It’s Groundhog Day for Quantum Leap as Ben Song jumps into 5 bodies in one single episode. Leap, Die, Repeat!
Leap, Die, Repeat is the 11th episode of the first season of Quantum Leap. In this episode, Ben experiences the same day 5x as he leaps from body to body.
Quantum Leap goes full Groundhog Day
If you are familiar with the movie Groundhog Day then this week’s Quantum Leap episode should look really familiar to you. If not then I’ll give you a quick summary of Quantum Leap’s version of Groundhog Day.
Ben leaps into 5 separate bodies this week. And each and every one of them are trying to prevent the explosion of a nuclear reactor that is built for sustainable energy. A noble goal.
The special guest star of the week is Robert Picardo, known as the Emergency Medical Hologram from Star Trek: Voyager. I am a huge fan of the show and have watched all 7 seasons.
What are the people being Quantum Leaped into
When the nuclear reactor is started up for the big test, it explodes and everyone in it dies. And you guessed it: The reactor is sabotaged with a bomb and a remote trigger. But who did it? The trigger can only be used within the facility and not outside it. So it has to be one of the people who are in the room. And how can Team Quantum Leap be of help?
Doctor Edwin Woolsey, Nobel prize winner
Doctor Edwin Woolsey is getting ready for his big day. The nuclear reactor he built can recycle nuclear waste which makes it environmentally friendly and the doctor can receive many more accolades if he succeeds. He has already won a Nobel prize so this doctor is a celebrated man all over the world. Can he pull it off?
Colonel Parker, the dutiful
Then there is the army man, Colonel Parker and that’s also the first body Ben leaps into. The man carries around an unopened letter. At first, I thought the envelope carries a letter from a loved one. But less is true. The Colonel is carrying around a letter with a death threat that says: Stop the project or I will. Sounds life-threatening enough to me.
Mallory, the reporter
Could it be the young ambitious reporter, Mallory, who is doing a report on the launch? But she has an ulterior motive: She and her sister had family members in a nuclear disaster and wants to expose the Doctor because she had secret information given to her that the doctor is going to weaponize his invention. But is she the one who stops it?
Eugene, the assistant
Eugene is Woolsey’s biggest fanboy and he tells Ben that he once met Woolsey at an event he attended with his mother and he told his mother that he would one day work for Doctor Woolsey. And there he is. Eugene is funny and a total nerd. During the 5 times Ben leaps, his pen never works. Could the pen be something else?
Moe Murphy, the cleaner
And then there is the cleaner who cleans a soda can every leap. Until Ben leaps into him and tries to prevent to bomb from exploding. He is a big fan of Woolsey and Eugene. He is an aspiring writer and Quantum Leap changed his life. He will write a book about the events that occurred because of Ben.
Team Quantum Leap cries when Ben dies
This week’s leaps last around 5 to 1`0 minutes each. Ben is on a timer and has little time to prevent the nuclear reactor from exploding so he has to act fast and at the same time handle it with great care because it does involve a nuclear explosion.
There are a total of 5 leaps and every time Ben jumps into a new body and tries to stop the nuclear explosion from happening.
The first jump is the most significant because this is the most emotional one. The other 4 leaps Team Quantum Leap and Ben have accepted the explosion as part of the mission.
The first jump has the nuclear reactor activated and working. But Ben, in the body of the colonel, sees an alert on the panel indicating something is wrong. And the nuclear reactor blows up and all the people in it die.
At that moment, Addison is at Quantum Leap HQ because she was looking for information on the people Ben lept into and the nuclear reactor explodes, all of Ben’s vital signs are dead as well on Ziggy’s monitor. Which can only mean one thing: Ben is dead!
At that moment, Addison falls down from shock and is caught by the members of the Quantum Leap team.
I have said it before and I will say it again, the actress who plays Addison, Caitlin Basset, is such an amazing actress. The way she falls down looked and felt just like it should: The love of your life is dead and all you can do is fall down and cry.
It was so believable that I almost cried and fell down because I could just feel the pain. I am hoping that someday she will get a big role in a drama movie or something because she sure has the acting chops for it.
Janis Calavicci saves the day
Team Quantum Leap still assumes that Ben is stuck in a time loop and needs the help of Janis Calavicci because she is an expert in time physics. Janis rejects them but after a little pressure from Team Quantum Leap she joins in anyway and the team vetoes Jennifer’s protest.
It’s a good move. Janis figures out that Ben isn’t stuck in an infinite loop but in a finite loop. As soon as there are no more people to leap into Ben will die. And this poses a dilemma.
Jennifer wants to reboot Ziggy to make sure Ben survives but Janis wants the leap to continue and have Ben solve it so he can jump to where he’s supposed to go: The big leap that he is currently gaining momentum for.
The team again vetoes Jennifer’s protest. It’s interesting because it basically means the team wants Janis to be with them rather than against them. At least it appears that way.
But it’s thanks to Janis’ efforts and analysis that Ben gets to save the day once more. What does this mean for the future of Team Quantum Leap? I am hoping that Janis will join the team full stop and will be able to help against the Quantum Reapers and more.
Apparently, she also has information on who asked Ben to leap in the first place. She tells Addison that she has a name for the person who pushed Ben and just when she’s about to tell, the episode cuts to the credits. So I guess we’ll have to wait until the next episode.
Who blew up the reactor
The question of whodunnit, who blew up the reactor was a tough one this week. And I got misdirected quite a few times. At first, I thought it was the journalist, Mallory. Because she has some sorta hatred towards the doctor because of another nuclear incident.
But it turns out it’s the person I least expected it to be: Eugene…Who would have thought? Certainly not me. The colonel was my second guess. Why? Because he’s the army. But the Colonel got death threats via mail and apparently, they came from Eugene.
In all of the leaps, Eugene carries a pen with him that has no ink. He keeps having to borrow the pen of the colonel. The pen he carries also works as a trigger that sets off the bomb. Which reminded me of the James Bond movie Goldeneye.
Eugene’s motives are that he read a memo where the army asked the doctor to weaponize his technology and the doctor said yes in order to get more funding.
Eugene thinks that blowing up the reactor will stop the army from developing the weapon but Ben steps in and tells him that it will not. In fact, the tech will be developed further and create many useful applications in the future, maybe even flying cars. Back to the Future’s Delorean anyone?
Final thoughts on Quantum Leap’s Leap, Die, Repeat episode
I love the episode. Not just because of the bombs that were dropped like Janis’s willingness to give up the name of the person who made Ben jump. But also Janis finally starting to become a part of Team Quantum Leap.
But the best part for me was the guest star Robert Picardo. I love his acting and I hope to see him in more shows or episodes of Quantum Leap. Other shows I’d love to see him in are the new Star Trek shows like Picard. He’d be a great fit.
I am happy to see that Quantum Leap continues down the path of human interest episodes. It gives the show its soul and I can only applaud that!
