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.
Episodes
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.
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.
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.
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.
June 18, 1958: Sam leaps into a tricky situation as an escaped killer holed up in a house with a mother and daughter as hostages. Escape isn't going to be easy for either Sam or his hostages, when the real killer breaks out of the waiting room, stranding Sam in the past, destined to die at the hands of a vengeful sheriff.
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.
March 19, 1966: Things are already on there way downhill when Sam leaps back into Jimmy LaMotta. Despite Sam's inaction, history continues to change for the worst. The cause is unknown until Sam discovers another time traveler on the scene, one who's determined to destroy Jimmy's family, as well as Sam.
August 8, 1955: A pair of unsolved murders marks just the tip of the iceberg when Sam leaps into a sheriff in a small Louisiana town. Rumors of a history of family insanity, the suspicions surrounding his daughter Abigail's involvement in the murders, and ghostly visions of his institutionalized wife just make matters worse.
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.
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.
December 22, 1971: Sam leaps back to Elk Ridge, Indiana to help save the lives of the Walters boys as they try to save their farm from a banker with designs on getting rich from foreclosure.
February 25, 1958: As a horse-playing, traveling brush salesman, Sam finds himself with two wives and two families. Although Ziggy predicts that Sam's mission is to choose between the two lives, the choice is made more difficult by the fact that there's only a 50/50 chance that he'll choose the right one. As if things weren't bad enough, Sam finds that his penniless host owes a pair of bookies some big bucks.
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.
April 25, 1985: While Sam is in 1985, running her radio talk show, playing matchmaker to her producers, and trying to help a young secretary who's being sexually harassed by her boss, Dr. Ruth Westheimer spends her time in the Waiting Room, counseling Al on his feelings towards his five wives, as well as his relationship with Tina.
March 10, 1975: As an eccentric, possibly vampiric, artist just outside of London, Sam must bear with Al's superstitions, while trying to prevent the death of his host's young wife, at the hands of a couple who are taking a sacrificial ceremony in honor of the "blood moon."
October 8, 1956: As Arnold Watkins, better known as The Midnight Marauder, Sam has to persuade a fraternity to stop using chicken races as a part of their hazing ceremonies, while Al tries to convince Arnold to stop trying to get himself killed in retaliation for his parents' deaths twelve years earlier. When Alia, the evil leaper, appears on the scene, Sam becomes determined to take her with him when he leaps.
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.
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.
November 6, 1972: Sam leaps into Henry Adams, one of a trio of friends who fought in Vietnam and came home each with their own personal scars and the memory of a lost buddy. He has to save the life of a friend, Roy, as well as of a young boy, Daniel, who ventures into the woods of Washington looking for proof of Bigfoot.
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.
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.
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?
