Genesis (Quantum Leap episode)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

“Genesis (Parts I & II)”
Quantum Leap episode
Sam and Al
Episode no.	Season 1 Episode 1
Guest stars	Bruce McGill
Written by	Donald P. Bellisario
Directed by	David Hemmings
Production no.	101 & 102
Original airdate	1989-03-26
Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
–	"Star-Crossed"
List of Quantum Leap episodes

Originally shown on Easter Sunday, 1989, the pilot was a two-hour movie simply known as Quantum Leap. When the show returned for new episodes in September of that year, however, NBC aired a severely edited (90-minute) version of the pilot called "Genesis." Most of the footage was added back in for syndication reruns of the show; however, the title "Genesis" still airs before the episodes. The original titles (and all additional footage) have been restored for home video.

[edit] Plot

A man wakes up in a bed, thinking, "I did it!" His next thought is, "Did what?" His name is Tom Stratton. It's 1956. He works for the Air Force flying planes, and he's got a beautiful wife and a nice son. There's just one problem: he's pretty sure that his name's not Tom Stratton, it's Sam. But he can't even remember his last name. In fact, he's also pretty sure that the year shouldn't be 1956. And worst of all, he's never flown a plane in his life. (OK, make that more than one problem.)

Help (such as it is) comes along in the form of a man named Al. There's just one problem with Al: he's not really there. He's just a hologram. And holograms didn't exist back in 1956. And Al has the tendency to walk through invisible doors. Sam -- whoever he is -- is having a very bad day.

Eventually, Al explains to Sam that he's a part of a time-travel experiment from the future. He "leaped" into the past, but somehow wound up as Tom Stratton. But Tom Stratton died when attempting to fly the Mach-2...which, for Sam, is coming up in just a couple of days. If Sam can survive that, he'll change history, Al says, and hopefully "leap" again.

However, the leap doesn't take Sam home, as he hopes. Instead, he winds up as a minor-league baseball player back in 1968, trying to win his last game for his team.

Sam is really fed up with Al, and wants to know whose hairbrain idea this whole project was in the first place. Al tells him: it's Sam himself. Project Quantum Leap was his idea. "If anyone can figure out how to get you home," Al tells Sam, "it's you."

After Sam finally convinces Al to go against the Project's rules and reveal Sam's last name to him -- it's Beckett -- Sam calls his dad (who died of cancer in the 1970s) and gets one last chance to talk to him and tell him that he loves him (under the guise of being a distant nephew). Tearfully, Sam looks to the heavens, and says, "Thank you." Steeling himself, Sam realizes that the time-travel gig might not be such a bad deal. After all, he says to himself, "who knows how much good I'll accomplish before I'm done?"

[edit] Kiss with History

Sam has to win the baseball game while being pitched to by a young Tom Seaver.

[edit] Trivia

• Bruce McGill plays one of Tom Stratton's bosses, nicknamed "Weird Ernie" by his subordinates. The audience never learns why he's called "Weird," but there may be a clue in the final episode, "Mirror Image": a bartender named Al, also played by McGill, appears to be God, or whomever it is that's leaping Sam through time.
• David Hemmings would direct only one more episode of Quantum Leap: the penultimate episode (in filmed order), "The Leap Between the States."