The WORST episodes of Quantum Leap
Every episode of Quantum Leap ever, ranked from worst to best by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The worst episodes of Quantum Leap!
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 - A Song for the Soul
Season 4 - Episode 15 - Aired 2/26/1992
April 7, 1963: As a backup singer in a black, amateur girl group Sam finds between the fifteen year-old lead singer and her father as he attempts to rescue the girl from a sleazy night club owner's clutches.
#2 - Lee Harvey Oswald (1)
Season 5 - Episode 1 - Aired 9/22/1992
Sam's leap takes a dramatic turn when he begins leaping randomly throughout the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, accused assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Matters are complicated further when Sam's mind becomes tangled with Oswald's.
#3 - Freedom
Season 2 - Episode 16 - Aired 2/14/1990
November 22, 1970: Rather than saving his grandfather's life, Sam has to escape from jail and elude the police long enough to get them both to the reservation, where the old man can die in peace, at home.
#4 - Piano Man
Season 3 - Episode 15 - Aired 3/27/1991
November 10, 1985: Joey Dinardo is a lounge lizard on the run from mob hitmen. When Sam leaps in, his ex-girlfriend, and former musical partner have found him, and now both are on a run for their lives from a killer who seems to know their every move.
#5 - Good Night, Dear Heart
Season 2 - Episode 17 - Aired 3/7/1990
November 9, 1957: Rather than saving the damsel of the episode, who supposedly committed suicide, Sam is the coroner trying to prove that she was murdered, and find out by whom.
#6 - Raped
Season 4 - Episode 6 - Aired 10/30/1991
June 20, 1980: It's up to Sam to try to bring a rapist to justice when he leaps into the perp's victim, a young woman who may have been unwilling to press charges against the young man - the son of the pillar of the community.
#7 - Mirror Image
Season 5 - Episode 22 - Aired 5/5/1993
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?
#8 - Goodbye Norma Jean
Season 5 - Episode 18 - Aired 3/2/1993
April 4, 1960: As chauffeur to Marilyn Monroe, Sam must try to prevent Marilyn's tragic death. But when a well-meaning plan backfires, it could mean the end of Marilyn's career, even if her life is saved.
#9 - Liberation
Season 5 - Episode 13 - Aired 1/12/1993
October 16, 1968: Leaping into a housewife and mother of two on the verge of women's lib, Sam must prevent the death of his daughter during a sit in, while convincing the girl's father that his marriage can survive a liberated wife and daughter.
#10 - The Leap Between the States
Season 5 - Episode 20 - Aired 3/30/1993
September 20, 1862: In a bizarre twist of a genetic coil, Sam leaps into his great-grandfather, Captain John Beckett, during the Civil War. He must not interfere with his ancestor's romance with a riled southern belle named Olivia. He must also avoid being hanged as a Yankee dog by some home guard Confederate soldiers.
#11 - Stand Up
Season 4 - Episode 21 - Aired 5/13/1992
April 30, 1959: Sam, as the singing half of a comedy team, soon finds that trying to convince two people that they're truly in love is no laughing matter, especially when one of them is the object of a sleazy casino owner's desire.
#12 - 8 1/2 Months
Season 3 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/6/1991
November 15, 1955: Billie Jean Crockett is a pregnant teenager who will make the second biggest mistake of her life - giving her baby up for adoption - unless Sam, as Billie Jean, can convince someone to help her raise her child... before he goes into labor himself.
#13 - Revenge of the Evil Leaper
Season 5 - Episode 17 - Aired 2/23/1993
September 16, 1987: Having simu-leaped, both Sam and Alia find themselves trapped in a women's prison, accused of murdering a fellow inmate. Their efforts to unmask the real killer are not their top priority as the two attempt to keep Alia's location hidden from her observer, Zoey, who leaps into the same place and time, determined to make Alia pay for her betrayal.
#14 - Leap of Faith
Season 3 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/12/1990
August 19, 1963: Sam finds himself in one holy mess as a priest in Philadelphia, trying to help an alcoholic priest deal with a killer and the death of a young parishioner.
#15 - Thou Shalt Not...
Season 2 - Episode 7 - Aired 11/15/1989
February 2, 1974: Sam's task as a rabbi is to keep his sister-in-law from falling for a sleazy author and ruining her life. In the process he also helps the family recover from the year-old death of their son.
#16 - Trilogy (3): The Last Door
Season 5 - Episode 10 - Aired 11/24/1992
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.
#17 - Dreams
Season 4 - Episode 8 - Aired 11/13/1991
February 28, 1979: It's more like a nightmare when Sam leaps into a detective, investigating a gruesome murder. He may be next if he doesn't find out who eviscerated the victim and his only hope is the victim's catatonic son and her husband's psychiatrist. The horrific flashbacks he's experiencing don't help matters much either.
#18 - Roberto!
Season 4 - Episode 17 - Aired 3/11/1992
January 27, 1982: Sam, as "Roberto!" is a tabloid talk show host a la Geraldo who, with an asthmatic rival and co-worker, tries to uncover a mystery at a local chemical plant, a mystery, which may prove to be deadly for his co-worker.
#19 - Last Dance Before an Execution
Season 3 - Episode 19 - Aired 5/1/1991
May 12, 1971: "Just think of someplace far away" is the advice Sam hears as he leaps into Jesus Ortega, a Cuban-American being strapped into an electric chair. A last second stay of execution gives Sam just forty-eight hours to either prove himself innocent or fulfill his mission so that he can leap before the Big Switch is pulled.
#20 - The Last Gunfighter
Season 4 - Episode 14 - Aired 1/29/1992
November 28, 1957: Sam finds himself in the life of Tyler Meanes, a teller of tall tales who faces death at the hand of an old friend in a shootout at high noon.
#21 - A Single Drop of Rain
Season 4 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/20/1991
September 7, 1953: A devastating drought will be the ruin of a small town unless Sam, as Billy Beaumont, "purveyor of precipitation and maker of rain," can find a way to make it rain, while keeping his family together in the process.
#22 - The Play's the Thing
Season 4 - Episode 11 - Aired 1/8/1992
September 9, 1969: May meets December when Sam leaps into a young actor in love with an older woman, who is also an aspiring singer. If he can't boost her confidence and help her get her career on track, she will face a "fate worse than death," returning with her son to Cleveland.
#23 - Trilogy (2): For Your Love
Season 5 - Episode 9 - Aired 11/24/1992
June 14, 1966: Finding himself back in the same small Louisiana town, in the arms of Abigail, now twenty-one, Sam must prevent an angry crowd of townspeople from lynching his fiancée, following the disappearance of a young boy whom she had been babysitting.
#24 - Maybe Baby
Season 2 - Episode 20 - Aired 4/4/1990
March 11, 1963: Babysitting a kidnapped tot and a flaky, compulsively lying stripper keeps Sam busy as they cross Texas, on the run from the legal father and a squad of cops.
#25 - Memphis Melody
Season 5 - Episode 21 - Aired 4/20/1993
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.