Quantum Leap

Quantum Leap (1989)

10 mistakes in season 4

(6 votes)

Raped - June 20, 1980 - S4-E6

Continuity mistake: In the scene in the courtroom, when Kevin is being questioned by the prosecutor, she introduces several photos of Katie to the judge. The judge keeps two or three of them, and the prosecutor carries one to the witness stand. As she is carrying it to the stand, it can be seen that it is a photo of Katie wearing a dark top, with what appears to be a fluorescent light over Katie's head. The prosecutor then places the photo on the stand for Kevin to view, and it shows Katie wearing a white hospital gown with blue dots. After the prosecutor questions Kevin, the defense attorney walks over to the stand and picks up the photo. This time, it shows Katie in a red v-neck top, with no light above Katie's head. (00:30:35)

The Wrong Stuff - January 24, 1961 - S4-E7

Factual error: Al says he was an astronaut and flew around the moon, describing a mission that sounds precisely like Apollo 8 (10 orbits around the moon, reading of Genesis, etc). In the season 2 finale episode 'MIA, ' set in 1969, Al says he was shot down in Vietnam two years earlier, in 1967, taken prisoner and not freed until 1973. The Apollo 8 mission flew in Dec. 1968, meaning Al would have been a POW at the time. Also, NASA astronauts aren't generally sent to serve as pilots in active war zones.

Vader47000

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

Sam: Leaping about in time, I've found that there are some things in life that I can't change, and there are some things that I can. To save a life, to change a heart, to make the right choice. I guess that's what life's about, making the right choice at the right time.

More quotes from Quantum LeapMore 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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