Search options (Page 8 of 9)

I want our sliders back.  Bad.

From the Sliders perspective, Quantum Leap is interesting because Al was essentially a Slider.

Because of his link with Sam, Al was the only person in the future who remembered the original timeline.  Al witnessed the results of every change Sam made as reality shifted around him.

In one example, a Congressional committee was in the process of killing the Quantum Leap project when Al sees the committee chair suddenly change into another person.  Sam’s current leap had led him to change history where someone else was elected to Congress in the future, and that committee chair voted to save the Quantum Leap project.

This is the basic idea I would have pitched for a Sliders / Quantum Leap crossover.  A Slider misses the vortex and is left behind, but Sam’s changes in history causes one reality to shift into another thus reuniting the Sliders.

I never watched the original QUANTUM LEAP aside from the Pilot, but I listened to all of REWATCH PODCAST with Tom and Cory covering QL, so I feel well-equipped to watch the new show and I'll follow Martin Gero anywhere. A great showrunner.

I haven't watched as much STARGATE as I'd like to, but Martin Gero created and ran BLINDSPOT for five seasons and I was really impressed by his ability to create and manage a formula, maintain running arcs, create variations with each season to prevent story elements from becoming tiresome, manage an ongoing mythology with climaxes and resolutions and stories after arcs were concluded, and handling budget cuts while ensuring that the series finale was still an event-sized story.

BLINDSPOT is about a woman (Jaime Alexander, Sif from the THOR movies) who wakes up naked in Times Square. She has amnesia, she is covered in tattoos, she is taken into protective custody by an FBI team. They discover: each tattoo on her body leads to information about a crime committed by a corrupt government official and indicates a larger conspiracy to an unknown and cataclysmic endgame. Furthermore, the woman, dubbed Jane Doe, realizes she has advanced fighting skills and weapons training that would outclass the most seasoned soldiers. Each episode of BLINDSPOT investigates a tattoo and a crime while trying to get to the bottom of who Jane Doe is and where she came from.

BLINDSPOT did a great job in its first two seasons of creating a myth-arc and then revealing it wholly by the Season 2 finale. Season 3 then created a new mythology from the remnants of the old one. Season 4 explored Jane's original identity being at odds with who she is now. BLINDSPOT boasted astonishing fight scenes, enticing puzzles a dark sense of humour, excellent use of procedural tropes, and Jaime Alexander was grippingly compelling as the lead. Martin Gero completely understood the appeal of his show and when his dark stories found lighter moments in guest-stars and unexpected onscreen chemistry, Gero capitalized on it, bringing a comic relief guest-star in as a regular and deepening some of the unplanned partnerships.

BLINDSPOT was hit with a serious budget cut for its final season. While the location filming and fight scenes fell away, Gero did a good job of having such intense character-oriented storytelling that the show remained strong even if the budget was clearly low. Gero was unfortunately forced to kill off a character to cut actor costs, but Gero made sure to bring that actor back for some special guest appearances to pay tribute to the performer. Gero did numerous bottle episodes to save money which allowed the BLINDSPOT series finale to have a big budget production with lavish location filming in New York City with guest-stars from every previous season and an elaborate and extensive final fight scene for Jane Doe.

Gero was strategic and smart with his writing and his money even when that money was running low. Gero never allowed his disappointment with the lack of network support or studio funding stop him from giving his show his full effort. Gero ensured that Jaime Alexander was always filmed as an athlete and a warrior rather than as a pinup girl or a BAYWATCH lifeguard. Gero wrote detective stories with wit, humour and a genuine love for each character on the show. Basically, Gero was the exact opposite of David Peckinpah and Bill Dial and he would be an excellent choice to run any TV show.

QUANTUM LEAP fans have a lot to look forward to with Martin Gero as their showrunner.

Martin Gero's work on the Stargate franchise alone makes me hopeful for Quantum Leap!

JWSlider3

RussianCabbie_Lotteryfan wrote:

That would be great.  The Hollywood Reporter article did say "original star Bakula, who was previously expected to be involved in some capacity, is not currently attached to the update" and also mentioned he was working on another pilot for that season.

It is very common for actors to deny that contractual agreements are in place until disclosure conditions have been met. Andrew Garfield denied that he would appear in SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME. James Marsden denied that he would appear in X-MEN: DAYS OF THE FUTURE PAST. And so on.

Bakula's lack of announcement strikes me as (anti-)publicity. You don't center a series around searching for Sam Beckett if Bakula isn't ready to reprise his role; QL seems inclined to withhold Sam so that his appearance will be surprising. In addition, Bakula is never going to be too busy to do guest appearances on QUANTUM LEAP because he will never allow himself to be too busy to be out the studio door and headed home by 6 PM.

Caution: this post suggests a Crossover for a SLIDERS revival series premiere (dun dun dunhhhhh!).

What if... the QUANTUM LEAP revival had an episode that served as a backdoor pilot for SLIDERS? What would it be like?

What if... Dr. Ben Seong needs an outside perspective on Project Quantum Leap? What if he decides to go to his local Doppler Computer Chain and talk to the Repair Squad clerk behind the counter, an awkward grad school dropout named Quinn Mallory (played either by Jerry O'Connell or... I dunno, Corey Fogelmanis (genius eccentric on GIRL MEETS WORLD) if it's a young version).

What if Dr. Seong think fondly of his old classmate Quinn as a brilliant, clever scientist who was more interested in practical engineering than quantum mechanics?

What if we learn that Quinn was a well-regarded grad student until his foolhardy effort to build a quantization field generator in the faculty basement accidentally burned the building down, but Dr. Seong still likes to meet up with Quinn now and then and bounce ideas off him and offer him freelance work (as Quinn's lack of credentials has reduced him to fixing computers at the Doppler Electronics chain for minimum wage).

Perhaps Quinn alludes to his own projects that he's been working on.

Perhaps Quinn brings Dr. Seong back home to The Basement show him his attempts at anti-gravity to solve an immediate problem Seong is having in trying to retrieve the long-missing Sam Beckett.

Perhaps Quinn's demonstration knocks out the power to half of the Western coastal area of America.

Perhaps the last we see of Quinn on the QUANTUM LEAP revival, Dr. Seong is grimly waving goodbye to Quinn as the police march Quinn out of The Basement.

Perhaps later, Dr. Seong realizes Quinn's idea sparked something in him that lets him resolve the issue of the week, and in gratitude, Seong has Project Quantum Leap pay off Quinn's legal bills and get him out of jail.

Perhaps Project Quantum Leap Administration declares that Seong is to never involve Quinn in Project Quantum Leap again and pre-emptively declares that Quinn will be shot on sight should he ever be within half a city block of the building. (Shot with paint, but still.)

Perhaps this leads into a SLIDERS pilot where Quinn is further disgraced in the scientific community and now hated by his neighbours (he knocked out the power during an important game of sportsball, I'm sorry, I don't know sports, but people seem to care about them). Quinn helps his neighbour, Stephanie, retrieve her runaway dog. Stephanie proceeds to set her dog on Quinn because Quinn made her miss the super... plate... something. (I am sorry. I don't know sports, but people really care about them.)

Perhaps after a mild mauling, Quinn is now ready to give up on science, take everything in the basement to a landfill and call it a day on Science.

Perhaps, as Quinn is packing up, he accidentally reboots his hardware and then something appears in Quinn's basement. A burst of light. A light that does not fade but remains suspended in the air. The light begins to widen. What could it be?

Perhaps it is split in the very skin of reality itself. A split that becomes a gateway.

And perhaps the adventure begins again...

I really liked Moses Ingram's performance as Reva. Disturbing and terrifying only for Vader to turn the tables on her. I also liked how OBI-WAN KENOBI emphasizes how Reva is the one character whose fate is actually open. Ben of Tatooine can't actually die in a prequel to the 1977 movie. Leia can't die. Luke can't die. Darth Vader can be maimed and mauled and marred and mutilated, but not in any way that prevents him from appearing in A NEW HOPE. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru will probably survive this story to die in a future story. Reva is the only one with an open future.

A few stills from the first footage of the new Quantum Leap:

https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/nbc-show … evival?amp

pilight wrote:

Why not Kari?

I would like to wager that Tracy Torme doesn't even know who Kari is.

Thank God.

**

As for reboots -- I think it's simply a matter of doing them poorly or doing them well. Quality in writing, acting, cinematography, production, editing, season-long arc, characterization, social commentary and relevance are more important than whether or not the series is a revival of a pre-existing property or an original creation. Reboots can benefit from the mythic stature of their previous existence.

There is a certain weight, importance and cultural iconography to having MacGyver disarm a land mine with a paper clip that can't be replicated with an original character.

I would say that the CBS reboot of MACGYVER shows reboots at the worst (in the first season) and their best (in the second to fourth season) and their most mediocre (also in the fourth season)

MACGYVER's first season opened with a shallow recreation of MACGYVER's schtick from the 1985 now presented in 2016 and it looked clumsy and dated. MacGyver creates smoke bombs from cleaning chemicals, fingerprint equipment from office supplies -- which now makes him look unprepared in not simply bringing pocket-sized spy gear like smoke bombs and fingerprinting equipment in advance.

In addition, the 2015 reboot saddled MacGyver with an aggressive partner to handle the physical fight scenes and gunplay (which made MacGyver's supposed pacifist philosophy meaningless as he was just having an associate use violence) and a hacker teammate (which made MacGyver's encyclopedic knowledge unnecessary). Why was this show even on the air when MacGyver's brand of espionage was dated, ineffective and irrelevant? Because MACGYVER was a recognizable trademark and brand name.

But by the end of the first season, MACGYVER finally figured out how to make MacGyver's character work. MACGYVER finally realized that MacGyver couldn't just be sent into spy missions to retrieve MacGuffins or arrest villains; MacGyver was instead best as a problem solver.

MacGyver had to impersonate an assassin and perform assassinations and supply proof of death without actually murdering anybody; had to navigate in and out of a collapsed building with no exits and all his equipment lost; had to find a way to fly a plane without fuel to a distant landing zone; had to save a capsizing ship at sea without ever setting foot aboard. The show finally understood that MacGyver didn't benefit from simple spy missions but impossible problems that the character had to solve. As a result, MacGyver's brand of improvised solutions now felt modern and relevant and MacGyver was suited to facing down present day problems.

And MACGYVER then bit off more than it could chew: Season 4 sent MacGyver up against an unsolvable problem, the crisis of climate change where MacGyver was fighting ecoterrorists and forced to concede that MacGyver and his team were fighting on the wrong side (even though the ecoterrorists were certainly not the right side). It was riveting, gripping and ripped from the headlines. MacGyver, reviewing developments on climate change, had a crisis of faith in his mission and a nervous breakdown, fearing that the terrorists could be right to try to kill 90 per cent of the human population.

How could MacGyver triumph against fossil fuels and a depleted ozone layer and the inertia of human impact on a damaged planet?

Season 4 ended with MacGyver defeating the ecoterrorists from triggering a population-reducing catastrophe and then making a presentation to Washington lawmakers on the climate crisis which... I guess... solved climate change? Because MacGyver never mentioned it again and this 'solution' (a stirring speech and a secret dossier about impending global catastrophe) were apparently all that was needed?

This conclusion to Season 4 did not work. This did not work at all. Season 5 felt truly awkward with MacGyver not dealing with that ecological nervous breakdown of Season 4. There was no on camera explanation for why MacGyver wasn't worried about climate change any more.

(The only rationalization I can offer: the COVID-19 pandemic is said to have happened between Season 4 and Season 5. It's possible that MacGyver was heartened by how during the 2020 lockdowns, ecological damage began reversing itself and this buoyed him up for Season 5 and we never saw him deal with the climate crisis again because the show didn't make it to Season 6.)

However, none of these victories or successes had too much to do with MACGYVER being a reboot. Yes, Season 1 was a reboot of a 1980s property that was painfully outdated in 2015, but that was less about MacGyver's gimmick being 30 years old and more a failure to craft stories that were specifically challenging to the MacGyver character. Then MACGYVER succeeded by presenting MacGyver as a problem solver rather than merely a spy and the series began giving him increasingly impossible problems to solve.

Then MACGYVER failed because it threw MacGyver into problem of the climate emergency which was something MacGyver, being a fictional character, could not actually solve (and his 'solution' in the show was nonsensical).

Quality is far more important than whether or not the property is a revival or an original.

Dear Microsoft Security Team:

Please do not hire Temporal Flux. He has QUANTUM LEAP pitches to work on.

I think the consensus thought is that the Democrats are going to lose both chambers of Congress.  Biden is not polling well, progressives feel lied to, Republican enthusiasm is higher than Democratic enthusiasm, and the president's party tends to lose at midterms.

I think there's plenty of time, and I think Democrats can maybe muster up enough "Democracy is on the Ballot" concern to get Democrats to the polls.  But I think the Breyer retirement is a signal that the Democrats don't feel good about 2022, just like the Barrett speed-confirmation was a signal that the Republicans didn't feel good about Trump in 2020.

The interesting thing is that the “in your own lifetime” rule for time travel may bite them a bit.  They can’t really have a younger lead if they want some reach

Sam Beckett was depicted as 36 years old when he started leaping.  If they followed that template, the furthest back in time they could go right now is 1986.  If they used Sam’s daughter, they would have a 55 year old that could hit 1967 right now.

Of course, Mark Harmon was 51 when he started NCIS in 2003, so Bellisario isn’t shy about casting older leads.

Always nice to see us make a list:

https://gamerant.com/90s-sci-fi-tv-seri … -stargate/

And I'm getting my booster December 26!