The Waiting Room

Sam Beckett Fan

Re-Writing Life
Jun 3, 2005
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So far, I have found the revival plot intriguing and the characters and references to the original compelling and well done and don't have an issue with the modern tones but there is one particular piece of ignored lore that bothers me.

Thus far there is no lore for what happens to the person who is displaced while Ben is assuming their life.
In the original the person Sam leaped into would assume Sam's place at the project and questioning that person was a part of how the project and Ziggy were able to determine when and where Sam was thus the reason he's lost now. The project could no longer track him when people ceased to appear in his place. Not the soundest of logic but I digress.

No one in this revival has mentioned the waiting room or questioning the leapee or anything that tells us what's going on with the leapee while Ben is acting as them and that's kind of a big flaw.

In the original Al mentioned the people in the waiting room frequently, usually it's just one sentence such as in 'Shock Theater': "And I thought the guy in the waiting room looked bad" which tells us nothing really but is still enough.
 
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Yep it's oddly missing. We were talking about that in another thread. Maybe QL tech of this modern iteration doesn't work the same way. I spect they'll eventually splain it.
 
Agree with all points, it's all part of the psuedo science QL exercised in the original and formed a useful tool for AL to question the leapee for further information that Ziggy didn't have access too.

I hope it's explained in future episodes.
 
Does anyone remember the very first episode that mentioned or implied the existance of the waiting room? That

I'm wondering if its even possible that it takes time for there to be someone in the waiting room. From there I'd look into whether something Sam or the project did potentially pulled *part* of Sam back, providing a shell for the leapee to inhabit. I know its before Leap for Lisa as I very strongly remember Bingo and Al in the waiting room. If I remember right they spoke of people there first but were concerned about interacting with them. I have a good memory but not a perfect one and limited free time. If some one can pinpoint the first mention of the waiting room and/or the first time we see inside it - I'll try to find something that could have caused it to become a thing but not start as one.
 
Ugh - yeah Al *does* mention talking to Tom, vague memory came back to me. While we don't see the waiting room (when did that first happen?) that narrows the list of solutions quite a bit. Okay let's see what else I can come up with.

1. They do have a waiting room and are talking to or at least observing the leapee but they just aren't telling Ben about this - and either Addison doesn't know or it's just to difficult for her to talk to someone who looks like Ben but isn't Ben right now so someone else is handling it.

2. They have a waiting room but there are strict protocals about interacting with the leaper and they may even be sedated.

3. The leapee is actually under someone else's control somehow. Maybe it's Janice or Sami Jo or Lothos or even Sam himself who has take charge of Ben's body.

4. See my theory on the whole mind leap/physical leap problem and lets adapt it to try and solve this - until Sam started to be more physically in the past the leapee was "less" in the future. They were there but like holodeck matter that cannot exist outside the holodeck or bad transporter conditions that need a pattern enhancer or even needing a universal translator- a leapee needs some sort of enhancement or "translation" of some sort to be interacted with.

Conditions that perhaps only exist inside the waiting room or the imaging chamber until the simo leap changes this- and they haven't finished building it or maybe it takes a fully operational Ziggy to provide this and she is still only partially working.

5. The waiting room is physically located in another place or even time. For example Stallions Gate, NM.

6. They somehow deliberately engineered the waiting room out and there is no part of Ben left behind anchoring him to his original time - he was fully transfered into the timestream as "energy" which somehow means it is now just mind leaping or there is no bleed through.

7. Starlight gives up and mumbles something about handwavium and needing more caffeine :banghead::lol
 
Ugh - yeah Al *does* mention talking to Tom, vague memory came back to me. While we don't see the waiting room (when did that first happen?) that narrows the list of solutions quite a bit. Okay let's see what else I can come up with.

Pretty sure we don't see the waiting room until the Lee Harvey Oswald episode. We saw the imaging chamber and control room in The Leap Back at the start of season 4 but not the waiting room. I think we see the waiting room 4 times in all throughout the whole series - Lee Harvey Oswald, Killin' Time, Dr. Ruth, and Blood Moon, all season 5 episodes. If there are others, I can't recall them.
 
So the waiting room is shown in season 4- I am 100 percent sure of that as Leap for Lisa not only shows Al and Bingo have a conversation but Bingo also leaps - but that is season 4 episode 22 and Leap Back is season 4 ep 1.

In addition The Wrong Stuff (chimp) is season 4

For those hoping Ben Song was conceived in Temptation Eyes under similar rules as Sami Jo - good news its season 4.

Raped is also season 4 - don't they have her talk to Dr. Beaks? She is projected into the courtroom for sure so Sam can relay her actual testimony.

We also have a major problem - season 3s 8 1/2 months. I'm not sure what that episode supports. Was Sam's mind mostly in a pregnant woman's body? What exactly were they monitoring in who's body in the waiting room - and when the baby vanishes starting to Leap back to be born - yeah.

It's pre- Leap back and post both Leap hom and a certain Halloween ep that starts with B so if we need there to be the start of some kind of change I guess there is something to be a trigger

And I know there are more eps with the waiting room then 4 in season 5 - a lot more.

8 1/2 months is just a really really complicated one - complicated enough that I'm not sure what it refutes or supports.

Anything else in season 3 or prior an issue?
 
I just finished a rewatch of all of the original. I certainly remember lots of references to the waiting room in earlier episodes, but I don't remember many actual glimpses of the waiting room. I debated on A Leap for Lisa, it sort of seemed like I remembered seeing the waiting room but wasn't positive so didn't include it. The episode "Raped", I know we see the girl in the courtroom but don't recall actually seeing her in the waiting room. I did forget one, the "Revenge of the Evil Leaper", another season 5 episode. We see both women in the waiting room, with the one Alia leaped into cowering under the table.
 
For those hoping Ben Song was conceived in Temptation Eyes under similar rules as Sami Jo

I love his theory but unfortunately it was debunked in episode 2 when Ben remembered he was Korean, Tamlyn was Japanese.
It's further debunked in this week's episode as Ben has now remembered his mother and her death.
 
From an interview with Den of Geek on July 21, 2022:

“There’s a scientific quantum principle called the law of superposition where two entities can hold the same time and space at the same time,” Wynbrandt explains, although this is a storytelling solution as much as a scientific one. “We personally felt the waiting room was a little difficult to wrap our minds around, so we’re actually moving on from it.”