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								|   | Quantum Leap FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)[This file is from the Sf-Lovers Archives at Rutgers University.  It isprovided as part of a free service in connection with distribution of
 Sf-Lovers Digest.  This file is currently maintained by the moderator of
 the Digest.  It may be freely copied or redistributed in whole or in part
 as long as this notice and any copyright notices or other identifying
 headers or trailers remain intact.  If you would like to know more about
 Sf-Lovers Digest, send mail to [email protected].]
 
 Quantum Leap FAQL
 
 Created by: Quantum Buc ([email protected]) and
 Debbie Brown ([email protected])
 
 With assistance from: Vicky Sailer ([email protected])
 Lisa (Vicky's officemate)
 Sally Smith ([email protected])
 Audrey Urling (amu@dukee.egr.duke.edu)
 and many other members of the QL/usenet community
 Occasional references from _Harry and Wally's
 Favorite TV Shows_, H. Castleman & W. J. Podrazik,
 Prentice Hall Press, New York, 1989
 
 Updated by:  Sally Smith ([email protected])
 Revision Date: 10/29/92
 
 This is an occasional file that is meant to answer those questions most
 frequently asked about the US television program, Quantum Leap.  It also
 attempts to catalog the information viewers have been able to glean from
 individual stories and other, official and non-official sources.  Permission
 is granted to distribute this file UNMODIFIED to other networks and BBSs.
 Rights to modifications to this file is reserved by the updater(s).
 
 Note: you may freely copy and distribute this guide for personal use
 provided that it be distributed in its entirety, with all original
 author and copyright information intact.  Any sales of this document
 or use of it in a for-profit project are expressly forbidden,
 without the specific consent of the authors.
 
 Other files available are:
 
 The Quantum Leap Primer
 The Quantum Leap Episode Guide (maintained by Jason Dzembo - [email protected])
 Quantum Leap GIFs and sounds
 A list of Dean Stockwell's previous credits
 Transcripts to talks given by Don Bellisario, Deborah Pratt, Scott Bakula
 and Dean Stockwell at The Museum of Broadcasting (3/17/90), UCLA (11/26/90),
 and at the Hitchcock Theater, Universal Studios (2/25/91), plus two
 panels from the QL convention of 3/1/92. (Many thanks to Sally Smith
 for punching all that in!)
 A Quantum Leap fortune file (maintained by and available from Mary Anne
 Espenshade - [email protected]).
 
 All should be available via anonymous FTP from
 ziggy.3com.com:/ql-archive.  Write to [email protected] if you
 have trouble accessing the anonymous FTP archive. Please be advised
 that ql-archive is NOT a mail response server, but a real human who
 will try to answer your questions as time permits.
 
 Table of contents:
 
 1.  Who controls the leaps?
 2.  When Al looks at Sam, what does he see?
 3.  Who is in the "Waiting room"?
 4.  When Sam looks at himself, what does he see?
 5.  Can anyone else at the project go into the imaging chamber and see
 Sam?
 6.  There is no number 6.
 7.  Can Sam die during a leap?
 8.  Why could Sam see when he "replaced" a blind man?  Would he be
 able to hear as a deaf person?
 9.  What does the leapee remember about his experience after he returns?
 10.  Can anyone see Sam as Sam, rather than as the leapee?  Can anyone
 other than Sam see Al?
 11.  Why can't Sam leap back beyond his own lifetime?
 (or, why can't he leap into the far past)?
 12.  What would happen if Sam failed to do what he was there to do?
 13.  How does Ziggy know so much about peoples' lives in the past?
 14.  How is it that when Sam leaps into a leapee who is shorter/smaller
 than he is, people around him don't notice a difference in size?
 15.  What is the Imaging Chamber?
 16.  Who is this Sally Smith person and why does she know so much about
 the behind the scenes goings-on of Belisarius Productions? Why is she
 called "Lucky B***h"?
 17.  What about other inconsistencies that I've noticed in QL?
 18.  I have a script I wrote for the show.  How do I get it to the
 producers?
 19.  Who is this "Gooshie" that Al keeps talking to?
 20.  What are "Leapheads"?
 21.  Why don't all you "Quantum Leapers" get your own newsgroup and leave
 us alone?
 22.  So what's the story with that episode titled "The B**giem*n" and why
 do Leapers refuse to mention it by name?
 23.  Is Scott Bakula really as nice as he seems to be?
 24.  I remember watching a time travel show in the 60's, Time Tunnel.  Anyone
 else remember it?
 25.  Isn't Quantum Leap just like that other time travel show, Voyagers?
 26.  If Al is a hologram, why does he cast shadows?
 27.  Sam has always been an American. Are there any plans for him
 to be a foreign national, or to leap him into a country other than the US?
 28.  Does Scott Bakula do his own singing on the show?
 29.  What are these abbreviations you people keep using?
 30.  How come cars pass through Al, but he can also ride in them?
 31.  Why couldn't Sam leap into the future (post-90's)?
 32.  How can I write the network about the show? And how can I write to the
 people who make it?
 
 1.   Who controls the leaps?
 
 Nobody knows.  Sam and Al know that it's not Ziggy or anyone at Project
 Quantum Leap. Al told Sam in the pilot that Sam's leaps were out of the
 project's control, so Sam and Al hypothetize that it's Him <eyes heaven-
 ward> who is controlling things.
 
 2.   When Al looks at Sam, what does he see?
 
 Al sees the leapee.  In the episode entitled "What Price, Gloria", Al
 was out of control at seeing Sam as the gorgeous secretary.  Al probably
 recognizes Sam because they are linked through their brainwave trans-
 missions, which is what is used by the project to locate Sam in time.
 
 3.   Who is in the "waiting room"?
 
 The leapee.  To everyone at the Project, the leapee looks like Sam.
 The waiting room has been described by Don Bellisario as being a
 sterile, hospital-like room where the leapee is examined by the
 Project's medical staff.  We've seen it a few times and it's big and
 blue. Once we got to see (and HEAR) the leapee when she entered the
 imaging chamber with Al, and she looked to us like the image Sam saw
 in the mirror. This is probably due to the same mechanism that allows
 us to see Sam as Sam [Bellisario's rules :)].
 
 4.   When Sam looks at himself, what does he see?
 
 He sees himself, Sam Beckett - unless he looks into a mirror.  Then he
 sees the leapee.
 
 5.   Can anyone else at the project go into the imaging chamber and see
 Sam?
 
 Depends.  In one episode, (Star-Crossed), several committee members
 entered the chamber with Al, but for them, they were in an empty room
 with Al talking to thin air.  The others were not visible to Sam (or us).
 Only when Al is touching an object will it be visible to Sam (and us).
 In more than one episode, Al brought an object into the waiting room for
 Sam to see (this is beyond Al's clothing, cigar and handlink).
 Skin to skin contact must be needed for another person to be seen in
 the Imaging Chamber.  Dr. Beeks, by holding Al's hand appeared to be
 able to see Sam and in turn was seen by him [and us :)]. In one other
 episode (Killin' Time), a quick jury-rigging job by Ziggy enabled
 Gooshie (see question 19) to contact Sam via the hologram/brain-wave
 process, but the image broke up a lot.
 
 6.   There is no number 6.
 
 [This is a net.Leapers "in joke" that started on Monty Python's Flying Circus.]
 
 7.   Can Sam die during a leap?
 
 According to Don Bellisario, YES he can.
 
 8.   Why could Sam see when he "replaced" a blind man?  Would he be able to
 hear as a deaf person?
 
 Sam is physically leaping through time, his mass being exchanged with
 that of the leapee.  Sam, not sharing the handicap, will not exhibit
 it. Sam's entire body and soul trades places with the leapee, although
 the physical aura stays around.
 
 To quote The Source Himself (Don Bellisario):
 
 "...when Sam leaps in and bounces somebody out, I like to think of it
 this way: ... if that person was hit by a car and they broke their leg
 and hit the street and _then_ Sam leaped in, Sam would not have a
 broken leg. But if Sam leaped in and was crossing the street and was
 hit by the car, then Sam would have the broken leg."
 
 In other words:
 
 He does not share handicaps or injuries suffered by the leapee before
 his leap in, but will sustain injuries suffered while he is there.
 
 9.   What does the leapee remember about his experience after he returns?
 
 This is also not known.  The only time we've seen this occur was in
 the episode "Double Identity," where Sam leaped to replace another
 body and the original host returned.  He APPEARED to have no memory of
 anything after he was leaped into.  It has been stated that the
 leapee, while in Sam's body back in the Waiting Room, has a
 'swiss-cheesed' memory, much like Sam received upon his initial leap.
 Because of the ultramodern hospital-like atmosphere of the waiting
 room, many of the leapees believe they have been abducted by aliens.
 Deborah Pratt says that as the leapees return, they pick up some of
 Sam's memories of what happened, but they believe the events happened
 to them.
 
 10.   Can anyone see Sam as Sam, rather than as the leapee?  Can anyone
 other than Sam see Al?
 
 Small children, the "mentally absent", animals and people near death
 can see him  [And pretty blondes with very low IQs, if Dean Stockwell
 got his way :-)].  Al has explained that children and animals see things
 as they really are because they exist in a natural alpha state.  Also,
 if a person's brainwaves were sufficiently in tune with Sam's, that
 person would be able to see and hear Al too.
 
 11.  Why can't Sam leap back beyond his own lifetime?
 (or, why can't he leap into the far past)?
 
 This is all part of Sam Beckett's String Theory.  A person's lifetime
 is like a string - one end of the string is one's birth, the other end,
 one's death.  Tie the ends together and ball up the string, and all
 the days of one's life touch all the other days of one's life.  If one
 can loose one's self from the string, one can Quantum Leap from one
 day to the any other.  On one occasion (so far), Sam was able to leap
 back to a time before the date of his birth due to an accident that
 occurred during a leap out in the middle of a thunderstorm.  Al and
 Sam leaped together and wound up trading places, Al in the past, Sam
 in the future.  This "simo-leap" caused an exchange of subatomic matter
 between Al and Sam allowing Sam to leap back into Al in the year 1945.
 It isn't known at this time if this exchange of matter will be
 permanent (therefore allowing Sam to leap even further back) or if it
 was cleared up when Sam leaped back.
 
 12.  What would happen if Sam failed to do what he was there to do?
 
 Again, nobody knows.  One theory that we have was that he would be
 trapped in the past forever, replacing the host.  This, however, is
 doubtful.  Another theory that we have had was that he would leap into
 another's life to attempt again to fix "that which has gone wrong".
 In "Double Identity", Sam was pulled from the leapee without resolving
 the problem he was there to fix.  He leaped immediately to replace
 another body in the same room and in that SECOND body completed his
 mission.
 
 13.  How does Ziggy know so much about peoples' lives in the past?
 
 Ziggy is hooked up to every major database of the late '90s.  It's
 amazing, when you think about it, just how much is REALLY known about
 you that is stored on computers.
 
 14.  How is it that when Sam leaps into a leapee who is shorter/smaller
 than he is, people around him don't notice a difference in size?
 
 I belive it is a question of topology.  I'm not very good at it, but
 consider the following argument.  The QL maps everything from a different
 time into a frame of reference relative to Sam.  (And vice versa for the
 host.)  Sam doesn't see what really happens, but rather what happens
 relative to his host. [Doug van der Veen]
 
 It's all a matter of relativity.  Consider a spaceship 10 meters long.
 Send it off at 99.4% of the speed of light and it will seem to be only
 1 meter long to anyone still on earth, while still seeming like 10 to
 those on board.  Gravity can do the same sort of thing; put an object
 deep into a gravity well and it will seem shorter.  The point is the
 ship is in a different 'reference frame' than the earth, and the
 object in the well is in a different frame then the observer floating
 outside it, and things like length (also duration) are not the same
 across reference frames. [Larne Pekowsky]
 
 So here's the theory: when Sam leaps his whole body leaps (explaining
 things like "Blind Faith"), but it is mapped into a different
 reference frame.  If you look through a warped piece of glass, things
 seem to be a different size and shape.  The same thing happens with a
 warped region of space (cf. "Gravitational Lenses.")  When Sam leaps
 the space containing him is warped in such a way that not just length,
 but all physical properties are altered.  And, of course, the only
 person in Sam's reference frame is Sam, so when he looks at himself he
 sees what he has always seen, but when he looks in a mirror the
 photons have passed between frames, and so he sees the leapee.
 [Pekowsky]
 
 To answer the original question, when Sam, 6ft, has leaped into
 someone 5ft7 and is talking to someone, they look at the leapee's eyes,
 he sees them looking at his eyes, and likewise he looks down, but the
 person he's talking to sees the leapee looking straight.  Which is
 really right? Neither, or both!  It's the same as asking 'how long
 is the spaceship really.' The answer is completely dependent on what
 frame you're in because certain physical properties have no absolute
 existence. [Pekowsky]
 
 As for how this ties into superstrings - current thought is that strings
 don't just define particles, but also in some sense define space and time
 themselves (ref: "Superstrings: A Theory of Everything?" edited by PCW
 Davies).  When Sam leaps he takes the strings comprising his body and
 'soul,' into a region of space made up of the strings of the person he's
 replacing.  [Pekowsky]
 
 15.  What is the Imaging Chamber?
 
 This is the only place where Al can go to talk to Sam.  Its construction
 allows a holographic image of Al to be generated for transmission into
 Sam's optic and otic neurons in the past, and for Sam and his surrounding
 images to be projected onto Al's neurons. Speculation (and a quote from Don)
 has it that this is a very large and cavernous room judging from the amount
 of walking Al can do without bumping into walls and the sound of the door
 as it slides open and closed.
 
 16.  Who is this Sally Smith person and why does she know so much about
 the behind the scenes goings-on of Belisarius Productions? Why is she
 called "Lucky B***h"?
 
 Hey, that's TWO questions!  Sally Smith is our own "Set Elf", otherwise
 known to the less fortunate of us as the "Lucky B***h" who resides
 somewhere in the Bay Area of California.  Through some kind of divine
 providence, she has been granted the blessing of frequent visits to the set
 of Quantum Leap where she communes with the shining lights of Leapdom and
 imparts her learnings unto the less fortunate of us on the net (this is
 where the "Lucky B***h" comes from).  This blessing comes with a price
 however, in the form of air fare, gasoline and phone bills that when
 combined, resemble the national debt.  This price she pays gladly so that
 she may share her visits and info with us both on the net and in her
 mailing list. To enroll in the list, send e-mail to her at
 "[email protected]".  Unfortunately for all of us, the frequency of her
 visits have been greatly reduced due to a new studio policy that restricts
 visits to the sets in their domain. [!@#$%^& legal nozzles. Sally Smith]
 
 17.  What about other inconsistencies that I've noticed in QL?
 
 "Don't investigate this too closely."  --Don Bellisario, 3/17/90
 
 18.  I have a script I wrote for the show.  How do I get it to the
 producers?
 
 One word.  DON'T.  Really.  Sally Smith (see question 16) reports "The
 producers have specifically asked that no scripts be sent in" and do
 not even look at unsolicited scripts, not even those submitted by
 professional writers.  Despite the fact that they do not use other
 people's ideas, lawsuits are still filed against them.  People assume
 that if they send in a script and something similar shows up in a
 story, that they were ripped off - even though their script was never
 read by anyone at the company.  Think of it this way: if you thought
 of it, they've probably thought of it too, and can either do it
 better, are already in the process of doing it, or have already
 discarded the idea.
 
 Writer-producer Chris Ruppenthal (see question #22) said on 3/1/92:
 
 "Hey, that's a good question. That's a terrifying question.  Quite
 frankly, stories are submitted _only_ through agents accredited with
 the Writer's Guild of America, East or West. We cannot -- even if you
 call up on the phone, and say, "Hey, I don't want any money for this,"
 which a lot of people do, "I just think it would be a cool idea for
 Sam to do that," but we can't listen to it. It's unfortunate, but the
 way the legal system is today, and what has happened to us in the
 past, we have to be very strict and very certain. If you submit a
 manuscript, a "Quantum Leap" spec script, it will be returned unread
 by our legal department. We just can't. What we don't want to do to
 aspiring writers, or writers who've already done some work, is
 consciously or unconsciously co-opt an idea and beat you out of the
 money. Because it's only fair that your ideas get the recognition they
 deserve, if they're good ideas, and the payment they deserve, and
 that's why they _have_ to go through an agent. And _not_ an attorney,
 but an agent, a literary agent, who can represent you."
 
 19.  Who is this "Gooshie" that Al keeps talking to?
 
 Gooshie is Ziggy's programmer, a short guy with bad breath.  We used
 to see him very briefly in profile wearing a headset in the opening
 title sequence as Sam is leaping out and in the pilot and the episodes
 "The Leap Back", and "Killin' Time". He's played by Dennis Wolfberg.
 
 20.  What are "Leapheads"?
 
 There is no such creature as a Leaphead.  This is a word coined by a NBC
 employee referring to a Leaper, which is a Quantum Leap fan.  "Leaper" is
 the preferred term, used by the fans themselves and the cast and crew of
 Quantum Leap when speaking about the fans.  The prevailing attitude is,
 "if 'Leaper' is good enough for Don Bellisario and company, it's good
 enough for us".
 
 21.  Why don't all you "Quantum Leapers" get your own newsgroup and leave
 us alone?
 
 The official vote to create rec.arts.quantum-leap failed on July 25,
 1991. An alt.* group has been ruled out as a great number of r.a.t's
 Quantum Leapers do not have access to alt groups so to create one
 would not be fair to them.  Looks as if you're stuck with us for a
 while longer. :-)
 
 22.  So what's the story with that episode titled "The B**giem*n" and why
 do Leapers refuse to mention it by name?
 
 [Episode title edited for net.safety] This episode first aired near
 Halloween 1990, and from the first time it aired, weird events have been
 associated with this episode.  As an example, this episode seems to have
 the highest incidence of VCR/cable/local station failure than any other
 episode aired.  There have been numerous reports of VCRs cutting out during
 the taping of this episode, local stations and cable companies dropping
 their signal.  Even mentioning it by name is hazardous, as one net.Leaper
 can attest.  This hapless individual (who knew better) was bandying about
 the name of this episode.  He lost his job AND his net.access.  Its mention
 has been known to cause power failures and auto breakdowns, so it's best to
 just refer to it as "The Halloween Episode".  Leapers everywhere will know
 of what you speak. By the way, cameras and recording equipment also tend
 to act strangely around Chris Ruppenthal, the writer of this episode.
 Since it aired, his nickname has been "Ruppenboogie". He _is_ kind
 enough not to say the title of the episode around the fans, though
 director Joe Napolitano does. Mention of all this merely causes Chris
 to laugh evilly.
 
 As long as we're on the subject of Chris, Joe, and weirdness, let's note
 that the episode "The Curse of Pt*h-H*tep" appears to cause earthquakes
 in Southern California -- the large quakes of Apr. and June 1992 coincided
 with the two showings of this episode. Pretty scary, huh, kids?
 
 23.  Is Scott Bakula really as nice as he seems to be?
 
 Yes, yes a thousand times yes.  A perfect example of just how nice, patient,
 hardworking and DECENT this man is is his appearance at the QL screening
 for the fans in LA back on February 25, 1991.  He had put in a hard day on
 the set working on the episode "Last Dance Before an Execution", a very
 emotionally intense, exhausting episode when he had to appear at the
 screening to answer questions (with the BGU, Deborah Pratt and Dean) and
 to meet the fans.  He was pleasant and open with the fans, even joking
 with people and accepting small gifts and hugs with aplomb.  Afterward,
 he was mobbed by (literally!) hundreds of mostly female fans who requested
 his autograph and their picture taken with him.  He spoke to each person
 and smiled for the cameras.  He is truly a sweet, gracious person, traits
 which are shared by the rest of the people associated with this production.
 
 Any further elaborations can be filled in by FAQ # 16, the LB herself. :)
 
 [Why, thank you, Debbie...] Another example is the UCLA screening of
 11/25/90.  Scott had been to New York City and back that weekend
 (appearing in the Macy's parade), had put in a long day at work and
 was in a great deal of pain from an injured ankle. But he walked out
 on stage and answered questions like he hadn't a care in the world and
 afterwards signed autographs until co-executive producer Michael
 Zinberg literally picked him up off the floor and took him away,
 telling him he had to go to work the next day. Then there was the
 convention...well, you get the idea.  [Sally Smith]
 
 24.  I remember watching a time travel show in the 60's, Time Tunnel.  Anyone
 else remember it?
 
 Ah yes, Irwin Allen's Time Tunnel.  This was a show about a secret
 government funded time travel experiment in which a young researcher
 sends himself back in time in an effort to prevent the project's
 funding from being cut.  This, the two men travelling through time,
 and the efforts to retrieve them are the only things this show has in
 common with Quantum Leap (which only has ONE man travelling through
 time, his companion is firmly rooted in the future, but I digress).
 In the Time Tunnel, time travellers Anthony Newman and Doug Phillips
 unfailingly arrived at historical events and desperately tried to
 influence events based on their knowledge of the outcome.  They always
 failed.  This is a show where the time travellers would find
 themselves at the Roman coliseum one week, and in Napoleon's army the
 next, THEN tripping to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  It is drastic
 time changes like this that Don Bellisario wanted to avoid when he
 imposed the 'within his own lifetime' rule.  He felt the huge
 differences in time settings were distracting and unrealistic. :-)
 
 25.  Isn't Quantum Leap just like that other time travel show, Voyagers?
 
 Phineas Bogg with the assistance of companion Jeffrey Jones are time
 travellers who find themselves trying to fix history, or to 'put
 things right' when 'people become displaced in time and find themselves
 a half-step away from a totally different destiny' [Harry and Wally].
 In one episode, Franklin D. Roosevelt became a movie director and it
 was up to Phineas and Jeffrey to set him on the right course to the
 presidency of the United States.  This is another show that would find
 its heroes travelling to far-flung places and times, a plot device
 that Don Bellisario wanted to avoid.
 
 26.  If Al is a hologram, why does he cast shadows?
 
 The shadows are holograms, too, and are generated and projected by Ziggy as
 part of the process, of course. [Sally Smith]
 
 Seriously, while Al may not cast shadows, _Dean_ certainly does
 (especially since-- as QL's director of photography Michael Watkins, ASC
 once put it-- "Dean likes to talk with his hands so much that he's a
 pretty active shadow anyway."). It's simply physically impossible to
 eliminate them all.  Also, there are times when having Al not cast a
 shadow would actually make him look fake--like a pasted-on cut out
 effect instead of a real person. See question # 17. [Sally Smith]
 
 27.  Sam has always been an American. Are there any plans for him
 to be a foreign national, or to leap him into a country other
 than the US?
 
 From the convention of 3/1/92:
 
 JOE NAPOLITANO: Wednesday, we start filming him in Egypt. The question
 was, does he go overseas or has he ever gone into other than American
 situations?  Well, Vietnam was one.
 
 CHRIS RUPPENTHAL: Also, will he be a foreign national? We've talked
 about it several times. There's nothing right in the immediate future
 for him being a foreign...We've talked about him being like an Arab
 sheik, like the wealthiest guy in the known universe, with y'know, a
 harem of women, he leaps in, "Oh, boy!" "Master, we're here to serve
 you!" "Oh, boy."
 
 In "Leaping of the Shrew", Sam was a Greek national, and the show was
 set in the Aegean. As of this writing (10/92) reputable rumors have it
 that there will be more leaps outside the US in the fifth season,
 including one into London.
 
 28. Does Scott Bakula do his own singing on the show?
 
 You betcha. Scott is an accomplished singer (1988 Tony nomination for
 "Romance/Romance"), pianist (see "Blind Faith"), songwriter (he wrote
 the lyrics to the song "Somewhere in the Night" from "Piano Man"),
 dancer, and all-around athlete. Let's put it this way -- if you think
 Scott's doing it (and it's not wildly dangerous) -- it's him.
 
 29. What are these abbreviations you people keep using?
 
 Whoops, sorry! GTF means "God, Time, or Fate" -- whatever "unknown
 force" is leaping Sam around. BGU (coined by Warren J. Madden) stands
 for "Big Guy Upstairs", and depending on context, that either means
 GTF or Don Bellisario.
 
 30. Since Al is a hologram, we always see the neat effects of cars
 driving right through him, etc, so how can he sit in the car and
 travel within it too?
 
 Well, when Al appears to be riding in the car, what's actually
 happening is that he's merely placed his image within the car and
 set it (his image) to track along with Sam's traveling. This same
 technique also allows him to track alongside the outside of moving
 vehicles as well. I'd assume that he's standing the entire time
 he's "riding," which also accounts for why he often seems to be
 facing a different direction than one normally would while riding
 in a vehicle (i.e. straight ahead). [Robin C. Kwong]
 
 31. I read the QL primer and I understand the concept of time strings
 with the parts of the string touching other times, and how the rule is
 that Sam can only leap to times that occur during his own life-time.
 My question is, why can't Sam leap into the future?  By the future, I
 mean that period of time between the first leap, and Sam's death.
 
 Sam's leaping into post-'90s time would seem to fit within the
 definition of "his own lifetime," since one's birth as well as death
 would consititute one's entire lifetime. This was stated as much in
 "Genesis" ("One end of this string represents your birth; the other
 end, your death. You tie the ends together, and your life is a loop.
 Ball the loop...and the days of your life touch each other out of
 sequence. Therefore, leaping from one point in the string to another
 --" "Would move you back and forth within your own lifetime.").
 
 With this in mind, then, "future" leaps would seem to be possible.
 However, since now the m.o. of the Project has changed slightly due to
 the interference of GTFWhoever, it just might not be practical.  That
 is, Sam leaps in order to right some wrong, often using his knowledge
 of the future to solve the problem -- or at the very least, the fact
 that he's from the future enables him to recognize the fact that there
 *exists* a problem at all (preventing something from happening that
 the original host didn't see coming up the first time around). In a
 "future" leap, Ziggy would be useless in terms of obtaining data, Al
 would be reduced to being only able to offer moral support or an extra
 pair of eyes, and Sam would be just as clueless about the situation as
 the original leapee was (and probably even more so). The sheer
 impracticality of these conditions would then cut down quite a bit the
 probability of a "future" leap.
 
 Then again, if Sam does do a "future" leap, would that give away
 the fact that he's not going to die in any other leap before the
 Project's "real time" reaches that date? [Robin C. Kwong]
 
 32. How can I write the network about the show? And how can I write to the
 people who make it?
 
 That's two questions again, but they're good ones. :-)
 
 If you want to write the network, say, to express your support for the
 show, write to:
 
 Warren Littlefield
 NBC-TV
 3000 W. Alameda Ave.
 Burbank, CA 91523
 
 (Don't put anything about Quantum Leap on the envelope, or they'll
 just send it to the address below.)
 
 To write to the people responsible for the show -- all those names you
 see in the credits -- write to:
 
 {name of person}
 QUANTUM LEAP
 100 Universal City Plaza
 Bldg. 426C
 Universal City, CA 91608
 
 Sally Smith
 (510)790-0608
 [email protected]
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