By James Fletcher
During the late 1970s, an inadvertent revolution began within American television when a select group of screenwriters and producers, whose names would eventually become as recognisable as the stars themselves, began leading the major broadcast networks down a creatively diverse, and often risky, path.
With the likes of Aaron Spelling (The Love Boat, Dynasty), Stephen J. Cannell (Greatest American Hero, 21 Jump Street), Steven Bochco (The A Team, LA Law), and Glen A. Larson (Knight Rider, Buck Rogers) reshaping the prime time television landscape, one of the revolution’s most prolific members – screenwriter/producer, Donald P. Bellisario – was successfully carving his own niche, a one-hour block at a time, with programmes such as Magnum P.I, Airwolf, JAG, and the much lauded 1989 science fiction time travel series, Quantum Leap.
Headlined by the relatively unknown Broadway actor, Scott Bakula (pictured above left, with co-star, Dean Stockwell), who was coming off the back of two short-lived television series, Quantum Leap was an exasperating blend of science fiction, drama, social commentary, and comedy wrapped up as a boys’-own-adventure style anthology series, a genre mishmash that, on paper, was difficult to lock down. “Yeah, it’s tough. It’s hard to describe,” offers Scott Bakula during a shooting break from his current show, another Bellisario franchise, NCIS: New Orleans. “We always joked, subsequently after I was cast of course, that it was virtually an impossible show to describe in one sentence. When Don [Bellisario] first sold it to NBC, he said, ‘I want to do a series about a guy who travels back in time, and his best friend is a hologram who goes back with him; but no one can see him except him. What do you think?’ And for whatever reason, they said ‘Sure Don, go ahead and write it.’ And then the rest is history.”
Quantum Leap quickly became a sensation, garnering a number of accolades including Emmy, DGA and Golden Globe nominations, and a fiercely loyal audience hungry for intelligent, thoughtful sci-fi. But the show never managed to stake a secure position within the network itself, who hindered the ratings and fandom with constant timeslot shifts and late renewals. “We were basically going season to season,” explains Bakula. “By today’s standards, our numbers were huge, but back then, we were never a top ten show or anything close to that. We scratched through getting a pick-up every year. There was one year where we felt confident that we were going to have another year. And that was once out of five seasons.”
In total, Quantum Leap ran for 97 episodes, and Bakula’s character of Sam Beckett, whom he fondly describes as “a wide-eyed, inquisitive and gentle spirit”, remains etched into the iconography of modern sci-fi pop-culture. In fact, the series’ popularity recently motivated the announcement of a Blu-ray transfer for Season One, an honour usually attributed to major long running cult franchises such as Star Trek, The Twilight Zone, and The X-Files. And as with any vintage show gaining new momentum, the internet has taken a renewed interest in the possibility of a reboot or revival, fuelled by Bakula’s high profile role in NCIS: New Orleans, forcing the question as to whether Doctor Sam Beckett might once again step into the Quantum Accelerator for a new leap? “I haven’t heard anything in a long time,” chuckles Bakula. “There was a big rumour for a long time that he was going to some sort of an Australian version. It was going to be Sam’s daughter leaping back in time trying to find me. But otherwise, I haven’t heard anything in a long while. But given all these other shows being resurrected, it seems like just a matter of time before it happens. You just never know.”
Quantum Leap: The Complete First Series is available now on Blu-ray.
