Leap of faith
Raymond Lee takes a lesson in empathy in new Quantum Leap series.
ONE week, Quantum Leap star Raymond Lee was wearing a 50-pound (23kg) space suit for 12 hours a day. The next, he was in a boxing ring. The next, he’d be focused more on the emotional strain.
“It’s a dream job. I don’t have ADD but I like new things. I like being constantly stimulating. I like learning new things,” the 35-yearold actor said.
“For somebody who considers himself a jack-of-all-trades but a master of none, I think this is a pretty perfect job.”
Lee stars in the new version of Quantum Leap, set 30 years after the original. But he’s not stepping in for Scott Bakula, who starred for five seasons as Sam Beckett as he jumped through time and space.
Instead, he plays Dr Ben Song, a quantum physicist who makes an unauthorised leap, leaving behind a lab of security analyst Jenn Chou (Nanrisa Lee), artificial intelligence scientist Ian Wright (Mason Alexander Park) and boss Herbert “Magic” Williams (Ernie Hudson).
With the help of former Army intelligence officer Addison Augustine (Caitlin Bassett), who appears to him in hologram form, Ben continues jumping, each week into a different person and different time period.
“Ultimately it is a show about empathy,” Lee said.
“I am literally putting myself in someone else’s shoes and forced to look through that lens.”
Executive producer Martin Gero, who said he watched “almost every episode” of the original Quantum Leap as a kid, stressed that he didn’t want to remake Bakula’s version, but still wanted to show “reverence.”
Gero’s show will split time between Ben’s leaps and the lab back home, where the scientists are trying to figure out how and why their colleague left.
Much like Lee, he found excitement in the variety he could imbue into each episode.
“Each episode is a totally different genre: one’s in space, one’s horror, one’s an old Western,” Gero said.
“The joy of that and being able to have a show that’s so malleable, where the tone and quality consistency stay the same but every week you’re getting something new and hopefully something totally unexpected, as a writer that’s a tremendous opportunity.”
The new Quantum Leap, Gero said, should be just as fun for newcomers as it is for what he called “Leapheads”, those who grew up on the show like he did.
Connecting the two, beyond the technology, is Magic, originally played by Christopher Kirby as a Vietnam War soldier whom Beckett jumped into in a Season Three episode.
Now, Ernie Hudson takes over the role as a “very spiritual, very intuitive” former Navy SEAL.
For Hudson, best known for playing Winston Zeddemore in the Ghostbusters movies, Magic provides a fresh perspective the show has never seen before: the survivor left behind after the scientist jumps in, then back out again.
As much as Lee stresses that Ben is gaining empathy, Hudson said it’s important to remember whose body he’s using.
“It allows the audience to look at situations and circumstances and have a much more honest respect instead of judging from a distance,” Hudson, 76, said.
“A lot of times it’s hard to even imagine because the judgment is so strong. We just assume a person living that way must be like this.
“This show shows that, at the heart of it, we’re all pretty much the same. We have much more in common than we have separating [us]. We’re all connected,” Hudson said.
The door is always open
Gero said Bakula has a place in this new version of the series.
“We would love to have Scott on the show. It’s really up to him. The door is always open. Whenever he wants, as small or as big a part as he wants,” Gero added.
Bakula, though, seemingly shut down any idea that he’s going to pop up anytime soon.
“In January, the pilot was sold and a script was sent to me because the character of Sam Beckett was in it, which makes sense, right?
“As so many of you have been asking me the last several months, ‘How could you do QL without Sam?’(or Al, for that matter) Well, I guess we’re about to find out,” he wrote on Instagram recently.
“That’s the story. As the show has always been near and dear to my heart, it was a very difficult decision to pass on the project, a decision that has upset and confused so many fans of the original series.
“However, the idea of anyone ‘leaping’ around in time and walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, remains a very appealing concept and so worthy of exploration, especially given the current state of mankind.
“In that spirit, I am crossing my fingers that this new cast and crew are lucky enough to tap into the magic that propelled the original Quantum Leap into the hearts and minds of generations past and present.
“I wish them good luck and happy leaping!” Bakula added.
Lee admitted he has big shoes to fill but ultimately the new Quantum Leap is a different show from the ones fans are familiar with.
“Of course there’s pressure because Scott Bakula is so beloved, and you can’t take anything away from that, but we’re creating a whole new show,” Lee said.
“The only thing that’s the same is the title and the mythology behind it.”