Pool Hall Blues - September 4, 1954 - S2-E18
Revealing mistake: After Al comes back when the power is turned on, Sam wins a game, breaks for the next and then we see a wide angle shot and the noise is made when Al shows Sam where to shoot. But the beam doesn't appear, even though the shot is seen by viewers.
Pool Hall Blues - September 4, 1954 - S2-E18
Continuity mistake: After the bad guy tries to hit the granddaughter with the pool cue, Sam grabs it. In the wide angle shot it shows Sam's left hand about 6-8 inches from the middle (where the dark wood inlay is), but in the next close-up shot, his hand is only about 2 inches from the middle.
Pool Hall Blues - September 4, 1954 - S2-E18
Factual error: After Eddie tells his helper to get rid of Sam's/Charlie's pool cue Alberta, we see an exterior street shot with an elevated subway going by, with a lot of 1970s and 1980s cars parked and driving by. Not quite appropriate for the 1954 setting. (00:35:40)
Chosen answer: Per the Quantum leap page at http://www.scifi.com/quantum/episodes/season5.html. 8 August 1953: An enigmatic leap lands Sam in a Pennsylvania tavern, as his own grown self on the day of his birth. As Al and Gushie work frantically to locate him, Sam befriends a wise bartender (popular character actor McGill, who'd appeared in a different role in the very first "leap") and a group of coal miners. As a host of familiar-looking faces pass through the bar - with different identities than Sam remembers - Sam ponders his life of leaping with Al the bartender, who tells Sam he controls his own destiny. Pressed for more, Al the bartender simply shrugs and says, "Sometimes, 'that's the way it is' is the best explanation." Sam realizes he must right at least one more wrong before he can go home, and leaps back to tell Al Calvavicci's wife Beth (from "M.I.A.") to wait for Al, who will survive Vietnam and come home to her. The closing title cards state that Beth and Al have four daughters and will shortly celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary ... and that Sam Beckett never returned home.
Boobra