Quantum Leap

Quantum Leap (1989)

157 mistakes

(7 votes)

Show generally

Factual error: Many of the episodes are set in the 1950's or early 1960's, but we always see three-prong electrical outlets in the buildings. Three prong electrical outlets only came into common use in the mid to late 1960's, and were required starting in 1969. While they existed before that, they were only installed in specific use situations.

jimba

Pool Hall Blues - September 4, 1954 - S2-E18

Factual error: After Eddie tells his helper to get rid of Sam's/Charlie's pool cue Alberta, we see an exterior street shot with an elevated subway going by, with a lot of 1970s and 1980s cars parked and driving by. Not quite appropriate for the 1954 setting. (00:35:40)

jimba

Good Night, Dear Heart - November 9, 1957 - S2-E17

Revealing mistake: When Sam is talking to the sheriff in the parlor and says it can't be prosecuted, he walks in front of a mirror and we see the real doctor in the mirror, except we see the real doctor standing up just as he becomes visible, and Sam's shoulder just to the left. They used the mirror's angle to fake the mirror image, and probably panned the camera over the other actor's head as it swung around which is why he had to stand up. (00:38:40)

jimba

Jimmy - October 14, 1964 - S2-E8

Revealing mistake: When Sam is helping Frank clean his truck, an old couple passes as they are talking. Watch the shadows on the left side of the frame right before they enter. The shadows pause for a second, and then the couple walks on screen as they are being cued by the director.

manthabeat

Dreams - February 28, 1979 - S4-E8

Character mistake: When Sam is trying to explain to Al how he feels the person he's leapt into, Jack, is still in his head, Sam asks Al if he remembers how their personalities got mixed up when they simul-leaped. Al says he does not. Three episodes previously, in Permanent Wave, Al asks Sam if there's still some of him, Al, left in Sam because of the way Sam is behaving toward the twins. So Al remembers in one episode, but in another, later episode his brain is somehow still swiss-cheesed from the leap on this particular detail. (02:33:40)

Phixius

The Leap Back - June 15, 1945 - S4-E1

Plot hole: Sam is trapped inside the imaging chamber without a hand-link for the first half of this episode. Yet, somehow, he is still able to follow Al around town. The chamber is only so big. Without the hand-link to recenter himself on Al once he's traveled beyond the walls of the chamber, Sam would have been unable to move much further than the town square he appeared in.

Phixius

Goodbye Norma Jean - April 4, 1960 - S5-E18

Factual error: Sam leaps into Marilyn Monroe's chauffeur in April, 1960. But the car he's driving her around in is a 1961 Lincoln Continental convertible. The 1960 had prominent tail fins, the redesigned '61 did not, so the difference is noticeable. This is a model Marilyn could not have purchased until, at the earliest, September of 1960. (00:03:00)

Jean G

Al: I went over to check out the cheerleaders. Oh, Sam. There was one little girl who had these pommelos, man.
Sam: Pommelos are grapefruit.
Al: Pommel - that's my point.

More quotes from Quantum Leap
More trivia for Quantum Leap

Star-Crossed - June 15, 1972 - S1-E3

Question: Al tells Sam that he's there to prevent the professor and his undergraduate student from having a shotgun wedding and ruining both their lives. That implies she got pregnant. Sam succeeds in keeping them apart. Um, does that mean he prevented someone from being born?

Brian Katcher

Answer: He means he's there to prevent there ever being the need for a shotgun wedding-that is, to stop the affair before there is a possibility of the girl getting pregnant.

raywest

Which would erase the child from history. That's my point.

Brian Katcher

Not if there was never any pregnancy to begin with. There was only the chance of one.

raywest

Answer: Not necessarily; it could also mean that someone such as Jamie Lee's (the student) father discovered that the professor was having a sexual relationship with her and coerced the two into getting married.

zendaddy621

This doesn't answer the question. You just described what a shotgun wedding is.

Bishop73

I think their point is that the "shotgun" aspect might not be due to a pregnancy, simply a forced attempt to legitimise an otherwise scandalous relationship.

My point was that a "shotgun wedding" doesn't always happen because an unmarried girl becomes pregnant; it can also happen because someone "stole her virtue", i.e had sex with her without being married or at least engaged to her. There's no reason to believe that Jamie Lee was, or would become, pregnant as a result of the affair or subsequent marriage.

zendaddy621

The term "shotgun wedding" means a forced marriage due to unexpected pregnancy. It's sometimes even used when the woman is pregnant but it's planned or the wedding isn't "forced." In common colloquialism (especially in the 80's when the script was written), it doesn't refer to a force marriage just because of premarital sex (which the term "make an honest woman" is used for).

Bishop73

No, in the 1926 Sinclair Lewis novel 'Elmer Gantry', they talk about shotgun weddings, when a groom is forced to marry a woman because he took her virginity. Obviously, the term usually refers to a pregnant bride, but I see zendaddys point.

Brian Katcher

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