Quantum Leap

I was hopeful that if they stuck to the original premise they could pull a half decent story together. It just lacked any sort of soul long gone are the days of acting that actually persuade you of something. Only after seeing this do you appreciate how good Stockwell and Bakula were, almost no good effects available but still managed to persuade the audience of what they were seeing. And for some reason they have a man dressed as a woman working at the project?! It's the sam formulaic nonsense we see in every US show now. Take a bunch of young pretty things and give them terrible dialogue, the worst security expert who somehow ended up on a government project to support staff who look like they've fallen out of a nightclub and into a secret government installation.

I watched the first two episodes (the second one only because Beth Calavicci was in it) and to say I'm underwhelmed by it is an understatement and I think I understand why Scott Bakula doesn't want anything to do with it.

They removed everything about the original series from it to make it into a series without substance. They barely give you any reason to care about Ben & no reason to care about the people he's helping. The original series did that. You grew to care about the people that Sam was helping in the episode & not just Sam himself. Instead they decided that they needed to make it into a flat action adventure series. There's also way too much split focus, going between Ben trying to help people back to the project isn't needed. This is a case where telling the viewers that the team was working on trying to fix the problems with Ziggy & figuring out a way to get Sam back was better than showing us what they're doing in the present to get Ben back. What is the point of making the team suspicious of Ben & his motivations? Why did they think they needed a mystery about Al's daughter?

If you want a good time traveling TV series with good storytelling, watch the original. If you want a forgettable action adventure series with an element of time travel watch this I guess.

Sam Beckett, Al Calavicci, and technically Ziggy, an artificial intelligence accessed by a glitchy gizmo that seemed to cough whenever Al slapped it. Those were the only characters present for every episode of "Quantum Leap" from 1989 - 1993. The rapport between the two leads and a variety of sympathetic stories broached many serious subjects with a light touch, making this one of my favorite shows of all time.

The new series continues this story nearly 30 years later. Dr. Ben Song steps into an updated Quantum Leap chamber and leaps into another person's life "to put right what once went wrong." This time, the holographic guide is his fiancee, Addison, which provides an interesting wrinkle when Ben's leaps induce amnesia (known to Sam as the "Swiss cheese effect"). However, this rendition of the series introduces a flurry of supporting characters, which so far appears both a blessing and a curse. Their diversity of gender, race, and sexuality is a refreshing change, but their quantity and extensive storylines complicated the first episode and kept the actors from building depth and chemistry. Instead, the writers too often imbued scenes with a heavy-handed and overly serious intensity without humanizing the characters with lighter quirks to make them more relatable. That said, one character, a programmer named Ian, already had a bit more flair, and more nuanced development may evolve in future episodes.

I'd only rate this a 5 or less if not for its skillfully brief allusions to characters from the original Quantum Leap project (unlike other more overbearing reboots), including a cathartic nod to the messy cliffhanger ending to the earlier series. Hopefully, NBC will provide this show and its characters time for growth. A few slaps seemed to fix Al's gizmo, and maybe this program's glitches will similarly improve over the next few episodes.

Opening party scene is one of the worst group acting scenes I have ever seen. Some people can do casual funny. None of these actors can. Then way too much exposition. This is a terrible series and an insult the original. I suspect it might get better... actually I'm watching the episode as I write this and the plot holes and bad patches etc is just terrible. Why do they have writers and directors that want to make "cool" movies/shows who have no original ideas. Please stop and go into finance or something. Just go away and leave the creative to the creatives. This is a bad show and even the day players are terrible. Boo.

People are already crucifixion the show based on one episode. First of people keep using the term remake. This is not a remake. It's a continuation from the original show based 30 years later. One reviewer said that we got to learn a little about Scott's character in each episode with the original but in this one we learned everything in the first episode. I don't know what they watched but I don't know crap about Ben except he rewrote the code and has a fiance and is a physicist. People being to cynical based off of 44 minute first episode. I thought the story was good considering it's only been 1 episode so far.