The fate of time-traveling doctor Dr. Sam Beckett may finally be revealed. NBC has ordered a pilot for a new version of Quantum Leap that’ll take place 30 years after the original TV show ended. It’ll follow a new team who has been put together to bring back the Quantum Leap project and hopefully figure out what happened to Sam all those years ago.
Variety reported the news of the show, which is being written by La Brea executive producers Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt. Original series creator Donald P. Bellisario is also a producer. There’s no word on the return of original star Scott Bakula, but from the description, it sounds like even if he was to appear, it would be in a supporting or maybe even a cameo role.
Originally running for five seasons between 1989 and 1993, Quantum Leap told the story of Sam Beckett (Bakula) who’d leap through time into the bodies of other people in order to right the wrongs of history. Along the way he was guided by his best friend Al, played by the late Dean Stockwell, who appeared to him as a hologram. The series ended with the assertion that Sam would be stuck doing this forever, which still makes fans sad to this day.
In recent years though, a return of Quantum Leap has seemed inevitable. Bellisario revealed he wrote a movie based on the show, a more positive alternate ending surfaced, and Bakula himself said he’d heard the show might make a comeback. Well, it is, and now it’s just a matter if the NBC executives like the pilot enough to give it a few more episodes and bring it to air.
When it was released, Quantum Leap was ahead of its time in terms of mystery and world building, while also being light and accessible to an audience who maybe wasn’t as into the sci-fi stuff. You have to assume in the 30 years since it went off the air though, the rise of sci-fi to the tip-top of pop culture could make the show just as successful as it once was. Or an impossible nut to crack.
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