Quantum Leap episode review — 2.1 — Honeymoon Express

Original air date: September 20, 1989
Director: Aaron Lipstadt
Writer: Donald P. Bellisario

Rating: 7/10

This episode starts out kind of strangely, in the present day, with Al arguing before a panel of bureaucrats threatening to pull funding from the Quantum Leap project, that Sam actually is changing history, perhaps at the will of God. The whole religious angle seems strange, but I like the conflict here with Al, and how it comes back in a big way at the end.

Sam ends up on a honeymoon in 1960, married to a woman with political connections. Al’s convinced that he’s to prevent the U2 plane from being shot down and that this would be the thing to convince the panel that Sam is changing history.

But of course that ends up not being the case. And Sam has to deal with the consequences of what he’s doing, as he believes it would be immoral to sleep with this woman he doesn’t really know, even if he’s inhabiting the body of a man she’s married to.

It also turns out that her ex-husband is on the train with them and tries kidnapping her. Sam learns that the person he’s inhabiting actually ends up murdered by this guy, but that’s not necessarily what he’s there to solve, and he ends up helping his wife pass the Bar exam.

Which in the present day manifests itself as the chair of the panel threatening to revoke funding ends up being an older version of her. It’s actually a very clever ending, and it’s probably the best part of what’s been one of the better episodes so far.