Tag Archives: television

Review of Quantum Leap S2E3 “Closure Encounters”

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QUANTUM LEAP — “Closure Encounters” Episode 203 — Pictured: Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song — (Photo by: NBC)

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So finally, after the airing of Quantum Leap season 2, episode four (which is currently locked), NBC unlocks last week’s episode 3 Closure Encounters. I’m sure this is meant to summon visions of both UFOs and Ben (Raymond Lee) and Addison (Caitlin Bassett) trying to bring closure to their relationship. After all, she now has a new boyfriend (Tom Westfall played by Peter Gadiot), so Ben is out.

Ben leaps into a government agent named Cook who works for Project Sign (also called “Project Saucer”). After looking at his host’s ID, he knows this means he’s an UFO investigator.

How did he know that? I’ll buy Ian (Mason Alexander Park) knowing that piece of obscure trivia since they are a super nerd, but just because Ben’s a physicist, doesn’t mean he’s knows about it, even if all his memory has returned. Heck, I didn’t even know about it until I looked it up.

He’s with a farmer at night on his land. Supposedly three of the farmer’s cows went missing and he tells Ben “they (the aliens) hide in the trees.” Turns out they’re a bunch of kids playing games with lawn gnomes.

Yes, it’s this year’s “Halloween episode.” My guess is that Ben will have less trouble producing proof of little green men than he did the existence of God.

Addison shows up and Ben is less than pleased. He also finds written orders in his car saying he needs to proceed to New Mexico. A supposed UFO forced a car with two teenage girls off the road. Both are in the hospital and one is in a coma.

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Review of Quantum Leap S2E2 “Ben & Teller”

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From the Quantum Leap episode “Ben & Teller” Ben (Raymond Lee) and Rebecca (Janet Montgomery).

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I just finished watching the Quantum Leap season 2 second episode Ben & Teller, apparently a pun on the magicians Penn and Teller. This also references that in this leap, Ben’s (Raymond Lee) “host” is a seventy-year-old bank teller named Lorena Chavez.

First of all, commercials are back, which is fine.

After the intro, the show opens with Jenn (Nanrisa Lee) at a high stakes poker game, apparently cleaning up. Somehow Ian (Mason Alexander Park) knows where she is, peeks their head in the door, and whispers “Turtle Time.” This is a code phrase Jenn made up in case she became a leaper and needed to identify herself to Quantum Leap project personnel.

It’s sort of like in the 1971 film The Andromeda Strain when project personnel were called to duty with the phrase, “There’s a fire.”

Jenn responds to Ian with, “Tell me you’re not about to say what you’re about to say.”

They find Magic (Ernie Hudson) at a jewelry store asking the person at the counter if the earrings he’s looking at would be an appropriate first anniversary gift. So Magic is married or re-married?

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Review of Quantum Leap S2E1 “This Took Too Long!”

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QUANTUM LEAP — “This Took Too Long!” Episode 201 — Pictured: (l-r) P.J. Byrn as Sgt. Enock Abrams, Aaron Abram as Sgt. Ronny Abrams, Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song, Melissa Roxburgh as Lt. Ellen Grier, Francois Arnaud as Sergeant Curtis Bailey — (Photo by:NBC)

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So, against my better judgment, I decided to watch the season 2 opener of the current Quantum Leap television show titled This Took Too Long!

For S1, I tended to “soft soap” my reviews, giving the show the benefit of the doubt, even though I knew it’s stated intent was to completely highlight representation as it’s top priority, even above entertaining the broadest possible audience.

All of those episodes piled on top of each other had pretty much convinced me to abandon the show at the end of season one’s run. It wouldn’t be the first time. I watched the first seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (and boy am I glad I missed season 2).

For “Quantum Leap” I think I was just curious about why Ben didn’t leap home when Ziggy’s programming said he really should. Of course the real reason is that the show won a second season so Ben (Raymond Lee) needs to keep leaping.

I was also curious after the nature and character of S1 plus the recent writer’s strike, if the tone and content of the show might try to be more egalitarian. That is, would the showrunners stop trying to alienate large numbers of old school television viewers, science fiction fans, and time travel buffs like me. Never mind that I’m too old, too male, and too white to come anywhere near their target demographic.

Okay, that’s probably too much to ask for, but I thought at least the season opener should be pretty safe. After all, you want to re-engage the audience and pull them in again before blasting them with controversial content. Right? Am I right?

Let’s find out.

Oh, it goes without saying that this is a Spoiler Alert so if you haven’t seen the episode and don’t want to know all about it beforehand, stop reading now.

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This Tape Will Self Destruct in Five Seconds

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PHOTO PROMPT © Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

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The tall man in the sports jacket looked awkward in the fabric shop as he approached the brunette clerk wearing glasses.

“Excuse me, I’m looking for a fabric for my wife. It’s going to be our fifth wedding anniversary and she wants something in amethyst.”

“You mean sapphire.” She paused for a moment. “I have just the thing in back. Come with me.”

She escorted him to a storage area and excused herself. Alone, he then pulled an envelope and a small tape recorder from inside a drawer and turned it on.

The control voice began, “Good morning, Mr. Phelps.”

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Review of Quantum Leap Ep 17 “The Friendly Skies”

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A scene from the Quantum Leap episode “The Friendly Skies”

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Finally got the bandwith to watch Quantum Leap S1.E17 The Friendly Skies where once again Ben leaps into a woman with absolutely no reaction to being in a female body.

I happened to mention on twitter the other day that just in season one, Ben has leapt into more women than Sam (Scott Bakula) did during the entire five season run of the original series, and Sam was never a fan of leaping into women. It occurred to me that a man leaping into a woman is at least drag (because actor Raymond Lee has to dress…at least sometimes…in specifically female clothing. At most, it almost makes him trans…almost.

Anyway, I was politely shot down as far as the idea goes. Statistically, if Ben’s leaps are truly random, he should leap into women about half of the time. But we don’t think the leaps are random.

IMDb synopsis:

When Ben leaps aboard a 1970’s passenger jet as a flight attendant, he must outwit its hijackers before it mysteriously crashes into the Atlantic. Worse? He has to do it all without Ziggy’s help.

Ben leaps into a flight attendant named Lois on August 5, 1971. The aircraft has over the top service. The men are sexist pigs and the attendants are trained for “service with a smile.”

Here’s a trivia piece from IMDb about why the service was styled as it was in this episode.

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Review of Quantum Leap Ep 16 “Ben, Interrupted”

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QUANTUM LEAP — “Ben Interrupted” Episode 116 — Pictured: Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song — (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC)

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Every single time the Quantum Leap people say “this is the episode that’s the best” and so forth, why, oh why do I find that they aren’t quite right?

The Quantum Leap season 1, episode 16 show Ben, Interrupted aired on Monday, March 20th.

Of course, the title is no mystery, it recalls Girl, Interrupted (1999)

Based on writer Susanna Kaysen’s account of her 18-month stay at a mental hospital in the late 1960s.

It also recalls the original series episode Shock Theater. Ben leaps into private detective Liam O’Connell who deliberately has himself committed into a 1954 mental hospital to free a woman named Judith who was committed by her husband for “hysteria,” possibly because she kept miscarrying when they tried to have children (I’d love to have seen that cretin come to justice).

The obvious source I certainly hope everyone who wrote this episode read was Ken Kesey’s 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Next. I probably read the book before any of them were ever born.

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Review of Quantum Leap Ep 15 “Ben Song for the Defense”

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QUANTUM LEAP — “Ben Song for the Defense” Episode 115 — Pictured: (l-r) Isaac Arellanes as Leo Diaz, Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song — (Photo by: Ron Batzdorff/NBC)

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Last night, episode 15 of Quantum Leap called Ben Song for the Defense aired. The synopsis goes:

Ben Leaps into a harried public defender trying to prove one client innocent when everyone else believes he’s guilty, as well as juggle dozens of other case as well as a romantic relationship inadvertently threatened by a corrupt ADA. Jenn is called in as Observer because of her knowledge of the legal system.

Oh, “ADA” just means Assistant District Attorney.

Although the leap centers on a single client of Ben’s (public defender Elena Ramirez), we see Ben trying to juggle several cases feeling as overwhelmed as the real Elena probably did. In the original timeline, 18-year-old Camilo Diaz (Michael Garza) is on trial for the murder of a gang member who was trying to recruit Camilo’s younger brother Leo (Isaac Arellanes). Camilo threatened the gang member and later was seen fleeing the crime scene. No other suspects present.

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Review of Quantum Leap Ep 14 “S.O.S.”

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Scene from the Quantum Leap episode “S.O.S.”

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I just finished watching episode 14 of Quantum Leap: S.O.S.. Ben leaps into Rossi, the operations officer of the U.S. Navy vessel “Montana” during a wargames exercise in the South China Sea on May 2, 1989. The date is important because it is when a generally unknown Naval disaster occurred and when Addison’s Dad, the ship’s executive officer Alexander Augustine (Brandon Routh) ends his career.

Addison discovers her Dad by recognizing the voice of Captain Bill Drake (Alex Carter), her Dad’s mentor in the Navy. The issue in the original timeline is that the Montana receives a fragment of a distress call from the U.S. submarine the Tampa but Augustine chooses to ignore it.

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Quantum Leap: Addison Doesn’t Walk Through Walls

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Caitlin Bassett as Addison on Quantum Leap.

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I’ll keep this short. Addison doesn’t walk through walls. In the original Quantum Leap Al (Dean Stockwell) as Sam’s (Scott Bakula) companion and hologram, walked through walls all the time.

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Review of Quantum Leap Ep 11 “Leap. Die. Repeat.”

Scene from the Quantum Leap episode “Leap. Die. Repeat.”

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When Ben leaps into one of five people in an elevator at a 1962 nuclear reactor, he must figure which one triggers a bomb that kills them all. Each time the bomb goes off, he leaps into another one of them and the scene resets on a fine loop. If the loop runs out, Ben dies for good.—NBC

That’s the summary of Leap. Die Repeat

It’s fun to see Robert Picardo again (this time in the role of Dr. Edwin Woolsey). Sometimes the show draws an ace.

There are five people in an elevator going down to the control level for what is supposed to be a nuclear reactor that is part of a sustainable energy project. In the order that Ben leaps into them:

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