ORBzine - Quantum Leap TV Review

4th Season 1991

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 1] The Leap Back - June 15, 1945
Shown 18 Sep 91

Sam is Al.

Al, with his mesons and neurones mixed with Sam's, is now the leaper! Hence, the leap back in this ep pre-dates Sam's original birth.

Sam gets to walk around the Project HQ, and speak to his wife. Yes, they never got divorced - but she no longer looks like Teri Hatcher . Unfortunately the actress had other commitments - this was before Lois and Clark , so it might be when she was doing her topless scenes for Cool Surface .

Ziggy is now female. And Tina, Al's girlfriend, has become a squeeky-voiced bimbo. She's still wearing the special jewellry from the pilot ep, though.

Sam has to make a risky choice - leave Al to die, or go back into the Accelerator and continue leaping.

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 2] Play Ball - August 6, 1961
Shown 25 Sep 91
Shown 25th July 2006 [Wednesday]

Sam is an aging, burned out baseball pitcher. Which is ironic, because except for the Season One ep where he was a batter, Sam has never played the game before.

Sam must act as mentor to a young player who's angry and overconfident.

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 3] Hurricane - August 17, 1969
Shown 2 Oct 91

Sam is a Florida sheriff. He has to organise an evacuation now there's a hurricane on the way.

More importantly, he has to stop the sheriff's girlfriend being killed.

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 4] Justice - May 11, 1965
Shown 9 Oct 91

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 5] Permanent Wave - June 2, 1983
Shown 16 Oct 91

Sam is a hairdresser in Beverly Hills. He gets lots of chance to act like Warren Beatty in Shampoo, but he has a GF. And her annoying cripple son is witness to a murder ...

Sam must help detective Harry Groener [ Buffy, Sleepwalkers ] find the murderer. But the kid's mother refuses to co-operate with the cops - even with the kiler taking shots at them!

  59.   4- 6    67312    30 Oct 91   Raped - June 20, 1980

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 7] The Wrong Stuff - January 24, 1961
Shown 6 Nov 91

Sam is a chimp in the USAF astro-chimp experiments. Everyone except Al sees and hears him as a chimp ... Although they make eye contact with him, despite the fact that he's much taller than a real chimp!

The USAF Docs are running a secret program of lethal experiments on chimps. They haven't got a vet on their staff, so the experiments are useless!

Luckily, Sam is one of the chimps being used by a nice lady vet for non-lethal tests. Of course, if he flunks the tests [and is less intelligent than the real chimp!] he'll be transferred.

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 8] Dreams - February 28, 1979
Shown 13 Nov 91

Sam is a detective hunting for a brutal murderer. He's going to be murdered himself ...

The main suspect is a creepy pychiatrist who looks a bit like Harris Yulin. His name is Doctor Crane [Frasier?], and this is a contrived Silence of the Lambs rip-off.

Conveniently for the plot, Sam's mind is swiss-cheesed with the cop's. The cop's subconscious trauma allows the shrink to manipulate Sam ...

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 9] A Single Drop of Rain - September 7, 1953
Shown 20 Nov 91

Sam is a make-it-rain man, who can conjur up rain. For money, that is. And a desperate dust-bowl town hires him.

Sandwiched between 2 crime-solving eps, this is a solve a family relationship problem ep.

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 10] Unchained - November 2, 1956
Shown 27 Nov 91

Sam's in a chain gang.

Another prisoner, a young black guy, wants to escape. And like all African Americans in Deep South prisons in films set in the 1950s [ Green Mile to name but one], he's probably innocent.

Sam faces the usual prison brutality, including gladiatorial bouts between convicts. The guards are sadistic and corrupt. Escape seems the only option.

Luckily, as a long-term prisoner, Sam can openly talk to his invisible buddy Al without arousing undue suspicion.

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 11] The Play's the Thing - September 9, 1969
Shown 8 Jan 92

Sam is a 25-year-old actor. His GF confesses that she isn't 40 years old - she is 50!

Al doesn't approve of the age gap. However, he has had women 25 years younger than himself. Also ... Sam Beckett is in his mid-40s, so the woman is only a couple of years older than him. She doesn't LOOK close in age to Scott Bakula!

Sam must save the actor's career, doing Hamlet on stage ... nude! He must get the GF to follow through on being a lounge singer. Unfortunately, this show never acknowledges the fact that these opportunities are limited: For these 2 to get the job, someone else must lose it!

  65.   4-12    67319    15 Jan 92   Running For Honor - June 11, 1964
  66.   4-13    67322    22 Jan 92   Temptation Eyes - February 1, 1985
  67.   4-14    67318    29 Jan 92   The Last Gunfighter - November 28, 1957
  68.   4-15    67304    26 Feb 92   A Song for the Soul - April 7, 1963

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 16] Ghost Ship - August 13, 1956
Shown 4 Mar 92

Sam is co-pilot on a civilian flying-boat in the Bermuda Triangle. They meet dodgy weather conditions, and Al [USN carrier pilot turned Admiral!] thinks it's the Triangle curse!

The flying boat's pilot has flashbacks to a mission he was on in 1944. He relives it - he lost the rest of his unit, and ended up as the sole survivor.

At least SAM isn't the one having the flashbacks this time!

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 17] Roberto! - January 27, 1982
Shown 11 Mar 92
Shown 11th August 2006 [Friday]

Sam is a TV chat-show host, Jerry Springer type.

The ep concerns an evil MegaCorp illegally dumping toxic waste. Environmental stories were very popular when this was made.

Scott Bakula directed this ep.

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 18] It's A Wonderful Leap - May 10, 1958
Shown 1 Apr 92
Shown 16th August 2006 [Wednesday]

Sam's a cab driver.

A crazy woman claims to be his guardian angel. And by a series of unlikely coincidences, this is not disproven. However, it doesn't really fit into the show's overall logic.

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 19] Moments to Live - May 4, 1985
Shown 8 Apr 92

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 20] The Curse of Ptah-Hotep - March 2, 1957
Shown 22 Apr 92
Shown Third Week, September 2000

This is one of the few episodes set outside the borders of the USA. This time Sam is a 1957 archaeologist at a site deep in the Egyptian desert. The cast includes a token babe, and a French actor who has worked for the BBC.

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 21] Stand Up - April 30, 1959
Shown 13 May 92

Quantum Leap [Season 4, Episode 22] A Leap for Lisa - June 25, 1957
Shown 20 May 92

Sam wakes up re-enacting From Here to Eternity with Terry Farrell .

. Sam is the young USN Ensign Al Calavichi. He lives on a USN land base, riddled with adultery, and is accused of the rape and murder of the wife of Commander Riker [the ep's second Star Trek reference]. This is another whodunnit.

We get a glimpse of a parallel world. If Al were executed, his job would be performed by Roddy McDowell [ Planet of the Apes ].

The epilogue is a great cliffhanger that leads into the next Season.