Reboots: The Return of Sliders (?), Quantum Leap, and Other Properties (Page 8 of 12)

I don't have a problem with it. It has evolved since I started it.

JWSlider3

Expectations for this hastily re-jigged pilot to Quantum Leap were low ... but I really enjoyed it. I absolutely love that it was a continuation, and not a reboot, building on the foundations and lore of the previous show and continuing it by both paying homage and injecting some new life. The end result is an almost mystery-drama with action that fits really well as the scenes shift (though quite hastily, understandably however because of the re-jigged pilot) from the past and the present day Quantum Leap project.

That opening intro monologue (voiced by the original I believe) gave me chills!

You were never going to replicate Sam and Al (and shouldn't since this is a continuation) so the new dynamic is interesting enough for me. Minor spoilers incoming as it's hard to talk about the pilot otherwise  ***** I love the dual connection - not just their relationship, but that Addison was actually meant to be the leaper and Ben the guide. ****** That's such a cool situation that I can't wait to see developed more. You see it with Addison having more practical ideas about the escape, and in Ben's awkward approach to presenting himself as a tough guy. I really hope this is played up numerous times as we slowly see Ben grow more comfortable with talking and opening up to people.

The mystery of Ben leaping and the investigation at Project Quantum Leap already has me invested. This is the hook that will keep you watching as we learn more about the project, Sam's disappearance, and what is currently going on. The homage to the original, but allowing itself to be it's own thing, is fantastic. This is what the Charmed reboot/mid-boot/other-universe (doesn't freaking know what it wanted to be) ... should have been. Not insulting the fans by butchering the original story, but by embracing the history and spinning a new tale from it.

The Project Quantum Leap cast are all great, sans the security lady (whose name escapes me at the moment), but it's early days.

And the homages / story connected to Al and Sam were all great.

There were some negatives of course. Again, you could tell the hastily re-written parts, and there were some mightily cheap scenes (that car drive background was so awful and distracting). Also, this show absolutely needs an intro - a title card will simply not do (again, hoping that's because it was just the new pilot). The 'mirror image' effects needed a tiny bit more work as well as not having the trademark audio cue. It's so tied to the original that not having it felt quite jarring and you immediately felt like something was missing. If you are playing up the nostalgia then these small things make a big impact. I'm hoping the monologue will remain, though updated. If we get that but not an intro, I feel like I could be satisfied.

Also, (again, pilot re-write problems) some of the Project Quantum Leap scenes didn't have the best dialogue. But you could tell it was re-written hastily.

All in all though, I found this to be a great start. Did it make me think that this was prestige TV? No. But it did hit my nostalgia bone and I really enjoyed the ride. The characters and the mystery will keep me watching and I can't wait to see the training wheels come off.

I'm sorry to hear this. I haven't gotten to QUANTUM LEAP just yet. Currently catching up on SUPERMAN & LOIS and then, hopefully, STAR TREK DISCOVERY. Is it possible the sportsball game threw off the ratings?

Had a chance to watch it; and it’s competent, but it’s missing an element.

In the original Quantum Leap, our only connection to the future was Al; and the future looked crazy.  Al always showed up in these flamboyant outfits; or he would appear in fishing gear when he’s supposed to be in a sophisticated imaging chamber of a military facility IN THE NEW MEXICO DESERT.   It was off-kilter and kept us off balance as an audience.  Was this real?

What we’ve been given so far in the new series are characters with a straight up mission with parameters to solve.  The feel of a mystery is missing; and part of that mystery was wondering if the main character was really just losing his mind.

And why isn’t Ziggy talking?  And what about someone who looks like Ben in the waiting room?  When it was Sam, his seeming presence in the future led even the government to question whether this was time travel or someone having a mental breakdown into multiple personalities.

It just seems like they’ve forgotten the show’s personality, and that’s a shame.

——————————————

For those who remember Warehouse 13, what we needed for the holographic guide was someone like Claudia:

To be blunt, we’re instead getting some sad lady who has the presence of cardboard.

I haven't seen the new QL yet, but according to behind the scenes chatter, NBC was just as happy with the first three episodes as Temporal Flux which is to say they weren't that happy. Original showrunners Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt were gently fired (they retain executive producer credits). Beginning with Episode 4, Martin Gero took over as showrunner.

Gero had been on the show before this as a producer, but it sounds like he wasn't  central or he was overseeing practical production rather than scripts. One of Gero's changes was apparently to re-edit episode 3 into the series premiere, revise the other two episodes already shot -- and it's likely that more scripts were written and in the queue before Gero took over, so we may not have the showrunner's *real* vision of QUANTUM LEAP until at least episode 4 and possible anywhere from episode 5 - 6.

Oddly, something similar happened with WAREHOUSE 13 too! The original pilot had been scripted for a major network budget only for the Sci-Fi Channel to buy it at which point the script had to be sliced to be filmable on half the imagined budget, and there had been such a delay from scripting to filming that  by the time the pilot was bought and a series was ordered, none of the original creators (Rockne S. Bannon of FARSCAPE, Jane Espenson of BUFFY) were available to run the show nor was anyone happy with how the expensive NBC/ABC-budgeted script had turned out on a Sci-Fi Channel budget.

Eventually, showrunner Jack Kenny was hired, but despite taking over with the second episode, it wasn't until Episode 4 that Kenny finally had the show where he wanted it by introducing the Claudia character.

Have faith, Leapers. Shows sometimes take a little time to find themselves.

Watched the second episode, and it continues the tone of the first episode.  No real mystery - just problem solving.

At its most successful, Quantum Leap was somewhat like the first season of Person of Interest.  A mission is presented; but as you delve into it, the whole thing turns on its head, and it turns out the mission wasn’t what you thought it was at all.

An example for Quantum Leap is the episode when Sam leaped into a bounty hunter.  The mission is simple - transport his tricky, sneaky bounty to a certain city without her being killed.  But as we delve into it, we find out why she was killed in the original history.

She was a Robin Hood who stole from a crooked banker so that she could return the money to the everyday people he stole from.  Sam successfully exposes the crooked banker and the crooked law enforcement helping him, and gets her to turn herself in safely.  Ultimately she faces no harsh penalty due to the circumstances.

But Sam’s accomplishment doesn’t trigger the leap because he realizes that wasn’t his full purpose for being there.  He gives her his cowboy hat and proposes the idea that she become a bounty hunter herself.  She likes the idea and goes on to help a lot of people in the new history.

Given that the new series seems intent on making this something of a procedural and spending half of the episode in present day, I would suggest this.  Instead of having the computer just spout random probabilities of what Ben is supposed to do, have the present day team investigating the present day circumstances that came from the events Ben is living in the past.

But what gives it a twist?  What makes it something different?  As Ben lives out the past, his changes are rippling through to the present. The present is changing as they investigate and it creates unexpected twists and turns.  The team in the present narrows down what Ben is supposed to do based on what his changes are revealing in the present.  It’s like sifting flour or panning for gold.

And the big overarching plot the second episode just hinted at with Ben having created an algorithm to find a certain point in time?  Forget that.  The mission is likely to get Sam home.  For five seasons in the original series, they tried to bring Muhammad to the mountain; but Ben has the idea to instead bring the mountain to him.

Ben’s algorithm was not created for a chase through time.  Instead, Ben’s idea was to try to reshape present day reality into where Sam will be.  He’s not bringing Sam home.  He’s bringing home to Sam.

A notorious rumor site, but they’re not wrong

https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/q … aster.html

I'm afraid getting Scott Bakula back to play the lead character again (if that's what you're saying, I may have misunderstood) is a non-starter. Bakula does not accept roles where he has to stay on the set past 6 PM. He lost his marriage during the original QUANTUM LEAP because he was never around, and he made a promise to his second wife that he would never let that happen in their marriage.

I don't believe Bakula is as uninvolved in the new QL as he claims, especially when he offered no reasons for "passing" on the revival despite him being the one to constantly bring it up from 1994 to 2022; if he passed on anything, it was a larger role that would keep him away from home later than he wished.

I'm afraid getting Dean Stockwell back to play a regular character (if that's what you were suggesting, I may have misunderstood) is also not possible unless you have some way of reviving the dead.

Some shows take time to build their audience. Some shows take time to find their way. I'm guardedly hopefully that NBC, having retooled QL three episodes into filming and debuted it during the sportsball, will give QL some room to improve.

https://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/digi … ntum-leap/

Episode 3 of the new Quantum Leap was good. It raises a few questions:

What is Janice Calavicci's goal here? Is she re-building her own version of the hologram chamber to go after Ben? Or Sam?

She is very different now compared to the supposed Janice that she was originally described as by her mom Beth: super smart, super talented, able to re-build the entire project seemingly on her own, and able to interface the original handlink with the new project, almost seamlessly combining old data with new data. I highly doubt Janice Calavicci could have done to her mom what she just did unless she was an evil leaper.

Is she really Janice Calavicci? Could she be the evil leaper Alia (or Alia's hologram Zoe) in league with Lothos? For those who didn't see the original series Lothos is the evil supercomputer opposite Ziggy who was working with the evil leaper Alia.

It could explain how Janice could jerry-rig her own version of the project and the complex code that appeared seemingly out of nowhere providing a time map nobody had ever heard of.

Very interesting developments that I can't wait to see play out throughout the rest of this season.

I agree, and it goes along with my comments on Amazing Stories. Episode 3 of the new Quantum Leap had heart.  Vast improvement over the first two episodes

I didn't realize that about Bakula but kudos to him for priotizing his family over profession that would intefere.

Yes, Stockwell is gone. 

I think my general point is, sometimes utilizing old properties to make things "new" can fail because they fail to have something that hooks the audience, such as the special thing that the original may have had.  For SLIDERS it was team work and the bond between the characters.  Now if you did a new SLIDERS, would execs feel they've exploited the concept, only to miss the central reason the show originally worked?

So my point is, maybe sometimes they get too ballsy with reinvention rather than just using the old formula and continuing it.  Including as much of the old cast or archetypes as they can.  Maybe that's just stale for some.  For me, I don't mind it.

Ultimately though I am fine with this quantum leap as well.  Serviceable, glad to have it.  First two episodes were fine, I enjoyed, kinda gave me the feel of Timeless. 

The third episode was even more interesting, and others here seemed to have liked it.  So that's good.  And I am fine with a new set of characters for this or old.  I just think sometimes Hollywood's desire to do a new version of everything rather than just going back to the old characters and formula can be a bit dismissing and cocky, where people often feels the end result doesn't live up to the old one.  And they could have just done the easy thing... and done the old one.

Ugh.

I don't think we can know if QL will be rescheduled, moved to streaming, or cancelled until they announce it.

I hope it isn't cancelled. I haven't seen it. And I know not everyone is happy about it. But we all lose whenever an okay/not offensive TV show is cancelled.

This is very good news for it and for sliders

Regarding the latest episode airing:

https://www.cancelledscifi.com/2022/10/ … ther-down/

So quantum leap has done meh in the live ratings and well in streaming (on-demand).

i know they ordered six more episodes (prior to the slip in live ratings this past week), but i still am not sure whether this show is gonna be considered viable or not for their needs?   it will probably get a renewal, but as we all know, getting to a third season is very hard.

Well yeah. Most people I know are in bed at 10:00 p.m. for work the next day. Unless they're partiers. Then they're out partying. And outliers who have strange hours for some reason or another.

It's not going to do as well unless it's done earlier, but they're not going to preempt Monday night football for Quantum Leap.

Yep!

S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S

Everyone is assuming Evil Leaper, but what if it was Sam?  Judging by original series continuity, Ben and Addison wouldn’t be able to see Sam unless Ziggy is tuned properly.

In any case, next week is the original pilot episode that they re-worked for episode 6.

Sam did leap into the 1860’s in the original series, but the explanation given was that a “glitch” sent Sam into someone along his genetic line of ancestors.  Also, the rules seemed to no longer be relevant for Sam in the original series finale.  Sam was even choosing where he wanted to go at the end.

If it’s not Sam, another explanation could be a kind of pre-destination.  QL never really dealt with this before, but what if the mystery person is someone who Ben hasn’t met yet but will meet?  Ben may be chasing this person somewhere in Ben’s future.  Kind of like how River Song and The Doctor were almost never in sync.

An interesting look at what Universal’s strategy is:

https://deadline.com/2022/10/nbcunivers … 56322/amp/

After watching episode 6 myself, I am wondering the same thing. What was so terrible about it that it had to be re-worked? It looks to me like it would have been an excellent intro to the series and a good episode for both fans and non-fans alike.

It's possible that TF's theory is correct, but NBC didn't just have the episode reshot and moved back; they proceeded to fire the original showrunners and had Martin Gero take over and rework the original series premiere, so it's very possible that any stylistic flourishes you've enjoyed in later episodes and in this reworked version come from the new showrunner and not his predecessors. Note that you haven't enjoyed the earliest episodes that he had little influence over but your enjoyment has risen with newer episodes and with Gero taking charge.

Had an idea for continuing the sliders franchise on a lower production cost angle.   "The Dominion Hotel Chronicles".    It would basically have episodes (audio, book or tv) in which the gang of four are sitting around at the Dominion Hotel bar, discussing their adventure, predictament, etc on that earth.  The type of thing that would really happen on that world but never made it into the actual series.   Essentially, they are all bottle episodes. 

You joke (kinda) but I wonder if this premise works in some manner.  I don't think it would work as a literal reboot of Sliders, but I think you could add a parallel Earth angle and this totally works as a show.

Imagine Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt, and Arturo are all unstuck.  Not only that, but the hamburger joint itself is unstuck.  At random times (that Quinn and Arturo can time on a timer), the restaurant itself and the sliders are transported to a different parallel Earth.  Because of whatever science-y nonsense, the restaurant and the Sliders exist on every Earth they travel to, and there are always a Quinn/Wade/Rembrandt/Arturo on every Earth.

So you have a sitcom situation where every episode, the Sliders are working on a hamburger joint on a different Earth.  People know the sliders and there would be doubles of "regulars" that come into the restaurant who would all be wearing alternate versions of their wardrobes.  Jokes would be tailored to whatever Earth they're on.

Most episodes would take place entirely inside the restaurant, but there would be opportunity to have scenes set outside - the sliders would always know when they would need to be back inside the restaurant for the slide.

Well...maybe these scripts will come in handy...

https://twitter.com/sundarpichai/status … 9137948672

Quantum Leap episode 7 was really good. Again. This series really is hitting its stride with its new showrunner. I don't think I've ever been disappointed with a Quantum Leap Halloween episode.

It certainly does appear that Martin Gero is really doing a tremendous job.

The twist with Janice was interesting, and it was very nice seeing the old hand link back in action. Now I don't think that Janice is an evil leaper at all, as foreshadowed in the first few episodes.

Does she know what's going on with that other leaper who warned Ben to stop following them? It sounds like it.

Quantum Leap is doing well in +7 ratings

https://tvline.com/lists/new-tv-show-ra … y-percent/