''Quantum Leap'' is an American

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

television series aired on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

. It is a revival of the series of the same name created by Donald P. Bellisario, taking place thirty years after the events of the original 1989 series. The original sequel series was developed by Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt. It is executive produced by Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, with

Martin Gero Martin Gero (born July 6, 1977 in Geneva, Switzerland) is a Canadian screenwriter and co- executive producer for ''Stargate Atlantis'' and the creator of '' Blindspot''. Born in Switzerland, Gero spent much of his childhood in Ottawa, Ontar ...

serving as showrunner. The series stars Raymond Lee as new lead character Dr. Ben Song, along with Caitlin Bassett, Mason Alexander Park, Nanrisa Lee, and

Ernie Hudson Earnest Lee Hudson (born December 17, 1945) is an American actor. His roles include Winston Zeddemore in the '' Ghostbusters'' film series, Sergeant Darryl Albrecht in '' The Crow'' (1994), and Warden Leo Glynn on HBO's '' Oz'' (1997–2003) ...

. The series premiered on September 19, 2022. On December 12, 2022, the series was renewed for a second season.

Premise

Thirty years have passed since Dr. Sam Beckett vanished into the Quantum Leap accelerator. The Quantum Leap project has been restarted with a new team trying to piece together the mysteries behind Beckett and his machine. For reasons unknown, Dr. Ben Song, the new project's lead physicist, has uploaded new program code to the project systems and used the upgraded accelerator to leap back in time. He becomes lost in the past just as Beckett did, living the lives of other people and changing history in hopes of getting back to the present. Project employee Addison Augustine, who is Ben's fiancée, acts as his liaison with the project, appearing to him as a hologram only he can see and hear, just as the previous project's observer Al Calavicci did for Beckett.

Cast

Main

* Raymond Lee as Ben Song, the respected lead physicist working on Quantum Leap who gets stuck in the past, leaping into the bodies of different people, while also having partial amnesia about his identity as a result of leaping * Caitlin Bassett as Addison Augustine, Ben's fiancée and "observer", who helps Ben with finding out what he has to do in order to leap * Mason Alexander Park as Ian Wright, the chief architect of the Quantum Leap artificial intelligence * Nanrisa Lee as Jenn Chou, the Quantum Leap head of security *

as Herbert "Magic" Williams, head of the Quantum Leap time travel project, and a Vietnam War veteran who Sam Beckett leaped into in the original series' 1990 episode " The Leap Home (Part 2) – Vietnam". Hudson replaces Christopher Kirby from the original episode.

Recurring

Georgina Reilly Georgina Reilly (born February 12, 1986) is an English/Canadian film and television actress best known to date for her roles in the films '' Pontypool'' and ''This Movie Is Broken'', the television series '' The L.A. Complex'' and '' Murdoch Mys ...

as Janis Calavicci, the daughter of

Al Calavicci Rear Admiral Upper Half Albert Calavicci, USN, is a fictional character on the science fiction television series ''Quantum Leap'', played by Dean Stockwell. Biography Al was born on June 15, 1934. His father, who worked in construction, immig ...

from the original series

Guest

Deborah Pratt Deborah M. Pratt is an American actress, writer, and television producer. Early life Pratt was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois, the daughter of Geraldine (''née'' Bryant) and Col. Bertram Roberson Pratt, a vice president of Pullman Heritag ...

as Ziggy * Susan Diol as Beth Calavicci, the wife of Al Calavicci from the original series * Michael Welch as Ryan *

Michael Malarkey Michael Karim Malarkey (born 21 June 1983) is a British-American actor and musician. He is best known for playing the role of Enzo in the series ''The Vampire Diaries''. Early life Malarkey was born in Beirut, Lebanon, to an Irish American f ...

as Cole *

Carly Pope Carly Pope (born August 28, 1980) is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her roles on The WB's drama series ''Popular'' (1999–2001), supernatural drama series ''The Collector'' (2004–2005), USA Network's legal drama series '' Suits'' ...

as Samantha Stratton * José Zúñiga as Jim Reynolds, a commander * Álex González as Marco *

Justin Hartley Justin Scott Hartley (born January 29, 1977) is an American actor. He has played Fox Crane on the NBC daytime soap opera ''Passions'' (2002–2006), Oliver Queen/Green Arrow on The CW television series ''Smallville'' (2006–2011), and Adam New ...

as Jake * Sofia Pernas as Tammy Jean Jessup *

Mark Damon Espinoza Mark Damon Espinoza is an American actor currently starring in the NBC series ''The Endgame''. His first starring role was " Jesse Vasquez" in the TV series ''Beverly Hills, 90210'' from 1993 to 1995. His other credits include stage, television, ...

as Alberto Sandoval * Yaani King Mondschein as Frankie *

Jewel Staite Jewel Belair Staite (born June 2, 1982) is a Canadian actress. She is known for her roles as Kaylee Frye in the Fox television series ''Firefly'' (2002–2003) and its spin-off theatrical film '' Serenity'' (2005), and as Jennifer Keller on Sc ...

as Naomi Harvey * Walter Perez as Richard Masterson / Leaper X *

Elyse Levesque Elyse Marie Levesque (; born September 10, 1985) is a Canadian actress. She is known for playing Chloe Armstrong in the Syfy original series ''Stargate Universe'' and the witch Genevieve in '' The Originals''. Early life Levesque was born and r ...

as Lola Gray * Josh Meyers as Percival Gray *

Chido Nwokocha Chido Nwokocha is an American actor. Early life and education Chido Nwokocha is a Nigerian-American who grew up in Sacramento, California. He attended Ohio University, where he played wide receiver. After college, he played professionally f ...

as Felix Watts * Eric Lee Huffman as Adam Sullivan * Kurt Yaeger as Ringer *

Deborah Ann Woll Deborah Ann Woll (born February 7, 1985) is an American actress and model. Woll played Jessica Hamby in the HBO drama series ''True Blood'' (2008–2014), which earned her a nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award. She subsequently starred a ...

as Carly Farmer

Episodes

Production

Development

In September 2021,

Scott Bakula Scott Stewart Bakula (; born October 9, 1954) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in two science-fiction television series: as Sam Beckett on '' Quantum Leap'' and as Captain Jonathan Archer on '' Star Trek: Enterprise''. For ''Quantu ...

, who played main character

Sam Beckett Dr. Samuel John Beckett is a fictional character and the protagonist on the science fiction television series '' Quantum Leap'', played by Scott Bakula. Initially, the audience knows very little about Sam, much as Sam knows little about himsel ...

in the original series, hinted that a reboot of the original ''

Quantum Leap ''Quantum Leap'' is an American science fiction television series, created by Donald P. Bellisario, that premiered on NBC and aired for five seasons, from March 26, 1989, to May 5, 1993. The series stars Scott Bakula as Dr. Sam Beckett, a phys ...

'' was being considered, with creator Donald P. Bellisario returning in some capacity. A pilot episode was ordered by

the following January with plans for writers Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt to act as

showrunners A showrunner (or colloquially a helmer) is the top-level executive producer of a television series production who has creative and management authority through combining the responsibilities of employer and, in comedy or dramas, typically also the ...

with executive producer

and with original series producer and writer

Helen Shaver Helen Shaver (born February 24, 1951) is a Canadian actress and film and television director. She has received Emmy and Saturn Award nominations, among other honours. Early life Shaver was born and raised, with five sisters, in St. Thomas, Ont ...

was hired to direct the pilot episode and to serve as an executive producer as well. NBC ordered the show to series in May after reviewing the pilot. After it received a full series order, Aadrita Mukerji and Dean Georgaris joined as additional executive producers, and Gero took over as showrunner while Lilien and Wynbrandt stayed with the series as executive producers. A new pilot was directed by

Thor Freudenthal Thor Freudenthal (; born 20 October 1972) is a German film director, screenwriter, animator and special effects artist best known for his work on ''Diary of a Wimpy Kid'' and '' Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters''. Life and career Freudenthal was ...

, with the original pilot being scheduled to air later in the season. The decision not to launch the revival with the original pilot was made in order to provide a better introduction to the series, and it was rescheduled as the sixth episode with some reshoots added for context. In September 2022, Bakula confirmed that he had been asked by producers to reprise his role as Sam Beckett in the revival but had ultimately decided to not be involved with the new series, saying in a statement on Instagram, "As the show has always been near and dear to my heart, it was a very difficult decision to pass on the project". After the first three episodes had aired, NBC ordered six additional episodes for the first season, bringing its total to 18 episodes. In December 2022, NBC renewed the series for a second season.

Casting

Raymond Lee was the first actor cast in the show, taking the lead role as Dr. Ben Song in March 2022. Shortly afterwards, the cast was filled out with

, Nanrisa Lee, Mason Alexander Park, and Caitlin Bassett, making her television debut. After being ordered to series,

joined the cast in a recurring role.

Marketing and release

''Quantum Leap'' premiered on September 19, 2022. The show is available to stream on

Peacock Peafowl is a common name for three bird species in the genera '' Pavo'' and '' Afropavo'' within the tribe Pavonini of the family Phasianidae, the pheasants and their allies. Male peafowl are referred to as peacocks, and female peafowl are r ...

and NBC website and NBC app with ads.

Reception

Critical response

The

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

reported a 50% approval rating with an average rating of 5.2/10, based on 20 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "This more serialized reboot of ''Quantum Leap'' has enough heart to merit a look from viewers with the luxury of time, but it often forgets to have fun with the episodic structure that made the original a classic." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the series has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on eight critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".

Ratings

Notes

References

External links

* * {{NBCNetwork Shows (current and upcoming) 2020s American drama television series 2020s American science fiction television series 2020s American time travel television series 2022 American television series debuts Alternate history television series American sequel television series English-language television shows Fiction about body swapping Holography in television NBC original programming Television series about being lost from home Television series by Universal Content Productions Television series by Universal Television