Having recently become, let's say, self-employed, I have a lot more time at home these days. And I'm working really hard at not getting sucked in to daytime television. If you have digital cable, there's actually some cool stuff on during the day -- the Discovery Channel and Food Network are a wealth of information.But no, my time at home is to be spent writing, exercising, reading and playing housewife. That's my 8-5 gig. After 5 p.m., all bets are off. Which is why I was so excited one evening to find Quantum Leap playing on ION Television. From what I can tell, this station plays reruns from (mostly) the '80s, plus lots and lots of "paid programming." It certainly wasn't on my television-viewing radar.
For anyone not familiar with Quantum Leap -- well, first of all, shame on you -- "Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett led an elite group of scientists into the desert to develop a top secret project, known as QUANTUM LEAP. Pressured to prove his theories or lose funding, Dr. Beckett, prematurely stepped into the Project Accelerator and vanished. He awoke to find himself in the past, suffering from partial amnesia and facing a mirror image that was not his own. Fortunately, contact with his own time was made through brainwave transmissions, with Al, the Project Observer, who appeared in the form of a hologram that only Dr. Beckett could see and hear. Trapped in the past, Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time, that his next leap will be the leap home."
These reruns, along with reruns of Star Trek: Enterprise (airing on SciFi), have rekindled my 20-year-long crush on Scott Bakula -- much to the dismay of my significant other. In my defense, I've been crushing on Scott Bakula for 20 years; I've only known my s.o. for four.
I know Quantum Leap was cheesy. As a friend pointed out, Sam Beckett did appear in drag a view times. But I loved it so much and I'm finding that despite the passage of time and the improvements that have been made in special effects, I still love it so much. It always had some kind of message -- be yourself, do your best, be kind to others -- but it didn't preach. It had humor and a really good buddy story (despite Al's cigar smoking and womanizing, he was always there for Sam). And it always made me feel good. I think that was the best part.
I know I'm a bit of a geek when it comes to sci fi television. My favorites are Firefly, Farscape, Stargate (both incarnations), Doctor Who and Battlestar Gallactica. The other TV shows I must see are Reaper, Lost, Eli Stone and Pushing Daisies. They all have some kind of science fiction flavor or fantastical twist to them and definitely are not rooted in reality. Which is exactly what makes them so good and so much fun to watch.
2 comments:
I totally loved this show, too, though I'd be curious to see if the crush held up now that I'm an adult. (I'm thinking so.) To give you an idea, I was disappointed when my basketball practice interfered with when the show aired, so I must have been 12? 13? A little young for Scotty boy, but man, he was cute.
Being 10 years younger than I am, you might think he looks like an old man, now (on Enterprise). But I think he still looks pretty good.
I'm pretty sure I missed the fireworks one Fourth of July, because there was a Quantum Leap episode on that I hadn't seen. Thank goodness for Tivo now.
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