MexTraveler said:
Ok, ok, I agree with most of you....
but my question remains, if Sam is alive in 2010, then he can?t leap into the year 2015 for examlpe, because it hasn?t happened yet:heybaby , but he does can leap into year 2009.... and for us tath?s the future, so...???, ok ok, it was just a question:wacko , I know that would be difficult for the writers..... anyway, a great great show. I just can?t stop watchig it:nut .
Ah, ok, I understand what you're saying. Yes, what you're suggesting would make perfect sense (we've done that kind of stuff in The Virtual Seasons); it's just that we haven't reached that point in time in the QL universe yet (in either TV or TVS). When the original series first aired in 1989, it was 1995 for Sam and Al when Sam first leaped (presumably early May), and by the time the final episode aired in 1993, it was either 1999 or 2000. So back then, their present
was the near future for us...but now, supposedly, their present will be the same as ours; whereas 12 years have passed for us in real time since the events of "Mirror Image," only 5 or 6 years have passed for Sam and Al.
MJ and AJ started The Virtual Seasons in 1999 and picked up right where "Mirror Image" left off as well, so if you use that as an example, the timing worked out perfectly so that PQL's "present" was the same as ours (since then, it's actually been stretched out a bit; we're currently one year ahead in mid-2006).
But, I understand what you're asking: why didn't Sam ever leap into, like, 1995, for example. Well, one obvious reason, as you said, was that the writers were likely trying to stay as far away from our actual future as possible to avoid the possibility that something might happen that would be inconsistent with something that was written about (I think this has happened once or twice in TVS as well); two, at the time I think Don wanted the series to focus more on the distant past (50s, 60s, 70s, early 80s) and not so much on the more recent past (which would have been the late 80s, early 90s), because then it wouldn't have really been a "history lesson" for the viewers. Plus, having Sam leap too close to the time he created Project Quantum Leap (which was in either 1989 or 1990) could possibly jeopardize the events that led him to leap in the first place, which as Doc Brown would say would be disastrous to the space-time continuum.
Now, however, you could have a leaper go back to the 80s and the 90s and have it be somewhat historical. I mean, I'm now starting to hear several songs on NYC's "classic rock" radio station, Q104.3, by bands and artists such as Guns 'N' Roses and Bon Jovi that were
new rock songs when I was in grammar school and high school! Kinda makes me feel a little old! :lol
Damon