Amph Quantum Leap remake idea

i kind of adore the idea and general tone of quantum leap, and it stands out to me as maybe the culmination of a style of television that is sort of obsolete today - eclectic, feel-good social commentary. the sci-fi platform they built for the show really is brilliant in its elegance at achieving the kind of show they wanted to make - we have the consistancy of bakula and his holographic stockwell from episode to episode, but other than that its pretty much a blank check to just do whatever kind of morality play they wanted to do and wipe the slate to start over next week with bakula/beckett filling a new "role" for the practical purposes of the scenario in question

in the present golden age of television dramas (its tempting to use scare quotes, but we really have had a spectacular decade-plus of television dramas and im not even sure its winding down yet) the emphasis seems to be more on long stories and character development, which i think is wonderful but i think there's value in the approach of quantum leap and shows like it, of telling quick and dirty "i had an idea..." stories, and i wonder if there isnt a way we could do that in the present climate

all that being said about drama and the charm of quantum leap's heart-warming social commentary, my quantum leap show would be more of a black comedy, using the "leaper" character to impose a sort of sad hedonism or even malicious nihilism on serious proceedings, rather than the supreme humanism that sam beckett seemed to represent or even the mustache-twirling nihilism of the "evil leapers" that they introduced in later episodes of the original show. at this point, im just going to blurt it out -- our main character would be based on this news story and others like it:

lets say in 2014, 52-year-old martin gregory stumbled onto samuel beckett's abandoned lab, stepped into the quantum accelerator and vanished! now, he is transported from body to body, expected to right what once went wrong, but generally ******* it up with compulsive sexual behaviour and otherwise poor impulse control or possibly even florid psychosis. they send his parole officer or a court-appointed psychologist after him as a hologram, to advise him and try to keep him on the straight-and-narrow

say we go with the guy in the article's age, 52, and started the show at 2014, we'd have all of 1962 to 2014 worth of events and social circumstances to play with, even if we kept the constraints of the original show. okay, so now that we've got a premise and a tone, start submitting your spec scripts! casting ideas are also needed

a couple random thoughts: bundy ranch episode where a martin-possessed militia-member provokes a full "shooting war" with the BLM. also, we'll obviously have a 9-11 episode because we kind of have to, but what's our angle? who does martin leap into?

 

Thanks, Rogue_beezel

 

this is fair. i deserve this

 

can it be a musical?

 

This would only work if we could drop the Martin Gregory character directly into historical figures, like attorney general Robert Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis or into Henry Kissinger, just because I like the thought of Henry Kissinger humping a sofa cushion in front of Richard Nixon in the oval office while Nixon is trying to discuss carpet bombing Cambodia.

 

We already have ****ty, nihilistic TV shows for this purpose. They're called "The News", I believe.

 

done and done

 

however, i think its generally undesireable to rely too heavily on historical figures. i think we can get our point across in most cases by dropping him into random people who happen to be contextually relevant to situation without relying on historical figures as a crutch

that said, i do want to do an episode where he leaps into lee harvey oswald on november 22nd 1963 and winds up huffing glue and molesting a dog instead of shooting at kennedy and then kennedy dies anyways but we dont try to explain that at all because martin/oswald has wandered away from the scene and is overall just uninterested

 

My friend will produce this show if you lend me 13,000 dollars.

 

Well, you wrote a lot. And only 99% was pointless.

 

This is all I've seen of the show (thanks to reddit, big surprise):

 

rogue_ten this is such a brilliant concept that i was compelled to delurk and say so

 

Darth Guy that clip is actually responsible for me taking a serious look at the show as an adult. turns out its a damn charming episode. thankfully, quantum leap is available on netflix, for those of you that have it. ive even queued up the episode, "Jimmy" co-starring michael madsen as a guy who bullies Jimmy (and the guy who plays Jimmy's brother is really good too)

 

in my defense, at least i didnt ask solojones to pitch it to michael bay for me

 

No, you just pitched your "dude, I got a great screenplay idea!" FanFiction to a Star Wars board. That's much more legit.

 

um. that was a dig on beezel, not you. no need to flail about defensively. although, apparently at least jp-30 thought it was cogent enough to merit a like, so maybe im way off-base here, but since you seem confused ill just say no, this isnt really a "pitch" or "fanfiction" so much as, well, a thread post i made on a lark

 

Rogue #10 doing a beezel impersonation. I give him 8.0 for effort, discounting the last two points for attempting to do so in the first place.