After 30 years, I finally get the parallel. Al was trapped in Vietnam like Sam has been trapped in the past. There was no guarantee that Sam's life will still be there waiting for him if and when he ever returned home, but he could make sure that Beth will be there when Al did. He never let on prior to the series finale but it's clear how much failing to do so the first time killed Sam inside. That's the ultimate wrong that he has put right and better to his friends life in the process. God that makes the last caption that much more painful.
Good observation. Sam change a lot of lives and coming back to do right for the person who was there in the journey was the best way to end this story.
I see it in different way. I remember that Sam was policeman in undercover, Al told Sam that his mission is to convince wife to wait for her soldier husband, Al was so focused on it, that Sam almost failed with saving life someone else. But to be honest I think that Sam had 2 missions then, save life as a policeman and convince Beth to wait for Al. Sam's next leap (short date difference) was to his family house when he was teenager, he tried to convince his brother Tom to hide himself in safe place in day when he was supposed to die, Tom even promised that if Sam's team win a game then he will do it (he didn't, he was soldier, he had to obey orders). Then Sam's next leap was to soldier in Vietnam (few months after game), his mission was to free prisoner of war but he was so focused on saving his brother's life that he failed, and he exchanged one life for another. His brother survived that day but young journalist died and she got afterdeath Pulitzer for photography of prisoner of war (that was Al). Al didn't tell Sam that prisoner is him. I think that Sam understood then, that if he would free Al then Beth wouldn't marry other guy. I think that he had remorses and that's why he choose to repair Al's life and still leaping instead return to home.
I cried so much that night. I was so sad and angry that Same didn't get home. I've been watching the new Quantum Leap, and it's...okay. It will never be as good as the original, but it might be alright. I'll keep watching it, hoping that before it goes off air they manage to find Sam, alive and well, and bring him home.
Don't forget. The original tottered on the brink of cancellation for some time before it found its footing. Don't expect the new one to give you the payoff so soon.
Watching this in 2024 after the season 2 finale of the new Quantum leap, which is definitely just gotten better over time, and how this moment was called back in a huge way in that finale. Excellent way to tie the two together.
I saw this when it originally aired, and I was so pissed when the poignant end credits were ruined by fucking Jay Leno's voiceover announcing the next guests for The Tonight Show
They could’ve said “Dr Sam Beckett is still out there leaping.” I would’ve been happy with the rehearsed but unfilmed ending with Beth and Al looking at Sam’s picture and Beth encouraging Al to leap to find Sam being the ending.
The main problem is that by changing Al’s past, Sam’s own timeline is changed in the process. It’s possible that Al never joins the QL project. Basically, he doesn’t have a “home time” to go back to anymore. I know and have seen the filmed alternate ending/season 6 opener, but I have to disagree with wanting a happy end for the show. Bittersweet, like what we got, is far more fitting.
When I first saw this episode, I was crushed by the ending. Sam wanted so much to go home, and at the end, he couldn't, and I felt really bad for him. Now, I kind of get what Al the Bartender was telling him: he could go home any time he wanted to. Sam was always in control of the leaps. The reason he "couldn't" go home was that he couldn't give up trying to set things right. Al even said he could quit any time, or even take a sabbatical. In a way, it's sad for all the people he left behind, but somewhere out there in time and space, Sam's still trying to put things right.
kirin-rex. I don't believe for a minute that Al (the bartender) told him the truth, Sam didn't even know the people he leapt in to, so how could he be in control and know they needed help! If Sam was really in control he could have went home, taken a vacation/break/sabbatical and went back to leaping anytime he wanted to!
@@bebo5558 I have a theory that is largely supported by this episode that the version of Sam we see here is actually dead, this leap was about seeing his life flash before his eyes (most of the people in the bar resembled people he knew) and it was a lesson in letting go. It was setting up that he would now leap in, as himself, put something right, leap out and no one would remember he was there, much like when Stawpah leaped out and no one at the bar remembered him. A lot of context clues have lead me to that point, though I admit there are some flaws to the idea.
@@romarqable Yeah, half of the things "Al the bartender" told him weren't factual or logical, he knew a lot of stuff, but he wasn't God either? Maybe a time keeper or guide??
@@romarqable That is a very interesting idea. I like that. Regarding Sam not knowing who he was leaping into, wasn't that Ziggy's job? To plot the turning points? I imagine it's something like finding the keylog in a logjam. Logjams happen when sending logs downriver and they get jammed up, and these experts come in to figure out which log they can cut to unjam it. I figure that's Ziggy. In Sam's case, my theory was that he was obsessively driven. It was kind of a case of "just one more", and I think he felt he couldn't go back until he'd put right all the things that would make his timeline work. That said, @Robert Martin, I really like your theory, and I think you've made an excellent case for it.
@@kirinrex there was an episode (the one where Sam drives the taxi IIRC) where Sam and Al meet an actual guardian angel. We never see it, but there's a strong possibility she too was a leaper, a guardian angel, we just never saw her leap in or out. The show was about Sam putting right what once went wrong. We met the devil, in one form or another, and the show always relied on spiritual Christianity as a backbone for the good vs evil, doing right idealism that Sam Beckett represented. He put others before himself. I also think when he asks Bartender Al "so you're saying i can leap home whenever I want?" Bartender Al: Technically, yes. Sam: Whats the catch? Bartender Al: The catch, is you have to accept that you control your own destiny. You could simply accept Bartender Al is talking about Sam going home to 1999. However, he has been indirect in all of his conversations for the length of the episode, indirect with his answers. I find him saying "technically, yes" to be the most important part of it. Sam is referring to him going home. I believe Bartender Al is referring to going "home" aka Heaven. Sam had to accept he controlled his own destiny. And he did when he realized he had to go to Beth and put right what he couldn't so many years ago. I also just realized there may be a 5 stages of grief during his last conversations with Bartender Al, but that's something I need to explore further on my head. He does try to deny it was him controlling his leaps, he was angry in the moment. When he is speaking to Bartendet Al, he's bargaining with him about accepting his life. "Yeah but priests can quit." "But, they can also take sabbaticals. Especially for embarking on a difficult new assignment? This is where depression sets in. "Are you telling me the leaps are gonna get tougher?" "Where would you like to go Sam?" Finally, acceptance. "Home. I'd like to go home... but i can't, can I? There's a wrong I have to put right for Al. But you knew that." Last like before Sam leaps: "God bless Sam." I'm now even more convinced he's actually dead, and the episode is about his acceptance of that, and him needing to learn to move on.
Thanks for posting the finale. Alot of people didn't like the ending but I did. The new Quantum Leap is Monday September 19 at 10pm east coast time. I hope they don't blow it.
I think the biggest reason why the new Quantum Leap is difficult to watch is because of the nostalgia. I grew up watching the original and have much love for it. The original was all about Sam and Al, a story A if you think about it. The new one has a Story A (the leap) and a story B (the Present). I wasn't too sure of this reboot but it is growing on me a little bit. They brought back Beth and the story with Magic remembering about Sam leaping into him was nostalgic.
May not be the most popular take but I’m intrigued by where the new series is going. Different format (IE more time in the present, etc) but they’ve left some mysteries (Al’s daughter, why the new lead character leaped and where he’s headed) that have me wanting to see more. And of course the biggest carrot being dangled-when does Sam return. I know Bakkula is publicly saying he won’t but the way the show is progressing I’m thinking this more and more a Spiderman-Tobey Maguire/Andrew Garfield thing where everyone claims ignorance to drive up the interest.
The original series was (pardon the expression) a leap of faith. It nurtured a weird premise and unknown cast through all the pitfalls that can befall a new show, with real integrity. That includes an ending which didn't satisfy fans but gave them much to think about. The new show takes no leap, has no such integrity. It is a cynical, politically correct copy.
@@daveconleyportfolio5192 If you don't think the original was "politically correct" (what many would simply call "progressive"), then you weren't paying attention. It openly spoke against racism, rape, misogyny, and more. It was a progressive show for its time and the new series is for its time.
@@ZJBorg I know that Scott Bakula said he wasn't going to be involved in the first season at least, that he wanted it to excel or fail on its own merits. But what I would love to see is the last leap, in the last episode, Ben finds Sam and they leap home together and that both Addison and Donna are there to greet them.
Who down votes this video? I was a kid when I saw this episode because my mom liked the show and even at 8 years old I understood the gravity of what was happening because of how well acted, directed, produced and edited the show was.
Sam after changing his friend’s life for the better deep down had to know that there’s endless amounts of ppl that can use his help…Forever righting what once went wrong
I always thought this was when hologram Al was dancing with Beth while Sam was waiting outside in a previous leap. However, once future Sam leaped into the house Al vanished as in a new history he leaped with Sam before this as he had no reason to see Beth one last time.
I have a copy of that photo of Al and Sam from the end, signed by Scott Bakula when I met him at a convention years back. I wish I could’ve met Dean Stockwell too before he passed away.
@322 messenger,but there a problem with that,by helping Al - he erased original present timeline he's from & wouldn't be able to go where it no longer exist,if goes to a present time that would be an alternate one without the Project ever created by him or working along side all the people he knew,ha?.
Project Quantum Leap probably would still exist without Al, because Edward St John V would be acting as the hologram (as demonstrated in "A Leap for Lisa"). Whether it would be as successful is another question; something tells me that Edward St John V might not be as goodl as Al was at securing government funds or keeping the governmemt at bay.
But that erasure also affectnthe existance of Edward St John,because no backstory on how he join the Project if Al haven't being part of it first& the other thing that involves Sam getting Beth and Al ,also erase his involvement in all past leaps(like he never help them at all), isn't that right?.
I've thought about this and I don't think it change project QL. I think what it will do,.I'd anything, is make Al aware of Sam and what QL is about and what Sam did for him in a now alternate future. Maybe it'll make Al and Sam closer.
Perhaps not. Without Al Sam never would have completed his leaps early on which we know still happened. So it's possible the only thing that was altered was Al's family life. It's still reasonable he ended up at Quantum Leap anyway and helped Sam up until the point the show ended then just lost contact with Sam.
I was sent a message in my head to find quantum leap, I haven't thought about it for years but a while ago I said to my bf that I saw so many in cex and I hadn't watch them since I was four! I didn't get them instead I forgot about it years later today I had a message in my brain telling me to find quantum leap I was freaked! Happens all the time though! So I went and I looked in cex and hmv and all the shops I thought of that had old video series NONE had one copy but there was loads a few years ago I decided to go on yt to find out what I was meant to find... turn out apparently there's a new QL and I was like WTF! never saw this ever advertised!!! But I wanted to find the original as that what I watched when I was kid thanks to you I was able to find what it was I was ment to see . So I watched it and I'm freaked out my brain works to quickly and too exsplain but thankyou so much for putting this up!
If they’d done the reboot correctly, they would’ve started by re-airing this scene, then they would’ve had the, “Dr. Sam Becket [sic] never returned home.” light up blue and tingle with electrical energy… launching into the continuation of the story. Oh well.
Nobody in the world of the reboot has any idea what happened to him or about this. Hell even Al was confused. As far as anyone in Sam’s time knew they basically thought he had gone nuts (and that’s if the timeline wasn’t changed to the point that Al never had the final interaction with him). If anything, in the show’s timelines, Al’s last report about Sam probably convinced higher ups that Sam had a form of dementia and was never going be found, thus the program got shut down. How they’ll explain this whenever Sam does return (because let’s be real that is coming) will be interesting.
The photographs in the bar are of Al Bellisario, and the photograph under the end credits is of Al Bellisario holding a young Donald at an air show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."
The photographs in the bar are of Al Bellisario, and the photograph under the end credits is of Al Bellisario holding a young Donald at an air show in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."
I don't see any hope for the reboot. All the characters are interesting enough except for the main one, Ben Song. He brings absolutely NOTHING to the role, whereas you were almost immediately invested in not just Sam Beckett himself but also how things went for him.
Trashing it after two episodes? Seriously? Doesn't sound like you were willing to give it much of a chance in the first place. Not that NBC has had the best success with reboots, but you're not really being fair to the new series either. Imagine Scott Bakula QUITTING Quantum Leap, Star Trek Enterprise or NCIS New Orleans after just two episodes and you have Jimmy Roche.
I think they're still finding their footing and just getting going. Obviously it could never live up to the original, but give it a shot! It's interesting so far!
Give the new series a chance? BULLSHIT! The new series is about being as woke as possible more then about having creative writing. This series is flopping badly from episode 1 to episode 3 losing tons of viewers in the process from episode 1 to 3. Go woke go broke!
