The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) continuation of Quantum Leap (1989-1993) recently aired the final two episodes of their second season last month. Quantum Leap (2022- ) extended the universe with a thirteen episode season, shortened a bit by the strikes among writers and then actors in 2023.
The second season begins with our leaper, Dr. Ben Song as portrayed by Raymond Lee, in what the story tells us is an immediate leap not home but into an Air Force cargo plane for the United States over Russia in the year 1978. Ben works through the leap without support from the Project Quantum Leap (PQL) team, wherein three years had passed, the team had been disbanded, Ben had been taken for dead and, finally, the nature of the relationships and support Ben could expect had changed since the 18th and final episode of the opening season of the rebooted Quantum Leap owing to the passage of three years since the spring 2023 concluding episode wherein hope had been given that Ben would leap home.
Bringing the PQL team back together becomes the task at hand with the second episode, as begun in the first episode of the second season thanks to Ian Wright as portrayed by Mason Alexander Park. A bank robbery gone wrong in Tucson, Arizona forms the leap underpinning the urgency of the second episode. We learn that Ben’s fiancée and primary hologram through the opening season, Addison Augustine as portrayed by Caitlin Bassett, has a new love interest with influence in United States Army intelligence in bringing the PQL team back. Tom Westfall as portrayed by Peter Gadiot serves as Addison’s love interest.
With Jenn Chou as portrayed by Nanrisa Lee reinforcing her role as PQL head of security and knowing confidant for Ian, she questions Ian from this episode about Wright’s means for finding the leaping Ben, who’s having been taken for dead led to the PQL team being disbanded. Starlight, New Mexico in 1949 offers an initial leap into the subject of aliens and unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the third episode of the second season. Ben encounters Hannah Carson on the leap in New Mexico, a waitress with above average intelligence portrayed by Eliza Taylor, for the first time. In the fourth leap of the season in Los Angeles, California (2000 for Ben before a separate leap to the same city in 1992), Herbert ‘Magic’ Williams as portrayed by Ernie Hudson introduces the PQL team to Tom Westfall.
Future leaps take Ben to Princeton, New Jersey in 1955, Middletowne, Massachusetts in 1692, Cairo, Egypt in 1961, Trenton, New Jersey in 1970, Mexico in 1953, Denver, Colorado in 1982, Baltimore, Maryland in 1974 and, finally, Sonoma County, California in 1976. With a love quadrangle of sorts being a recurring storyline through the season, the love shared by Ben and Addison is juxtaposed against Addison and Tom on one hand and Ben encountering Hannah on six different leaps across 27 years on the other. In short bursts, Hannah and Ben develop intense feelings across a lifetime of other experiences for Hannah. This notion of lifetime experiences underlines a significant plot development that includes recurring roles for Gideon Ridge as portrayed by James Frain and Jeffrey Nally as portrayed by Wyatt Parker. The Gideon Ridge storyline is further punctuated with storylines that include Ian Wright, Ian’s girlfriend Rachel, Jenn Chou and Herbert ‘Magic’ Williams. Alice Kremelberg reprised her role as Ian’s girlfriend for a second season.
The manner of storytelling in the rebooted Quantum Leap sticks to the episodic perspective of the original 97 episodes over five seasons of the source Quantum Leap series. There is a bigger focus on the interpersonal relationships in the world external to the leaps, though the sense of righting wrongs and setting things up for the better remains true to the series. Another season for Quantum Leap hasn’t yet been announced, though my appreciation for the stories leads me to hope for an additional season. I grant 3.75-stars on a scale of one-to-five stars for the second season of the rebooted Quantum Leap.
Matt – Saturday, March 2, 2024
Matt Lynn Digital 