Director David Hemmings
Starring Scott Bakula, Dean Stockwell
Rated PG
Score 4/6
Genesis: Part 1
Although the Project Quantum Leap isn’t ready yet, Sam Beckett doesn’t listen to supercomputer Ziggy, hops into the Accelerator and leaps. As Tom Stratton, an Air Force test pilot about to attempt a dangerous flight. Sam finds his memory Swiss cheesed, with only enough left to know that he is not where or when he belongs. According to Sam’s friend and partner Al, who appears to him as a hologram nobody else can see, Al explains that the Project has gone awry and in order to leap out of the pilot’s body, Sam must successfully fly the X-2 to Mach 3
Genesis: Part 2
As Tom Stratton, Sam comforts his (Tom’s) wife and prevents her from having a premature birth. This is what he was sent to do, allowing him to leap home (he hopes). But instead of leaping home, he leaps into Tim Fox, a minor league baseball player in Texas at the end of the 1968 season, in the middle of a game, where he must make the winning play in order to leap further.
It is kind of surprising what you can find on the catchup website for a television network. I have vague memories of watching this with the family when I was younger and prettier than I am right now. For those of you who might not have heard about Quantum Leap in the United States it ran from March 26, 1989 to May 5, 1993 for 97 episodes, it should be noted that apparently Genesis was originally shown as a Two-hour Pilot Movie, but in syndication is shown as 2 separate episodes . On a side note a fan film Quantum Leap: A Leap to Di for was released in 2009 something I might cover later. I do not have any memories of watching this episode, the first Quantum Leap episode I have memories of watching on TV was the two-part episode at the start of season 3.
It was interesting to see that they really didn’t waste to much time explaining the whole concept of the show and what ‘leaping’ actually was and the “……putting things right, that once went wrong and hoping each time, that his next leap will be the leap home.” iconic Introduction wasn’t used until the second part and from what I can gather wasn’t used regularly until the show’s second season and apparently there was a completely different introduction read by Scott Bakula as Sam for the first season. I really wasn’t sure to make of Scott Bakula’s performance in the beginning as Tom Stratton, there was at least one ‘should he really be doing that moment he’s time travelled to the 50’s ’ moment but it really didn’t take anything away from the show. I started to enjoy Bakula’s performance when he leapt into Tim Fox and I thought that the phone conversation that he had was very touching. I really enjoyed Dean Stockwell’s performance as Al. I loved the introduction of Stockwell as Al especially his Tux.