Quantum Leap (2022)

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1. 

   Siskoid

   The new Quantum Leap has been fairly typical television in terms of writing and story structure - adding, as it must in today's landscape, a sort of conspiracy plot that involves all the support personnel at the Project - but it does manage to recapture some of the old magic. Most of the credit goes to Raymond Lee as Ben Song, who needed to be as trusting and good-hearted as Sam Beckett was, but still be his own person. Not as keen on Caitlin Bassett as his hologram (the Al of this lot is Ziggy's programmer Ian, played by Mason Alexander Park, and my favorite of the supporting cast), but their particular history is the heart of the series. What I most question are the changes made to the lore, even if they might be explained away as "advances in the field", but they're still weird to me (the one thing that doesn't even get mentioned is that originally, Sam only travelled in mind only, and the displaced personality was accessible to the Project. Despite those characters having their own lives and screen time now, that's all gone for simplicity's sake, replaced by information available non the internet, I guess. There are some fun episodes, even if the effects budget is obviously pretty poor and hampers some of them. As for the larger arc, it's fine, and I like where it ends up, but a lot of it predicated on Al's daughter keeping information secret until she doesn't, and there's little reason for this except to keep her antagonistic. But overall? I'm there for a second season.
   
   The second season of the new Quantum Leap creates a new status quo at the Project that allows for two key things. One of these is that Ben is free to fall for a woman back in time, and they keep this up as a pleasant arc where he crosses paths with her several times. The other is that there's a villainous tech billionaire who aims to take over the project, and his origins can also be found in the past. While I like where this takes us in the season finale, the level of villainy is a little ridiculous for my tastes AND I'm not sure if follows the rules of Quantum Leap's temporal adjustments exactly. But the show is using modern television's love of story arcs to its advantage, even as it tells done-in-one "right what went wrong" episodic tales (one or two of them fairly poignant). Raymond Lee has found his groove with Ben Song and he's a good replacement for Bakula. I still like Ian, but Jen is strong this season. The new cast member is a bit whatever and Addison gets outshined by Eliza Taylor's space-time romance Hannah. Overall a stronger season than the first, with a more focused meta-plot (not sure I can explain Season 1's), and it ends on a new status quo that begs to be explored in a third. 1 year 1 month ago

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