Can Sam leap into the same time period twice?

Wrong Arturo

Project QL Intern
Aug 16, 2005
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This thought occurred to me while I was writing in another thread...

In "Mirror Image," Sam leaps in to talk to Beth, apparently mere seconds after he and Al have leaped out of the events of the episode "M.I.A."

Which brings to mind this question: if Sam is already in one time/place as a Leaper, can he leap into the same time/place as a different person?

We've seen him switch bodies within a leap ("Double Identity") and take over someone else's leap ("The Leap Back"), but in both cases, time kept moving forward.

What if, for instance, Sam leaped into Person A between Feb. 25 and Feb. 28, 1958, but didn't complete his mission. Would it be possible for him to leap into Person B on Feb. 27, 1958, in the same town, and complete the rest of the mission?

For that matter, would he simply be able to be in two unrelated places at the same time? What if he was in Texas on Feb. 25, 1958 -- could he be on another mission in a different leap on the same day and time?

Could future-Sam call past-Sam and give him advice about his current leap? And whose voice would Sam hear on the phone - his own, or the person he called?

If future-Sam touched past-Sam, would they be able to see each other, like what happened with Alia? Or would a paradox happen, as suggested in the Back to the Future movies? Or (heaven forbid) would Sam simply blow up when he touched himself, a la Timecop?

I don't have an episode guide handy, but I think Sam's leaps did happen on the same day at least once during the series, but nothing was made of or even mentioned about the possibilities I suggested.

Also, I seem to recall one of the novels suggesting that Sam couldn't be in more than two places than once (that is, his own regular lifetime, plus the leap, not another leap), which (by extrapolation) suggested that there might be an end to Sam's leaping if he leaped the entire length of his life again. But of course, novels aren't canon, so...

Anyway, this is all speculation. What does everyone else think?
 
When dealing with time, Sam could leap into his missions an infinite number of times. It then just becomes a matter of how messy the mission/time period becomes. So yes, if Sam didn't complete a mission, he could always end up leaping back to a point during the original leap and correct it from there. He did that at the end of "Mirror Image" despite the fact that he leaped in right after his past-self leaped out.

As to if Sam would see himself if he touched his past-self on a previous leap, I think he'd be able to. Just like with the Evil Leapers, I think an actual touch would be required. Remember: Sam can't even see himself as himself because he always sees another person's reflection in the mirror. So a future version of himself should be no different. As for what Al sees, well, that's been discussed to death and is a different topic.

And I highly doubt Sam would implode if two different versions of himself touched. That "same matter can't occupy the same space at the same time" rule in Timecop always made no sense to me at all. In fact, pretty much all the logic in that movie makes no sense at all to me, and I consider myself someone that understands time-travel at least better than the average person. It's technically two separate bodies who are the same person genetically; it's similar to a pair of twins coexisting. While it's the same person, it's two separate bodies just like any other person would be in that time. As for the Back To the Future paradox theory, I highly doubt that scenario as well. The idea behind that scenario wouldn't happen unless Sam somehow killed his past-self. And even then, that spawns into a whole time-travel theory debate as to whether or not there's parallel universes──again, a totally different topic.
 
Let's not forget that Sam has leapt into himself to redo leaps on more than one occasion.

In the B**gieman, I believe that GFTW leapt Sam back into himself with the prior knowledge of the first leap to put right what had originally gone wrong and prevent the chain deaths that followed.

And in "It's A Wonderful Leap" the reason Angelita the Angel was there to help Sam was because Sam had stuffed up the leap originally. So I'd say that was at LEAST the second time Sam had leapt there.
 
Wow. Thanks, Brian! I hadn't seen your list of chronological leaps before. Mighty impressive.

And the unproduced QL scripts? *gasp* That's awesome! How did you come across those anyway?
 
QL Nut said:
And I highly doubt Sam would implode if two different versions of himself touched. That "same matter can't occupy the same space at the same time" rule in Timecop always made no sense to me at all. In fact, pretty much all the logic in that movie makes no sense at all to me,

Yeah, the whole movie was pretty witless, wasn't it? LOL! I only mentioned that theory because I heard another (better) version of that idea somewhere else, and I couldn't remember where, so I had to go with Timecop.

At another point in the movie, someone was complaining, "Look. We know [the bad guy] has changed history, because we can see the change right here in these history books!" Umm, if he really did change history, how would you know anyway? Wouldn't your memory switch to whatever the bad guy had changed history to?

Anyway...the one cool thing about that scene was the guy delivering those lines was (I believe) the same actor who played Tibby in "Shock Theater."
 
alsplacebartender said:
Ebay has everything lol.

Indeed, that's where I got the script for Mirror Image (that I sent to Brian who later put it up on the website, lol)

So anything you want, you can find it on eBay... or at least almost anything...

Clara