the memory of having been ejected from their own lives into some alternate reality for 4 or 5 days. Like – won’t Tom Stratton be asked, “How did you know all that medical stuff?” And wouldn’t Tom Stratton say, “I DON’T know any medical stuff.”??

Obviously – Sam was not put here JUST to make sure that Tom Stratton survived. Sam was put there to make sure that Peg and the unborn baby also survived. He goes to the window, where his son and Birddog are waiting below, nervously – and gives them a thumbs up. Call me corny, but the response of Birddog (he starts clapping, huge smile on his face) – and the elated look on the son’s face – brings a lump to my throat, and I’m sitting here typing, with tears in my eyes. Yeah, I’m a geek.

It doesn’t take much for me to “believe”, let’s just say that. I know there are holes in the show, but if it works on an emotional level (and for me, for the most part, it does) – that’s what I’m in it for. And that shot – from above – with Birddog clapping and laughing, and the beaming face of his son – makes me realize that I have come to kind of care about Peggy Stratton and her husband – and I’m glad she’s okay. She’s a fictional character. I’ll never meet her again. But I’m glad she’s okay. That’s the simple level of reality the show is meant to work on. And it DOES.

The son – overjoyed – throws a baseball up into the air – we follow its arc – and (for the only time in the series history) – we do NOT “see” the leap. We do not see Sam engulfed in blue lightning. We HEAR the leap – but we’re watching the baseball fly up into the air – and then boom – we’re back … only now we see Sam, baseball glove in the air, catching the ball – the same ball thrown up to him by his son – only … Sam is now in a baseball uniform … on a baseball field …

and … what???

Poor Sam. Leaps must be terrifying. Like: waking up and there you are … on the spot … in somebody else’s life … It is funny, too – like Tommy mentions: whoever (God, or time) is leaping Sam around has a sick sense of humor. Wouldn’t it be okay to have Sam leap into someone who was asleep? Or who was in a calm moment where nothing big is happening? Why does he always leap in medias res? Can’t you give Sam a little break here, please?? So. Okay. Sam is on a baseball field. It’s a night game. There are people in the stands shouting at him, “What are you … posing for a picture?” The inning is over, it’s time for him to run back to the dugout, but he … still half-attached to Tom Stratton’s life … isn’t sure where he is yet, or what has happened. This is his first “sideways” leap, remember. He thought when he leapt out of Tom Stratton, he’d leap back into 1999 – into himself … but no. It didn’t work that way. OBVIOUSLY.

To quote Al Calavicci: “You are part of a time travel experiment that went … a little caca.”

A little caca indeed.

Sam, a fast learner, doesn’t spend this particular leap telling everyone around him that he’s not who he looks like. He succumbs. Runs back to the dugout. Playing along until he figures out what’s going on, or until Al shows up and he can tear him a new asshole for messing up his leap. Again! I love the dynamic in the dugout – it all feels very real to me. Like – Donald Bellisario – who wrote this epiosde, not only knows the world of test pilots – but is also a baseball fan. For example – one of the Waco Bombers is at bat. A pitch comes, dude swings and misses. The crusty perpetually angry coach turns around and bellows at the team in the dugout, “Next son of a gun who swings at the first pitch … I’m gonna fine 50 bucks!” (If Nomar were on that team, he’d be fined every time he went to bat!!) Anyway, that bit of dialogue could only come from someone who knows baseball.

Sam, no idea who he is, what has happened, sidles back into the dugout … his name is “Fox” apparently … he’s trying to act all nonchalant, like, “Yeah, I’m this guy, whatever, I’m TOTALLY this guy …” when Al shows up.

In a shimmery silver jacket and a purple shirt. Smoking his cigar, staring out at the baseball game, completely unconcerned with anything that has “gone wrong”. His mind is not at all on Quantum Leaping. He wants to watch the game. Sam tries to pull him aside … “I need to talk to you …” “I want to watch the game!” Al is like a recalcitrant bratty little kid here, it’s hilarious. Like: DUDE. FOCUS. The ONLY thing you should be thinking about is MY WELL-BEING! “But I want to watch the game!”

Favorite line in the “baseball leap” – and how Stockwell says it – it makes me laugh every time, and I won’t be able to describe it – you just have to keep your eye out for it: It’s in this first scene, they’re in the dugout. Someone on the field has gotten a hit and a couple of the players in the dugout clap, lackadaisacally. Al, noticing this, says flatly, “No wonder they’re in the cellar. They’ve got about as much enthusiasm as a ten dollar hooker.” Please just watch HOW he says that line. How his eyes go to slits, contemptuous slits … And the way he says “ten dollar hooker” – you know he speaks from painful experience. It’s just hilarious.

Sam finally gets Al down into the locker room – but it is still some time before Sam can get Al to focus on why he did not leap back, and who he has leapt into this time. Al is not concerned about why things went wrong – he tells Sam about the party they’ve been having over the last week, celebrating the fact that the Quantum Leap worked in the first place. The party went until all hours of the night and appears to have turned into some kind of orgy. Again, Sam doesn’t want to hear any of the details, but the snippets we get are so stupid and funny. Like: your colleague is leaping through time, and you’re printing out pornographic pictures and making out with “Brenda from coding”???

Al, though, starts to take on the role that he will take through the rest of the series. He shows up with some information about where/who/what/when. He tells Sam the backstory of this Tim Fox – a baseball player who broke his leg in the majors and was sent down to recover. It’s been 5 years – he’s never been called back up again. This whole leap is a takeoff on The Natural – Al even makes a Roy Hobbs reference later – and also, when Sam eventually does go to bat – he’s a leftie. (Scott Bakula, in one of the little interviews, says that watching his swing in slow-mo hurts him to this day – because he’s not a leftie – but he IS a pretty good baseball player – so he still wishes that he had said to the powers that be, “You know what? I need to bat righthanded … this isn’t gonna look good.”)

I’m actually kind of unclear on what Sam is supposed to “put right” in this leap. There is no big drama, no 8 Men Out background, no murder impending, no “you must marry this woman or all will be lost” urgency. In the real game (which is in 1968) – Tim Fox “flied out”. And I guess that’s what Sam is supposed to do … but … I don’t know … if anyone can tell me what needs to be “put right” in Tim Fox’s life, that would be great.

It’s in this “leap” that Ziggy starts to take on shape as a character. Ziggy is a computer. But Al tells Sam that Ziggy is “depressed” because “he messed up the leap”. How can a computer be depressed? Al says, “He has a big ego.” (I won’t harp too much on the fact that in Season 3 it is revealed that Ziggy has a sexy woman’s voice and everyone starts referring to her as “she”. It’s just one of those things that happens over a long series. I must accept that!!)

I love the following exchange between Al and Sam. Al hears the crowd cheering above and gets irritated. “I want to watch the game!” he says for the 10th time. Sam says, “You already know what happens!” And like a flash, Al is up in Sam’s face, saying (and you gotta watch how Stockwell says this … and the gestures … and the pauses … I won’t bore you with taking you thru it beat to beat … it’s just a delicious moment of ridiculous human behavior): Al says, emphatically, lasciviously, with gestures galore: “I knew what would happen when I took Brenda into the filing room.” Long pause. “I still took her.”

Ba-dum- CHING!!

We also get more backstory about Sam Beckett. Al lets him know that he has 6 doctorates. He gives him an update on Tom Stratton – Peggy gave wife to a healthy baby girl – and they lived happily ever after. Sam is still baffled at why “they” cannot retrieve him. He gets annoyed. “Who designed this ziggy, anyway?”

Al finally speaks the truth. “You, Sam. So. If there’s one guy who can figure out how to bring you back …. it’s you, Sam.”

(This goes along with the “who’s running this show” theme that comes up time and time again – and is the main focus of the very last episode in the series. God, or time, or whoever is leaping Sam around? Or maybe … it’s just Sam himself? Could that be? Despite his desire to ‘go back’? Like Al told him in the earlier Tom Stratton section: “We tried to retrieve you this morning. You wouldn’t leap!”)

So Sam now knows the truth. He will leap. Around. Until he can figure out a way to leap “back” into himself. And Al, against his better judgment, against the advice of Ziggy and everyone – tells Sam his last name. Which is Beckett.

Sam realizes – by himself in the dugout – that it is only 1968 … which means his father is still alive. Contacting his father had come into his head in the Tom Stratton leap, only he didn’t know his own last name. Now, though, he actually … could speak to his father … who has been dead for 20 years.

All I can say is: great work, Scott Bakula, on that phone conversation. Not too cheesy, not too self-pitying … it’s what you would do … if you could talk to your dead father, and NOT let him know that it was you, from the future. (Uhm, what?) He’s holding back a tsunami of emotion, he’s pretending to be a long-lost nephew … and there his father is, on the other end, being kind and supportive … sweet … and Sam is just having a helluva time not LOSING it … listening to, and remembering, the simple homely kindness of his dead father. And how much he misses him. And still loves him. It’s lovely work – that’s where the series (for me) really operates – on that level. Because yeah, it’s cool to leap around in time … but who could resist … trying to go back and see your family, have an Our Town moment, talk to your dead father again?

As Sam walks back up to the game, he’s in tears – just totally FULL – and he looks up (again – could be cheesy, but somehow is not) and says (to God, or time, or whoever): “Thank you!” There’s a voiceover here, too – which I’m not wacky about – because it goes into “tell, not show” mode. A voiceover should never be used to tell us what we already know, or what we are seeing – and that voiceover does. “Maybe this leaping around in time wouldn’t be such a bad thing …” Etc. Yeah, yeah, we got it. Trust the actor, please – Scott Bakula, with his glance to the sky, is already PLAYING that. We don’t need you to add onto it.

But it is an important moment – because it’s where I see that Sam Beckett actually accepts his fate.

Maybe the next leap WON’T bring him back home. But maybe leaping around won’t be so bad. Because … this feeling in my heart of having healed something with my dad … of having talked to him again … will inevitably, in its small way, make the world a better and loving place. And isn’t that a worthy way to spend your life?

The series wouldn’t work if Sam were perpetually frustrated and irritated that he couldn’t “get back”. That energy would get old really quick!

Then there’s the ending – with Sam’s at-bat as Tim Fox – and a series of errors – missed throw at first and third – means he got a homerun off of a catcher error. Slow-mo running around the bases, Al in his mylar jacket – freaking out at home plate – acting like a jacked-up running coach – Sam running the bases – and then sliding into home. He’s safe! His teammates swarm him!

Again, not sure what that whole leap was about …

but now … for the first time … we see the blue electric light shiver through him … and the SOUND of the leap – that Cullen has mentioned – that shivery sound … and in a flash Sam has gone.

What a bummer. To go through all that and to not be allowed to celebrate? For even just 2 seconds, God??? Come ON, give me a break!!

Sam leaps “into” a man, standing in front of a blackboard, smoking a pipe – looking out at a listening group of college students. What? Who? What am I teaching? Where am I now?? Help??