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Based on what I said in my review of the original Quantum Leap show Blind Faith, I decided to continue to sample other episodes.

I just finished watching S5E5 Killin’ Time. The title is appropriate because Sam (Scott Bakula) leaps into an escaped murderer named Leon Stiles (Cameron Dye) in 1958 Oklahoma. Stiles has taken Carol Pruitt (Connie Ray) and her young daughter Becky (Beverley Mitchell) hostage in their home. The house is surrounded by law enforcement officers.

They are led by Sheriff John Hoyt (Jim Haynie) who is determined to kill Stiles in revenge for Stiles murdering the Sheriff’s daughter.

This is far from a “normal” leap.

In the project’s waiting room Stiles has leapt into, he has attacked a Marine guard, knocked him unconscious and taken his sidearm (this was in a deleted scene which originally made the audience wonder where the gun came from). He threatens to kill Al (Dean Stockwell) unless Al lets him out. Besides letting an armed killer from forty years in the past out of a confined area, the other problem is if Stiles leaves the waiting room, Sam can’t leap.

In the corridor outside, they meet one of the project programmers Gooshie (Dennis Wolfberg) who is noted for being absentminded and having bad breath. Since Stiles is dressed in Beckett’s Fermi suit, he takes Gooshie’s white lab coat and the keys to his car. At gunpoint, Gooshie tells Stiles how to get out of the complex and where his car is. A Marine Corporal (uncredited) appears, but Al stops him from shooting Stiles. If Stiles dies, Sam will be stuck in the current leap forever.

Sam slowly earns at least a small amount of Carol’s and Becky’s trust. After Al explains the situation to Sam and tells him that he’s going after Stiles, Sam confides in his “hostages” about who he is and Project Quantum Leap. Naturally, they don’t believe him. What convinces Carol has to do with her being a medical student (this surprises Sam, both because it’s 1958 and it wasn’t common for women to be medical students, and because she’s older).

Stiles is supposed to be illiterate, but Sam convinces Carol to quiz him from her medical text. Since he’s also a medical doctor, he answers her questions perfectly. Later in the episode, she says he knows more than most of her professors. All that, plus his calm, intelligent, and compassionate demeanor wins Carol over.

Gooshie’s left in charge while Al is going after Stiles. As his hologram, he tells Sam that Sheriff Hoyt has no intention of taking Stiles prisoner, even if he surrenders. He plans to storm the house and in the crossfire, Becky is killed. Sam “solves” that by letting Becky go. She joins the deputies outside. However, at midnight Hoyt and his men storm the house anyway and kill Stiles.

I guess Gooshie found another lab coat because he’s wears one for the rest of the episode.

Unlike the current Raymond Lee led Quantum Leap, the original show was set somewhat in the future relative to its audience. “Killin’ Time” aired on October 20, 1992, but the date of the “present” in the show is 1999.

It was also established in the pilot, that cars and other technology available to the public is “futuristic.” We see this future as Al chases Stiles.

This is a rarity, since in the original show, the action was almost exclusively devoted to the leap. In most cases, the only person you see from the Project’s “present” is Al. You also never see anything outside of the Project complex located in a remote area called Stallion’s Gate, New Mexico (the current show is situated somewhere in or near Los Angeles with no explanation for the move).

Outside of seeing “the future” in this episode, it brings another issue into focus. The current show is set in the present of the audience, or it was. Starting in the current season (season 2) the audience discovers that the project “lost” Ben (Raymond Lee) for three years (Ben experienced no passage of time at all). That should mean the current year of the show’s present is 2026, but that has been ignored so far.

While 1999 in the original show has “electro-magnetic cars,” and a variety of other scenes that seem like they belong in the movie Blade Runner (a 1982 movie set in a very futuristic 2019), the current show depicts nothing different outside the project than what you and I experience every day.

Al can follow Gooshie’s car with his hand link since he had a tracker installed. As he’s driving in the desert presumably toward the nearest large city (more on this in a minute), Ziggy (voiced by show producer Deborah Pratt) talks to Al, giving him Stiles’ history.

As an aside, the original show generally referred to the Ziggy AI as “she,” while in the current show, no gender is assigned and Ziggy has no voice or apparent personality.

In 1958, Sam is internally freaking out. He’s got until midnight, less than an hour, to leap out, which according to Gooshie, could be any time since he let Becky go. But he can’t leap unless Stiles is alive and returned to the waiting room. We see some very touching scenes between Bakula and Ray as they almost bond (Stockholm Syndrome notwithstanding).

In 1999, Stiles has made it to the nearest large city pulling over into a space marked “Electro-Magnetic Vehicles Only.”. He meets a prostitute (played by Carolyn Lowrey) who propositions him. Stiles is more interested in a hideout and follows her into someplace called “Sex World.” Al pulls up at that moment and sees Stiles going with the hooker (that’s all she’s referred to in the credits).

They go to a room which has a lot of automated devices including a video screen for viewing pornography and a hidden bar. Stiles doesn’t know what to make of it all and is close to panicking. It was a little odd that Stiles didn’t know what a TV was since there was one in Carol’s home and it was on when Sam leapt in, but this might have been because it was set in the wall and in color.

He pushes the hooker around and threatens her with his gun, demanding to know what year it is.

Al bursts in and gets Stiles to look in a mirror. He sees Sam Beckett’s reflection and in a rage, shoots both Al and the mirror. Seeing Al’s “gummy bear” hand link, he takes it with him and says something about going back. Apparently, he’s absorbed what Al told him about where he is and would rather go back to 1958 where everything isn’t so crazy.

Al regains consciousness. Fortunately, he was wearing a Kevlar vest and isn’t seriously injured. The Hooker tells Al about what Stiles says, and Al leaves to chase Stiles again.

In 1958, time is running out for Sam. He knows Hoyt will kill him no matter what. As the hour approaches midnight, Sam decides to let Carol go. He knows it will mean his death, but he won’t risk her life, even though nothing Ziggy predicted says she would be hurt.

Oh, there is a great scene where Hoyt interviews little Becky who is sucking on a soft drink in a glass bottle (you don’t see those anymore). When Hoyt asks where Stiles is holding her Mom, she correct him and explains that it’s not Stiles but Sam Beckett, a time traveler from the future. She says Sam is here but right now, Stiles is in the future.

No one believes her and Hoyt takes this tale as a sign that Stiles is emotionally unraveling, hurrying his decision to rush the house. I wonder if Becky will remember all that when she grows up? If she’s eight to ten years old in 1958, in forty years, she’ll be middle-aged. If she remembers Sam’s name, in the 1990s, she can always “Google” him.

Carol, if she now believes Sam, would probably be elderly by the time Sam starts the project, but who knows? Although I don’t think this is ever addressed in the original or current show, Sam may have successfully convinced two people in the past that time travel is not only possible but an established fact.

Another thing I noticed early in the episode is that people smoke. We don’t see Carol smoking, but Deputy Grimes (Joseph Malone) does. Cigarette smoking was extremely common in the 1950s so it’s a nice continuity piece. It’s also never seen in the current series. This could be because the showrunners don’t want to promote tobacco use to young viewers. It’s also likely that since fewer people smoke in 2023 than in 1958 (or 1968 or later for that matter), it would be harder to find actors who would be willing to even pretend to smoke.

I know it sounds like a small detail, but it’s a huge error in continuity when Ben is in eras where it would be completely normal to smoke cigarettes.

Back at the project, Stiles makes it inside and down ten floors where the waiting room is located. I know Al ordered the Marines not to interfere with Stiles escape out of concern he might be shot and killed, but what about getting back inside.

It’s possible on the drive back, Al called ahead (he didn’t have the hand link but he could have used a car phone) guessing what Stiles was going to do and telling them to not stop him going back into the complex.

In the real 1990s, using key cards to access secure areas was pretty common. I worked for a county agency in California from 1990 to 1994 and had to use a security card to open doors to restricted areas. Stiles not only didn’t have such a card but wouldn’t know what to do with it if he did. In the episode, we didn’t see anyone using security devices, but it would have made sense in a top secret government lab.

All that said, Stiles makes it back in and demands Gooshie send him back to 1958. Gooshie could have just told him to go back to the waiting room, but instead he tells him the truth, that the project has no control over when Sam leaps.

Al shows up with a tranquilizer gun and knocks out Stiles, but not before getting shot again.

Gooshie, Al, and a Marine (uncredited) drag the unconscious Stiles into the waiting room.

It’s only a couple of minutes to midnight in 1958 and Sam is about to let Carol go. Al gets back into the imaging chamber and tells Sam they got Stiles. Sam is very relieved, and since Carol seems to believe he’s a time traveler, he quickly says how sorry he is for everything and for what it’s worth, thinks she’ll be a terrific doctor. He expects to leap out any second.

This felt very different from the current show when Ben gives one of his “famous pep talks.” Especially in the first season, Ben’s “superpower” was cheerleading. I’m being a little sarcastic, but whenever Ben was in a crunch and needed to accomplish the leap’s objective, he would say all kinds of positive and reassuring things, even if they were totally out of character for his host, and even if they revealed his knowledge of the future.

When Sam said he thought Carol would be a terrific doctor, it had nothing to do with all that. It was Sam being really thankful that Carol talked with him and believed him in an otherwise unbelievable situation. It also didn’t feel unrealistic that she would start to question how an illiterate, dangerous, and murderous escape could really be someone he didn’t appear to be.

But Sam doesn’t leap. Hoyt and his deputies crash through the front door, completely unmindful of how Stiles should be armed and could kill Carol at a moment’s notice, and try to arrest him.

Earlier in the episode, Sam put Stiles’ gun in a desk drawer so it is nowhere in sight. Carol is standing between Sam and Hoyt. Earlier, in the episode Deputy Grimes tried to get Hoyt to go home, believing Hoyt’s anger over the murder of his daughter would cloud his judgment. Grimes knows what Hoyt’s about to do.

Hoyt tells Carol to go to his deputies. The Sheriff has his rifle aimed at Sam. Since Sam told her what Ziggy predicted would happen, she refuses to move. She doesn’t plead for Sam’s life, she pleads for Hoyt’s. We saw earlier how much Carol loves her daughter. She appeals to Hoyt as a “Daddy who misses his daughter” and how he should be remembered for that and not shooting Stiles.

Hoyt relents and tells Grimes to arrest Stiles. Hoyt then leaves to go home.

That’s when Sam leaps. He was there not so much to save Stiles’ life but to save Hoyt from becoming a murderer.

This was a really good episode and carried the tension all the way through. Yes, there are a few comedic moments with Al and Gooshie, but even though I knew generally how everything would end, it was still nerve-wracking.

In the current incarnation of the show, this problem wouldn’t have happened. Since a non-corporeal Ben literally possesses the body of his host instead of changing places with them, Ben would have been inside of Stiles. There would be no physical Stiles in the future to escape. In fact, the leap should be pretty short and maybe a failure. If success meant the Sheriff not killing Stiles and that success required Carol to believe Ben was a time traveler from the future, how could Ben do it? Maybe if Carol was studying physics in 1958, but the tension of chasing an escaped criminal from the past through futuristic 1999 would never have occurred.

Actually, this would have made a great two-part episode or even a telefilm. Just extend Stiles’ adventures in the future, maybe starting with him having trouble driving a car. If Gooshie’ car had its own AI, that could have been issue one. Dropping a man from 1958 into a “Blade Runner” sort of world while being pursued by a special operative from a top secret government project would have fun. In the episode, Al said that because of the high level of secrecy for the project, they couldn’t involve other agencies in chasing Stiles. What sort of trouble would Al have found if he ran afoul of local authorities?

Just a thought.

Since Al tranquilized Stiles just minutes before Sam leapt out, when Stiles leaps back to 1958 in handcuffs, he’s going to look like he suddenly passes out. Once Sam leaps, that’s not his problem and the show doesn’t care, but looking at it from the viewpoint of a science fiction fan and a writer, it’s an interesting thought. No one would have a clue why that had happened. Grimes would probably think he was faking it until he really couldn’t wake Stiles up.

If they ran a blood test on Stiles, they’d find whatever drug Al shot into him. Would a possibly synthetic tranquilizer from 1999 even be recognized in 1958? If Carol found out about that little tidbit, it would be another point possibly convincing her that Sam’s story was true.

Early in the episode, when Al told Sam he was leaving Gooshie in charge while he went after Stiles, Sam’s swiss-cheese memory had no problem recalling Gooshie. When Gooshie later shows up as a hologram, Sam immediately recognizes him.

I don’t know if I’m recalling this correctly, but I seem to remember in the series final, Mirror Image that Sam was recovering a lot of his memories, including who Gooshie was. I could be mistaken, though.

What you may not know is that Gooshie actor Dennis Wolfberg was a standup comic. I remember listening to some of his bits on the radio (long story). Find out more about Wolfberg’s legacy HERE.

Lastly, Stiles had a wild ride in 1999. Does he remember any of it when he wakes up? No one (but Carol) would believe him, but it would be one heck of a story.