EmmaCMF said:
The fact that the doctor could see 'a head of curls trying to get out' would suggest that Sam was in Billie Jean's body; surely the illusion of Billie Jean's aura would not extend to creating the aura of a baby?
Not necessarily. As I was explaining earlier in this thread, I believe that both the leapee and Sam's auras are synchronized with their actual bodies across time. For example: In "The Beast Within," Sam leaps into someone with a beard. Sam, obviously, has no beard. So if, for whatever reason, Sam needed to shave the leapee's beard, how would he? Sam has no beard to physically shave off. The leapee in the Waiting Room would have to physically shave his beard off, and his aura in the past would show the beard slowly fading away, accordingly. It would be the same thing for Billy Jean. As she was giving birth in the Waiting Room, the baby's head began to crown. Since her aura in the past is synchronized, the doctor would see the baby's head crowning despite the fact that the baby was actually still in the future. And since the baby had leapt with Billy Jean in the first place, this implies that the baby was still part of Billy Jean, and therefore would be part of her aura until after she gave birth. As for how Lana was able to feel the baby kick by touching Sam's body, I would say that the crisscrossing of emotions/feelings was coming through so intensely that it caused an actual physical movement in Sam's body. (OK, maybe I'm reading into
that one too closely!) :lol
EmmaCMF said:
Al said that the baby had disappeared from Billie Jean's womb back in the waiting room; it had to go somewhere.
That's if the baby actually did disappear. Remember: the rest of the staff back at the Project would only see Sam's aura and not Billy Jean's. So they might not be able to know if the baby really disappeared or not. Al would be the only one who could see Billy Jean's aura (by that point in the series he was able to see Sam as himself), and he was in the Imaging Chamber helping Sam. Since it was Ziggy that told Al the baby had disappeared, this must mean one of two things: Billy Jean had already successfully given birth in the Waiting Room; or, the baby leaped back to 1955 before Billy Jean and into Sam's body. Sam himself told Al earlier in the episode that everyone in 1955 only saw the illusion of Billy Jean's physical aura. So that would mean that Sam and Al at least believed that it was always Sam's actual body that did the leaping.
My only explanation is that Billy Jean was in the process of giving birth in the Waiting Room, during which Ziggy sensed that the baby had left her womb, because the baby
was leaving the womb. If the baby had physically leaped back and Sam was actually giving birth, the doctor would never be able to see the baby's head crowning! Ziggy never actually said that the baby
leaped out and was in Sam's body.
It's either that, or the baby had physically leapt out and temporarily into Sam's body, in which Sam leapt out since he is physically unable to give birth. Billy Jean would leap back in and finish giving birth. But, since I believe it's always Sam's body that leaps, and as Sam obviously has no womb or birth canal, this would be impossible.
EmmaCMF said:
I guess Blood Moon to an extent, with Sam having no reflection at the end would kind of fit into that category; if Sam was only in the aura of a vampire, not the body, there was no reason for him to not be able to see a reflection.
Well, as this was pretty much the cheesiest episode in the series, it suggests that the leapee really was a vampire. So, let's say vampires really exist in the
Quantum Leap universe for a second. Sam is simply taking the aura of the leapee, which is actually no aura at all. What's being shown (or not shown) in the reflection is what the leapee's aura would show if he were physically there.
EmmaCMF said:
This is one of those issues that people can never agree on; in my 17 years of QL fandom, the one constant has been debating the body/mind issue, and it's so much fun!
I definitely agree with you that it's a fun debate! I know the whole deal with how Don Bellisario says not to examine this too closely. But one of the things I enjoy most as a fan is to try and make sense out of many of the technical details. I find that Deborah Pratt's episodes seem to pay more attention to the technical details, whereas Bellisario's episodes are more laid-back and are driven by character drama.