Quantum Leap: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Quantum Leap: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 20, 2017

Putting things right that once went wrong.

12 Monkeys may have today's TV market cornered in the time travel arena, but decades ago it was Quantum Leap leading the charge, the Scott Bakula (Enterprise)-starring hour-long show about a scientist sent backwards in time. But the show played with a twist. The character didn't simply visit other places and times: he inhabited the bodies of various individuals with the task of righting some past wrong, rewriting the future but settling everything in the past. It was a show not necessarily ahead of its time -- various Star Trek TV episodes and a feature film were already playing the time travel game with much success, notably "The City on the Edge of Forever" -- but certainly well aware of time, how to study it, manipulate it, even have a little fun with it in a show that blended formula with the promise of novelty every week, timeline alterations and the space-time continuum and all of that be damned.

The journey begins.

Quantum Leap's opening moments are a bit reminiscent of something out of The Last Starfighter, but the show quickly loses its future-tech flash for a more --- "grounded" isn't the right word given that the double-length premiere episode is centered around the world of aviation -- familiar flavor. The premiere episode sets the basic story in motion, looking at Sam's (Bakula) first trip backwards and first inhibition of a new body, which of course entails living that person's life. Sam's first host is a pilot, and not just any pilot: he's an Air Force experimental flyer. Sam doesn't know how to fly a plane. He barely knows how get in the flight suit and drop into the cockpit, let alone take a jet for a test drive. More, he discovers that he's married to a very pregnant woman. He's already a father, and just as he's convinced himself that he's living a dream, he realizes that all of the physical sensations, not to mention another man's reflection in the mirror and little context clues like shortened telephone numbers and Howdy Doody playing on the television (talk about time travel... Great Scott!) are pointing to reality, a skewered reality but reality nevertheless. Just as Sam is settling into another man's life, he meets Al (Dean Stockwell), a friend and co-worker in Sam's future who is appearing to him as a "neurological hologram" in the past. Despite having precious little information he can, or, will, offer, Al helps Sam along this leap and the many others to follow.

Quantum Leap rises above other time travel programs and films because it doesn't only task its protagonist with maneuvering through a different time as himself, but doing so in another man's shoes. But he's more aware of himself than he is the body he inhabits. It's more a transference of his conscience, his soul, rather than that plus his own physical form. It's disorienting with every leap, but the show expands beyond even inhabiting another body and into the much more interesting territory of having to perform whatever task that individual must accomplish. That could mean flying a plane, fighting in a war, teaching a class, hitting a baseball. There are practically infinite possibilities, maybe a bit more finite given the show's constraints (more on that in a moment), but Quantum Leap never runs out of interesting ways to drop Sam into something different, oftentimes something routine and maybe even mundane looking in but, for the layman forced into it, the common suddenly becomes a burden at best and an impossible task at worst. Sam is also charged with not only winging it until the next leap, but working to discover why it is he's inhabiting a particular body, to sort out what the timeline deems is going wrong, and figure out a way to fix it. Can he change destiny? His own, that of the person he inhabits, those of the people around him? What is really riding on an 0-2 pitch in the ninth inning of a seemingly meaningless semi-pro baseball game? Every episode offers plenty of food for thought. There's always plenty going on in each leap, and the show always feels fresh even if it's following the same formula because it's never entirely the same character, place, or time from one episode to the next.

The show gets a lot of its mileage from some of the funny little support bits or out-of-time details that Sam introduces into the past. The show proves very clever in how little bits of dialogue -- sometimes almost throwaway lines -- can become a source of contention or confusion for characters who don't understand what Sam's trying to say because his mind is still in his present rather than his past. Mentioning things in passing, like stripes on the road when they don't actually exist, often put him in awkward-at-best or compromising-at-worst situations that don't necessarily reveal the truth but make his inhabited character awfully suspicious to others around. It's a two-way street, of course, as Sam is forced to deal with antiquated technologies and ways of doing things, even everyday things that have evolved between his leap time and his present time. He certainly has the advantage of, at the very least, a baseline recollection and understanding of the way things were as opposed to the people with whom he is in contact and don't have an understanding of his future. Quantum Leap manages to keep it all sorted out with enough accessible detail that keeps things interesting and the characters plausibly close, but often and rightly a bit confused: and that's the core fun of it.

One of the ways that the show so easily keeps all of it sorted out is, certainly, its rather limited timeframes into which Sam leaps. The show keeps it simple, leaping Sam through only a few decades -- the 50s, 60s, and 70s -- of recent history. No trips to ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, medieval times, or to primitive man or anywhere like that give shape to the series: it's fairly mundane in the grand scheme of things, but credit the show with maintaining a core freshness even if its timeline is microscopic by the universe's standards and fairly minuscule by recorded history's standards. Budget concerns are more than likely responsible for the limited scope. It's easier research, with more easily available locations and props, and many in the audience will still feel familiar with the timeframes (more so back in the late 80s/early 90s). But it never feels like a cop-out. It's explained early in the show, something about only Sam's timeline can be moved around, but it's with that constraint in mind that the show finds some serious dramatic muscle over the course of its five seasons and 97 episodes as Sam realizes that it's not only others he can impact, but his own life, too. Take the premiere episode's finale: it's one of those great moments that probably won't leave an eye dry and is a classic example of the show's commitment to character, even as that character is partly someone else every week.

Al never seems like a crutch, either. Even as he guides -- literally, at times -- Sam through his new realities, the character, who is invisible to everyone but Sam and the audience, is a pleasure to watch through the show. Much Sam's antithesis yet still similar in some key ways, the two make for a quality pairing that's necessary to give Sam a head start, a leg up, whatever along the way, though it's definitely Sam's show and it's often his ingenuity, not Al's insight, that saves the day, as it were. Many of Al's appearances are accompanied by rather crude, by today's standards, visual effects, but they're in more ways more charming. It's always easy too tell when Al's about to walk through a table or wall or something, but it's all part of the nostalgic fun. And that's what it all boils down to. In 2017, time travel has been done extensively in entertainment and literature, but Quantum Leap's place as a show that was equal parts creative and entertaining is hard to top. It holds up very well, narratively to be sure, and most importantly it still plays with plenty of genuine heart, humor, and almost always good storytelling. They don't make them like this anymore.

Quantum Leap: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Quantum Leap: The Complete Series holds its own, visually, and while the Blu-ray presentation is certainly not going to redefine the way people look at the show, it does represent, er, a leap forward for it. The series does retain its broadcast-original 4x3 (1.33:1) aspect ratio that, when displayed on a 1.78:1 modern-day HDTV, will place vertical "black bars" on either side of the image. The source elements aren't in bad shape, but they're certainly a little rough. Pops and speckles and scratches are scattered, but not usually to the point of distraction and often nowhere to be found. Inherent grain can be little spiky or snowy but does offer a quality filmic texturing. Details are rarely exemplary but rarely are they seriously underwhelming. There's a decent enough baseline boost to textures thanks to the 1080p muscle under the hood, and at its best the show approaches the better vintage TV shows on Blu-ray. Details range from flat and drab to impressively complex and, sometimes, decisively good. Faces are firmly complex at an intimate level, and standard medium-frame shots are adequately revealing. But only the most obvious basics usually carry the day. Much the same can be said of clothing, where the most stout materials enjoy a little more complex definition, but as a general rule nothing that stretches the format's abilities and really gets into the serious nitty-gritty of what each scene has on offer.

Colors are stable but a bit drab. The palette appears dim and slightly washed out. Deep color saturation is lacking, and even the basics like natural greenery, red lipstick, paint on cars, and the like don't excite. At best, it's a very bland palette in need of a contrast adjustment, sometimes minor, sometimes more. Black levels are often deep but are sometimes prone to pushing towards crush. Skin tones are reflective of the somewhat pale color scheme. Overall, it's about on par with Miami Vice or Knight Rider and an honest step up from standard definition presentations. It does tighten up a bit as the series moves along, lacking at first and really impressing down the stretch, reaching up to, maybe, a 4.0 score. It bottoms out at about 2.5, various effects shots notwithstanding, so 3.0-3.5 is the average overall range, favoring the latter.

Quantum Leap: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Quantum Leap: The Complete Series features a fairly basic, occasionally crude, occasionally impressive, but usually baseline satisfactory DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 lossless soundtrack. Most major effects come across as somewhat muddy, including jet flyovers, gunfire, and other prominent elements that would fill the stage with sonic aggression. Spacing is never much to write home about, either, whether discussing effects or music. Score stretches a little more than popular music. Clarity is satisfactory, a little more vigor, again, to score and the opening titles. Environmental ambience is little more than filler to set the stage, understandable given the 2.0 constraints. Dialogue dominates, and it's presented with a center imaged position and yields solid clarity throughout the series. No subtitle options are included.

Quantum Leap: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This complete series Blu-ray release of Quantum Leap contains no supplemental content. Disc menus offer only "Play All" and "Episode Select" options. It's worth noting, however, that the discs come packaged a little strangely inside the cases, which are simply five standard-size BD cases in a simple slip box. Though each individual case is marked "Season One," "Season Two," and so on through all five seasons, parts of various seasons are included in every of the cases but the last. The shortened season one is spread across only two discs, so discs one and two of season two are packed inside the "Season One" case. The staggered presentation remains throughout, with the first half of season five mixed in with the second half of season four. The "Season Five" case only contains the final two discs for that season. It's not a big deal, but the cases don't actually hold the entire season as they're arranged and as the case insert is printed. It's easy enough to sort them out, though, so that the two-disc pack is season one rather than the second half of season five.

UPDATE: Mill Creek has written in to say that the packaging error has been corrected for future shipments.

Quantum Leap: The Complete Series Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Quantum Leap makes time travel accessible, different, dramatic, and fun. It moves well beyond the concept's rudimentary machinations of body inhabitation in various times to offer a satisfying character journey along the way. It's one of those classic late 80s/early 90s TV shows that's withstood the test of time, and both the loyal fanbase and newcomers alike will find the journey once again enjoyable or compelling for the first time, respectively. Mill Creek's Blu-ray release of Quantum Leap: The Complete Series is a welcome addition to the Blu-ray family, even if the presentation leaves a little to be desired. The collection is featureless as is the general rule for the studio's full-set TV seasons. Video and audio are capable but not revelatory. Recommended.