Is the return of ‘Quantum Leap’ finally going to take place?

Donald Bellisario has been retired for the past ten years. He decided to retire after he lost creative control of the last TV series he created, “NCIS,” during a dispute with the show’s star, Mark Harmon. Now the creator of shows including “Magnum PI,” “Jag,” and “Air Wolf,” is attempting to make a comeback. He has written a feature motion picture screenplay based on one of his most celebrated TV shows, “Quantum Leap.”

What was ‘Quantum Leap?’

The premise of “Quantum Leap” was that in the near future, a physicist named Dr. Sam Beckett, played by Scott Bakula, performed a time travel experiment that went horribly wrong.

He found himself projected into the bodies of people in the past during his lifetime. Some force took over Beckett’s journeys through time and compelled him to attempt to change the lives of ordinary people for the better. He was aided in this endeavor by Al Calavicci, who projected a hologram of himself into the past that only Sam could see, and a self-aware, artificial intelligence computer named Ziggy.

During the later episodes of the show, which lasted five seasons, Bellisario played with the premise a little. One leap took Sam into the body of his Civil War ancestor. He also started interacting with historical figures, such as Lee Harvey Oswald, Marilyn Monroe, and Elvis Presley. The final episode, which stated that Sam never made it back to his home time, remains controversial to this day.

The return of the series?

Rumors about a return of “Quantum Leap” have been percolating. At one point the SyFy Channel was said to be working on a TV movie that would turn into a revival series if it proved popular enough. The proposed project never got off the ground.

Indeed, a revival of “Quantum Leap” would be popular with both fans of the old show and a new generation of TV viewers.

The series was a backdoor ploy to create an anthology series, something that has never been done much on television.

Neither Bellisario nor Bakula has said much about what the story in the script is, except that it is a reboot. That implies that Sam and Al will be played by younger actors with the premise of the series left intact, but updated to the 21st Century.

Of course, many of the fans would like a revival show to be more like “Quantum Leap: The Next Generation” with Sam’s daughter going back in time in search of her father. The title card did say Sam never made it back. However, the premise of “Quantum Leap” was that there is no such thing as never.