Quantum Leap Season 2 Episode 1 Review: This took too long

“This took too long” is the first episode of the 2nd season of Quantum Leap. Ben is stranded in Russia but no one from the team supports him. It is revealed at the end that Quantum Leap has been disbanded.

The plane crashed in Russia

In “This took too long” Ben leaps into a new body about to crash land in some god-forsaken part of Russia. He is with a strike force who are branded criminals in the USA. While they are figuring out what to do after the plane crash-landed in Russia sometime in 1978, they notice a box.

Quantum Leap S2:E01 Review "This took too long"

The box is closed and no one knows what is in there. All of the members of the strike force except for the woman named Ellen Grier.

Out of all of them, she has the biggest sense of duty to her country. The others are caught for several crimes and have lost their sense of duty. But not Ellen. She wants to set up camp in order to protect the box and the others join her.

The team is expendable

When a few Russian scouts come by to inspect the crash site the team ties them up after a brawl. Ben inspects the box by opening it. It turns out that it is filled with just bricks. It turns out the team was just a decoy for the actual cargo. And it makes sense, they are criminals and thus, according to the government, are all expendable.

While they flee Russia they encounter a minefield and they try to get out by moving weight in bags. The mine is taken with them for whatever purpose.

The team sees a satellite dish on the way to the border since no one is coming to pick them up anyway. And the dish is scanning for more planes and below that are rocket installations to take down any hostile planes in the area.

The rocket could hurt people or hurt precious cargo so the team gets together like the A-Team and uses the mine and install it in front of the truck they stole from the Russian scouts. The dish blows up and the rocket returns to the sender because it is reprogrammed to be a heat-seeking missile.

“This took too long” reveals Quantum Leap has ended

Before Ben leaps, he gets a holo-comm message from Ian. Ben asks where Team Quantum Leap was to back him up during the leap. Ian tells him that the Quantum Leap project has shut down and that he only came by to see what is happening.

Apparently, it has been 3 years since the season 1 finale. Everyone thought Ben was dead and without Ben, there was no reason to continue.

Quantum Leap season 2 episode 1 This took too long

My thoughts on “This took Too Long”

While I liked about “This took too long”and the guest stars like PJ Byrne and Melissa Roxburgh, I found the entire plotline without a year or date very un-Quantum Leap-like. But then again it made sense as well because without Team Quantum Leap on the comms, there is no way of pinpointing the year and date of when the episode took place.

A good thing about the episode is the show has started to have Ben remember his past. In the first season, they started that little plotline. First by remembering Addison and later in the first season Ben has had interactions with Ian, Jenn, and Magic.

I think it will be a season arc with Ben remembering more and more about his life, including maybe the way home.

What I also like is that without Team Quantum Leap, Ben has to be more resourceful and make the best of the situation. Don’t get me wrong, I love the interactions with Team Quantum Leap but sometimes it is too easy to have Ziggy do the calculations and Ben following up on that. Now, Ben is all by himself and whatever comes his way, he will have to solve it.

Also, Ben won’t know what the mission is or what he is doing when he is in someone else’s body. This makes it even more exciting because you won’t know the outcome of the mission and you can only rely on yourself. So this would mean we get to see other sides of Ben.

The more intelligent side I hope. If anything “This took too long” made clear that last season it was all about Ben’s empathy with a little bit of his science. Now he’ll have no other choice, I suppose and I am really looking forward to it.

The big elephant in the room in “This Took Too Long” is of course: What happened to the Quantum Leap project? Where are the members? What does their life look like nowadays? Has Addison given up on finding Ben and moved on? Did Magic go back to working for the government?

How about Jen, is she back to doing secret agent stuff? And Ian, I guess is still lingering on the last straw of hope, given the fact that he is the only one who shows up.

We can only find out by watching the show.

Quantum Leap Season 2 Episode Reviews

Quantum Leap Season 2 Episode 2 Review: Ben and Teller

In Quantum Leap 2x01 Review, titled "Ben & Teller", Ben lept into the body of a woman named Lorena Chavez in her 70s who works at a bank and is eagerly awaiting the birth of her grandchild. Quantum Leap ep 2 changes character dynamics back in the present day for Team Quantum Leap.