Sam leaps into a young man waking up on the beach who suddenly encounters a woman with whom he begins making love. Next thing we know, a knock on a door jolts him awake to find himself as a Navy ensign in his room, meeting his defense lawyer as he has just been charged with raping and murdering the wife of his commanding officer.
He is supposed to tell the lawyer all about what happened that night, but of course he cannot say nothing and has no knowledge of what happened. He is saved by a Navy buddy named Chip and he gets to delay talking to the lawyer. He learns a bit more about his new character, known by his nickname, Bingo. He gets to talk to a nurse named Lisa, who was having sex with him at a motel at the time of the murder. Problem is, she's married. Sam tells her not to tell his lawyer anything.
When he is finally alone hours later, Al appears. Sam is upset that it took him this long to get there. He tells Al about Bingo, saying, "This guy has as many girls as you do." Al smiles and reveals, "He is me." That is, Sam has leaped into the life of the young Al. Al spent some time with the other Al, fascinated by this rare opportunity. As he is talking to Sam, Al suddenly thinks about the date Sam leaped into, yells, "Center me on Lisa now!" and we see a brief scene where Lisa is driving in a car and gets into a fiery crash that kills her.
Devastated that he didn't get a chance to save her, Al goes back to Sam and reports what happened. He is unconcerned about himself, knowing that in his young life, Lisa told about what happened and charges were never filed against him. But now everything has changed. Because Sam instinctively told the young woman not to tell, she didn't, and now she can't. So now it appears quite likely that Al will be charged, convicted, and executed.
We progress to where Sam is suddenly talking to someone named Edward, who is his observer, because Al never got to meet Sam in the revised history. Sam has to deal with his C.O. telling him personally that he witnessed him raping his wife on the beach and knows it was him. The twisted sex lives of the couple are detailed to explain why he didn't immediately try to stop him. The officer later testifies at a hearing that he is positive it was Ensign Calavicci who committed this crime.
The defense seems to be that the C.O. is not lying, but simply mistaken as to who it was with her on the beach. A telltale clue is found in Al's Corvette that indeed leads to an ending somewhat different than expected.
This episode does something new with the Quantum Leap project. They are able to send young Al back in time to shortly before the death of the officer's wife, with one instruction that will prevent this from happening. This works as planned and they are able to change history back, righting what went wrong both originally, and what happened shortly after Sam leaped into Al.
This episode to me had some really good things and some not-so-good things. The really good included Al getting to talk to himself and the unique solution to be able to right the wrong. The notion of another project observer, complete with other changes such as the name of their computer and other things mentioned from the project.
We did spend a good part of the time wondering if young Al really did commit this crime, and learning that he was only having sex with a married woman is not a happy alternative. Once we got a handle on that, and heard the C.O. tell him that he saw Bingo raped and kill his wife, it seemed obvious that he believes this true-he was telling him this in private. So it must be mistaken identity and that gave us one possible suspect once we heard his full story.
Sam was under guard in his little room on the base most of the time and had almost no chance to do much of anything other than talk to people who came to see him. There have been other episodes where he had little chance to do much to change things.
Most of the episode, it seems Lisa died because Sam didn't know what happened to her until after she was killed. But the title-which appeared as always near the beginning, A Leap for Lisa truly gave away that fact that somehow things were going to work in her favor, thus spoiling the surprise of the second leap that prevents her death. We didn't know how, but we knew something similar had to happen to correct this error in timing. I expected Sam to be able to leap back again a day or two, this time knowing what happened and this time NOT changing things for the worse.
The good parts would give this episode a 10, but the bad parts no more than 4. It thus gets a 7 from me, even though it was anything but an ordinary episode, which is basically what a 7 means.
He is supposed to tell the lawyer all about what happened that night, but of course he cannot say nothing and has no knowledge of what happened. He is saved by a Navy buddy named Chip and he gets to delay talking to the lawyer. He learns a bit more about his new character, known by his nickname, Bingo. He gets to talk to a nurse named Lisa, who was having sex with him at a motel at the time of the murder. Problem is, she's married. Sam tells her not to tell his lawyer anything.
When he is finally alone hours later, Al appears. Sam is upset that it took him this long to get there. He tells Al about Bingo, saying, "This guy has as many girls as you do." Al smiles and reveals, "He is me." That is, Sam has leaped into the life of the young Al. Al spent some time with the other Al, fascinated by this rare opportunity. As he is talking to Sam, Al suddenly thinks about the date Sam leaped into, yells, "Center me on Lisa now!" and we see a brief scene where Lisa is driving in a car and gets into a fiery crash that kills her.
Devastated that he didn't get a chance to save her, Al goes back to Sam and reports what happened. He is unconcerned about himself, knowing that in his young life, Lisa told about what happened and charges were never filed against him. But now everything has changed. Because Sam instinctively told the young woman not to tell, she didn't, and now she can't. So now it appears quite likely that Al will be charged, convicted, and executed.
We progress to where Sam is suddenly talking to someone named Edward, who is his observer, because Al never got to meet Sam in the revised history. Sam has to deal with his C.O. telling him personally that he witnessed him raping his wife on the beach and knows it was him. The twisted sex lives of the couple are detailed to explain why he didn't immediately try to stop him. The officer later testifies at a hearing that he is positive it was Ensign Calavicci who committed this crime.
The defense seems to be that the C.O. is not lying, but simply mistaken as to who it was with her on the beach. A telltale clue is found in Al's Corvette that indeed leads to an ending somewhat different than expected.
This episode does something new with the Quantum Leap project. They are able to send young Al back in time to shortly before the death of the officer's wife, with one instruction that will prevent this from happening. This works as planned and they are able to change history back, righting what went wrong both originally, and what happened shortly after Sam leaped into Al.
This episode to me had some really good things and some not-so-good things. The really good included Al getting to talk to himself and the unique solution to be able to right the wrong. The notion of another project observer, complete with other changes such as the name of their computer and other things mentioned from the project.
We did spend a good part of the time wondering if young Al really did commit this crime, and learning that he was only having sex with a married woman is not a happy alternative. Once we got a handle on that, and heard the C.O. tell him that he saw Bingo raped and kill his wife, it seemed obvious that he believes this true-he was telling him this in private. So it must be mistaken identity and that gave us one possible suspect once we heard his full story.
Sam was under guard in his little room on the base most of the time and had almost no chance to do much of anything other than talk to people who came to see him. There have been other episodes where he had little chance to do much to change things.
Most of the episode, it seems Lisa died because Sam didn't know what happened to her until after she was killed. But the title-which appeared as always near the beginning, A Leap for Lisa truly gave away that fact that somehow things were going to work in her favor, thus spoiling the surprise of the second leap that prevents her death. We didn't know how, but we knew something similar had to happen to correct this error in timing. I expected Sam to be able to leap back again a day or two, this time knowing what happened and this time NOT changing things for the worse.
The good parts would give this episode a 10, but the bad parts no more than 4. It thus gets a 7 from me, even though it was anything but an ordinary episode, which is basically what a 7 means.
