The Donna Theory

That all sounds reasonable to me. I always found it annoying that they brought Donna into the show, set her up as Sam's true love, and then forgot about her completely. That's one of the reasons I only wrote about Sammi Jo in one story -- I felt the whole Abagail thing was a total betrayal of Donna. How would she (Donna) feel to have her husband's illegitimate child show up as a co-worker at the Project? Yeah, there's something we'd all like to experience!! (NOT.)

I'll agree with you to some extent about the novels being fanfic. I won't say they're not true to the show; I think each of the authors would agree with me that each book is true to that person's vision of the show and the characters. Each of us took the story in a direction we were interested in exploring, and I don't think you could say that any of them are "wrong," any more so than Sam getting hopelessly involved with Abagail to the point of the story's totally ignoring Donna's existence. I won't even bring up the hideous mess of "Mirror Image," which I felt was 150% untrue to the original way the story had been set up.

I won't say they're not true to the show; I think each of the authors would agree with me that each book is true to that person's vision of the show and the characters.

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Of course they're true to the author's vision of the show. I think the point Sam Beckett Fan is trying to make is that they're not considered a part of the canon of the show but that the canon is contained with the 90 some odd (blanking on the actual number) of aired episodes - whether we agree with all of them or not.

When I've read the novels some of them had gelled with how I perceived the series and others I've found have totally veered away not only from concepts established in the series but also from how I perceived Sam and Al as they appeared in the episodes. But again, it's the opinions of the author's and their perceptions which is why when I write I only use what appeared in the episodes as the canon I need to draw from and everything else gets shunted off to the side as non-essential.

Now as far as Donna, I have my own theories regarding her. I've always found it interesting that at some point Sam can remember just about every other important person in his life from the person he had a crush on when he was 16 to his parents and siblings but yet this person who's supposed to be the love of his life never surfaces in his memory except for during "Star Crossed" but after that there's no blip at all regarding Donna. Even after "The Leap Home pt. 2" there seems to be some supporting evidence that Sam remembers the change in history. In "Rebel Without A Clue" he says something to the effect of having lost someone then got them back and it certainly does appear to be Tom that he's referring to.

Personally, I like to believe that after "The Leap Back" Sam was able to do something that again affected his personal history and erased Donna from it for good. In case you haven't figured it out, I strongly dislike the character and believe having her present in "The Leap Back" was a huge, huge mistake.

Other Thoughts

There are several other ways to address the Donna thing from the SERIES and/or TVS standpoint

1. At the end of STAR CROSSED, it isn't at all a given that Donna comes back into Sam's life. There is the mention of the previous man who she was engaged to before Sam and she even met at StarBright.

Thus...it is possible that Donna (in the series itself) is a flowing variable. That is to say...depending on the changes that leaping creates, she may or may not be his wife, may or may not be at the project, may or may not have ever met him.

It's been postulated that whenever Sam changes things, things in connection to the string of the leap could be different and they could be the same. Sometimes, the changes are huge (HONEYMOON EXPRESS & the change in the Senator right before Al's eyes.) and sometimes they are subtle. It's possible that since fixing the Donna thing in STAR CROSSED was not his "main" job on the leap, that it is periferal and thus it is a variable that changes as other parts of the string changes.

It is possible that Sam doesn't remember Donna because most of the time, she isn't a part of his life. It could be that the LEAP BACK was a fluke in several ways. The fact that the lightning hit Sam and Al and switched who was leaping and who was observing could have played a role into whether Donna was back at the project or not. This could have been a bit "AU" from the way the project actually ran (e.g. normally, Donna was not a part of Sam's life...and thus it makes sense he would not remember her.)

Maybe it was GFTW way of rewarding Sam to have Donna back there at that moment knowing he would leave again...I don't know. The fact that Bellasario himself had other motivations in writing that episode also plays a huge role into how it should be interpreted.

2. The Virtual Seasons has accepted that episode as canon just as it is and it is a fact that Donna is still married to Sam and is working at trying to retrieve him. I don't necessarily have a problem with that other then this makes Sam less than nobel, for the very reasons mentioned. In the Series iteself he NEVER remembers Donna. At least in TVS he occasionally does remember (which makes the fact that she's been left behind a bit more acceptable) and he has a family (son Stephen and Sammie Jo's family including her daughter).

I personnally have a problem with the fact that this means that Sam is a serial adulterer (especially with his labels of Mr. Morals and the Prudent Prince)...just cause he doesn't remember Donna doesn't mean it's not still adultery to have such relationships while a married man. And while I can accept that four years into Sam's leaping, Donna would make the statements she did in LEAP BACK, it was after that leap that things REALLY got out of hand...Tamlyn & Abigale. Sam was deeply in love with both of them. While there were definitely relationships with Tess, Diane, and Nicole...they didn't reach the level of the one's AFTER the LEAP BACK. I simply can't believe that these relationships DIDN'T hurt Donna. We never heard from her again series wise so I guess we'll never know from a series canon POV.

Perhaps these later "heavier relationships" could be explained by the fact that Al's mesons were firmly in place after the LEAP BACK. Al made it clear in the series that relative love was okay...that what was important was you loved the woman AT THE TIME. However, again, after Mirror Image (from the TVS standpoint), Al may appreciate women, but he never strayed from Beth. I guess that could be explained by having Sam's mesons in Al's brain after LEAP BACK ...but that would have inferred that if he and Beth had stayed together before the LEAP BACK (e.g. if Sam had fixed things at the time of M.I.A.) that Al may have been willing to stray from Beth. Something I WON'T accept. Beth was his true love and he didn't need Sam's mesons to keep him true to her.

I also feel that by standing by the canon that Donna will put her life on hold and wait for Sam forever and a day puts her into a martyr's role. To constantly see the other in a marriage doing things not consistant with absolute commitment and still remaining true to your side of the vows strikes me as naive and smacks of an unwillingness to accept reality...two things that I don't believe that Donna would be. From STAR CROSSED, it was evident that the woman wasn't just a dumb bimbo. And even though LEAP BACK now portrayed Donna in what I see as a less than beautiful light (that Donna came off to me as needy, selfish, and ultimately wishy-washy...I DIDN'T LIKE the 2nd Donna), she was still supposed to be an intelligent woman.

Finally...there is that little problem with the commitment issue brought up in STAR CROSSED. Even if Sam fixed the thing with her father, she was 20 when that happened. He'd left her at age 10. That give 10 years (especially during the angst filled teenage years) where Donna still had experienced the pain of abandonment. The intervention that Sam did might have helped Donna get over the commitment issue as far as marriage was concerned...but the fact is...Sam has left her again and Again and AGAIN (even in TVS...he keeps leaving her.) Even if she does love him as her soulmate...that's got to bring up repressed fears of abandonement and accompanying emotional baggage. At some point...her psyche would not stand the pressure.

ANYWAYS...those are my thoughts on Donna. As has been pointed out...many interpretations are possible. This is just mine.

I never liked Donna, especially 1999 Donna. There was many women that Sam 'interacted with' in the past that he was much more suitable to him. Donna seems to be a very distance woman, who's only common interest with Sam is science, particularly time travel.

of course there is and a simpler explaination than this one.If sam remembered donna, We the viewers, would never see sex on the show LOL

And it's not just Sam who looks bad because of Donna; Al does, too. I have no problem with Al trying to convince his prudish single friend to sleep with every woman he encounters, but Donna's inclusion in QL means that Al, knowing that Sam is married and loyal, is pushing Sam to have affairs. Al may be a bit of a dirty old man, but he doesn't seem like the type to do something like that. It seems to me that, if Donna were around, Al would try to find some way to keep Sam away from other women, knowing his friend would regret it later. I don't like to think of Al that way. (In fact, there was a VS story like this, I can't remember which one, where it was firmly established that Sam was with Donna, but Al encouraged Sam to sleep with his host's wife. The whole situation made me ill.)

To me, it seems like Donna was only included in The Leap Back just to make Sam's choice to go back into the Accelerator to save Al seem more dramatic.

Let's not forget that Al was told by Donna that she didn't want him to tell Sam about her. This means that Al would have to TREAT Sam as a single friend, and if Al had NOT been encouraging Sam to sleep around, Sam would have guessed something was up and probably end up remembering Donna - and thus not be able to complete the leaps he had had to.

LadyKayoss said:

To me, it seems like Donna was only included in The Leap Back just to make Sam's choice to go back into the Accelerator to save Al seem more dramatic.

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Lots of great points in this thread. Just to add a quick comment, "The Leap Back" is in a few ways like "Mirror Image" in the sense that certain rules were "bent" to make the episode work. It didn't make sense for Sam to wear the hospital clothes or for Al to have the handlink, and I see Donna's second appearance as nothing more than a plot device as well. The show works best as an anthology; it's a shame that its few flaws come with its continuity. If some of the backstory was trimmed down just a bit more, it would make more sense.

naggindragon said:

Let's not forget that Al was told by Donna that she didn't want him to tell Sam about her. This means that Al would have to TREAT Sam as a single friend, and if Al had NOT been encouraging Sam to sleep around, Sam would have guessed something was up and probably end up remembering Donna - and thus not be able to complete the leaps he had had to.

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Even so, it seems to me that Al wouldn't encourage Sam, knowing his friend would regret it later. I certainly wouldn't want to be responsible for my best friend unknowingly committing adultery. Even if Al had to treat Sam like a single friend, there would have been ways to dissuade Sam from sleeping with someone else.

And, at the time Donna told Al to treat Sam that way, Sam hadn't really done anything worse than kiss another woman...

Sam Beckett Fan said:

I have pondered the whole Sam changing history to erase Donna, and I think this is the aim Debrah Pratt was going for when she wrote Abigale because CarolD posted something somewhere that said she had regretted bringing Donna back after Star Crossed. Which personally I find mean, Donna is a great charactor. So this is really why she is not shown anymore. Debrah Pratt did not like her.

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Interesting. I was going to ask if anyone knew what Deborah Pratt's intentions or hopes were when she originally invented Donna. Surely when she wrote Star-Crossed, she didn't intend for things to turn out the way they did, with Donna only appearing once more and then being forgotten. If Donna was actually dropped from the series, though, it would have been nice to let the viewers know.

Prehaps somewhere down the line, Sam changed history again with the Project and Donna was never involved. Prehaps when Sam interacted with the agents in Star Light, Star Bright and he gave them his details, they could have tracked him down from an early age. Somehow they interrupted that 'moment' with Sam and Donna and they never came to be.

Than I got pissed. cuz remember Al made a joke in Americaization of Machiko refering to Sam being married so he can act out without thinking sometimes

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You have to take what Al says there in context, though. The Americanization of Machiko was early in the second season - pre-dating The Leap Back. At that point it's been established that Sam's been left at the altar and Al, at the end of "Star-Crossed" gives the very real possibility that Donna marries the first guy.

I interpret Al's joking about Sam being married in AoM as just that - a joke. He's saying it to get a rise out of Sam, which he does. That's completely in character for Al. It would be out of character for him to slip and give Sam information he shouldn't have, even in jest. All of the personal information that Al passed on to Sam was done knowingly and seriously.

I still hold that Donna's appearance in "The Leap Back" is a aberration - one I try really hard to erase. As a matter of fact, in an AU I recently started writing I did just that - eliminated her. Basically I used the theory that asearcher mentioned where Donna's existence is simply a variable that can change from leap to leap and I've chosen to altar that variable so she's just not there. Again, though, that's because of my own personal dislike of the character and feelings that she was an incredibly weak, poorly thought out, one-dimensional character.

Well all this talk reminds me of my own writing about QL outline of the end of the series. Currently because I am attending class 30 hours a week , working 30-40 hours a week, I get say, 6 hours of sleep per night. Talk to me in March if you have any further questions. I'll be working 60 hours a week, not going to school and working. My mind will be clearer.

Donna Theory: lovely idea. My best friend said the same darn thing.

I believe that QL was all a made up thing. More or less, Sam worked his butt off, got ill, possibly from some type of infection of the heart affected him, causing a heart attack and subsequent coma (after an operation called a flap. I've got in my notes). Similar to the style of Contact with Jodie Foster, he was only unconscious for the surgery and about weeks worth of weekdays, but in "our" time, just a long 5 seasons. Or 96 ep/24 hr=4 days. Each leap represented a part of his life he always wanted to mend: ie) Genesis: calling his father to say he loves him, baseball & its metaphor of a diamond (I'm working on that), & pregnant woman (Sam's always wanted to be a Dad & that PQL never really had a shot in the Government funding 'cause they thought Sam was nuts) & almost losing a child , Mikey (Tom died in 1970 "originally" in Vietnam War). I could go on and on. He finds this all out through psychotherapy with Verbena whom he only came in contact with before, albeit briefly.

yeah, this all came to me watching Leap HOme, Leap Back, Contact, Shock Theatre, & B**giem*n...and then thinking about one of my friends who since passed who had a congential heart condition.

That'd be a disappointment; going through all of that, only to find it's some delusion of Sam's. It'd upset me if that actually happened, but it would make an evil-yet-cool fanfic...

Sam Beckett Fan said:

Addition: I really don't get how Altering a complete stranger's life could affect Donna's Marriage to Sam. They did this in the novel The Wall as well becuase they had Gooshi and TIna married on and off depending on Sam. Which to me does not make sense.

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Apparently, you don't read many time travel stories. Altering lives could have a major impact on other people.

Here's a hypothetical scenario about how a leap could prevent Sam and Donna from getting married. Now, this situation uses two things that I'm not sure are actually canon, but remember, this is just an example. Let's assume that Donna was leaving the Starbright Project just as Sam was coming on board (I've heard that from multiple sources, but I can't remember if it was something introduced in the show, or just something used by authors.) Let's also assume that Donna's mother is alive (I can't remember if she has any living relatives.) Originally, Sam comes to Starbright just before Donna leaves, somehow persuades her to stay, and the rest is history. But let's say that during some random leap, Sam saves the life of some person who had originally died. Years later, around the time that Donna is planning to leave Starbright, let's say this person is driving along, and hits the car Donna's mother is driving. There are no serious injuries, but Donna's mother is going to be in the hospital for awhile. To be with her mother, Donna leaves Starbright earlier than she'd intended, before Sam arrives, and never goes back. Therefore, they never meet, and they never get married.

This is just one example. Any number of seemingly random things could happen to change their lives.

To further expound on what Lady Kayoss is saying you can turn to the hypothesis of six degrees of separation (it's not just a game about Kevin Bacon). Basically the hypothesis that anyone on Earth can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances with no more than five intermediaries.

Since Sam's lifetime and Donna's lifetime are pretty much the same give or take a couple of years, based on this hypothesis anyone Sam has come in contanct with and altered the life of can then be linked back to Donna through a maximum of 5 other people. That's not really that many lives that would have to be affected and changed to alter whether Donna (or anyone else for that matter) is there or not. It all becomes ripples in a pond with each life Sam's changed and affected then affecting those around them and so on and so forth.

Poor Donna. Soooo many people want to get rid of her. She was one of my favorite characters to work with, throughout my fanfic (and in the two books). I had a few people tell me they hated her in "Leap Back" but liked her the way I wrote her.

I do agree that in the final minutes of "Leap Back" she turned into a whiny, unsupportive mess, and I don't know where that came from (other than a really poor attempt on Don B's part to write a female character). I always saw Donna as very much Sam's partner, and very much NOT a whiny doofus.

I could go on about how much I dislike a lot of Don's female characters, Tina in particular. I imagine you could do a powerhouse of a psychological study of how Al started out with someone as strong as Beth and ended up with (ick) Tina. Unless you want to conclude, again, that Don has issues with women and can't write female characters as strong and layered as his male characters.

Anyway, my view of the story was that Donna was there all along, after "Star Crossed," and all the love affairs Sam indulged in were really cheesy on the writers' part.

This is a great discussion. I love how folks here are so respectful of other people's viewpoints and opinions.

Since I don't really like Donna, I tend to think that she was erased or left the Project post-Leap Back. In the brief time she was onscreen in LB, she didn't strike me as particularly strong or dedicated, and in my mind, I can imagine a timeline in which she leaves the Project once Sammi-Jo appears. She tells Sam in LB that she's "never once felt that he betrayed [their] love." Well, now he has (unintentionally), here's the proof, and she's out of there. That works for me.

It's interesting that the wrong made right for Al is that Beth waits more than half a decade for Al to return from Vietnam, when it's perfectly reasonable for her to assume he's dead and get on with her life, yet Donna's hopeless waiting for Sam when there's slim to no hope (calculated to the decimal point by Ziggy) of his return cheeses some of us off and makes her seem weak and needy.

Alternatively, in my mind, Donna and Beth change mental places, post Mirror Image. Beth now waits, and is rewarded; Donna now concludes that Sam is never coming back and moves on. Because when push came to shove in LB, and Sam had to make a rock-and-a-hard-place choice . . . he didn't choose her. Plus, I'm not at all convinced that Sam was meant to change his own history in StarCrossed - he was there to do something else entirely and gave himself a bonus - whereas, Al the Bartender/GTFW specifically blessed Sam's return to Beth to tell her about Al.

Remember, Sam didn't start sleeping around until AFTER we all knew about Donna.

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Well, that's not entirely true. I don't think Sam was at all promiscuous, given that he had (arguably) five lovers in 5 years (or 47 years, depending on your viewpoint), and lots of near-misses (e.g., Tess, Diane, Edie, Alia, etc.).

Nicole - his childhood crush (S2, Catch a Falling Star).
Maggie Dawson* (S3, LH-Vietnam)
Donna - his wife (S4, LB)
Tamlyn - she sees him for who he is (S4, Temptation Eyes)
Abigail - (Trilogy, pt 2) he leaps into Will's obsession.

Why is Maggie *'ed? Well, that one's a little ambiguous. She suggests a quid pro quo: get me on the mission and I'll do you. Sam says deal, because he has a plan. Now, on the one hand, he's not the type of guy who would allow a woman to sell herself for something he's already decided to do. On the other hand, she's naked under her robe, she's sitting on his lap, he's wearing shorts with no underwear, and his fly button is undone. Plus, at scene change, Al is waiting outside the tent, smoking a cigar, with a kind of chagrined look on his face. Yeah, I think there's 5.

Sam's not always a Boy Scout. (And yes, I've spent WAY too much time thinking about who's in Sam's pants.)

Aaaaanyway [dragging her mind out of the gutter], here:

my view of the story was that Donna was there all along, after "Star Crossed," and all the love affairs Sam indulged in were really cheesy on the writers' part.

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I'm willing to forgive Sam's indiscretions, being (a) unintentional and (b) so few and far between, even though I think Temptation Eyes is pretty cheesy. The idea that somehow Donna disappears from the picture sometime after LB appeals to me, even if I have to fanwank it.

even though I think Temptation Eyes is pretty cheesy. The idea that somehow Donna disappears from the picture sometime after LB appeals to me, even if I have to fanwank it.

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Please, keep on fanwanking it to make her disapper - I'll even volunteer to help. I also agree with Temptation Eyes being pretty cheesy. I never did quite see the point to it and can't remember Sam ever leaping in that far ahead of what he had to accomplish. Maybe he did and I'm just blanking on it which is completely possible (don't ask me what I had for dinner yesterday - I'll probably blank on that, too) I'm fairly certain God, fate, time, or whoever is leaping him around isn't so concerned about this sex life...or lack there of...that he was leaped in early to make up for lost time.

CarolD said:

I could go on about how much I dislike a lot of Don's female characters, Tina in particular. I imagine you could do a powerhouse of a psychological study of how Al started out with someone as strong as Beth and ended up with (ick) Tina. Unless you want to conclude, again, that Don has issues with women and can't write female characters as strong and layered as his male characters.

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Well, a lot of fans of "JAG" and "NCIS" claim that Don is a woman-hater... although they enjoy the shows, they claim that a lot of the episodes written by him have women coming across as petty and whatnot. One major complaint about "JAG" is that Harm usually ends up winning the case, especially when he works against Mac. On "NCIS", when they replaced Kate, Don said that he wanted to bring in a strong woman who was sexually liberated and could stand up to Tony - Ziva.

I personally don't see the "woman-hater" in him, but I agree that most of his female characters are not as well written as the male ones. Maybe his divorces (he's on his fourth wife now) have made him bitter toward women. I don't know.

... Mike.

Sam has his reasons for sleeping with the women that he did, except Abigale, there was no real good excuse for that except maybe that he was plauged by Will's mind and love for her. and then it leaked into Sam himself. but other than that:

Maggie: He needed her on the mission so that she could file a story and be able to save Tom and the mission. He loves Tom so he would do anything to save him.

Tamlyn: She saw him for who he really is, so Sam fell in love with her because he found her special for that.

Nicole: (Here I am basically talking in terms of his love for her because there is no indication here of Sex as was with Tamlyn) He loved her because she was an old crush from his teens and was overwhelmed to see her again.

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I think we agree on this point, Sam Beckett Fan. I've seen comments that Sam was promiscuous, and slept around a lot, especially in Seasons 4 and 5, and I don't think that's the case. He sure kissed a lot of women. As for Nicole - the first thing Al says when he sees Sam the morning after is that Sam has that "the earth moved last night" look on his face. And he does. And Sam argues that Nicole was "with" him, not Ray. I think Nicole got lucky.

I can buy the Abigail situation more than I can the Tamlyn one, considering the, erm, circumstances of the Abigail leap (I love that line where Sam asks Al, stuttering, if Al knows "who" he leaped into - and Al for once doesn't get the double entendre) and as jmoniz pointed out above, the leap in two weeks ahead of the task is kind of contrived.

I have to admit I haven't watched any other Bellisario productions, except to drool over Mark Harmon occasionally - are there women in that show, too? - so I couldn't make a comparison of his female characters.