Leaping to the future

Darlan

Project QL Intern
Jun 11, 2009
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Germany
Sam Beckett never leaped to the future.
Why?
He is able to leap forward and backwar in his own lifetime.

This brings me to the following guess:

He has no future, because he is leaping for the rest of his life.

What do you think?
 
Sam Beckett never leaped to the future.
Why?
He is able to leap forward and backwar in his own lifetime.

This brings me to the following guess:

He has no future, because he is leaping for the rest of his life.

What do you think?

Well, I think that is his future. He was destined to be leaping around in time for the rest of his life.

As for why he never leaped to the future, well, you got to remember the string theory. That's an actual theory in Quantum Physics. Bellisario gave it a fictional twist, of course. There's an episode where he leaps outside his own lifetime, but that's only because the leapee had the same DNA, I think (he was his grandfather). Leaping to the future would've broken all the rules from Quantum Physics, and the string theory would have ended up being a lie.
 
I think when "backwards and forwards" was explained, they meant that if Sam leaped into 1955, for example, he could then leap to 1964 (which would be forward from the point he was previously at). He could leap back and forth up to the present. At least that's my interpretation.
 
I would've liked to see a leap taking place in the early 90's, though. Would've been interesting, in my opinion, but they never leaped him beyond 1987 ("Revenge Of The Evil Leaper").

By the way, ohboy is right about the backwards and forwards.
 
It said Sam wouldn't be able to leap outside his own lifetime. I always imagined that one point where he stepped into the imaging chamber and vanished was the "end" of his lifetime. He could leap from that point on to any point of his birth.
 
The fact is, if sam would ever return home and continue to live a "normal life" , then his lifetime would go from 1953 till his day of dying. lets say he would die 2050, then string theory would not be broken if he would leap to 2013 for exapmple.
 
When the string theory is explained, the two ends of the string are labeled as birth and death. Therefore, if Sam's leaping fits into the string theory, he should be able to go forward from the day he leaped as well as backwards...unless, when he leaped, he brought about his own death.

Personally, my belief on why he didn't leap to the future, it would be a lot harder to write that story. There's a familiarity when Sam's leaping to the past. Events, fashion, slang, etc. that you can associate with. Leaping forward, you lose that familiarity and, intead, there's conjecture which could end up seeming a bit hokey.
 
Plus one of the advantages of having Sam leap is that he has information about the past and Al and Ziggy to provide him with more.

Although isn't there an alternative ending where he leaps into the future and that's his next set of jobs?
 
I don't think that Sam could leap beyond the present though, because Sam was supposed to put right what once went wrong. The future hasn't happened yet, since Sam is in the present time, and is just going backward (unless there is some project like Quantum Leap even farther in the future than PQL). Therefore, though, he couldn't put right what once went wrong if the wrong hasn't happened yet.

Plus, Jmoinz has a point about it being harder to write, and Night Terror that leaping forward would have disproved the String Theory. However, I would love to hear rebuttal. This could be a very interesting conversation.
 
I don't think that Sam could leap beyond the present though, because Sam was supposed to put right what once went wrong. The future hasn't happened yet, since Sam is in the present time, and is just going backward (unless there is some project like Quantum Leap even farther in the future than PQL). Therefore, though, he couldn't put right what once went wrong if the wrong hasn't happened yet.

Plus, Jmoinz has a point about it being harder to write, and Night Terror that leaping forward would have disproved the String Theory. However, I would love to hear rebuttal. This could be a very interesting conversation.

Unless, of course, Sam is there to see his final fate, go back in time, and subsequently put right what will go wrong in his own future (i.e. "Dr. Sam Beckett never returned home"). Hmm... interesting idea for a story... :p

(Sorry... shameless plug...) ;)
 
I don't think that Sam could leap beyond the present though, because Sam was supposed to put right what once went wrong. The future hasn't happened yet, since Sam is in the present time, and is just going backward (unless there is some project like Quantum Leap even farther in the future than PQL). Therefore, though, he couldn't put right what once went wrong if the wrong hasn't happened yet.

That would hold true only if you think of time as a linear concept - going forward from one point to the next as opposed to being fluid and subject to change. However, if you consider time as being only linear, then that can disprove the string theory - if time only goes forward then Sam wouldn't be able to leap back and forth in his own lifetime and wouldn't be able to affect any changes.

Even if you hold to only a linear concept of time, at some point along that line what is now our future becomes our past.

When the String Theory is explained by both Sam and Al (and also Mo Stein), they all very clearly say all the days of a person's life would touch each other out of sync (out of that line) allowing the leaping back and forth. So again, unless you consider Sam's life as ending when he steps into the accelerator, according to the rules of leaping that we are given, a leap into the future would be theoretically possible.

Additionally, the concept of "putting right what once went wrong" was not the original concept of Project Quantum Leap. That came about only after Sam leaped and control of the leaping was lost. Since the original concept of it seemed to be to be able to observe time with a person's life, the ability to make change wouldn't have been a consideration. Had the project gone the way we are lead to believe it was supposed to, Sam would have simply been observing the past (or future) without having any kind of interaction.

Of course, if that was really his intent for PQL, one must wonder, why did Sam set in place rules to govern leaping? (Just a little food for thought.)

Personally, I believe the only reason we didn't see leaps in Sam's future wasn't because it wasn't possible. Rather, that from a television standpoint it just wouldn't make sense. As I said before, by Sam leaping into the past, there are elements that the audience can relate to - a comfort level that is easily attained. By going into the future, that familiarity would have been lost and would have changed the tenor of the show itself.
 
I wanted to see this question not under the television point of view,but another theory is that god or time wanted sam not to go to the future :)
 
When the String Theory is explained by both Sam and Al (and also Mo Stein), they all very clearly say all the days of a person's life would touch each other out of sync (out of that line) allowing the leaping back and forth. So again, unless you consider Sam's life as ending when he steps into the accelerator, according to the rules of leaping that we are given, a leap into the future would be theoretically possible.

When it comes to the String Theory, it's all very quirky, so I wouldn't be surprised if even Sam and Al (Donald P. Bellisario) misunderstood it just a bit (all it takes, really). Maybe they were wrong to even relate it to Sam's leaping. They said both ends meant birth and death, but maybe what they really wanted to say was birth and present, and there's where the contradictions come, because that basically kills the theory, but that could explain why he's only able to leap to the past, even to the XIX century, like in "The Leap Between The States". Of course, in that episode, it had something to do with DNA, so, anyway, those were the fictional liberties I was talking about. It was a string theory with a "birth-present" twist... :hmm :nut

Which brings me to the writing. They did write about the future. Episodes that had to do with the waiting room, especially "Killin' Time" and LHO. They're not really what we have liked to see about the future, but the point is that, in later seasons (4th and 5th), the project was supposed to be in 1999. Why did they never leap Sam to 1998, for example, or even back to 1995, to Gooshie's body, let's say? And there's where your response comes, jmoniz. It was very hard to write about that, but mostly, it seems to me that what they really wanted to do was focusing more on the drama (of the 50's, the 60's, etc.) rather than on the sci-fi aspects. That's why, in my opinion, this show can't be immediately considered as "sci-fi". Sure it is, but it's the last label. The first would be sociological drama. The drama is excellent, but they didn't pay too much attention to the fictional aspects, mainly because they didn't really want to spoil the illusion, and well, that's not so bad.
 
I think another question to brought up about Sam's future is how he ages. Does he age every calender year by one? I ask because it was determined in the pilot episode that he in the nexus between time for a while. While he is in limbo (where he is not inhabiting a host's body), does he age normally? Therefore, how would his future change, considering how long he is in limbo. It would be very complex for him to leap beyond the present for that reason as well.