Quantum Leap

Quantum Leap (1989)

157 mistakes - chronological order

(7 votes)

8 1/2 Months - November 15, 1955 - S3-E12

Other mistake: Towards the end of the episode when Sam is being wheeled into the delivery room in labor, there is a mirror above the table. We see Sam's reflection in it when we should see Billie's. (00:44:45)

Future Boy - October 6, 1957 - S3-E13

Revealing mistake: Just after Mrs. Stiner delivers the line "My car's out front" after her father's hearing, everyone except Al rushes away from the broken window. Sam brushes up against Al's shirt sleeve, causing it to move. Al, being a hologram, shouldn't have been touched. (00:41:50)

Phixius

Private Dancer - October 6, 1979 - S3-E14

Factual error: When Sam knocks on Diana's door, she opens it. But we've just been told that she's completely deaf, so there's no way she could have heard him knocking. Though she dances to "vibrations in the air," this is with music played at volumes high enough to cause such vibrations. Sam is absolutely not banging on her door that loudly.

Jean G

Quantum Leap mistake picture

Piano Man - November 10, 1985 - S3-E15

Continuity mistake: The old Ford pickup Sam steals to chase them is noticeably different than the one we see being driven later, including the front end, side, and roof damage, different side mirror type, no antenna on driven truck, and a different license plate number. (00:35:50)

jimba

Piano Man - November 10, 1985 - S3-E15

Revealing mistake: When Sam is driving the truck through the fog/smoke, Al tells Gooshie to center him on Lorraine but Al doesn't jump out. The shot cuts to a front view of the fog. The road noticeably jumps forward because there is a dissolve transition in this shot, even thought its the same angle. It's likely it was done to lengthen the shot.

manthabeat

Last Dance Before An Execution - May 12, 1971 - S3-E19

Continuity mistake: When Sam is strapped into the electric chair, the huge clock on the wall behind him, which is there so that both the prison doctor and the reporters viewing the execution can mark the time of death, reads 7:00. The final scene runs for more than five minutes - after which the clock still reads 7:00. (00:37:15 - 00:42:00)

Jean G

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

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

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 LeapMore trivia for Quantum Leap

Leaping of the Shrew - September 27, 1956 - S5-E3

Question: Shortly after Sam throws some items off the life raft, Al appears and tells him that because of what Sam had done, neither he nor Vanessa would be saved for quite a while. If Sam had not done anything, both of them would have been rescued within an hour. I might be wrong about this next part so further verification will help. Al also said that because of Sam throwing stuff into the ocean, that somehow, instead if only being stranded in the lifeboat for a few minutes, four whole hours have passed. How could tossing anything into the ocean have made time move so rapidly?

Answer: Sam threw items off the raft to lighten the load, so it wouldn't sink, in doing so he made the raft less heavy. Which made easier to float with the currents, if it was heavy the raft would have moved slower and not moved so far.

Except that Al said that immediately after throwing stuff out of the boat four hours passed and it was shown that they didn't really move from where they were. They were still in the same spot. Forgot to ask this too. When Sam and Vanessa are stranded on the island, one of them, can't remember who, did something and when Al appears, he tells them that because of it, time had suddenly skipped several more hours and if the event hadn't been interrupted, they would have been rescued by a boat. So, what happened on the island that once again caused time to speed up? It seems kind of strange that time could move so quickly on the island, especially since it was still day time and it never showed any sort of changes like the sun or clouds moving.

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