Move over, Trekkers. The Leapers cometh.
Nearly two years after NBC canceled the time-travel series that ran for 41/2 seasons, the show has refused to die - mainly because a growing network of folks simply won't allow it to happen.Hey, don't laugh. "Star Trek" had to start somewhere, too.
" `Quantum Leap' gives us keys to our past, to who we are," said Adina Ringler, a 31-year-old Toluca Lake, Calif., resident who works as an instructional designer and can recite the name of every episode of the series by heart.
Ringler puts it even more simply: "When you get right down to it, it's just a great television show. It deserves to keep living."
In one respect, it does.
Some 450 fans, cast and crew members of "Leap" gathered for the fourth annual "Quantum Leap" Convention (a.k.a. Leap Con '95) at the Burbank Airport Hilton to talk shop, to revel in Leapism and to auction off signed scripts, photos and props to benefit charity.
The group of mostly San Fernando Valley women who have organized Leap Con '95, which included appearances by "Leap" stars Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell as well as many of the show's guest stars and crew members, are sensitive about being portrayed as loony.
"I know that a lot of people think we're kind of strange," admitted Ringler, one of the convention organizers.
"Yet if we're weird, what about the guys who get out there at football games in zero-degree weather without their shirts and paint all over their bodies? We don't look so bizarre compared to them. This is just our hobby."
But why "Quantum Leap"? What is it about this show, which continues to play in reruns over cable's USA Network and the Sci-Fi Channel, that inspires otherwise normal people with real jobs and responsibilities to reignite a flame that for all intents and purposes burned out months and months ago?
"It's the premise of the show that keeps us dedicated," said Miriam Warner, an administrative assistant in her 40s. "It strikes you on a personal level. It's so honest and heartwarming that it affects you."
What originally touched Ringler - and continues to inspire her loyalty - is "Quantum Leap's" positive outlook on life and the future similar to "Star Trek."
"It carries so many messages - that friendship is really important, that one person can make a difference, that our goodness can somehow connect us to our past," Ringler said. "There is nothing bleak about what it stands for. It's very upbeat."
The record shows that "Quantum Leap" began life as an eight-episode NBC spring replacement series on March 26, 1989, and exited this dimension as a first-run series on May 5, 1993.
It ran for 97 hours - first on Sunday nights, then Fridays, then Wednesdays, then Fridays again, then Wednesdays again. "Leap" was nominated for numerous Emmys but was never a smash hit in the ratings.
The show starred Bakula as Dr. Sam Beckett, a physicist who was sent bouncing around in time (generally restricted to his life span, roughly the mid-1950s to the '80s) after an experiment went awry. He would leap into the bodies of strangers to alter events and help the person's life, appearing as Sam to the audience at home but as that person to those around him.
With such an unusual premise, the original show pitch from "Quantum Leap" creator Don Bellisario to then-NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff is now legendary, Tartikoff reportedly asking Bellisario to "repeat that in language my mother would understand."
There was no such translation problem for the show's devoted core of fans, who delighted in the diverse group of characters Sam leaped into.
They included a gorgeous secretary subject to sexual harassment, Lee Harvey Oswald, Elvis Presley, an insane man receiving shock treatment, a test-flight monkey, an elderly African-American man in the pre-civil rights South, a nerdy teenage hot-rodder, a blind concert pianist, a pregnant woman, Marilyn Monroe's chauffeur and the man who caused the New York blackout in 1964.
Accompanying Sam on all of his leaps was Al (Stockwell), a lovable holographic observer visible only to Sam. He kibbitzed with Sam and utilized a portable device linked to a computer named Ziggy to determine the odds and reasons for Sam's current situation.
Since the show was canceled, fans helped fuel something of an unofficial merchandising afterlife. Seven "Quantum Leap" novels have now been released, and the convention will find devotees peddling everything from unlicensed "Leap" fanzines to stories, poetry, artwork, posters, clothing, buttons, medallions, banners and even refrigerator magnets.
Those magnets advertise 1995 as "The Year the Leap Began," since Dr. Beckett began zig-zagging through time in '95 in that first script. It's ironic in that the show's rebirth appears to be hitting a stride this year.
Foreign interest ("Leap" now plays in 53 countries and has been embraced wholeheartedly by the French) and nightly chats on the Internet have sparked a new-found momentum to the "Quantum Leap" following.
Besides the big convention in L.A., there are smaller ones annually in Indiana (IndyLeap) and New York as well as a LeapLine hot line of "Leap" trivia and information (317-726-0808). The "0808" refers to Sam Beckett's mythical birthday.
Those involved in planning Leap Con '95 vow they won't rest until a "Quantum Leap" feature film is in the works. For those hardy souls who keep the "Leap" fire burning, it's only a matter of time.