Bellisario’s Bloopers (Logic vs Dramatic License)

Don’t get me wrong; I love Quantum Leap as much as the next person – probably more! And I defend it vigorously, especially to people like ‘he who hogs the remote’.

My point here is just to trigger some discussion, particularly among those of you out there who enjoy writing fan-fic as much as I do.

This guest-vision was inspired by the fact that I was finding myself knee deep in research for a story I was working on – I am the first to admit that I am totally obsessive in my writing about trying to get things right – which is why I pester my American friends online so much, since writing around an American TV series as a Brit can be disadvantageous. In fact this particular story has been on hiatus for ten years while I tried to find the perfect location for one particular scene. The one that eventually proved to be ideal wasn’t even built ten years ago when I started on the story! I am now waiting for permission to include my ‘kiss with history’, the accident which paralyzed skier Jill Kinmont - from the good lady herself!

Anyway, having gone in circles yet again looking for the information I needed, I left that story and went back to the Virtual Seasons episode I was working on – which turned into Leap to the Rescue, now airing (April ’04). So I re-read my draft story as far as I had gotten, and something struck me as being illogical. It just wasn’t realistic; people wouldn’t behave that way – not in the position I had created them in.

So I went back and completely rewrote a whole great big chunk of the story.

I think it probably benefited the rewrite, and I hope the finished article reads convincingly.

All very well, you may say, but what has this to do with my point – if indeed I have one, and am not just rambling.

Well, it was at about this time that I happened to re-watch one of my all-time favorite Quantum Leap episodes – A Leap of Faith.

I love this episode, it makes me cry every time I watch it, even though I don’t have the same fear for Sam I had when I first saw it, just after I heard the series had been cancelled, and thought that they had decided to kill him off!

I still love this episode, and to me it is one of the most dramatic, powerful episodes.

Yet, with the perspective of my story and the illogical behavior of my characters fresh in my mind, I noticed something in the episode I had never bothered to think about before.

After Sam is shot in the confessional, and Al tells him to go after Father Mac, Sam sees the old ladies through the window, and runs out to borrow their car.

On the way, he is nearly run over.

By a taxi!!!!

In real life, the logical thing to do, when dazed by a head wound, would have been to get the taxi driver, who had already stopped, to drive him to the railway line.

Logical; yes. But perhaps not as dramatic as having our poor hero drive himself there.

So, dear writers, readers and watchers, here are a couple of things for you to ponder –