Quantum Leap FAQL Downloaded from CIX by Graham Cluley Created by: Quantum Buc (buc@world) and Debbie Brown (deb@cci.com) With assistance from: Vicky Sailer (admin@mrmarx.uu.net) Lisa Sally Smith Audrey Urling (amu@dukee.egr.duke.edu) and many other members of the QL/usenet community Occasional references from _Harry and Wally's Favorite TV Shows_, H. Castleman & W. J. Podrazik, Prentice Hall Press, New York, 1989 Updated by: Debbie Brown (deb@cci.com) Revision Date: 11/15/91 [Note: all dates are in US mm/dd/yy format.] This is an occasional file that is meant to answer those questions most frequently asked about the US television program, Quantum Leap. It also attempts to catalog the information viewers have been able to glean from individual stories and other, official and non-official sources. Other files available are: The Quantum Leap Primer The String Theory of Quantum Leaping (referred to in the Primer) The Quantum Leap Episode Guide Quantum Leap GIFs Transcripts to talks given by Don Bellisario, Deborah Pratt, Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell at The Museum of Broadcasting (3/17/90), UCLA (11/26/90), and at the Hitchcock Theater, Universal Studios (2/25/91). (Many thanks to Sally LB Smith (affectionately known here as FAQ # 16) for punching all that in!) A Quantum Leap fortune file (maintained by and available from MaryAnne Espenshade - mae@aplpy.jhuapl.edu). =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Table of contents: 1. Who controls the leaps? 2. When Al looks at Sam, what does he see? 3. Who is in the "Waiting Room"? 4. When Sam looks at himself, what does he see? 5. Can anyone else at the project go into the imaging chamber and see Sam? 6. There is no number 6. 7. Can Sam die during a leap? 8. Why could Sam see when he "replaced" a blind man? Would he be able to hear as a deaf person? 9. What does the LEAPee remember about his experience after he returns? 10. Can anyone see Sam as Sam, rather than as the leapee? Can anyone other than Sam see Al? 11. Why can't Sam LEAP back beyond his own lifetime? (or, why can't he LEAP into the far past)? 12. What would happen if Sam failed to do what he was there to do? 13. How does Ziggy know so much about peoples' lives in the past? 14. How is it that when Sam leaps into a leapee who is shorter/smaller than he is, people around him don't notice a difference in size? 15. What is the Imaging Chamber? 16. Who is this Sally Smith person and why does she know so much about the behind the scenes goings-on of Belisarius Productions? Why is she called "Lucky Bitch"? 17. What about other inconsistencies that I've noticed in QL? 18. I have a script I wrote for the show. How do I get it to the producers? 19. Who is this "Gooshi" that Al keeps talking to? 20. What are "Leapheads"? 21. Why don't all you "Quantum Leapers" get your own newsgroup and leave us alone? 22. So what's the story with that episode titled "The B**giem*n" and why do Leapers refuse to mention it by name? 23. Is Scott Bakula really as nice as he seems to be? 24. I remember watching a time travel show in the 60s, Time Tunnel. Anyone else remember it? 25. Isn't Quantum Leap just like that other time travel show, Voyagers? 26. If Al is a hologram, why does he cast shadows? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 1. Who controls the leaps? Nobody knows. Sam and Al know that it's not Ziggy or anyone at Project Quantum Leap. Al told Sam in the pilot that Sam's LEAPs were out of the project's control, so Sam and Al hypothetize that it's Him who is controlling things. 2. When Al looks at Sam, what does he see? Al sees the leapee. In the episode entitled "What Price, Gloria", Al was out of control at seeing Sam as the gorgeous secretary. Al probably recognizes Sam because they are linked through their brainwaves' transmissions, which is what is used by the project to locate Sam in time. 3. Who is in the "Waiting Room"? The leapee. To everyone at the Project, the leapee looks like Sam. In one episode, the leapee was someone Al knew, as Al recognized him in the waiting room. We don't know if Al just recognized the personality or if this was a gaffe on the part of the writers. The waiting room has been described by Don Bellisario as being a sterile, hospital-like room where the leapee is examined by the Project's medical staff. Once we got to see (and HEAR) the leapee when she entered the imaging chamber with Al, and she looked to us like the image Sam saw in the mirror. This is probably due to the same mechanism that allows us to see Sam as Sam (Bellisario's rules :). 4. When Sam looks at himself, what does he see? He sees himself, Sam Beckett - unless he looks into a mirror. Then he sees the leapee. 5. Can anyone else at the project go into the imaging chamber and see Sam? Depends. In one episode, (Star-Crossed), several committee members entered the chamber with Al, but for them, they were in an empty room with Al talking to thin air. The others were not visible to Sam (or us). Only when Al is touching an object will it be visible to Sam (and us). In more than one episode, Al brought an object into the waiting room for Sam to see (this is beyond Al's clothing, cigar and ). Skin to skin contact must be needed for another person to be seen in the Imaging Chamber. Dr. Beeks, by holding Al's hand appeared to be able to see Sam and in turn was seen by him (and us :). 6. There is no number 6. 7. Can Sam die during a leap? According to Don Bellisario, YES he can. 8. Why could Sam see when he "replaced" a blind man? Would he be able to hear as a deaf person? It appears that Sam is physically leaping through time, his mass being exchanged with that of the leapee. Sam, not sharing the handicap, will not exhibit it. [The part about Sam physically leaping through time could change should the BGU decide "he wants it that way" :] To quote the Source Himself (Don Bellisario): "...when Sam leaps in and bounces somebody out, I like to think of it this way: ... if that person was hit by a car and they broke their leg and hit the street and _then_ Sam leaped in, Sam would not have a broken leg. But if Sam leaped in and was crossing the street and was hit by the car, then Sam would have the broken leg." In other words: He does not share handicaps or injuries suffered by the leapee before his leap in, but will sustain injuries suffered while he is there. We don't know if Sam will still have this injury during his next leap, or if the leapee in the waiting room will suffer the injury when he or she gets back. Whether the leapee will exhibit any of Sam's injuries while they are in the waiting room isn't known either. 9. What does the LEAPee remember about his experience after he returns? This is also not known. The only time we've seen this occur was in the episode "Double Identity," where Sam LEAPed to replace another body and the original host returned. He APPEARED to have no memory of anything after he was leaped into. However, we don't think this is the normal effect, since this leap was generated by Ziggy in an attempt to retrieve Sam. It has been stated that the leapee, while in Sam's body back in the Waiting Room, has a 'swiss-cheesed' memory, much like Sam received upon his initial LEAP. Because of the ultramodern hospital-like atmosphere of the waiting room, many of the leapees believe they have been abducted by aliens. 10. Can anyone see Sam as Sam, rather than as the leapee? Can anyone other than Sam see Al? Small children, the "mentally absent", animals and people near death can see him (And pretty blondes with very low IQs, if Dean Stockwell got his way :-). Al has explained that children and animals see things as they really are because they exist in a natural alpha state. Also, if a person's brainwaves were sufficiently in tune with Sam's, that person would be able to see and hear Al too. 11. Why can't Sam LEAP back beyond his own lifetime? (or, why can't he LEAP into the far past)? This is all part of Sam Beckett's String Theory. A person's lifetime is like a string - one end of the string one's birth, the other end, one's death. Tie the ends together and ball up the string, and all the days of one's life touch all the other days of one's life. If one can loose one's self from the string, one can Quantum Leap from one day to the any other. . On one occasion (so far), Sam was able to leap back to a time before the date of his birth due to an accident that occurred during a leap out in the middle of a thunderstorm. Al and Sam leaped together and wound up trading places, Al in the past, Sam in the future. This dual leap caused an exchange of subatomic matter between Al and Sam allowing Sam to leap back into Al in the year 1945. It isn't known at this time if this exchange of matter will be permanent (therefore allowing Sam to leap even further back) or if it was cleared up when Sam leaped back. 12. What would happen if Sam failed to do what he was there to do? Again, nobody knows. One theory that we have was that he would be trapped in the past forever, replacing the host. This, however, is doubtful. Another theory that we have had was that he would LEAP into another's life to attempt again to fix "that which has gone wrong". In "Double Identity", Sam was pulled from the LEAPee by Ziggy without resolving the problem he was there to fix. He leaped immediately to replace another body in the same room and in that SECOND body completed his mission. 13. How does Ziggy know so much about peoples' lives in the past? Ziggy is hooked up to every major database of the mid 90s. It's amazing, when you think about it, just how much is REALLY known about you that is stored on computers. 14. How is it that when Sam leaps into a leapee who is shorter/smaller than he is, people around him don't notice a difference in size? I believe it is a question of topology. I'm not very good at it, but consider the following argument. The QL maps everything from a different time into a frame of reference relative to Sam. (And vice versa for the host.) Sam doesn't see what really happens, but rather what happens relative to his host. [Doug van der Veen] It's all a matter of relativity. Consider a spaceship 10 meters long. Send it off at 99.4% of the speed of light and it will seem to be only 1 meter long to anyone still on earth, while still seeming like 10 to those on board. Gravity can do the same sort of thing, put an object deep into a gravity well and it will seem shorter. The point is the ship is in a different 'reference frame' than the earth, and the object in the well is in a different frame than the observer floating outside it, and things like length (also duration) are not the same across reference frames. [Pekowsky] So here's the theory: when Sam leaps his whole body leaps (explaining things like "Blind Faith"), but it is mapped into a different reference frame. If you look through a warped piece of glass, things seem to be a different size and shape. The same thing happens with a warped region of space (cf. "Gravitational Lenses.") When Sam leaps the space containing him is warped in such a way that not just length, but all physical properties are altered. And, of course, the only person in Sam's reference frame is Sam, so when he looks at himself he sees what he has always seen, but when he looks in a mirror the photons have passed between frames, and so he sees the leapee. [Pekowsky] To answer the original question, when Sam, 6ft or so, has leaped into someone 5ft7 and is talking to someone, they look at the leapee's eyes, he sees them looking at his eyes, and likewise he looks down, but the person he's talking to sees the leapee looking straight. Which is really right? Neither, or both! It's the same as asking 'how long is the spaceship really,' the answer is completely dependent on what frame you're in because certain physical properties have no absolute existence. [Pekowsky] As for how this ties into superstrings - current thought is that strings don't just define particles, but also in some sense define space and time themselves (ref: "Superstrings: A Theory of Everything?" edited by PCW Davies). When Sam leaps he takes the strings comprising his body and 'soul,' into a region of space made up of the strings of the person he's replacing. [Larne Pekowsky] 15. What is the Imaging Chamber? This is the only place where Al can go to talk to Sam. Its construction allows a holographic image of Al to be generated for transmission into Sam's optic and audio neurons in the past, and for Sam and his surrounding images to be projected onto Al's neurons. Speculation has it that this is a very large and cavernous room judging from the amount of walking Al can do without bumping into walls and the sound of the door as it slides open and closed. 16. Who is this Sally Smith person and why does she know so much about the behind the scenes goings-on of Belisarius Productions? Why is she called "Lucky Bitch"? Hey, that's TWO questions! Sally Smith is our own "Set Elf", otherwise known to the less fortunate of us as the "Lucky Bitch" who resides somewhere in the Bay Area of California. Through some kind of divine providence, she has been granted the blessing of frequent visits to the set of Quantum Leap where she communes with the shining lights of Leapdom and imparts her learnings unto the less fortunate of us on the net (this is where the "Lucky Bitch" comes from). This blessing comes with a price however, in the form of air fare, gasoline and phone bills that when combined, resemble the national debt. This price she pays gladly so that she may share her visits with us both on the net and in her mailing list. To enroll in the list, send e-mail to her at "leapers@tardis.tymnet.com". Unfortunately for all of us, the frequency of her visits have been greatly reduced due to a new studio policy that restricts visits to the sets in their domain. 17. What about other inconsistencies that I've noticed in QL? "Don't investigate this too closely." --Don Bellisario, 3/17/90 18. I have a script I wrote for the show. How do I get it to the producers? One word. DON'T. Really. Sally Smith (see question 16) reports "The producers have specifically asked that no scripts be sent in" and do not even look at unsolicited scripts, not even those submitted by professional writers. Despite the fact that they do not use other people's ideas, lawsuits are still filed against them. People assume that if they send in a script and something similar shows up in a story, that they were ripped off - even though their script was never read by anyone at the company. Think of it this way: if you thought of it, they've probably thought of it too, and can either do it better, are already in the process of doing it, or have already discarded the idea. If you really want to break into the business, "Star Trek: TNG" does accept unsolicited scripts--see the ST:TNG faql for details. 19. Who is this "Gooshi" that Al keeps talking to? Gooshi is Ziggy's programmer, a short guy with bad breath. We used to see him very briefly in profile wearing a headset in the opening title sequence as Sam is leaping out and in the episode "The Leap Back". [See QL Primer] 20. What are "Leapheads"? There is no such creature as a Leaphead. This is a word coined by a NBC employee referring to a Leaper, which is a Quantum Leap fan. "Leaper" is the preferred term, used by the fans themselves and the cast and crew of Quantum Leap when speaking about the fans. The prevailing attitude is, "if 'Leaper' is good enough for Don Bellisario and company, it's good enough for us". 21. Why don't all you "Quantum Leapers" get your own newsgroup and leave us alone? The official vote to create rec.arts.quantum-leap failed on July 25, 1991, 35 votes short of the 2/3 majority needed to create the new newsgroup. An alt.* group has been ruled out as a great number of r.a.t's Quantum Leapers do not have access to alt groups so to create one would not be fair to them. Looks as if you're stuck with us for a while longer. :-) 22. So what's the story with that episode titled "The B**giem*n" and why do Leapers refuse to mention it by name? [Episode title edited for net.safety] This episode first aired near Halloween 1990, and from the first time it aired, weird events have been associated with this episode. As an example, this episode seems to have the highest incidence of VCR/cable/local station failure than any other episode aired. There have been numerous reports of VCRs cutting out during the taping of this episode, local stations and cable companies dropping their signal. Even mentioning it by name is hazardous, as one net.leaper can attest. This hapless individual (who knew better) was bandying about the name of this episode. He lost his job AND his net.access. It's mention has been known to cause power failures and auto breakdowns, so it's best to just refer to it as "The Halloween Episode". Leapers everywhere will know of what you speak. 23. Is Scott Bakula really as nice as he seems to be? Yes, yes a thousand times yes. A perfect example of just how nice, patient, hardworking and DECENT this man is is his appearance at the QL screening for the fans in LA back on February 25, 1991. He had put in a hard day on the set working on the episode "Last Dance Before an Execution", a very emotionally intense, exhausting episode when he had to appear at the screening to answer questions (with the BGU, Deborah Pratt and Dean) and to meet the fans. He was pleasant and open with the fans, even joking with people and accepting small gifts and hugs with aplomb. Afterward, he was mobbed by (literally!) hundreds of mostly female fans who requested his autograph and their picture taken with him. He spoke to each person and smiled for the cameras. He is truly a sweet, gracious person, traits which are shared by the rest of the people associated with this production. Any further elaborations can be filled in by FAQ # 16, the LB herself. :) 24. I remember watching a time travel show in the 60's, Time Tunnel. Anyone else remember it? Ah yes, Irwin Allen's Time Tunnel. This was a show about a secret government funded time travel experiment in which a young researcher sends himself back in time in an effort to prevent the project's funding from being cut. This, the two men travelling through time, and the efforts to retrieve them are the only things this show has in common with Quantum Leap (which only has ONE man travelling through time, his companion is firmly rooted in the future, but I digress). In the Time Tunnel, time travellers Anthony Newman and Doug Phillips unfailingly arrived at historical events and desperately tried to influence events based on their knowledge of the outcome. They always failed. This is a show where the time travellers would find themselves at the Roman coliseum one week, and in Napoleon's army the next, THEN tripping to the bombing of Pearl Harbour. It is drastic time changes like this that Don Bellisario wanted to avoid when he imposed the 'within his own lifetime' rule. He felt the huge differences in time settings was distracting and unrealistic. :-) 25. Isn't Quantum Leap just like that other time travel show, Voyagers? Phineas Bogg with the assistance of companion Jeffrey Jones are time travellers who find themselves trying to fix history, or to 'put things right' when 'people become displaced in time and find themselves a half-step away from a total different destiny' [Harry and Wally]. In one episode, Franklin D. Roosevelt became a movie director and it was up to Phineas and Jeffrey to set him on the right course to the presidency of the United States. This is another show that would find its heroes travelling to far-flung places and times, a plot device that Don Bellisario wanted to avoid. 26. If Al is a hologram, why does he cast shadows? The shadows are holograms, too, and are generated and projected by Ziggy as part of the process, of course. [Sally Smith] Seriously, while Al may not cast shadows, _Dean_ certainly does (especially since-- as Michael Watkins once put it-- "Dean likes to talk with his hands so much that he's a pretty active shadow anyway."). It's simply physically impossible to eliminate them all. Also, there are times when having Al not cast a shadow would actually make him look fake--like a pasted-on cut out effect instead of a real person. See question # 17. [Sally Smith] @~More CIX QL files next issue.