For years, there’s been talk of bringing Quantum Leap back as either a movie or TV series. A year or so ago, series creator Donald Belisario mentioned that he had just finished writing a Quantum Leap movie, but did not know if anything would come of it. And recently, it was announced that NBC is rebooting the show as a TV series.
This will not be a full story description, but rather I will simply include some key points that need to occur within the story in order for it to happen properly.
Fair warning: If you haven’t seen the original series, there are spoilers ahead. If you’re reading this to begin with, I assume you’ve seen the original series. If you haven’t, stop reading and go watch it immediately.
Let’s start with some background.
- At the end of the series finale, we were told that Sam never returned home.
- During the series, Sam conceived a child — a baby daughter named Samantha. Sam was told that his daughter grew up and joined the staff of the Quantum Leap Project, but she was never told who her father was.
Now that we have some basic background info to build upon, let’s move forward.
My Pitch: The Present
The Quantum Leap project is now much larger. There are multiple leapers, rather than just one (as hinted in the bar in the series finale). After the end of the series finale, Sam was lost track of and never found.
Sam is considered legend to those involved in the QL project. Most who work on the project now have never met him, and weren’t around when he was. They just know that he created it, and that he disappeared mysteriously after a very chaotic leap which defied the laws of the project.
One of our new (now-veteran) leapers ends up outside of their own lifetime in a leap, as Sam did in the series finale. Not only this, but they have actually leapt into one of Sam’s leaps. They do not know this, because they don’t know Sam and have never met him.
Perhaps Sam has leapt somewhere and decided to just stay there, never actually trying to figure out why he was there, because without Al or Ziggy helping, he had no idea what he was doing anymore and had just grown tired of it. Maybe he just gave up.
Unbeknownst to Sam, this person is a leaper who has somehow been led there by (whatever or whoever it is that is actually in control of their leaps) to help him. Not to help the person who Sam has leapt into, but to help Sam himself. And the leaper does not know that Sam is the person they’re helping. They just think it’s the person whose body Sam is occupying.
It only starts to pique curiosity in the leaper that they might be speaking to the legend Sam Beckett after the two have gotten close enough that Sam starts talking about his life in a roundabout manner, and things start to clique in the leaper’s head.
The leaper, after gathering sufficient reasoning to not think they’re just being crazy, goes to their assistant “Al” (whether it’s Al or someone else), and says,
“I don’t know how to say this without sounding like I need to be pulled off of the project, but, I don’t think (name of subject they’re helping) is actually (their name).”
Al asks, “What do you mean? We’ve found the wrong subject?”
Leaper: “No, I… I think it’s a leaper.”
Al: “That’s impossible, all of our leapers are accounted for. We know where they all are.”
Leaper: “… Not all.”
A sudden change occurs in Al’s face. The color drains.
From here, it becomes a mission to try and figure out if it is indeed Sam Beckett, and if so, to bring him home.
Near the end, a poignant scene occurs in which the leaper reveals to Sam that they know that he is indeed Sam. And they tell him that they believe that they were sent here to help him.
Because the leaper is in someone else’s body that they’ve leapt into, Sam asks, “What is your real name?”
The reply?
…
“My name is Samantha.”
#BringSamHome
