Interesting Observations/Facts/Questions about Quantum Leap

[Lightning McQueenie]

A thought crossed my mind - we know that Sam can impregnate a woman during his leaps.

Let's say for example during Alia's leap into Connie, that she took over her nightly wifely duties with Frank (if you know what I mean ) and ended up pregnant. Would the baby leap with her when she does? Does this mean that when she does go into labour, it could be in an entirely different time and place than when it was conceived? Would the aura of the leapee appear pregnant at the same time? Or would it just appear that a baby appears out of nowhere? And let's not even try to get our heads around what would happen if she was in a man's aura when she goes into labour >_<

[blue enigma]

Originally Posted by Lightning McQueenie

A thought crossed my mind - we know that Sam can impregnate a woman during his leaps.

Let's say for example during Alia's leap into Connie, that she took over her nightly wifely duties with Frank (if you know what I mean ) and ended up pregnant. Would the baby leap with her when she does? Does this mean that when she does go into labour, it could be in an entirely different time and place than when it was conceived? Would the aura of the leapee appear pregnant at the same time? Or would it just appear that a baby appears out of nowhere? And let's not even try to get our heads around what would happen if she was in a man's aura when she goes into labour >_<

These are interesting questions and worth considering if we speculate that Sammy Jo leaped to find Sam (or took his place so he could have a rest). My own personal conclusion is that leaping and childbearing are incompatible, so a woman who is leaping couldn't become pregnant while leaping (or possibly at all -- wasn't the accelerator nuclear in design? I could be wrong about that, but if so the radiation could possibly impair the woman's ability to bear children).

As far as Alia, however, we can assume that Alia as Connie wasn't performing any of her wifely duties with Frank, including (or even especially) the nightly ones, in order to accomplish her goal to drive him away and wreck the family.

[Lightning McQueenie]

Originally Posted by blue enigma

These are interesting questions and worth considering if we speculate that Sammy Jo leaped to find Sam (or took his place so he could have a rest). My own personal conclusion is that leaping and childbearing are incompatible, so a woman who is leaping couldn't become pregnant while leaping (or possibly at all -- wasn't the accelerator nuclear in design? I could be wrong about that, but if so the radiation could possibly impair the woman's ability to bear children).

As far as Alia, however, we can assume that Alia as Connie wasn't performing any of her wifely duties with Frank, including (or even especially) the nightly ones, in order to accomplish her goal to drive him away and wreck the family.

Interesting idea, but I'd have to respectfully disagree. If Sam's swimmers weren't affected by the leaping, then why should we believe that a female's reproductive system would be affected?

As for Alia, you're right that Alia as Connie was probably neglecting Frank in the bedroom, but let's say, for the sake of argument, she had sex with another person (that would be one way to wreck the home after all), then it's theoretically possible she could become pregnant.

I'm also sure if Zoe was a permanent leaper she'd be bed hopping, but she may be above child-bearing age...

[blue enigma]

Originally Posted by Lightning McQueenie

Interesting idea, but I'd have to respectfully disagree. If Sam's swimmers weren't affected by the leaping, then why should we believe that a female's reproductive system would be affected?

The logistics are different and it wouldn't work. If we have a female leaper lost in time and unable to go home the way Sam is how is she going to actually have the baby? Is it going to be the leapee's baby once she actually bears the child, even though the leaper is the one who is pregnant in body? Do we assume that G/T/F/W is going to give her maternity leave and let her go home to have the baby so she's not in someone else's aura (and so, you know, she can have a baby in relative safety)? What about prenatal care? And what happens to the child after she gives birth? Not to mention having to leap while pregnant which would be an extremely uncomfortable nine months, and that's assuming it's a straightforward pregnancy with no issues like preeclampsia, etc. Sam as a man could just dump his seed and go on his merry way. Alia or another female leaper wouldn't have that option.

[Lightning McQueenie]

Originally Posted by blue enigma

The logistics are different and it wouldn't work. If we have a female leaper lost in time and unable to go home the way Sam is how is she going to actually have the baby? Is it going to be the leapee's baby once she actually bears the child, even though the leaper is the one who is pregnant in body? Do we assume that G/T/F/W is going to give her maternity leave and let her go home to have the baby so she's not in someone else's aura (and so, you know, she can have a baby in relative safety)? What about prenatal care? And what happens to the child after she gives birth? Not to mention having to leap while pregnant which would be an extremely uncomfortable nine months, and that's assuming it's a straightforward pregnancy with no issues like preeclampsia, etc. Sam as a man could just dump his seed and go on his merry way. Alia or another female leaper wouldn't have that option.

And those sort of questions are the very reason why I love this show, there's so much to think about

[Moviefan2k4]

I still love Angelita's line to Al about heaven: "There's a dress code."

[Lightning McQueenie]

Keep your eyes peeled for the Quantum Leap Podcast Christmas special, to be released in the near future, about the episode "A Little Miracle".

It's funny because during our discussion, we found that none of us could agree on who represented the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Present (Al obviously was the Ghost of Christmas future), so I was wondering what everyone's thoughts were?

My take is that Sam represents the Ghost of Christmas Past, as he is the one who found the box of photographs, and is the one who took Blake to the neighbourhood where he grew up; and that Captain Downey represented the Ghost of Christmas Present, as she was representative of everything that Blake wanted at that point in time.

However, a couple of alternatives were given - Albie thinking that Sam actually represented the Ghost of Christmas Present, and that the past was represented by the photos. Amanda agreed with Sam being the Ghost of the Present, but thought that the Ghost of the Past was represented by Blake's childhood friend.

What does everyone else think?

[Lightning McQueenie]

Something that could have been an interesting wrinkle would have been if the results of Sam's intervention into Donna's life had stayed ambiguous, it could have been that his host in Star Crossed could have been the man she fell in love with and was going to marry first, and Sam's intervention actually pushed her into his arms... What other interesting wrinkles can you think of that could have been?

[tlw]

Originally Posted by Lightning McQueenie

Hi all, this is a thread where we can post miscellaneous Quantum Leap observations/facts/questions that pop into your head.

A few things I noticed:

- Angelita and Stawpah are both dead and help out the living. When Angelita succeeds, we see her walk away from Sam and he forgets everything, while Stawpah simply leaps immediately. Imagine what we all would have thought if instead of Angelita walking off, she leapt...

- We have seen in the Wrong Stuff that because Bobo is incapable of human speech, his aura prevents Sam from being able to be understood. Does this mean that if Sam leaps into someone who doesn't speak English, if he tried to speak in English, the aura would not be able to?

- Sam has leapt into women on numerous occasions. What would him peeing look like if someone walked in on him? Would it look like the leapee is aiming without anything to aim with? Or would it just look like the pee is coming out of nowhere? Perhaps Sam should just pee sitting down during these leaps :P

- We know that Sam is not dead, but his project enabled him to do what some dead people (angels) do, try to put right what once went wrong. Do you think when he eventually dies, he will continue to do what the angels do? Or do you think he'll finally decide to rest?

- We know that it is not really GFTW leaping Sam around (even though it has been known to intervene if it looks like Sam is going to fail), but rather Sam is leaping himself. Does this mean that his Swiss-cheesed brain is really himself subconsciously blocking out anything that could prevent him from doing his life's work? I think it is, considering we have seen numerous occasions when the Swiss-cheese effect can be at least partially overcome if the leaper has a specific task in mind when leaping (e.g. Sam leaping into Al and preventing his murder, Bingo leaping into himself in the past to prevent Chip from murdering Commander Ricker's wife, Zoe leaping to kill Alia). This would explain why even though he does start remembering portions of his life, he continually remains oblivious to his marriage to Donna, as remembering he is married could prevent him from doing the job, which Al so eloquently put "is a dirty job, but someone has to do it"


Any thoughts on the points I have raised? Or does anyone have any other tidbits they'd like to contribute?

The first time he leaped into a woman, are we supposed to believe that no one is going to notice that the clothes, shoes, pantyhose don't fit. How is he supposed to fit his size 12 (or however big his feet were) into the young secretary's shoes.

[tlw]

Originally Posted by Sam Beckett Fan

Having needed to step out earlier I was unable to include in my previous post, the Stawpah thing never made complete sense to me but nor does most of that episode. Though I find it can not be a coincidence that Stawpah is suggested to have been Al's uncle.

The difference I hypothesize between him and Angela is that perhaps Stawpah never left the earthly plain making him a wondering spirit as opposed to an angel. This is the only way I can make sense of their different exits.

It makes sense to me that Stawpah is a wandering spirit because he felt he had unfinished business because he couldn't help his fellow miners.