Dr. Ruth - April 25, 1985 - S5-E14
Corrected entry: Towards the beginning of the series, it was established that Sam often spent weeks "bouncing" around time before landing in somebody's life to change the past - this transition is seen as instantaneous from Dr. Beckett and the audience's perspective. However, when Dr. Ruth leaps back into her own time at the end, she's instantly replaced by the next person.
Mirror Image - August 8, 1953 - S5-E22
Corrected entry: In Good Morning, Peoria (series 2, episode 6), when Sam is creating a makeshift aerial on the roof, Al starts glowing blue, as Sam does when he leaps. He says "Look Sam, I'm leaping." However, in this episode, Sam sees someone else leap. When Al appears, Sam excitedly tells him about it and asks Al if he goes all blue and charged with electricity when he leaps. Al responds by saying that he wouldn't know, as when Sam leaps he simply finds himself back in the imaging chamber. If Al has never seen this why would he have assumed he was leaping in an earlier show?
Correction: Sam's leaps would also affect the people at Project: Quantum Leap (as seen in "A Leap for Lisa"). As well as "Good morning, Peoria" where Al thinks he's leaping, in "Future Boy" Al sees Moe Stein begin to leap before his machine breaks (Al visibly reacts). One of Sam's leaps after these episodes has changed something at the Project so Al gets sent back before Sam leaps.
Trilogy (3) - July 28, 1978 - S5-E10
Corrected entry: Sam, and not the man he leaps into, somehow fathers a daughter with Abigail. Al and Ziggy's answer to "How?" is "We just don't know." Since Sam has always leaped into the physical body of his subjects with no trace of his own physical presence (yes, we see Sam, but no one else does), fathering a child with his own DNA should be impossible. And the characters acknowledging the "mystery" does not excuse the breach of previously established series canon: it merely makes this, at the very least, a deliberate mistake.
Correction: It is explained several times within the series, particularly in 8 1/2 Months, that Sam himself is physically making the leaps but that he occupies the aura of the leapee - this is why others do not see him as Sam. This is also shown to be the case when he leaps into a blind man but can still see or a man with both legs amputated and yet Sam can walk. This being the case, it doesn't seem impossible for him to have fathered a child during a leap and does not go against canon in suggesting he did.
Nowhere to Run - August 10, 1968 - S5-E4
Corrected entry: For four seasons, we were told that Al always saw Sam as the person he'd leaped into. (Case in point: Al once suffered an attack of guilt-ridden lust when Sam leaped into a very attractive woman.) Here, that series canon is violated when Al tells Sam, "Nobody sees you except me. Everyone else sees the real Miller." (00:21:10)
Correction: There was at least one prior example of Al seeing Sam as Sam, in the episode "Miss Deep South". So the changed premise happened much earlier than written here.
Correction: It was established that the length of time was rather variable - it was often of the order of weeks, but often does not mean always. As such, there's no particular reason why the next person couldn't show up immediately.
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