1x07 O Ye of Little Faith

I'm late on this for the first time which is odd because I always made sure to watch live but here we are.

I was pleasantly surprised by this episode. It truly felt like an original episode of the old series. The skepticism from Ben toward the whole exorcism thing was really good and kinda help show more of his character as a more logical guy. Also having Addison not be there as much and having Ben figure it out mostly on his own was good to see. It shows that he isn't just reliant on her to solve his problems.

The leap itself was also an interesting one. It really towed the line on being something actually supernatural and something logical. It had a nice sense of mystery and closeness. Having the entire leap confined to the one house made it feel more digestible whereas last week's felt a little too big since the episode required Ben to run around a whole city. However, being set in the 1930s felt like mostly an afterthought outside of the backstory for one of the characters. Definitely felt like it could've been set at nearly any time period.

I don't know how to feel about next week's episode yet. The promo didn't really give me a sense of what was going on that much. Honestly, I thought Ben had leaped into a younger version of himself for a minute but obviously, that's not the case.

In their attempt to recreate/honor the classic "Halloween Episode" from the original series, the team behind the Quantum Leap reboot have produced a near-perfect example of how most network TV series get things so wrong. In their rush to produce as many hours of content as possible, as well as make it - as network marketing execs see it - as accessible to as broad an audience as possible, the actors' performances are stripped of anything that looks like depth or sophistication, the dialogue is interminably vapid, and the plot is as thin as can be. The repetitive lines that constantly re-explain every problem & consequence are obviously forced in so as to allow for audiences to jump in and try the series during any broadcast and "get" what's going on. It's a formulaic crutch that is not just outdated in this era of DVRs & streaming; it's downright infuriating and constantly takes you out of the story. While the original episode that this installment calls back to was capped off with a famous twist ending that had major implications for that series' mythology (even if it didn't quite make sense until the final episode), the writers here take great pains to not go down that route. I kept waiting for the Big Reveal that would portend new possibilities for the show (they even teased it with one line in the first act), but what they actually rolled out fell totally flat. And worst of all: The structure of the show that has made it even remotely watchable - the dual storylines of Ben's missions alongside the mystery within the Quantum Leap project itself - is ditched here, meaning that if you skip through the meaningless, badly-acted mystery in the past, as I often do, there's nothing else for this episode to stand on. All-in-all this felt like a wasted hour from an already barely-watchable show.