Quantum Leap FAQL Created by: Quantum Buc (buc@world.std.com) and Debbie Brown (dmb7229@ultb.isc.rit.edu) With assistance from: Vicky Sailer Lisa (Vicky's officemate) Sally Smith (sallylb@netcom.com) 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: Sally "Lucky Bitch" Smith (sallylb@netcom.com) Revision Date: 10/29/92 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. Permission is granted to distribute this file UNMODIFIED to other networks and BBSs. Rights to modifications to this file is reserved by the updater(s). Note: you may freely copy and distribute this guide for personal use provided that it be distributed in its entirety, with all original author and copyright information intact. Any sales of this document or use of it in a for-profit project are expressly forbidden, without the specific consent of the authors. Other files available are: The Quantum Leap Primer The Quantum Leap Episode Guide (maintained by Jason Dzembo - dzembj@rpi.edu) Quantum Leap GIFs and sounds A list of Dean Stockwell's previous credits 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), plus two panels from the QL convention of 3/1/92. (Many thanks to Sally LB Smith for punching all that in!) A Quantum Leap fortune file (maintained by and available from Mary Anne Espenshade - mae@aplpy.jhuapl.edu). All should be available via anonymous FTP from ziggy.cisco.com:/ql-archive. Write to ql-archive@ziggy.cisco.com if you have trouble accessing the anonymous FTP archive. Please be advised that ql-archive is NOT a mail response server, but a real human who will try to answer your questions as time permits. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 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 "Gooshie" 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 60's, 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? 27. Sam has always been an American. Are there any plans for him to be a foreign national, or to leap him into a country other than the US? 28. Does Scott Bakula do his own singing on the show? 29. What are these abbreviations you people keep using? 30. How come cars pass through Al, but he can also ride in them? 31. Why couldn't Sam leap into the future (post-90's)? 32. How can I write the network about the show? And how can I write to the people who make it? -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= 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 brainwave trans- missions, 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. 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. We've seen it a few times and it's big and blue. 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 handlink). 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 :)]. In one other episode (Killin' Time), a quick jury-rigging job by Ziggy enabled Gooshie (see question 19) to contact Sam via the hologram/brain-wave process, but the image broke up a lot. 6. There is no number 6. [This is a net.Leapers "in joke" that started on Monty Python's Flying Circus.] 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? Sam is physically leaping through time, his mass being exchanged with that of the leapee. Sam, not sharing the handicap, will not exhibit it. Sam's entire body and soul trades places with the leapee, although the physical aura stays around. 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. 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. 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. Deborah Pratt says that as the leapees return, they pick up some of Sam's memories of what happened, but they believe the events happened to them. 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 is 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 "simo-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 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 late '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 belive 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 then the observer floating outside it, and things like length (also duration) are not the same across reference frames. [Larne 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, 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. [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 otic neurons in the past, and for Sam and his surrounding images to be projected onto Al's neurons. Speculation (and a quote from Don) 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 some- where in the Bay Area of California. Through some kind of divine provi- dence, 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 and info with us both on the net and in her mailing list. To enroll in the list, send e-mail to her at "leapers@netcom.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. [!@#$%^& legal nozzles. Sally Smith] 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. Writer-producer Chris Ruppenthal (see question #22) said on 3/1/92: "Hey, that's a good question. That's a terrifying question. Quite frankly, stories are submitted _only_ through agents accredited with the Writer's Guild of America, East or West. We cannot -- even if you call up on the phone, and say, "Hey, I don't want any money for this," which a lot of people do, "I just think it would be a cool idea for Sam to do that," but we can't listen to it. It's unfortunate, but the way the legal system is today, and what has happened to us in the past, we have to be very strict and very certain. If you submit a manuscript, a "Quantum Leap" spec script, it will be returned unread by our legal department. We just can't. What we don't want to do to aspiring writers, or writers who've already done some work, is consciously or unconsciously co-opt an idea and beat you out of the money. Because it's only fair that your ideas get the recognition they deserve, if they're good ideas, and the payment they deserve, and that's why they _have_ to go through an agent. And _not_ an attorney, but an agent, a literary agent, who can represent you." 19. Who is this "Gooshie" that Al keeps talking to? Gooshie 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 pilot and the episodes "The Leap Back", and "Killin' Time". He's played by Dennis Wolfberg. 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. 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. Its 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. By the way, cameras and recording equipment also tend to act strangely around Chris Ruppenthal, the writer of this episode. Since it aired, his nickname has been "Ruppenboogie". He _is_ kind enough not to say the title of the episode around the fans, though director Joe Napolitano does. Mention of all this merely causes Chris to laugh evilly. As long as we're on the subject of Chris, Joe, and weirdness, let's note that the episode "The Curse of Pt*h-H*tep" appears to cause earthquakes in Southern California -- the large quakes of Apr. and June 1992 coincided with the two showings of this episode. Pretty scary, huh, kids? 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. :) [Why, thank you, Debbie...] Another example is the UCLA screening of 11/25/90. Scott had been to New York City and back that weekend (appearing in the Macy's parade), had put in a long day at work and was in a great deal of pain from an injured ankle. But he walked out on stage and answered questions like he hadn't a care in the world and afterwards signed autographs until co-executive producer Michael Zinberg literally picked him up off the floor and took him away, telling him he had to go to work the next day. Then there was the convention...well, you get the idea. [Sally Smith] 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 Harbor. 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 were 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 totally 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 QL's director of photography Michael Watkins, ASC 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] 27. Sam has always been an American. Are there any plans for him to be a foreign national, or to leap him into a country other than the US? >From the convention of 3/1/92: JOE NAPOLITANO: Wednesday, we start filming him in Egypt. The question was, does he go overseas or has he ever gone into other than American situations? Well, Vietnam was one. CHRIS RUPPENTHAL: Also, will he be a foreign national? We've talked about it several times. There's nothing right in the immediate future for him being a foreign...We've talked about him being like an Arab sheik, like the wealthiest guy in the known universe, with y'know, a harem of women, he leaps in, "Oh, boy!" "Master, we're here to serve you!" "Oh, boy." In "Leaping of the Shrew", Sam was a Greek national, and the show was set in the Aegean. As of this writing (10/92) reputable rumors have it that there will be more leaps outside the US in the fifth season, including one into London. 28. Does Scott Bakula do his own singing on the show? You betcha. Scott is an accomplished singer (1988 Tony nomination for "Romance/Romance"), pianist (see "Blind Faith"), songwriter (he wrote the lyrics to the song "Somewhere in the Night" from "Piano Man"), dancer, and all-around athlete. Let's put it this way -- if you think Scott's doing it (and it's not wildly dangerous) -- it's him. 29. What are these abbreviations you people keep using? Whoops, sorry! GTF means "God, Time, or Fate" -- whatever "unknown force" is leaping Sam around. BGU (coined by Warren J. Madden) stands for "Big Guy Upstairs", and depending on context, that either means GTF or Don Bellisario. 30. Since Al is a hologram, we always see the neat effects of cars driving right through him, etc, so how can he sit in the car and travel within it too? Well, when Al appears to be riding in the car, what's actually happening is that he's merely placed his image within the car and set it (his image) to track along with Sam's traveling. This same technique also allows him to track alongside the outside of moving vehicles as well. I'd assume that he's standing the entire time he's "riding," which also accounts for why he often seems to be facing a different direction than one normally would while riding in a vehicle (i.e. straight ahead). [Robin C. Kwong] 31. I read the QL primer and I understand the concept of time strings with the parts of the string touching other times, and how the rule is that Sam can only leap to times that occur during his own life-time. My question is, why can't Sam leap into the future? By the future, I mean that period of time between the first leap, and Sam's death. Sam's leaping into post-'90s time would seem to fit within the definition of "his own lifetime," since one's birth as well as death would consititute one's entire lifetime. This was stated as much in "Genesis" ("One end of this string represents your birth; the other end, your death. You tie the ends together, and your life is a loop. Ball the loop...and the days of your life touch each other out of sequence. Therefore, leaping from one point in the string to another - --" "Would move you back and forth within your own lifetime."). With this in mind, then, "future" leaps would seem to be possible. However, since now the m.o. of the Project has changed slightly due to the interference of GTFWhoever, it just might not be practical. That is, Sam leaps in order to right some wrong, often using his knowledge of the future to solve the problem -- or at the very least, the fact that he's from the future enables him to recognize the fact that there *exists* a problem at all (preventing something from happening that the original host didn't see coming up the first time around). In a "future" leap, Ziggy would be useless in terms of obtaining data, Al would be reduced to being only able to offer moral support or an extra pair of eyes, and Sam would be just as clueless about the situation as the original leapee was (and probably even more so). The sheer impracticality of these conditions would then cut down quite a bit the probability of a "future" leap. Then again, if Sam does do a "future" leap, would that give away the fact that he's not going to die in any other leap before the Project's "real time" reaches that date? [Robin C. Kwong] 32. How can I write the network about the show? And how can I write to the people who make it? That's two questions again, but they're good ones. :-) If you want to write the network, say, to express your support for the show, write to: Warren Littlefield NBC-TV 3000 W. Alameda Ave. Burbank, CA 91523 (Don't put anything about Quantum Leap on the envelope, or they'll just send it to the address below.) To write to the people responsible for the show -- all those names you see in the credits -- write to: {name of person} QUANTUM LEAP 100 Universal City Plaza Bldg. 426C Universal City, CA 91608 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Keep Leaping...