When NBC announced that they were reviving Quantum Leap on Peacock, I have to be honest: I was very apprehensive. Even though it’s billed as a sequel series and not a hard reboot, these sorts of things seldom pan out.
However, the addition of Ernie Hudson as, presumably, the “new Al” gives me a bit more confidence in the direction that they’re going in. Hudson is playing Herbert “Magic” Williams, an older version of a character that Sam Beckett lept into in the 1980s series.
It would appear that this cements that this is definitely a sequel series, and that they’re going to have callbacks to the original show.
From Deadline…
Written and executive produced by Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt and executive produced by Martin Gero as well as Quantum Leap creator/EP Don Bellisario and EP/co-narrator Deborah Pratt, the follow-up series is set in present time. It’s been 30 years since Dr. Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. Now a new team has been assembled to restart the project in the hopes of understanding the mysteries behind the machine and the man who created it.
Lee plays the lead, Dr. Ben Seong, a world-renowned physicist working on a time-travel project known as Quantum Leap who gets stuck in the late 1980s with amnesia after using the technology.
Hudson portrays Herbert “Magic” Williams, a Vietnam veteran and head of the time travel project at Quantum Leap. Using a bit of politicking and his military know-how to keep the Pentagon at bay, Magic buys the team some time to rescue Ben but expects answers once he’s back.
Speaking of all things Ghostbusters: could this series be to Quantum Leap what Ghostbusters: Afterlife was to that franchise? A respectful “passing of the torch” that introduces new characters without destroying the legacy of what came before?
We can only hope that maybe Scott Bakula eventually turns up as Dr. Sam Beckett, and that the ill-conceived ending of the original series is undone.
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