The Best Episodes of Quantum Leap
Last Updated: Jan 29, 2019
Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished... He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better. His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear. And so Dr. Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.
#1 - The Leap Home
Season 3 - Episode 1
November 25, 1969: As himself at the age of 16, Sam has the opportunity to both win the high school basketball championship and save his family from their sad fates.
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#2 - The Leap Home Part II - Vietnam
Season 3 - Episode 2
April 7, 1970: As a Navy SEAL in his own brother's squad, Sam must determine whether he is there to save Tom's life or ensure the success of the mission on which his brother was killed. Also Al from 1970 was a P.O.W.
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#3 - Mirror Image
Season 5 - Episode 22
August 8, 1953: Sam lands in a not-so-ordinary bar in a coal-mining town, where strange things are happening and familiar people don't know him. With the help of another Al, he still has something to set right ... or is there more than one thing he needs to change?
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#4 - The Last Door (3)
Season 5 - Episode 10
July 28, 1978: Sam is an aging lawyer, recruited by Abigail, now thirty-three, to defend her when she is put on trial for the murder of Leta Aider, the woman whose daughter Abigail was accused of killing almost twenty-five years earlier.
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#5 - Shock Theater
Season 3 - Episode 22
October 3, 1954: Leaping into Sam Bederman, a mental patient who is suffering from acute depression, Sam receives an overloaded electroshock treatment, which causes his Swiss-cheesed memory to be replaced by personas from previous leaps. Al, finding himself visible to the mentally absent, must try to complete Sam's mission, and convince him to take another shock treatment, in order to leap Sam out before contact is lost forever.
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#6 - Jimmy
Season 2 - Episode 8
October 14, 1964: Since mainstreaming the mentally retarded is not yet a popular concept, Sam must help Jimmy LaMotta, the "slow" young man he's leaped into, get a job and gain his coworkers' acceptance, to prevent his brother from returning Jimmy to the institution.
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#7 - Glitter Rock
Season 3 - Episode 17
April 12, 1974: Sam is a glitter rock star in danger of being stabbed to death after a performance, unless Sam can determine who, from a growing list of people, the real killer is.
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#8 - Good Morning, Peoria
Season 2 - Episode 6
September 9, 1959: Rock 'n' roll is about to become big, but not in Peoria. That is, unless Sam, as DJ Howlin' Chick Howell, can manage to keep the radio station where he's employed from being shut down by overly conservative town elders.
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#9 - Future Boy
Season 3 - Episode 13
October 6, 1957: Sam leaps Kenny Sharp, better known as "Future Boy," sidekick to Moe Stein, host of the kid's show, "Time Patrol," who also happens to be building a time machine in his basement. Unless Sam can prevent Moe's daughter from attempting to have her father committed, Moe is destined to be killed as he tries to hop a freight train.
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#10 - Lee Harvey Oswald (1)
Season 5 - Episode 1
October 5, 1957 - November 22, 1963: As a result of leaping again before he had a chance to complete his original mission, Sam finds himself leaping back and forth through the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. Following the sole assassin theory, Sam and Al attempt to prevent Oswald's attack on John F. Kennedy. But, with each leap giving Oswald more control over Sam's body, history seems doomed to repeat itself.
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#11 - Lee Harvey Oswald (2)
Season 5 - Episode 2
October 5, 1957 - November 22, 1963: As a result of leaping again before he had a chance to complete his original mission, Sam finds himself leaping back and forth through the life of Lee Harvey Oswald. Following the sole assassin theory, Sam and Al attempt to prevent Oswald's attack on John F. Kennedy. But, with each leap giving Oswald more control over Sam's body, history seems doomed to repeat itself.
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#12 - The Leap Back
Season 4 - Episode 1
June 15, 1945: Struck by lightning, Sam and Al find their roles reversed, as Sam returns to the future, and to a long-lost love, while Al leaps back to 1945 to prevent the death of a returning World War II hero and his former girl friend.
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#13 - Camikazi Kid
Season 1 - Episode 8
June 6, 1961: As a high school nerd, Sam is required to prevent the marriage of his sister to an abusive drinker, with the wedding only three days away. By drag racing the prospective husband, beating him with a car that couldn't have won without nitrous oxide, Sam shows the groom's true tendencies.
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#14 - Nowhere to Run
Season 5 - Episode 4
August 10, 1968: As a Marine captain whose legs were amputated after a mishap in Vietnam, Sam finds himself in a veteran's hospital, where he must prevent the suicide of a fellow patient who would rather be dead than face life paralyzed from the neck down. Making matters worse, his wife seems incapable of accepting the fact that she and Sam's host can still lead a normal life, in spite of his condition.
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#15 - A Little Miracle
Season 3 - Episode 10
December 24, 1962: On Christmas Eve, Sam leap into Reginald Pierson, valet to a wealthy contractor, who is in danger of losing his soul in an attempt to demolish a Salvation Army mission, so he can build his "Blake's Plaza." Seeing a similarity to the Dickens's character, Sam and Al decide to "Scrooge" the greed out of the man.
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#16 - A Hunting We Will Go
Season 3 - Episode 18
June 18, 1976: It's the leap from hell as Sam, a bounty hunter handcuffed to a wily embezzler who will stop at nothing to get away from him, has to deal with his captive, as well as his attraction towards her, despite her countless attacks on him.
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#17 - So Help Me God
Season 2 - Episode 9
July 29, 1957: Though he can't remember much more than habeas corpus, Sam finds himself the defense attorney for a young black woman accused of murdering the son of the most powerful man in a small Louisiana town.
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#18 - Star Light, Star Bright
Season 5 - Episode 6
May 21, 1966: Sam leaps into a 79-year-old man whose son wants to have him committed when he claims to have seen UFO's. Sam is kept busy as he tries to keep the family together, prevent the future drug overdose of "his" grandson, and avoid the sinister plans of the military, all before the next anticipated UFO sighting.
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#19 - Memphis Melody
Season 5 - Episode 21
July 3, 1954: Sam swivels his hips into Elvis Presley, mere days before he is discovered. Along with making sure that Elvis does become the King, Sam must help Sue Anne, a local songbird, from being trapped in a not-so-gilded cage of marriage.
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#20 - Justice
Season 4 - Episode 4
May 11, 1965: Sam must don the robe of a Ku Klux Klansman in order to save the life of an ambitious young civil rights leader, who is trying to register black voters.
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#21 - Hurricane
Season 4 - Episode 3
August 17, 1969: Sam meets Camille, and possibly a killer, when he leaps into a deputy sheriff in a small Mississippi town, lying in the path of a deadly hurricane.
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#22 - Nuclear Family
Season 3 - Episode 21
October 26, 1962: Sam finds himself the brother of a fallout shelter salesman during the Cuban Missile Crisis, where he must defuse a potentially explosive situation as panic sets in on the night of John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation.
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#23 - Leaping of the Shrew
Season 5 - Episode 3
September 27, 1956: It's Robinson Crusoe with a twist when Sam leaps into a Greek sailor stranded on a deserted island with a beautiful young rich woman who appears to be less than fond of both him and their stranded situation.
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#24 - Pool Hall Blues
Season 2 - Episode 18
September 4, 1954: In order to help his granddaughter save a small bar from the slimy loan shark holding a note on the place, Sam has to play pool like a pro...with a little help from Al and Ziggy.
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#25 - Private Dancer
Season 3 - Episode 14
October 6, 1979: An aspiring dancer working as a waitress in a strip club is in danger of being led into a life of prostitution unless Sam, as "Rod the Bod," can convince her to audition for a spot in a professional dance group. But, since she's deaf, the choreographer doesn't believe she has the time to give the young lady the attention she'll need.
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