Quantum Leap Fan Site

In the series’ first episode, Sam appears in the past with no memory of who he is or how he got there. Referred to often throughout the series as the “swiss cheese effect,” Sam’s partial amnesia prevents him from remembering most of the details of his own life… all he knows is that he’s not who everyone in the past seems to think he is. Fortunately Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell), Sam’s best friend, appears to him in holographic form and explains that Sam is the victim of a time travel experiment that “went a little caca.” Now Sam is lost in time, and his colleagues are having difficulty “retrieving” him and bringing him back to his own time.

Sam soon learns that the man he replaced in the past (or “leaped into,” in the show’s parlance) is an Air Force test pilot who was about to be killed during a botched flight. Sam saves the man (as well as his wife and unborn child), believing that doing so might enable him to return to his own time, but soon “leaps” again and finds himself living yet another person’s life, and once again trying to “put right what once went wrong.” In each episode, Sam leaps into a new host, often finding himself in dangerous, embarrassing, or otherwise compromising positions, and with Al’s help (and that of his colleagues, who have access to information from the future), tries to right some wrong or misfortune in that person’s life.

Sam believes that God, or some other higher power, is controlling his leaps, sending him to times and places where he is needed. In the series’ final episode, he even encounters a mysterious man, a bartender who insinuates knowledge of Sam’s “mission” and his true identity, whom Sam comes to believe might actually be that higher power (though the man denies this). It should be noted that this mysterious bartender was also in the show’s first episode and Sam’s first leap, lending credence to Sam’s belief that this man is the manifestation of a “higher power” who had observed his first leap in order to see if Sam could put right the past’s wrongs.

Several characters are referred to throughout the series, but rarely (if ever) actually appear. Ziggy, the artificial intelligence that runs the project and supplies Al with information to help figure out the purpose of Sam’s leaps, only appears in one episode, and Gushie, the project’s head programmer (who has chronic halitosis and is reputedly having an affair with Al’s long-time girlfriend, Tina) only appears in six episodes, including both the pilot and the finale. Dr. Beeks, the project psychiatrist, is also frequently mentioned, but only appears in two episodes.

Laws of leaping

The concept of the experiment is explained to Sam by Al in the first episode during his initial period of amnesia (which is really done for the purpose of the viewer’s understanding). Dr. Beckett was developing an experiment that enabled him to connect his birth and death dates together and compress that time-line together allowing every part of his life to touch every other part of his life, thus creating an environment where he is able to time travel to any point within his lifetime.

In early episodes, it was unclear whether Sam’s mind was leaping into other people’s bodies, or whether his mind and body leaped together. Later episodes make it clear, however, that Sam’s entire body has traveled through time, and that ‘the illusion of [his host's] physical aura’ surrounds him, making him look and sound like that person to whomever he interacts with in the past (conversely, Sam’s counterpart in the future is surrounded by a similar aura, and looks/sounds, to people at the project, like Sam). Sam is also able to transcend the physical limitations of his host, being able to see after leaping into a blind concert pianist, walk while sharing the existence of a legless Vietnam veteran, and retaining the strength of an adult man after leaping into a child, an elderly woman, and so on.

During the time in which Sam occupies a host, the host is simultaneously transported to the time travel facility where Sam made his initial leap - effectively switching places with them. It is never explicitly stated what happens to the people Sam has leapt into after he leaves, but it it is assumed that a “Matrix” effect happens: the person immediately acquires the memories of the actions that Sam has done as if they had done them themselves.

It is established early in the show’s run that Al sees Sam as the person he’s leapt into, though later episodes demonstrate that he clearly sees Sam as Sam.

Sam’s memory

At the beginning of the series Sam has almost total amnesia, not even knowing his own name, or recognizing Al. Complex technical skills (such as medical and scientific training and his knowledge of foreign languages), as well as historical knowledge, seem to survive intact, yet he is unable to recall most of the details of his own life.

Sam slowly starts to remember more personal information during the early episodes of the series, such as the fact that he had an older brother who was killed in Vietnam, and a younger sister who eloped and married an abusive alcoholic. While reviewing his memory, Sam mentions that his sister now lives in Hawaii and is married to a Navy man, Jim Bonig, a character from the Magnum P.I. series seasons 5-8. He also seems to recognize Al’s references to his various colleagues.

In the first episode of the fourth season, Sam briefly returned to his own time, at which point his memories from before he first leaped began to return, but his experiences during the last four years quickly began to fade. The process was reversed when Sam once again leaped.

Kisses with history

Also common to the show were “kisses with history,” scenes where Sam briefly encounters a famous or infamous person in a manner usually irrelevant to the story. For example:

• In “Star-Crossed,” Sam has to get his future fiancée (and eventual wife, due to the success of the leap) (Teri Hatcher) to reconnect with her father, who is a colonel in the army. On June 17, 1972, Sam tries to bluff his way past the security guards in the lobby of the Watergate Hotel. He is ejected, but Sam manages to find a door with a piece of tape over the latch. He and his future wife sneak in, but the guard, noticing their car, does a check of the outside doors and reports a break-in.
• In “How the Tess Was Won,” Sam leads a young Buddy Holly to write the song “Peggy Sue.”
• In “Double Identity,” Sam causes the Northeast Blackout of 1965 when he asks someone to plug in a 1000 watt hair dryer at a fraternity house at 111 Erie Drive, Buffalo, New York at 22:15 GMT (5:15 EST) on November 9, 1965.
• In the episode “Camikazi Kid,” Sam meets a boy called “Mikey,” ostensibly Michael Jackson, and demonstrates how to do the moonwalk.
• In “Play it again Seymour,” Sam leaps into Det. Nick Allen, a man who looks a lot like Humphrey Bogart and in 1953 New York runs into a young Woody Allen.
• In “Good Morning, Peoria,” Sam helps Chubby Checker to perfect the Twist.
• In “Thou Shalt Not…,” Sam performs the Heimlich Maneuver on a choking man who is addressed as Dr Heimlich; no one else present recognizes the technique as it had not yet been invented.
• In “Sea Bride,” a voice can be heard over the ship’s intercom saying, “Calling Mrs. Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher,” a reference to the British Prime Minister.
• In “Leap Of Faith,” Sam recounts to a young boxer a scene from the film Rocky—the young boxer’s locker door is tagged with S. Stallone—a reference to Sylvester Stallone.
• In the episode “The Boogieman,” Sam’s actions help inspire a young horror writer, Stephen King.
• In “Rebel without a Clue,” Sam pleads with Jack Kerouac to talk a young woman out of pursuing a dangerous life on the road.
• In “It’s a Wonderful Leap,” Sam as a cab driver in 1958, advises a 12-year-old Donald Trump that investing in New York City real estate would be a good way to get rich, and that there will one day be a crystal tower on 57th Street and 5th Avenue. That building is the Trump Tower. Note: In the same
  episode, Donald’s father, Fred Trump, is played by Scott Bakula’s future Star Trek: Enterprise costar Vaughn Armstrong.
• In “Goodbye Norma Jean,” Sam inspires the title of the last film Marilyn Monroe ever completed. In Sam’s universe she died before The Misfits was made.
• In “Dr. Ruth,” Sam leaps into Dr. Ruth Westheimer. While Sam deals with a case of sexual harassment in the past, the real Dr. Ruth (in the waiting room) helps Al get over his inability to express his love to a woman ever since his first wife left him. It appears that the point of Sam leaping into Dr. Ruth was for Dr. Ruth to help Al, rather than Sam to help the victim (Westheimer appeared as herself in this role). However, while defending a victim of sexual harassment from her harasser, a woman stops to listen to what Sam is saying, and when her companion speaks to her, we hear that the woman listening is Anita Hill.
• In “The Leap Between the States,” Sam leaps into his own great-grandfather during the American Civil War, who is charged with helping runaway slaves escape through the Underground Railroad. The house servant and conductor of the stop gives himself the last name of “King,” implying that he is the ancestor of Martin Luther King, Jr..
• In the episode “Memphis Melody,” where Sam leaps into Elvis Presley, a young saxophonist in a music contest from Hope, Arkansas is addressed as “little Billy C,” a reference to Bill Clinton.
• In the second season episode “All Americans,” Al notes that he is watching Super Bowl XXX and that the Steelers are three points behind. The game did in fact feature the Steelers, who trailed the Dallas Cowboys by exactly three points — 20-17 — midway through the fourth quarter. This is notable
  because the episode was filmed over six years before the game actually took place.