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douxreviews · 5 years

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Quantum Leap - Season Five Review

It had been awhile since I watched season five, and some of it was better than I remembered. Unfortunately, some of it was worse.

Celebrity leaps

The Kennedy assassination? What were they thinking? ("Lee Harvey Oswald," 5.1 and 5.2.)

Quantum Leap always played with celebrity encounters as cute little supplemental by-the-ways and isn't-this-fun, like Buddy Holly and Michael Jackson, and honestly, I totally understand their desire to try something new, to do a high concept two-part episode. But "Lee Harvey Oswald" was terrible, uncharacteristically grim and unforgivably dull. Quantum Leap is a science fiction adventure show with a great deal of humor and charm. It is not a documentary.

Not to mention that Quantum Leap's raison d'etre is to fix "what once went wrong." How on earth could they possibly fix the Kennedy assassination without changing a massive event in American history? Having Sam save Jackie Kennedy, who died in the original history, was an interesting twist, but it was also a cop-out. Especially when you consider what Jackie did with her life after Jack Kennedy's untimely death. (No judgment there, honestly. I'm just saying.)

It also felt wrong to see Sam so affected and influenced by the person he leaped into that he couldn't change anything, and it's telling that this was the only way they could make the script work. We all know that if Sam had been himself, he would have found some way to stop the assassination. I understand from the internet that Donald Bellisario believed that Oswald acted alone and that it was the point he was trying to get across. And I will respond by saying that a show like Quantum Leap was not the place to do it.

"Goodbye, Norma Jean" (5.18) didn't work either, despite a good performance by Susan Griffiths as Marilyn and some enjoyable faux cameos by actors playing Clark Gable, John Huston and Peter Lawford. The big question for me again was, why? What did Sam put right that once went wrong? Supposedly, Marilyn needed to live a little bit longer and do one last film, and if The Misfits had been one of the greats, I would get it, but honestly, it's not a great film. If they had to do Marilyn, wouldn't it have been great if Sam had kept her from committing suicide earlier in her life?

The other two celebrity leaps this season were outright fun, though, and those did work.

I loved Scott Bakula doing an actual impression of "Dr. Ruth" (5.14) in an episode that featured the real Dr. Ruth Westheimer. While the double entendres were uncomfortably thick on the ground, it was pretty much the perfect celebrity leap to illustrate the differences between the reserved and prudish Sam, who had a terrible time doing a radio show about sex, and Al, who didn't hesitate to avail himself of free sex therapy in the Waiting Room with Dr. Ruth herself. We also got a timely reminder that Al has been married five times, and that he still loves his first wife, Beth.

I also enjoyed "Memphis Melody" (5.21) where Sam leaped into a young Elvis Presley. It was so much better than Lee Harvey Oswald and Marilyn Monroe because it wasn't depressing, and Scott Bakula got to sing as Elvis. Very nice. Especially his version of "Amazing Grace." (Which is not what they're singing in the photo below.)

Movie tributes

One of Quantum Leap's constant go-tos was movie tributes and/or ripoffs. In "Leaping of the Shrew" (5.3), Quantum Leap did The Blue Lagoon, and they even got Brooke Shields to guest star. You'd think that wouldn't work, but it was actually pretty darned cute. They also did Coming Home in "Nowhere to Run" (5.4), and it even guest starred an adorable pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston. But honestly, the way they got around Sam walking around while he was supposed to missing his legs was pretty darned weird.

Points for trying

I liked the idea behind "Trilogy" (5.8, 5.9 and 5.10), an interesting twist in the formula where Sam leaped into three different people while trying to save the same person, Abagail Fuller. It was almost like they finally addressed the "what happened to the person Sam saved later on" question. But the story acquired a mildly incestuous feel when Sam went from being Abagail's father figure in part one to her fiance in part two. And the idea of Sam fathering a child while not in his own body was interesting, but also weird. Although I did like the idea of Sam's brilliant daughter Sammy Jo helping out at the Quantum Leap project. Were they thinking about casting her as a permanent character? That could have been fun.

I also liked "Killin' Time" (5.5), where Sam leaped into a serial killer and had to explain the truth about the Quantum Leap project to his hostages. The best part about it was that there was actually action at the project in alternate universe 1999 as the killer escaped and Al took off after him, while Gooshie had to replace Al in the imaging chamber. I'll admit that the face paint, neon decoration and strange computer stuff didn't work, mostly because we all know now that 1999 didn't look like that. Maybe I should have taken that to mean that all of Quantum Leap happened in an alternate universe?

I wasn't as crazy about "The Leap Between the States" (5.20), the first and only time that Sam leaped out of his own lifetime, inhabiting his great-grandfather and romancing his great-grandmother back in 1862. It might have been a little better if they'd managed to resist white savior syndrome.

"Promised Land" (5.11) was a nice idea in theory, popping Sam back to his own home town with people he grew up with. Maybe a little hokey, but at least he got to see his late father one last time. But couldn't we have spent time with Sam's family again instead of getting stuck in a bank for the entire episode?

No points for trying

And then we had the evil leaper. (5.7 "Deliver Us From Evil," 5.16 "Return of the Evil Leaper," 5.17 "Revenge of the Evil Leaper")

Okay. I can see where the writers would have hit on the idea of an evil counterpart to Sam, but I thought it made absolutely no sense and was in fact never explained. Was Satan carrying on a Quantum Leap project of his own to put wrong what once went right? Although it was nice to see the characters from season two's "Jimmy" again and the carrying on in the women's prison was sort of fun, it just didn't work for me. Plus Alia's existence made Sam non-unique, which is something you don't want to do with your lead. The evil leaper concept didn't deserve to take up three full episodes of their final season.

The series finale

I hadn't seen "Mirror Image" (5.22), the final episode of Quantum Leap, since it aired, and was really looking forward to it because I remembered how choked up I was by that last scene with Beth and that final card about what ultimately happened to Sam. Unfortunately, I am sad to report that I found the rest of "Mirror Image" to be sub-par.

Sam arrived in a barroom at the moment he was born, and for the first time, when he looked into a mirror, he saw himself. That was actually a powerful scene, and it was touching that his hair had started to become gray. There were many scenes in the barroom in the coal mining town of Cokesburg that included actors from previous episodes playing other characters. I'm sure they were going for some sort of huge metaphorical what's-is with the mine collapse, but I just didn't get it.

I also thought it was sad that, even though the resolution of the series was all about Al Calavicci, we saw too little of him in the finale. Instead, we got Bruce McGill as the enigmatic Al the bartender, who kept giving Sam clues about what's going on. Was this new Al supposed to represent the God who had sent Sam on this strange journey? I suppose so.

We also learned that it was always Sam's unconscious choice to keep leaping, that his leaps would become more difficult, and at this point, Sam could choose to go home. The fact that Sam chose instead to leap back to the end of "M.I.A." and change Al's life forever was by far the best part of this mishmosh of an episode. Sam's ultimate choice was a selfless expression of love for his closest friend. It was also a radical, series-changing choice, breaking all of the rules we've come to accept as governing Sam's leaps. It was emotionally satisfying, though. So like Sam to give such a huge gift to someone else instead of taking advantage of his one last opportunity to go home. Tragic.

That last title card, "Dr. Sam Becket never returned home," really got to me way back when it first aired in May of 1993. This time, when I saw it, the one big thing that struck me was that in their rush to close down their series, they spelled their lead character's name wrong. (It's "Beckett," with two T's.) Maybe they made that mistake because "Mirror Image" wasn't supposed to be the series finale and they were forced to tack on an ending.

While that last scene with Beth, and its implications, were a worthy end to the series, and I loved the idea of Al happily married to the love of his life, the thought of a sad and exhausted Sam choosing to continue leaping forever was emotionally wrenching. In a way, it also negated everything that happened in the entire series. The Al Calavicci that helped Sam on every step of his journey is no longer the same Al Calavicci. I guess I need to remind myself that I must never try to apply logic to time travel stories.

Bits and pieces:

-- The credits for season five featured a new arrangement of the original theme song. It was terrible. Awful. Blech.

-- Notable actors: Neil Patrick Harris, age twenty, in "Return of the Evil Leaper," Stephen Root in "Goodbye Norma Jean," Hinton Battle from the Buffy musical in "Revenge of the Evil Leaper," and Meg Foster of the amazing eyes in "Trilogy."

-- Bruce McGill, who played Al in the series finale "Mirror Image," was also in "Genesis," the pilot episode. That was a nice touch, since I assume it was deliberate.

-- I hadn't known this until I looked it up, but Susan Griffiths ("Goodbye, Norma Jean") has made a career out of playing Marilyn Monroe. And Michael St. Gerard, "Memphis Melody," played Elvis several other times as well.

-- Just a general observation: when I was finished my rewatch, I figured out what years Sam leaped into the most, and which months of the year. There were very few winter leaps, which makes sense since they filmed in Los Angeles. It also makes sense that the writers would mostly choose the 1950s and 1960s because they could do more interesting period stuff. The year Sam leaped into the most was 1957 (seven times).

And in the end:

Despite this mostly negative closing review, I enjoyed rewatching Quantum Leap more than I thought I would. It was a creative series that aired at a time when there was very little quality science fiction on television, and the two lead characters and the actors who played them were exceptional. There's also no question that Quantum Leap is showing its age a bit sooner than it probably should.

There are a lot of series revivals going on right now. What would a reboot of Quantum Leap be like? I bet that in today's "it's all about the arc" environment, they could go in some truly interesting directions.

What do you guys think?

Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

#Quantum Leap #Sam Beckett #Al Calavicci #Scott Bakula #Dean Stockwell #Quantum Leap Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews #something from the archive

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adambstingus · 5 years

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5 BS Celebrity Stories We Need To Stop Clicking On

We are currently drowning in a sea of entertainment news. For every one event in Hollywood, there are 500 articles written about it. This means that in order to get hits, some websites find themselves bending the truth eeeeeever so slightly. Or in the case of headlines like these, they take the truth, put it in a paper bag, and light it on fire on your doorstep for you to stomp out.

Your Favorite Star Just Teased Their Next Big Movie! Or Not!

Before the internet, you mostly found out that a new movie was going to be released when you saw a trailer which confirmed that yes, Batman would be returning. Now, you can learn such information years in advance, due to headlines screaming that the star or director has proclaimed a movie is “in the works,” or something to that effect. Then, two years later, you’re like, “Wait, wasn’t that thing supposed to be out by now?” That’s because those headlines are usually manufactured bullshit.

For example, while I was writing this, Rotten Tomatoes said the biggest story of the week was Steven Spielberg revealing that after Harrison Ford goes scowling into retirement, the next Indiana Jones would be played by a woman:

Stuff

Complex

CNN

But Spielberg didn’t really say that at all. He said the upcoming Indiana Jones film would be the last for Harrison Ford, so the series could only continue in a different form (i.e. as a reboot). A tabloid straight up asked him about going with a female lead, and he said that there was nothing wrong with it and joked, “We’d have to change the name from Jones to Joan,” revealing that, while he is a master filmmaker, he is first and foremost a dad.

Throw in the fact that Spielberg doesn’t own the rights to Indiana Jones (Disney will decide where the franchise goes next), and you realize that asking about anything beyond his personal involvement is futile. But interviewers do this all the time. They give a leading question about a film, get a vague “sure,” then run with the scoop. For example, interviewers have been asking Scarlett Johansson about a solo Black Widow movie for years, resulting in headlines like …

Polygon

… which is misleading, because there is no “Black Widow movie” set in stone yet. Or they’ll ask Marvel captain Kevin Feige, leading to the headline …

Empire Online

… even though an exec saying they’re “creatively and emotionally … most committing to” Black Widow but not actually putting it on their three-year schedule is the exact opposite of a commitment. It’s like when your parents said “We’ll see” when you asked them to buy you a drum kit.

No matter what project it is, whether it’s a TV show or a movie or a stick figure flipbook of a boy hitting a can with a stick, you’ll find the same bullshit. Asked about a Family Guy movie, a producer said, “There are no specific plans,” but also, “if I were a gambling man, I’d say within the next five years,” and joked that he was putting money on that. Thus, headlines read:

Independent

This is a pattern you’ll see throughout this article — celebrities will say vague shit off the cuff, and journalists will dig through it for a headline. In fact, it’s pretty hard to find an actual article about an interview that feels honest. One of the few that I found concerned Daniel Craig, who, when asked about playing James Bond after Spectre, said, “I’d rather break this glass and slash my wrists.”

The 25th James Bond film stars Daniel Craig and hits theaters next year.

A Celebrity Admitted That They HATE Their New Film! But Not Really!

When an actor hates life on set or hates their famous role, that makes for a hell of a story. But you’re probably only going to hear it years later, because no actor wants a reputation for sabotage. So every time you see a headline about an actor badmouthing their movie, there’s a good chance that they … didn’t badmouth anything. For example, apparently, the lead actress in the new Tomb Raider began literally taking a dump on a film reel when asked about her experience playing Lara Croft.

Bounding Into Comics

Wow, Alicia Vikander trashes Tomb Raider? Let’s see this clip, in which she says … the previous movies were good, hers is also good, the video game’s realism was good, a sequel might be good, and, in the last 15 seconds, she agrees with the interviewer that it’s weird that the film has so few women in it. Huh. She didn’t trash anything.

OK, well then how about when Jennifer Lawrence spontaneously burst into flame when asked about playing Mystique one more time:

Refinery29

Lawrence’s first quote in the article is “I love these movies.” She then says that she loves the director, and loves fans, and that Dark Phoenix is her best experience yet. So what does she hate? “The paint.” Getting into costume is difficult. You might notice that this isn’t bashing the film. Very few people like to be doused in paint and latex for 16 hours a day. Most people don’t like wearing pants for 16 hours a day. So it’s not unreasonable, and it sure as hell doesn’t mean that she “hates being in X-Men,” as the headline proclaims.

OK, fine. So it seems like a lot of these sites are blowing minor things out of proportion. But how about the time that Batman v Superman was so boring that it caused Michael Shannon to slip into a coma?

First off, Shannon wasn’t in Batman v Superman. They used a rubber model of him. He was never on set, and though he recorded a few lines, they weren’t used. Also, he fell asleep while watching it on the tiny screen on an airplane, because it was an international flight and he was tuckered.

But what about actors who hate their characters? That’s got to be something that happens in real life. Actors who find the characters they play to be so morally reprehensible that they have to shout it out loud. Actors like Jamie Dornan, the guy who portrayed Christian Grey, who was apparently doing something to the extent of burning copies of Fifty Shades Of Grey on set.

The Loop

Nope, he only says that Christian’s “not the sort of bloke I’d get along with. All my mates are easy going and quick to laugh.” And who would want to hang out with the characters they portray? Jack Nicholson doesn’t sit around waiting for homicidal clowns to buy him a beer, and Dornan probably won’t be chilling with any sociopathic billionaires in the near future.

This Celebrity Is Fed Up With Political Correctness! Maybe?

Hollywood is known as a bastion of liberalism, but if you believe clickbaity headlines, aging actors with no stake in the matter are calling press conferences to loudly tell they world that they’re not going to take it anymore. You tell ’em, boys!

Express

AOL

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Almost always, a site is reprinting one extract from a much longer interview some other outlet did on a bunch of topics, such as John Hurt’s terminal cancer diagnosis, or Eastwood doing family friendly films against his lawyer’s advice. “70/80-year-old thinks younger people are different” may be the least interesting part of the interview, but it’s the only part the sites highlight, so they can scratch a specific itch. I’d love to tell you the movie stuff John Rhys-Davies told Adam Corolla or Mel Brooks told BBC, but the full recordings are gone, and all we have left is:

Hollywood Reporter

DailyWire

But that’s all old news. Here’s the latest on Seinfeld and Alec Baldwin literally calling the #MeToo movement shit!

Page Six

Famous News

Must Haves

By “bowel movement,” Seinfeld meant we’re expelling something we must be rid of — the harassers are the shit in this metaphor. It’s a #MeToo endorsement. The story could really have been just about smarmy Baldwin being an ass (watch Seinfeld alternate between agreeable and then dying inside, realizing he must tactfully fight Baldwin on this), but the twist here is that Baldwin was the interviewer. He was luring Seinfeld into making their conversation controversial. Jerry didn’t take the bait. The media did.

When Matt Damon was interviewed about #MeToo, one line got quoted again and again. “There’s a difference between, you know, patting someone on the butt and rape or child molestation, right?”

Huffington Post

Boston

Out of context, it comes off like his entire cause is to defend butt pats, proclaiming it loudly and defiantly with a sword and shield in front of the Damon family crest. But Damon was talking about an actual person who’d touched butts and an actual person who’d molested children, saying there’s literally a difference (one so obvious, you might call it self-evident) — but noted that both acts “need to be confronted and eradicated without question.” He also said a bunch of other pro-#MeToo stuff, and then a really interesting bit on NDAs.

But the headline’s going to be whichever part grabs the most outrage. If manufacturing disagreement and drumming up hatred is what it takes to pay the bills, then that’s what they do.

Holy Shit, The Star Was Injured On Set! Or Maybe They’re Just Joking!

Acting can be physically challenging. And like any activity that requires movement, you can get injured while you do it. SERIOUSLY injured. Like Jennifer Lawrence in Mother! levels of injured:

Indiewire

LADBible

Indy100

Given that rib dislocation isn’t a real thing, I wondered whether this was a joke (specifically a reference to the movie, in which Ed Harris loses a rib). Or they might have meant some other rib injury, and Lawrence also supposedly tore her diaphragm. Diaphragm rupture is a real injury … one usually caused by stabbing, gunshots, or car accidents. If someone ruptures their diaphragm and hurts a rib by “hyperventilating,” that would be an extreme medical oddity, not a cute anecdote about how method J-Law is.

But no one apparently cares enough to clarify. Also, “breathing so hard she ripped herself open” is apparently a whole genre of on-set accident:

Express

US Magazine

A ripped stomach muscle is generally not caused by yelling a bunch. Was Theron even being serious? It’s reported seriously, but in the interview, everyone’s laughing throughout. She gave the stomach story in another interview too, and the interviewer immediately changed the subject to her wardrobe.

And wait till you hear about poor, afflicted Gary Oldman:

Screenrant

NME

Independent

He did say that. But actual nicotine poisoning is a big deal — as in phone poison control, because it can be fatal. And it’s caused by swallowing a lot of nicotine at once, not by smoking for several weeks. Maybe Oldman only meant “I went through a whole LOT of cigars”? That’s not dramatic enough. Gotta hint that the toxic cigars have brought him one step closer to the grave.

I’m not calling these celebrities filthy liars. Maybe something crazy did happen to them, or maybe they’re indulging in a little hyperbole to liven up some interviews. And that’s fine, as this is the film junket and not 60 Minutes. But unexplained anecdotes shouldn’t end up as headlines, not without additional reporting.

So when Jonah Hill talks for 25 seconds about being hospitalized for bronchitis due to snorting Wolf Of Wall Street‘s fake coke, maybe 800 sites don’t have to share that in a headline. Not until someone asks, “When you first said this a couple years ago, you didn’t mention hospitalization and weren’t so sure it was bronchitis, and also, bronchitis doesn’t lead to hospitalization, unless you’re like 90 years old. So what I’m asking is this, Mr. Hill: Are you secretly 90 years old?”

A Celebrity Confirmed Your Favorite Fan Theory! If You Twist Their Words A Bit!

Fan theories are so prevalent now that they’re getting back to the actors involved. For instance, someone sat Neil Patrick Harris down and asked about the popular fan theory that How I Met Your Mother‘s Barney wasn’t really a womanizing jerk — we just see him that way because unreliable narrator Ted wants his kids to hate Barney so they’ll prefer that Robin be with Ted. Harris said that the theory made a lot of sense. So we were all treated to headlines saying:

Pretty 52

Digital Spy

The Sun

But Harris didn’t confirm anything. He didn’t offer insider info about what the writers intended, or about how he played the character. Nor did J.K. Rowling when she said a convoluted fan theory about Dumbledore being the physical embodiment of Death is “beautiful and it fits,” yet headlines reported that she too had “confirmed” a huge fan theory. And nor did the Jar Jar Binks actor when headlines said he released a “Bombshell” about Jar Jar being a Sith Lord. (He said, “That’s really a George Lucas question. I cannot answer that question.”) At this point, it seems like literally any combination of words would have been interpreted as a confirmation.

The reality is that celebrities will almost always cheerfully nod along with a fan theory if it’s interesting enough. They’ll even jokingly accept balls-out absurd theories, and don’t count on websites spinning their amusement into truth bombs. So no, no one on iCarly seriously confirmed their character is half-bee (but headlines say they did). Tom Holland didn’t confirm that he keeps a frog in his mouth (but headlines say he did). And Steve from Stranger Things is probably not the father of Jean Ralphio from Parks And Rec, despite the headlines that screamed that the genealogy lined up.

Headlines about fan theories are next-level bullshit because they’re lies about fiction. And besides, the coolest fan theories are so weird and so involved that they’ll probably never be confirmed. Let’s say your theory connects all the Pixar movies, and it later becomes the most famous theory of our age. Don’t wait for Disney to “confirm” it. If you like the theory, believe it, and to hell with anyone who says you’re wrong. To return to Star Wars again, Mark Hamill said of a fan theory, “I’d say it is meant to be interpreted by the viewer … You should not be ashamed of it.”

Vanity Fair‘s headline about that interview with Hamill:

Vanity Fair

CONFIRMED! THANKS, MARK!

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For more dumb news that shouldn’t be news, check out 5 Stupid Things We Need To Stop Clicking On and 6 News Stories Everybody Needs To Stop Sharing On Facebook.

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from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/5-bs-celebrity-stories-we-need-to-stop-clicking-on/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/182618263082

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allofbeercom · 5 years

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5 BS Celebrity Stories We Need To Stop Clicking On

Your Favorite Star Just Teased Their Next Big Movie! Or Not!

Stuff

Complex

CNN

Polygon

… which is misleading, because there is no “Black Widow movie” set in stone yet. Or they’ll ask Marvel captain Kevin Feige, leading to the headline …

Empire Online

Independent

The 25th James Bond film stars Daniel Craig and hits theaters next year.

A Celebrity Admitted That They HATE Their New Film! But Not Really!

Bounding Into Comics

OK, well then how about when Jennifer Lawrence spontaneously burst into flame when asked about playing Mystique one more time:

Refinery29

The Loop

This Celebrity Is Fed Up With Political Correctness! Maybe?

Express

AOL