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Quantum Leap Showrunner Teases How Ben's First Leap Is Connected to a Character From the Original Series
A familiar name to veteran leapers was mentioned
[Warning: The following contains spoilers for Quantum Leap Episode 1.]
More than 30 years ago, the Quantum Leap accelerator sent Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) to a different time and space. Now, the machine is sending a different physicist — Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) — to the past, and his team in the present day must uncover the truth behind why Ben made the jump. NBC's Quantum Leap reboot premiered on Sept. 19, and Episode 1 follows Ben as he makes his first jump into the body of a man named Nick Rounder. Having lost his memory, Ben suddenly finds himself in the middle of a diamond heist, with nothing but a hologram of his colleague — who is, unbeknownst to him, his fianceé Addison (Caitlin Bassett) — to guide him.
But this was not the pilot originally filmed for this new continuation of the 1989 series Quantum Leap. In July, Deadline reported that Martin Gero (Blindspot) was taking over as the new showrunner of the series, and that the original pilot will still air but not as the first episode. Gero confirmed to TV Guide that there was a huge change to the first episode. "This is not the original pilot that we shot, we shot a different pilot," he said. "We'll use pieces of it for Episode 6, but even that will be pretty reshot because obviously it was designed to be a first episode — now it's the sixth episode."
Gero said the reasoning behind the switch wasn't "anything bad or good." "The reason you do pilots is to learn a bunch of lessons about the show," he explained. "We learned a lot of lessons and everyone collectively kind of felt, I think there's a better way to do this." The showrunner said that the teams from creative to corporate were on the same page, and the first episode was reworked.
Raymond Lee and Dax Campbell, Quantum Leap
NBCIn the new pilot, Nick is a robber involved in a diamond heist — but it turns out that he is actually an undercover cop. "We liked the idea of Ben jumping into someone who was also not playing himself," Gero said about the decision of having Nick be the first one Ben leaps into. "There was a subterfuge happening in the person as well, so it was kind of a fun twist on, we know you're not who you say you are." As Ben learns more about the person he has jumped into, he must determine what to do in order to right a historical wrong — similar to the work of his spiritual predecessor Dr. Sam Beckett.
And like Sam, Ben gets the help of an AI unit named Ziggy. Ziggy was a key player in the original Quantum Leap, and has since been updated. "They've been working on Ziggy for like five years and then suddenly, Ben just uploaded [a] brand new operating system up to Ziggy — which is very confusing and is something Ian (Mason Alexander Park) is baffled by," Gero said. "And that's one of the big mysteries that we hope to answer over the course of the first season."
Another familiar name mentioned in the pilot is Al Calavicci. In the original series, Al was Sam's best friend who appeared to him as a hologram. In the reboot's first episode, digital security head Jenn Chou (Nanrisa Lee) discovers that while Al has passed away, his daughter Janice has been working with Ben — and is the one who sent text messages to the physicist before he made his leap. "It's unclear as of this first episode, whether he was tricked by [Janice] or whether he was working for her or if she was working for him," Gero said of the relationship. "That's certainly something that these early episodes are going to focus on is trying to figure out, what the hell were they up to?" One thing is for sure: "The Calaviccis are an important part of the first season," Gero teased.
Raymond Lee and Caitlin Bassett, Quantum Leap
NBCThe showrunner also said that Ben's identity as a Korean American will be explored more as the episodes continue. "We'll see more of his background, slowly through the first half of the first season," Gero said. He said that in Episode 6, Ben will remember "a big chunk of his childhood." "And what's fun about that is, as Ben starts to remember, we can also kind of fill the audience in on what Ben's culture was, what it was like to be an immigrant coming to America, specifically what it was like to be a Korean immigrant coming to America," Gero explained.
He said viewers can also expect to find out more about the mystery behind why Ben entered the Quantum Leap accelerator. "I really believe that each season of television should be like a book in a series of books that you love," Gero said. "It has a great beginning, middle, and end in and of itself." He hopes this installment of Quantum Leap will be something like that. "This season will have a great beginning, middle and end," Gero said. "It will answer most of the questions that we ask in these first few episodes — it's gonna be really wild."
Quantum Leap premieres Sept. 19 at 10/9c on NBC and will be available to stream the next day on Peacock.
