Quantum Leap

Quantum Leap (1989)

1 corrected entry in Trilogy (3) - July 28, 1978

(7 votes)

Trilogy (3) - July 28, 1978 - S5-E10

Corrected entry: Sam, and not the man he leaps into, somehow fathers a daughter with Abigail. Al and Ziggy's answer to "How?" is "We just don't know." Since Sam has always leaped into the physical body of his subjects with no trace of his own physical presence (yes, we see Sam, but no one else does), fathering a child with his own DNA should be impossible. And the characters acknowledging the "mystery" does not excuse the breach of previously established series canon: it merely makes this, at the very least, a deliberate mistake.

Jean G

Correction: It is explained several times within the series, particularly in 8 1/2 Months, that Sam himself is physically making the leaps but that he occupies the aura of the leapee - this is why others do not see him as Sam. This is also shown to be the case when he leaps into a blind man but can still see or a man with both legs amputated and yet Sam can walk. This being the case, it doesn't seem impossible for him to have fathered a child during a leap and does not go against canon in suggesting he did.

More mistakes in Quantum Leap

Al: Well, we been having some difficulty. Ziggy, he's, uh, going through mood swings. I think we need get a girl computer put it right next to him, one with a nice set of hard disks.
Sam: You would.

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

More questions & answers from Quantum Leap

Join the mailing list

Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.

Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.