The Death of Quantum Leap - Fri, Apr 15, 2022
He couldn't set right the biggest wrong.
Rewatching Season 5 of Quantum Leap, I can see why the series was canceled after this season. It went totally off the rails.
They butchered the opening theme music. This “hip hop / techno” version is the worst thing I’ve heard in ages.
The whole Evil Leaper thing is not only non-sensical, it is downright stupid.
The stories become more angst ridden and tense than hopeful. Gone were the days we were sure Sam had leaped into a good person, to make something better for them that had gone wrong. Now he leaps into bad people to keep them from doing worse things, or to fix things that have been purposefully set on a bad path by the so-called Evil Leaper. And, in the case of Lee Harvey Oswald, he didn’t even affect anything with him. It was just an excuse for exposition. He could have just leaped into the Secret Service agent. And, that was the first time he had the host’s personality override his own, which is also questionable.
Early on, they had a rule of not affecting actual history. They broke that rule in season 5. It was creative how they handled it in the season opener, but it still rubs the audience the wrong way because the stories aren’t as good. We know how they’re going to end. Sam met Marilyn Monroe, too, and it feels like a bait and switch, or like we’re being cheated out of a mystery.
Sam having a child during a leap in “Trilogy”? Really? Just how would that logically work since he is IN THE BODY OF THE RECIPIENT? And how would Donna have felt? What happened to “choir boy Sam” who always wanted to do the right thing? What was this “overriding drive” to have to be with her? Just a bunch of nonsensical “reasoning” to make something stupid happen. Why, even in the Marilyn Monroe episode, he was back to the Sam we knew. What was the reasoning for all that crap in “Trilogy” that led to a child?
It’s just not hopeful and fun anymore. They had such a good thing, and they killed it. I’m just going to pretend Season 5 never happened.