#Quantum leap episodes series#
#Quantum leap episodes tv#

Will he succeed? Or will the sister fall to her death and the series end with Sam stuck forever in the circus? As the answer is strikingly obvious, it requires something more to keep the attention, but that's not on offer here. Leaping in Without a Net does, as the title suggests, see Sam as a circus performer, having to catch his sister without a safety net. This isn't a problem for character-based episodes, where his motives may even change as the leap progresses, but when it's a simple physical feat, it does lead to pedestrian efforts like this one. If Sam has a mission to achieve, then, by definition, he has to succeed to move on to the next leap. The core drive of Quantum Leap, its modus operandi - Sam leaps in to 'put right what once went wrong' - does remove any suspense by its very nature.

If this was a ranking of which episodes are the most fun to watch, this one may even take first place. It takes what is a deeply muddled and misfiring episode - one that tries to promote understanding but instead offers an imperialistic, westernised stereotype of another race - and elevates a dodgy episode into the realms of pure comedy gold. Yet it works here, with the hysterically funny and inappropriate scene where the mother of the man Sam has leapt into decides to care for her new daughter-in-law, and, after an entire episode of racial bigotry, suddenly decides to turn up to church dressed as a Japanese Geisha Girl and bows in reconciliation.

#Quantum leap episodes tv#

Sadly, while a neat 'fix' for a 45 minute TV show, often real life simply doesn't work like that, and people not only have hatred for others 'just because', but also this bigotry can't be reset in less than a couple of days. Criticism of Quantum Leap's more 'worthy' episodes can seem like criticism of the messages portrayed within, but it’s not the commendable core message that’s a problem, but the method of delivery.Ī problem with issue-led Quantum Leap episodes is that most of the time people displaying prejudice will have some deep-rooted psychological issue behind it, meaning that Sam can unravel the cause of their hate and help them find love in their hearts for the target of their despisal. Unwittingly offensive on so many different levels, Sam's insistence that his new Japanese bride's culture doesn't have to be followed as she's 'in America now' is meant to be kind, but instead comes off as overbearing, dismissive and patronising, almost less preferable than the open hostility that Machiko incurs elsewhere. The Americanization of Machiko is far, far from the greatest episode of season two, but it may well be the most flat-out entertaining. Sam missed a chance to throw her into the garbage chute that was launched into the sea. Set in 1954, the future Prime Minister of the UK would have been 28 at the time and just beginning her political career. Perhaps the oddest part of this story is the almost non-sequitur of an unseen Margaret Thatcher being called to the bridge. a rare example of this loose anthology show having some serious continuity. Possibly the only notable moment in this penultimate episode is that Sam asks what happened to Al's true love, a question that would be answered in the following week's M.I.A.

Sea Bride features caricatures in the place of real people, and broad farce in the place of genuine wit.Ī tale about Sam trying to rekindle romance on a cruise ship, it involves a gangster called 'Vinnie' and upper class English fathers decking Sam with 'comic' effect. Although no season two story quite falls into pastiche like season one's Play It Again, Seymour, there's still a gulf in how 'believable' characters are in some of these episodes.