Quickie Review: Quantum Leap reboot

[Kevin M.]

The CGI is distracting… there are too many sets and effects that aren’t practical. It’s a decent first story, but the cast seems to have been chosen more for diversity than for talent. That said, Raymond Lee has the potential to be a good lead. It is not as bad as it could have been, but it is also not as good as it could have been.

Streaming on the Peacock 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Tom Wolper]

Some of that might be an extra big budget to make the pilot pop. They’ll probably cut back on the CGI in future episodes.

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[David Bruggeman]

I'm of a similar mind as Kevin.  I get the impression from the additional cast and a couple of plot points that this time around there will be a *lot* more time spent on the present-day environment compared to the Bakula-Stockwood edition.  (To be fair, we rarely saw the Quantum Leap project facility in that series.)

I don't know if I'll stick around, but I'll check out the next few episodes.

David

[Kevin M.]

On Tue, Sep 20, 2022 at 8:11 PM Tom Wolper <two...@gmail.com> wrote:

Some of that might be an extra big budget to make the pilot pop. They’ll probably cut back on the CGI in future episodes.

What I think is the CGI is meant to reduce the show’s dependence on a studio backlot or, Heaven forbid, location shooting. But I believe the lack of realia affects an actor’s performance. I have the same criticism of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Give me a cardboard set from the 1960s any day over a green or blue screen creation. 

On Tue, Sep 20, 2022 at 10:53 PM Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

The CGI is distracting… there are too many sets and effects that aren’t practical. It’s a decent first story, but the cast seems to have been chosen more for diversity than for talent. That said, Raymond Lee has the potential to be a good lead. It is not as bad as it could have been, but it is also not as good as it could have been.

Streaming on the Peacock 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Diner]

All I've seen is the trailer. It looks slick and cool, but...

So he's being chased through 1985 Philadelphia by 1980s-vintage Philadelphia police cars. So far, so good. But... the street has palm trees on it! And the cars spin out in front of a building marked "Children's Home Society of California"! Huh?

[Jim Ellwanger]

Clearly, time travel has all kinds of weird ripple effects on the timeline.

Although even in our timeline, California IS in Pennsylvania: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California,_Pennsylvania

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[Brad Beam]

So is Indiana. Jimmy Stewart would attest to that.

https://www.Jimmy.org

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 21, 2022, at 09:52, Jim Ellwanger <trai...@ellwanger.tv> wrote:

Clearly, time travel has all kinds of weird ripple effects on the timeline.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/tvornottv/2B136697-F17E-4F22-BFD1-4369268CBA63%40ellwanger.tv.

[PGage]

Since I expected it to be horrible I came away mildly impressed that it was less bad than it could have been. I think the two leads are strong and promising. 

It does have that performative ultra diverse stance that made ST: Discovery so tiresome, but I would not blame that for the substantial talent drop off after the two Leads. Most network shows that are all white cast mediocre and forgettable actors after all. It does feel like they are missing a fierce Latinx character, a guy in a wheel chair, and either a super smart male nerd or super smart hot babe from the Sub Continent to fill out their Diversity Bingo card. Yawn…but then, every generation has its self indulgences. Millennials like to think they roam in well represented diversity packs, even though the truth is most 30 years spend most of their time with people from their own ethnic group.

I will watch a few more episodes, if only out of respect for the pleasant memories of hours I spent canoodling with my then new wife while watching the original. But even more than the self congratulatory diversity enactments, I am dreading what appears to be the now irresistible overarching conspiracy plot line…

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[Dave Sikula]

I thought it failed in pretty much every regard. I totally agree about the cast; Lee isn't bad, but everyone else is a non-entity, and Ernie Hudson is really phoning this one in.

I'll stick with it because I so liked the original, but there's not a lot there, other than high school-level green screen work.

I do have a suspicion, though, that Bakula's denials are a smokescreen to cover what will be his eventual appearance(s).

--Dave Sikula

[M-D November]

Maybe I get distracted by the little things, but...did it bother anyone else that the Waiting Room never got mentioned?  In the original series, one of the reasons Al didn't show up until the middle of Act 1 was because he was usually questioning the time-swapee in the Waiting Room, and I don't feel like it was EVER mentioned in the pilot, despite the larger presence of the project team.  Also, why doesn't Ziggy talk anymore?

I will say that I'm glad the production design recognized that the vision of "THE FUTURE" from the original series wasn't practical to replicate.  Waaaaaay too much neon.

[Kevin M.]

No mention of the waiting room yet

I read elsewhere that Ernie Hudson’s character was in the original series (played by a different actor) and served with Al in Vietnam. One can guess that character was intended to be Al in the reboot pilot script, but then Stockwell passed away.

I have no prior knowledge of where the story is going, but I’d like to see it unfold that Sam is secretly leaping into the various regular characters throughout the season (that he is a character in the reboot but is unseen) helping them along without their knowledge. Maybe even have him leap into the lead character so he can pop out of the waiting room temporarily to be with (and remember) the woman he’s engaged to marry. Can you leap into a body that someone else has already leapt into?

It would also be nice if Sam’s wife appeared in the series at some point, too. 

In the original series finale, which was admittedly a jumbled wreck, it was sort of established that others were also leaping (Sam watched one of them leap towards the end). Maybe there are rival Quantum Leap projects?

Anyone recall the series “Timeless” from a few years ago? It also dealt with traveling in time to right wrongs, but it also included those changes affecting the show’s “present day” timeline. Wonder if the new Quantum Leap will explore the butterfly effect of leaping. The only time I recall the original series discussing it in any depth was when Sam inadvertently saved Jackie O’s life when JFK was assassinated. 

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Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Pete Ahles]

On Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 5:21 PM Kevin M. <drunkba...@gmail.com> wrote:

Wonder if the new Quantum Leap will explore the butterfly effect of leaping. The only time I recall the original series discussing it in any depth was when Sam inadvertently saved Jackie O’s life when JFK was assassinated. 

Once when the project's budget was about to be cut, Sam helped a girl pass the bar exam. She became a senator in the present day who was on the committee who approved the budget.

I wonder if they'll keep the "within one's lifetime" concept. The actor is in his 30s and they leaped to 1985. They can't go much earlier.

The original series violated the rule once when Sam leaped to the Civil War. Al leaped to WWII (within his lifetime).

Pete

  

[David Bruggeman]

Part of the clips for upcoming episodes mention Ben leaping outside of his own timeline.

As for Ernie Hudson's character, he is supposed to have served with Sam's brother in Vietnam, so technically he met Sam when Sam leaped into his brother.

David

[Pete Ahles]

On Fri, Sep 23, 2022 at 5:55 PM 'David Bruggeman' via TVorNotTV <tvor...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Part of the clips for upcoming episodes mention Ben leaping outside of his own timeline.

As for Ernie Hudson's character, he is supposed to have served with Sam's brother in Vietnam, so technically he met Sam when Sam leaped into his brother.

Actually Sam leaped into Herbert "Magic" Williams - Ernie Hudson's character (I looked up the name). He saved his brother's life.

Pete

[daves...@gmail.com]

Exactly. The Waiting Room was one of the reasons they were able to track down where Sam had leaped to and figure out why he was where he was (the Buddy Holly episode excluded); that it wasn't "anywhere on the planet at some time between the mid-80s and the present." I seem to remember one episode where the person in Sam's body escaped and they had to track him down.

Did Ziggy ever talk beyond beeps when Al would hit his Lego unit? Gushie talked, but Ziggy?

As for other leapers, have we all forgotten the Evil Leaper? (I wish we could, but she's canon.) That, and the meddling with actual events (like the JFK assassination), were kind of a signal to me that they were running out of ideas.

I also miss the "oh, boy"s, and hope they're not replaced with the "oh, sh--" we got in the first cliffhanger.

I realized the other day that, as much as I liked the show, it's really something of a ripoff of DC's Deadman.

--Dave Sikula

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[David Bruggeman]

YACS.  I can't even claim a swiss cheese memory as a defense here.

David

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[Brad Beam]

From: 'David Bruggeman' via TVorNotTV [mailto:tvor...@googlegroups.com]

>Part of the clips for upcoming episodes mention Ben leaping outside of his own timeline.

 

Without looking it up, I seem to recall Sam jumped back into a Civil War era ancestor in one episode.

[PGage]

That episode (Saving Jackie O) is my all time favorite; I thought for sure they would lean more heavily into stuff like that, and hope the new one does (e.g. new guy stops a woman who is supposed to help make the Space program work from running over a young boy in the street. It works, and he jumps, be we find out the boys name was Donald and…”).

That would require what I think I heard somewhere which is that they do extend the jumping range, either through some tech innovation, or by tapping into Sam’s life span as well…

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[M-D November]

I was about to bring up the "Evil Leaper", and the implication that Satan was somehow behind her mucking with history...

I don't recall if Ziggy's voice was audible through the handlink (since we only heard what Sam could hear), but I believe we heard the computer's voice at PQL headquarters.  And I remember a running gag about Sam programming it with Barbara Streisand's ego.

[Dave Sikula]

Well, now that the second episode has come and gone, this one looks like a dead fish. The effects were slightly better this time, though for all the money spent on a credible Space Shuttle set, they might have done better to put a couple more bucks in the script. (None of the other crew members noticed Lee having conversations with someone who wasn't there?)

The biggest problem remains the cast. Lee is fine, Hudson is serviceable (even with nothing to play), but the others -- especially Caitlin Bassett -- are stuck with leaden dialogue and ciphers of characters that they don't have the chops to do anything with. The other issue is the tone. No matter what happened on the original version, there was a chemistry and a friendship between Sam and Al. In the reboot, no one seems to like each other, and they spend their time recounting exposition and detailing each other's character traits rather than interacting.

I'll give it a few more episodes -- worse shows have gotten better -- but, right now, this show should leap home.

--Dave Sikula

[David Bruggeman]

Another issue is that the second episode is, IMO, a little too soon to focus so much on the modern-day storyline.  I understand that with most of the cast not traveling in time you want to spend some time with them, but it doesn't show much confidence in the basic concept of the show to make it essentially the B plot so soon.  I think this feeds into what Dave Sikula is talking about because rushed plots tend to focus on exposition at the expense of character.

David

[PGage]

I actually like both of the leads in this show, though in episode two it is Lee who really shines. But I continue to not like almost anything about the show that is not taking place in the actual Leap. Maybe David is right and it is just that it is too soon for all that, but I think no matter when, a little of that would go a long way, and has been pointed out, the more time spent on developing the story in the Leap, the better.

From what I could tell, it seems they conflated elements from the history of Atlantis missions as the basis for this story, which I don’t hate, though maybe I would have liked to see them focus just on the tile problem part, forget the Mir part, and really done a real revised/real history thing with it.

Unlike Dave I am no more negative about the show now than after episode 1, but my continued viewing is still relying mostly on stored goodwill, rather than earned merit. If they can avoid going fully Monty on the present day conspiracy shenanigans I probably have enough good will stored to carry me through the full season.

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[David Bruggeman]

It what might have been some corporate synergy planning, SyFy is running episodes of Quantum Leap all day today, in no particular order...

David