With nostalgia all the rage these days, Quantum Leap creator Donald Bellisario has spoken to Entertainment Weekly about a script he has written which could potentially see Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) making one final leap onto cinema screens.
Running for five seasons during the late 80’s, Quantum Leap was the story of a physicist whose experiments had led to an ability to jump to any place or time, the only hitch being that he would leap into the body of another person, whose life he would inhabit, before solving their own personal crisis and moving on to the next awkward situation with accompanying ‘oh boy’. His only help along the way was his cigar smoking holographic assistant, Al (Dean Stockwell), who would operate an all-seeing handheld device named Ziggy. Think Google, only ahead of its time.
During a conversation at L.A. Comic-Con, Bellisario revealed the following news that would have Ziggy firing into life.
“I just finished writing a Quantum Leap feature. I don’t know what’s going to happen with it, but I did write it. I write things exactly the same way. I just start writing and I let them take me wherever it’s going to take me. I’m entertained the same way the audience is. So I just put Scott and Dean [Stockwell] in my head, kind of rebooted them, and went from there.”
Bakula was also on hand to answer questions posed to him about the ambiguous finale.
“It was a great episode. Last episodes are always controversial. I always say to writers, ‘If you want a challenge more than writing just an hour of television, write an hour of television that is the last hour of television that that show will ever have on; write it so that it could also come back next fall; write it so that it could possibly become a movie of the week; [and] write it so that it could still potentially be a feature film someday. And make everybody happy… If you go back and watch that episode, [Bellisario] checked off all those boxes. I was proud of that episode, Everybody was.”
Whether or not we ever get to see this reboot, so much has happened on a global scale since the series ended, the ideas for potential leaps are limitless. So if Sam, Al, and Ziggy are to return, where would you like to see them jump to?
Originally published October 29, 2017. Updated October 30, 2017.
