ORBzine - Quantum Leap TV Review
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Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 1]
Lee Harvey Oswald - October 5, 1957 - November 22, 1963 (1)
Shown 22 Sep 92
Sam is Lee Harvey Oswald. He starts by authenticating the suspicious photo of Oswald with the rifle ...
Bellisario, the Producer, wrote this. He knew Oswald - they were both in Japan together when he was USN and Oswald was USMC. Bellisario never believed all the conspiracy theories, such as in the films JFK and Ruby, which came out about this time. He portrays the Oswald he knew as a Lone Nut.
If this portrayal is true and accurate, it is far more frightening than any CIA/Mafia conspiracy theory. Oswald is a Marxist fanatic, obsessed with the Proletariat, and is renowned for his abrasive, anti-American, undisciplined attitude. Yet not only is he allowed to join the USMC - a heavily-armed branch of the US military that regards itself as an elite and prides itself on Patriotism - but at the height of the Cold War he is made a radar operator on the most secret USMC project, the U2 spy-plane!!!
Willie Garson [ Stargate SG-1 ] is Lee Harvey Oswald, back in the imaging chamber.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 2]
Lee Harvey Oswald - October 5, 1957 - November 22, 1963 (2)
Shown 22 Sep 92
Sam's neurones are still scrambled with Oswald's. Al and Ziggy try to save them, but only make things worse.
The plot churns onward, towards the inevitable denouement.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 3]
Leaping of the Shrew - September 27, 1956
Shown 29 Sep 92
The ep starts with an explosion, then goes into a jazzed-up titles sequence. The music is more jazz-pop style, later imitated by Bakula's other famous show, Enterprise . Also, there appears to be more of an emphasis on sex and violence. In fact, most if not all of those clips were already in the Season 3 credits, but the music certainly makes them more apparent.
Sam is Nikos, a Greek sailor adrift in the Aegean. Sam's been outside the USA before - to Japan and Vietnam in the US military, for example. But this ep is still a first.
Sam is stranded with a spoilt American heiress [ Brooke Shields ], on her honeymoon. She's the shrew of the title - a stuck-up bitch, playing hard-to-get.
Sam mentions the planet Venus, and the Greek god Zeus. Perhaps the magical powers behind Quantum Leap are the Olympians!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 4]
Nowhere to Run - August 10, 1968
Shown 6 Oct 92
Sam is a crippled Vietnam veteran.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 5]
Killin' Time - June 18, 1958
Shown 20 Oct 92
Sam's in a jam in 1958. He's a Serial killer with hostages [woman and daughter who don't try to escape/kill him].
The Real killer [twitchy] escapes from the hi-security base, into 1999 USA. He meets a hooker with a fairylights dress and edible bodypaint, who lives in a voice-activated luxury apartment ... The killer then breaks back INTO the base!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 6]
Star Light, Star Bright - May 21, 1966
Shown 27 Oct 92
Sam is an old man who thinks he saw a UFO.
The grandson, Morgan Weisser [ Space: Above and Beyond ], wants to be a musician while his father forces him to go to College. Yes, this is family-based rather than a pseudo-thriller ep.
The MIBs from Project Blue Book [ok, a shrink and a USAF officer] investigate. They even use Sodium Pentathol, and get more info out of Sam than they expected! For example, for Sam it is 1st May 1999.
This is at least the THIRD time we have seen Sam talking to his invisible buddy.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 7]
Deliver Us From Evil - March 19, 1966
Shown 10 Nov 92
Sam is Jimmy again, a couple of years on. The retarded - oops, special - guy from Season 1.
This time the problem isn't Michael Madsen. No, it's worse. The brother [a dirt-poor working-class manual-labour dock-hand] is married to a middle-class, college-educated woman. She's discovered Womens' Lib, and the marriage is falling apart.
Sam discovers that he is not the only Time Traveller in the era. And he has a lot to learn about women!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 8]
Trilogy Part I - August 8, 1955
Shown 17 Nov 92
Sam is a redneck sheriff in the Deep South.
The small hick town has a hell of a body-count. Dead men in swamps, entire families murdered by crazy women who get committed to asylums, young girls who die in mysterious circumstances ...
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 9]
Trilogy Part II - June 14, 1966
Shown 24 Nov 92
Sam is deputy sheriff of the same Dixieland town. He's engaged to marry the now-adult girl fom the previous ep. His brain is so swiss-cheesed, he's unstoppably horny.
A young boy runs away from home. His mother is an absentee bitch, and he is much closer to the babysitter - Sam's fiance!
A lynch-mob, led by the eeevil mom [and the firestarter from last ep], try to kill Sam's fiance.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 10]
Trilogy Part III - July 28, 1978
Shown 24 Nov 92
Sam is an OAP lawyer, still in the Deep South. Abigail, the girl from the other 2 eps, is now a single mom. She's on trial, facing the electric chair!
Sam must solve the deaths in the first ep, and the murder that the trial is for. Unfortunately, every time the OP lawyer in the waiting room has a heart attack, Sam hs one too. Or something equally contrived.
The soon-to-be-orphan is called Sammy Jo. Named somehow after Sam Beckett, who is apparently her biological daddy! Sam's mind being swiss-cheesed, he'll forget this in the next leap. Bloody reset button!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 11]
Promised Land - December 22, 1971
Shown 15 Dec 92
Sam is a hick farmboy. He and his brothers start a siege in the local bank, after the manager forecloses on their family farm.
This is like the Great Depression of the 1930s. Honest farmer folk cheated out of their land by big-city money-men.
This all takes place in Sam's home-town. Naturally he sides with the farmers, because he blames himself for his family farm being lost.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 12]
A Tale of Two Sweeties - February 25, 1958
Shown 5 Jan 93
Sam is a bigamist. And a con-man, compulsive gambler, and twit.
Sam has 2 wives, each with a son and daughter. He has to keep them apart, then choose one. He has a cunning plan, but refuses to tell Al. Dramatic tension, you see.
Sam also owes 2 Grand to a bookie. He's so short on cash he steals cutlery from the hotel he's staying in, but somehow Sam remembers the results of a horse race!
Shockingly, it seems that if either wife left the stupid con-man she could immediately trade up and get a rich, successful husband. No womens' lib or careers, of course - that's in the next ep!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 13]
Liberation - October 16, 1968
Shown 12 Jan 93
Sam is a middle-aged housewife caught up in the Feminazi Revolution led by a violent man-hater. His/her teenage daughter is also involved - illustrating how the issues are those of a teenage temper-tantrum!
The man of the house expects his wife to do a few household chores. Unlike unmarried people, who let the laundry fairy take care of everything. Worse, he refers to his spouse as Sweetie - the BASTARD! I just sock'em on the jaw and shout Pop goes the weasel!
Women in the workplace don't get equal promotions or pay. Possibly because in this ep they don't EARN it.
Modern-day USA has equal pay and conditions for women, and child-care facilities, and takes this situation for granted. The stated reason being, If companies want the best female talent, they must pay the price. Pure selfish greedy capitalist motivation, nothing to do with Socialist altruism!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 14]
Dr. Ruth - April 25, 1985
Shown 19 Jan 93
Sam is Dr Ruth, a radio shrink who gives callers relationship advice.
She/He must get a bickering couple of co-workers together. They're both insecure. So are most people in the ep, in fact.
Sam must also protect a man from a clingy bunny-boiler. Is this a reference to the film Fatal Attraction [released circa 1985, when this is set] , or yer more man-bashing crap like the previous ep?
This is one of the few eps to largely feature the alternate personality. Dr Ruth counsels Al, sorting out his relationship with Tina [who he's been shagging since the pilot, but who's having an affair with Gushy]. Al's still hung up on his first wife, see?
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 15]
Blood Moon - March 10, 1975
Shown 9 Feb 93
Sam wakes up in a coffin. Not buried alive - well, not buried, anyway. He's a Bela Lugosi lookalike dressed in evening garb, and Al thinks the guy's a vamp!
Ian Buchannon [ Sliders S3, Alias S3 ] arrives as a dinner guest. And a suspected vampire and murderer.
Erzebet Bathory was apparently a man, even though Hammer made Countess Dracula. Wow! Sam somehow changed history 400 years ago!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 16]
Return of the Evil Leaper - October 8, 1956
Shown 23 Feb 93
Sam is a college boy who thinks he's a superhero. Out to right all wrongs in a self-richeous way - just like Sam.
As the title implies, the Evil Leaper pops up and tries to turn local bully Dougie Howser [ Starship Troopers ] into an even bigger twit.
.
The running time is padded quite atrociously. The end segment drags on forever ... and the end credits are slower than ever.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 17]
Revenge of the Evil Leaper - September 16, 1987
Shown 23 Feb 93
Sam and Alia are convicts in a womens' prison. They've been accused of murdering another inmate, and Alia has lost her memory.
Zoe is now the Evil Leaper. A token Black Guy is now her hologram, a sort of villainous Al. Like Zoe he wears futuristic clothing.
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 18]
Goodbye Norma Jean - April 4, 1960
Shown 2 Mar 93
Sam is now chauffeur to Marilyn Monroe. Yes, yet more Baby-Boomer wish-fulfillment fantasy.
Marilyn is due to do a film, then OD. Sam disrupts this, then turns it back the way it used to be. Nothing really gets solved, there's no solution to the ep. No real purpose to it.
94. 5-19 68122 16 Mar 93 The Beast Within - November 6, 1972
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 20]
The Leap Between The States - September 20, 1862
Shown 30 Mar 93
Sam is his own great grand-father.
A Union officer, he's sheltered by a Southern woman [ Kate McNeill ] and her slave.
The Confederate Home Guard, as in Cold Mountain, chase Yankees, runaway slaves and sympathisers. Plus, they're after the women. Especially when Sam gets them drunk!
Season 5 loved to step outside the show's basic premise. There are only a couple more eps to go ...
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 21]
Memphis Melody - July 3, 1954
Shown 20 Apr 93
Sam is Elvis Presley.
Last time he was against the South, this time he sings Dixie. Apart from that, this isn't exactly a pro-South ep. The villain is yet another Southern Gent.
Sam must help a woman get a singing career, instead of becoming an unhappy homemaker. Feminism over family values - something this show has never managed to balance. Every single person must be forced into marriage, but every wife must be given a career!
Sam, a Carnegie Hall pianist and fun-loving DJ, doesn't even TRY to be a good guitarist. His lacklustre approach almost costs Elvis his career!
Quantum Leap [Season 5, Episode 22]
Mirror Image - August 8, 1953
Shown 5 May 93
Sam is himself.
He's stuck in a tavern where Bruce McGill [who appeared in the pilot ep] is bartender. Other recognisable guest-stars are Steven McHattie [ X-Files ], John D'Aquino [ SeaQuest, Xena ], Richard Herd [ V ] and Morgan Shepherd SeaQuest, TNG ] - in fact, McGill is the only one he DOESN'T recognise!
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