Quantum Leap

Dear Reader, 

I always knew that Q was going to be a bit tricky... Any letter of the alphabet that attracts a double score in Scrabble all on it's own is a force to be reckoned with. This one has had me in a bit of a quandary for most of the day. I even have a dictionary next to me which I was going to open if an idea didn't come by the time I had finished dinner. Finally it arrived, like a bolt from my TV young adulthood.

So, Quantum Leap. This little gem of late 80's TV had a slightly strange premise, which was helpfully explained at the start of each episode. This titles clip below may help clear things up.

If you prefer reading the words here is that voice-over in all its glory.

Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.

OK, that's all cleared up then. My memories of the program are a little more specific. The lead character Sam, played by Scott Bakula, often leaped into historical characters who were women. Consequently he was often in drag.

Very fetching.

Photographic evidence is a little sparse on this, although I counted at least seven instances of this in the title sequence from YouTube so I didn't imagine it, or worse, dream it. Maybe I should type something else into Google apart from "Scott Bakula in drag". No doubt when these usage statistics are collected and shared with I will be offered all sorts of interesting stuff at Amazon. Moving swiftly on...

Dr Beckett got to wear all manner of interesting outfits in the series but it still seems to me that the majority of the wardrobe budget went on Al, Sam's best friend who regularly in each episode in the form of a hologram. Al is from the future, which gave the costume department carte blanche to smoke some dope and then run up some truly natty threads.

Nice.

Nicer.

Nicest.

Yep, that's pretty much how I remember it, crazy like a fox. Mad clothes and a premise that meant every episode was fresh ensured that Quantum Leap has become a cult classic. It has also saved me having to write about quantum physics, I was seriously considering it.

Until tomorrow Dear Reader, when I will be respectfully regarding the letter R.

xx