Frezno's Comic Challenge: The Straight Story Six Part 3 (Ducks)

 (TW: sexual assault) 

On July 1st, 1992, the world came to an end in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador. After 500 years of prosperity, the lifeblood and livelihood of the Newfoundlander ran out. The noble Atlantic codfish, fished to near extinction by the advancements of technology in the modern age, of high-powered ships with draggers literally trawling the ocean floor of all marine life, siphoning up the codfish with more volume than it could repopulate itself. The moratorium which dropped down from the Canadian government was swift, but crushing. Thousands of men, who had fished all their lives and whose fathers had fished all their lives and who had fathers who fished all their lives, going back generations all the way to the heady days of John Cabot and the "discovery" of Newfoundland, out of work. I was seven years old. My generation, the early millennial. The first crop of Newfoundlanders for whom the fishery was not a viable career path. Something had to be done for the tradesman among my peers. Many choices were made, but one that saw some success lay thousands of kilometers away. In the oil sands of Alberta, a far-off place of frigid winters landlocked on all sides, where no soothing ocean breeze could tickle the senses and soothe the soul. Many made that journey. I was not among them, but many did. Some of them are even in the book we'll be talking about today.

A Quantum Microcosm, Shared In The Entanglement Of Synchronicity (New Quantum Leap Season 2) [Part 4]

(Continued from Part 3)

Here we are, then. The last dance. After this bit of analysis, or summary, or whatever I've been doing for the past couple thousand words ends, it's it. Quantum Leap goes away, possibly for good. It's momentous, but I shouldn't eulogize just yet. I should get to talking about the heart of the horror which is about to confront us. Shockingly, it involves discussing yet another running B-plot. I mean, holy shit. I talked in the intro about missing the trees for the forest, but Jesus. Between the Addison and Ben plot, and the Ben and Hannah plot, and now this? That's so many balls being juggled in the air. Remember when this was a show about going back in time and saving people? The simpler days we had. Somewhere, buried in the inky ichor of what this show has become, that ethos remains. Let us define our enemy, then. The final boss of Quantum Leap, the Dark Heart Of America personified. Let us talk about Gideon Rydge.

That third running B-plot thankfully does not require much set-up. In fact, let me try to do it with some brevity. During the timeskip of three years, and in order to leave a pilot light on should Ben ever return from his quantum leaping, Ian made a secret illicit deal with the mysterious Gideon Rydge for a quantum chip. Since you don't want a tech billionaire knowing that time travel is real (even fucked-up time travel like Project Quantum Leap), the function of the chip was kept secret. Rydge, however, put some backdoor code or something into the chip which would transmit data back to him once the chip activated. So now, during all of this relationship drama and the incidentals of saving people, we have a little B-plot wherein Ian, their partner Rachel who works for Rydge, and Jenn try to solve the problem by themselves and plug the leak. Keeping secrets and not trusting your colleagues is a bad idea, and so by about episode 10 Gideon Rydge has found out about Project Quantum Leap and what it is. The shit hits the fan, and someone has to take the fall... and so Magic resigns from the project, naming Jen as his interim successor. This lasts about one episode before Gideon Rydge storms in with armed soldiers and takes over Project Quantum Leap. A tech billionaire with access to time travel. Very bad. Oh, but it gets worse.

The episode this happens in, As The World Burns, is the aforementioned Towering Inferno riff wherein Ben the firefighter has to save Hannah and her son from their burning apartment complex in Baltimore in the 1970s. We talked last time about Hannah's role in this episode, and how she and her swap code are the hope to get Ben home. Annoyingly, just as the gang have decoded that shit, Gideon Rydge comes in to ruin everything. What I didn't talk about last time was Jeffrey Nally, Hannah's son. Having lost his father to a tragic accident, Jeffrey harbors a fair bit of hate and resentment in his heart. He finds it weird how his mom and this random-ass firefighter are talking like they're old friends, and slowly things get even weirder for him. Like how this firefighter seems to know something his dad used to say about courage being a choice, and uses it to motivate Jeffrey during their thrilling escape. Or the fact that his mom gives this random firefighter a kiss after it's all over, and then said firefighter looks all confused and wonders what he's doing here. Yes, Jeffrey is there and witnesses the leap-out, but there's more. Most of their things were destroyed in the fire, but Jeffrey managed to save just one document, and he reads it at the end of this episode. He reads it, in fact, in tandem with the present where Gideon Rydge takes over... which brings us to the final episode of this season. The final episode of Quantum Leap that there is currently, and might be for good. Welcome to Against Time.

To further the collapse of priorities, the leap is an incidental thing here. It's the 1970s again in California, Ben is a racecar driver, and his racecar driver father is about to suffer a heart attack in like 30 minutes. It's a simple leap, really. Standard. We have gone so far from our remit that the actual leap, the going back in time and putting right what once went wrong, has become the sideshow for the main macrocosmic attraction. Or has it? Let's see, but first we define our antagonist. First Gideon Rydge appears as a hologram, to come face-to-face with Ben and let him know why he's doing this. Maybe you figured it out. I did, on broadcast. As I said, As The World Burns and Against Time aired back-to-back. By the time the latter started up, I had my suspicions. They were confirmed. Gideon Rydge is Jeffrey Nally, all grown up. Over 50 years and with hate in his heart, he became a tech billionaire genius, part of the 1%, and eventually took over Project Quantum Leap. All of time and space is at his disposal now, the threat that the military could never capitalize on fully realized. History as the plaything of the \living embodiment of the Dark Heart Of America. As the arbiter of history, Rydge is a petty little creature who plans to use his mother's swap code to change places with Ben, and then lock him up with a picture of Addison in his cell. All so he can remember, every day, what he failed to save. Why is Rydge doing this?

In his mind, Ben is the man who killed his father. The one thing that Jeffrey saved from that burning building was the letter Ben wrote to Hannah, the Back To The Future thing that warned about Josh Nally's aneurysm. Rydge states to Ben what he believes to be the simple cold truth. You killed my father with this piece of paper. As it so happens, the night Josh Nally died, he found this letter. A letter that Ben signed with love, which Josh rages against. HANNAH HOW DOES A STRANGE MAN NAMED BEN KNOW ABOUT MY BLOOD CLOT AND WHY IS HE SAYING HE LOVES YOU IN THIS LETTER? The assertation that Ben is a time traveler only adds more fuel to the fire, and Josh Nally rushes out of the house on a dark and stormy night to drive away from it all, getting into the car accident that will kill him. We have finally arrived at the very heart of this maelstrom. Love and hate swirling together like matter and antimatter, threatening to explode it all. Gideon Rydge, the living embodiment of the Dark Heart Of America, of hate and anger and capitalism and manifest destiny, a monstrosity which looks upon that which puts right what once went wrong and hisses "YOU MADE ME, AND NOW I SHALL UNMAKE THEE." All the hate and heartbreak we've dealt with this season was exorcised from Ben, and now he stares it dead in the face like Frankenstein looking into the watery eyes of his monster. Dear God in heaven. How do we combat this? How do we defeat the personification of the Dark Heart Of America itself, given flesh?

Don't you know by now, dear reader? You heal it. You put right that which once went wrong.

They even break out the old handlink. Maximum
nostalgia, here at the very end.

The exiled of Project Quantum Leap team up with Magic, who has brought the two Calavicci girls, Beth and Janis, along with him. They're going to use Janis's old makeshift accelerator from the last season to get in touch with Ben and advise him, and that solves part of the problem... but let's focus on why they're helping. Beyond that it's the right thing to do, I mean. There's a touching scene set to Sam's old theme from the original show (I am not immune to propaganda) in which Beth and Janis know their original history. They know that Beth originally never waited for Al, and that Sam in his ascension to a Mirror Image went back and changed the ending for his friend. Janis and her sisters would not exist were it not for Quantum Leap and Sam Beckett, and so of course she's going to help them stop Rydge. Here in the final moments of Quantum Leap (though we didn't know it at the time) it's a perfect invocation of the original ethos of the show. A reminder of why we're doing this, why we're even here. We're here because the human personification of a golden retriever did the right thing 97 times over, without hope and witness and reward. Because it was the right thing to do. Sam may be gone, but one wonders: What would he do in this situation? What would he do if confronted with the Dark Heart Of America given flesh? Gideon Rydge with his riches and his hate? I think he'd do what Ben does here, or something very close.

Because there is a plan for stopping Rydge. The raceway Ben has leapt into is very close to where Hannah and Jeffrey live, here in the past. Ben rushes over there in his racecar, and there's a handcrafted 70's computer made by Jeffrey in his garage. This one piece of tech is the stepping stone to the rise of Gideon Rydge and his empire. Smash it to pieces, and you alter the course of history. You change things so that Rydge cannot come to pass. Ben takes a hammer, and has a think about it. It would be so easy to do, especially since we've already had a material cost to the Dark Heart running rampant. Jenn Chou, head of security. She went back in to do a hack on Rydge, to stall him from activating the swap code. She's discovered, held at gunpoint, and refuses to back down... and so is shot dead for it. Now, we should pause here. Back when Doctor Who's last season ended, I made a big to-do about people who watched UNIT get discount Thanos snapped and immediately cynically went "OH THAT MEANS THIS IS GETTING UNDONE THEREFORE THIS EPISODE HAS NO STAKES ANYMORE BAD TV DOCTOR WHO IS DEAD FOREVER'. On broadcast seeing this, I knew this was getting undone. The characters talked about the ramifications of changing Rydge's history changing their personal history. Rydge, for all his evils, still made the quantum chip. Without it, Ben would not have gotten back and none of this would have happened. Things are going to work out, and sometimes it's okay for TV to do that. The point is not the if, but the how. Here's how Ben wins.

He has a hammer in his hands, considering beating the shit out of this computer. His friend's dead, his other friends are exiles, and this tech asshole is about to make history his own personal playground. This cannot come to pass, and yet Ben hesitates. He hesitates because Jeffrey has named the computer after his father. Ben, dear sweet loveable Ben, sees the tree in the forest. He doesn't see the first stepping stone to creating the loathsome Gideon Rydge. He sees the creation of Jeffrey Nally, a confused and hurt teenage boy who lost his dad and still isn't okay with it. The way forward becomes clear. Don't win with hate. Win with love. Instead of fighting Gideon Rydge, the answer is healing Jeffrey Nally. He finds Jeffrey, and he talks straight with him. He explains everything about himself, about grief and loss and how it can metastasize into cancerous, venomous hate. He explains what he does. He saves people, changes their lives for the better, because it's the right thing to do.  He does more than that. He demonstrates by bringing Jeffrey along with him. There's still an elderly racecar driver with a bad heart to save. How fitting is that? It's healing one literal heart that helps heal Jeffrey's metaphorical heart, as he uses his scientific know-how to help Ben build a makeshift defibrillator. The man is saved, and Jeffrey comes through it all with a little more understanding of who this Ben guy is and why he means so much to his mom... and it is enough. The promise of redemption rejected by Richard Martinez is kept here with Jeffrey Nally. The antagonist of the season is shown that the power of Quantum Leap is a force for good, not bad... and trusts in it to find their own personal healing. Martinez was unable to look past his hate. Gideon Rydge of the year 2026 was unable to as well. Jeffrey Nally, however, was... and that's beautiful.

The day is saved, the timeline restored, what once went wrong put right. Gideon Rydge is now one of Project Quantum Leap's generous backers. Jenn is alive and well. All is right with the world... and we even have the swap code. Ben can come home, but he needs a body to swap with. It's Addison who steps up. Addison, whose relationship with Tom reached amicable dissolution after they both realized she still loved Ben. Addison, who Ben has done so much for. He started this entire endeavor to save her, and so this is her returning the favor and saving him. To return him home. Except... Hannah reminded us of something in her last appearance, at the end of this. Home isn't a place for Ben. It's a person. The swap code sends Addison adrift through space and time, but recall the law of quantum entanglement. Two particles in a shared state. Ben is still here, but so is Addison. They are together again, adrift in the macrocosm of time and space. Quantum Leap ends with them running off into the sunset (well, actually the middle of a warzone) together, and though I was imagining what the structure of a season 3 could look like.. this is it. If this is how it had to end, then it's perfect enough. The two separated lovebirds end up back together. Love wins out over hate. In a way, the new show finally heals the wound left upon itself on the original Quantum Leap's ending. The tragedy of Sam Beckett never coming home, never getting to see Al or Donna or Sammy Jo ever again. Not this Quantum Leap. This Quantum Leap gets to reunite its star-crossed lovers, and end on that note. Beautiful.

That's it, then. Quantum Leap, done and dusted. I will admit, part of me soured on it during the middle part of writing these. I started all this off by claiming I was conflicted about this season, that I both loved and hated it. I love it for the message of positivity, how love conquers over hate. I hate it for accelerating the macrocosm, for sidelining the simple act of making ordinary lives better in favor of its overarching plotline. For missing the trees for the forest. There was a serious part of me that wondered if such hubris, such a departure from the original remit of the show, was its death knell. If Quantum Leap had failed, had let the macrocosm overtake it, and that was why it had to go away. Hell, I fled to it to escape the macrocosm of other shows. I should be infuriated that it has happened again, right? I don't think that was entirely the case. It's still an alright season with its heart in the right place at the end, and I think a lot of why I feel this way about it is how I ended up covering it. Things once again feel kind of bloated, with a lot for me to talk about that isn't just the specifics of a leap or its themes. I got to do that here at the end, with Jeffrey and putting right what went wrong with him, so that was nice. Other than that, it's an okay season of television that ended up not doing well enough to greenlight a third okay season of television. It happens.

So, then, we say goodbye to Quantum Leap. Goodbye to that show which I fled to from the macrocosm of other franchises. Goodbye to the show that mellowed me out, made me appreciate something simpler and better. A show which made me laugh and cry and feel so many wonderful things. Quantum Leap. Dear sweet Quantum Leap. You found me at my very own Jeffrey Nally junction point, didn't you? A bitter weirdo with hate in their heart, raging about the betrayals of utopic media. Frothing at the mouth about the Hollow Pursuits of an anxious mess, about Timeless Children robbed of their mercury and moral initiative, about Uranus and Neptune in retrograde and the Rise and Fall of a space empire at war. You saw all of that, and you healed the hate in my heart. You showed me that things could be better, and helped quell that mess in my mind. Ypu put me right just as I was about to go wrong. For that, I thank you dearly. I give you these words from my healed soul out of love and adoration for you, as you sail off into that great unknown. A part of you will always stay with me, as I hope a part of me will always stay with you. Sam. Ben. All the rest. May you always have an angel by your side. 

Happy leaping. 

A Quantum Microcosm, Shared In The Entanglement Of Synchronicity (New Quantum Leap Season 2) [Part 3]

(Continued from Part 2)

We avoided it, for a time, but we can avoid it no longer. Into the swirling maelstrom of macrocosm we go. Into the churning choppy waters of Arc Stuff. It's big and grandiose, but here on its edges before the dark waters we will still find something simple and human to guide us. All of this, all of what is to come, was started with one small act of kindness. These harsh waves began with but a ripple in the water of time. Think back to what we learned long ago, when Sam Beckett faced his Mirror Image: the lives a quantum leaper touches do themselves touch other lives. Every leap, when you think about it, is a massive rewrite of interpersonal macrocosmic history. Each one makes the world a better place, putting right what once went wrong. These changes are never usually shown, only implied by the hologram reading out a lovely little summation at about minute 40 of each episode. New Quantum Leap Season 2 plays different. It will show the full scope of one such change; how it makes one person's life just a little better, albeit not without some hardships and adversity. That's just life, though, and the macrocosmic ramifications will come home to roost later. For now, let's see the change. Let's see what Ben did.

In order to understand, we have to go back to Closure Encounters. The Roswellian conspiracy leap which flirts with the idea that UFOs are real before revealing it was all just top secret military stuff. What I neglected to mention was one particular person Ben meets on this leap. He strikes a rapport with a young waitress named Hannah Carson. Do remember that at this time Ben is still reeling from having just been told he's lost Addison because it was three years and she didn't wait for him. Hannah, then, is just the sort of friend he needs on such a leap. She's sweet, charming, and also knows a little about physics herself. Hannah is a brief side character on this leap, but she is a nice enough young lady. So it is that, before leaping away, Ben writes down some info about a Princeton physics program for women that will start up in the future. A sweet gesture. Something to help Hannah get out of dead-end Arizona, to go and live her dreams of being a scientist. A kindness as Ben is hurting. This one kindness is the foundation for the entire arc. Everything that happens from here on happens as a result of this (or has already happened as a result of this, depending on how much predestination we believe in, but put a pin in that), and we get to see it very soon.

Which takes us nicely back into Secret History, the treasure hunt for Einstein's fusion generator formula which also has copious amounts of Nazis getting punched, losing swordfights, and getting arrested. Fittingly, there was a secret history here which I was evading last time, and here it is. Ben is assisted in this leap by none other than a slightly older Hannah Carson. Furthermore, Ben actually tells Hannah that he is a time traveler from the future in this second meeting. Again, we need to sit back and focus on the significance of all this. Ben even muses at the end of the episode that leaping doesn't work like this: he meets people, works hard to improve their lives and make a difference, and then never sees them again as he leaps off to the next problem to solve. The pool of people who have met a quantum leaper more than once is quite small: you can't count them on one hand, but you can count them on two. Add to that the number of people who know that the person in front of them is a quantum leaper from the future? That's like, three people from the old show (two of whom are Evil Leapers) and Richard Martinez. A significant thing has happened here. Ben Song and Hannah Carson have become quantum entangled, ensnared in a web of fate and predestination that will tug at their heartstrings. Again, at the end of the episode, Ben straight up kisses Hannah. He's hurting from his breakup and there's a clear sense of rebound and struggling to heal his heart, but here he is making a connection again with someone else, entangled across this woman's timeline. What will come of that? Many things.

Notably, right after this is the witch trials episode, in which Ben fully heals from the hate in his heart. This second meeting with Hannah is clearly an inspiration for that, and finding a real and tangible human connection is what helps him get over that misery. The power of the microcosm yet again. 'Twas love, everyone... and yet, the macrocosm looms. It seems dainty and innocent enough now, but last time was a struggle to talk about things that weren't the arc. Having exhausted that, everything else is major. Hannah Carson, the whip-smart curly dimpled physicist who Ben had a meetcute with, is going to keep popping up. Literally right after this, the next episode is their third meeting. Nomad is a Cold War-era spy thriller set in Egypt, in which Ben has to help an Egyptian superspy codenamed Nomad to make it out of the world of espionage and intel alive. Hannah is also here, and also helping. Fittingly, Ben is also a nomad given the whole leaping through time thing, and Hannah gets to muse that maybe a place isn't Ben's home, but a person. Could it be Hannah? We luxuriate a bit on the second act low point when it seems like Nomad has been captured by the East and is surely dead, the leap a failure... but would it be so bad if Ben got to spend the rest of his life with Hannah in the past? The leap is a success, but the fact that the very failure of the series parameter can be met with a "Well, look on the bright side" says volumes. I do enjoy Ben and Addison's relationship here, though: they both care for the other very much, even if they're not in love right now, and just want what's best for their respective ex-partner. Fittingly, now that Ben has learned this skill, he and Hannah are about to have a relationship much the same.

The very next episode, Off The Cuff. is also a Hannah leap, though in its defense there was a Christmas break between episodes here. It's also the final Hannah leap before the two-part finale, so the macrocosm is growing. Hannah's involvement is a twist this time, as initially this is just a leap involving Ben as a bounty hunter trying to get a guy into custody while being stalked by hired goons trying to kill the bounty. I feel like Quantum Leap really likes the idea of bounty hunters as a leap concept. The old show did it at least twice in my memory, maybe even three times, and Season 1 of the new show had that one with the bounty hunters who got married at the end. I guess hilarity ensues when you're handcuffed to your enemy for an episode. Anyway, the bounty is named Kevin Nally, and halfway into the episode he has the bright idea of hiding out from the hired goons (and getting medical treatment for Ben who's been a little banged up from the escapades) at his brother's farmhouse. This gets us to met Josh Nally, a doctor who treats Ben's wounds. We also meet Josh's family, including his son Jeffrey and his wife Hannah. OH SHIT MIC DROP THERE SHE IS. Yeah, so since Ben has been jumping across her timeline by massive gaps of years and years, Hannah has settled down with a nice young man and started a family. Showing how much he's grown, though, Ben isn't saddened by this. The pair still have that connection, that spark between them. To make a long story short, the day is saved and science is used to drive off the goons trying to kill Kevin, but Addison has a bit of bad news just before Ben leaps: Josh Nally will die of an aneurysm in 18 months. Before Ben can warn her, he leaps.

Okay, so bummer there. The next two episodes we've discussed already (the treasure hunting one and the one with the pesticide company getting exposed), but there is some minor Hannah arc stuff which happens. In the first, Ben reacts to being unable to warn Hannah about Josh's impending death with a clever idea: he pulls a Back To The Future and writes a letter to Hannah, to be delivered to her in 18 years, warning her to have her husband checked out for that health condition in order to save his life. It's a wonderful idea, but it doesn't work: as is relayed next episode, Josh Nally still died. The aneurysm was treated successfully, but soon after he was killed in a car accident. What a shame. Ben tried, but the assumption here is that Josh Nally's death was just an unavoidable accident, or maybe even a fixed point sort of thing that has to happen. The latter is a little gruesome to think about, considering what comes up next, but we can't confront that yet. Speaking of not confronting things, there's only one Hannah episode left. We'll really jam with its ramifications next time, but to give a quick summary of As The World Burns to set the stage: The apartment complex in Baltimore which Hannah and Jeffrey moved to after Josh's death catches fire, and Ben has leapt into a firefighter in order to save a whole bunch of people from the blaze. There's one very important thing which pays off here, and now we have to face a different macrocosm: We have to talk about the back at the project plot, and the swap code.

A magic spell to heal the lonely heart.

Right at the midseason break, Tom Westfall reveals this top secret piece of super-code that the government has in archive which could theoretically do a quantum leap swap: that is, Ben could trade places with someone in the present and return home to everyone. It is, however, a very advanced code, and Ian struggles with decoding it for quite some time. During the fire, Hannah gets trapped by some debris and Ben has to rush off to save Jeffrey from the flames. At that moment, Hannah codes in dust, revealing that not only was she the super-genius behind the code, but that she has the missing piece needed to complete it. Let us stop here and revel for a minute. All of this, this expanse lasting about three decades of Hannah Carson-Nally's life, culminates here. Ben was not thinking of his own personal gain when he gave Hannah the tip to go to Princeton all those years ago. He was just making one life a little better. Business as usual for a quantum leaper. The sheer scope and consequence of that one decision rippled, and is still rippling. All of this, all that has happened and will happen. Swordfighting Nazis for Einstein's formula, thrilling chases to escape Soviet agents in Cairo, barricading a farmhouse against gangsters hellbent on invading it and killing you, and escaping a towering inferno while trying to save as many people as you can. All of that, because Ben was kind to a random waitress once. Now look at what the rippling has unearthed: the swap code, cultivated in the mind of a genius for half a lifetime, to get Ben back to his home. This is the power of Quantum Leap. No, wait. That's not quite right. It is that, yes, but it's more. This is the power of love.

But, as love beats in the heart, so does hate. Ben's one act of kindness changed the trajectory of Hannah's life. It brought them together, and it brought Ben his salvation. Salvation from the anguish of his breakup, and the possibility of returning to his home. There are darker consequences, though. Ben did his best, and he did it all in the name of love... but ripples can uncover dark things within the waves. As Ben and Hannah's hearts beat for love, the dark heart of America beats for hate and misery and imperialism and all those other horrible things we talked about. Ben's actions have given that dark heart a good and strong defibrillation, and now it's awake. It's awake, and we have to deal with our season's antagonist. A certain irony has not escaped me. I started this off by accusing this series of losing the trees for the forest. Some thousand words in, all I've really done is tell you all the arc shit that's happened. I feel as if I've let you all down again, and for that I apologize. I can only hope you've been liking the words, but even I feel as if the macrocosm has weighed down on us. We're in the eye of the storm, in the middle of the black hole here now.

The end of Quantum Leap approaches. The end of love, of life, of putting right what once went wrong. One last desperate battle with the dark heart of America. Let's go.

(Continued in Part 4)

A Quantum Microcosm, Shared In The Entanglement Of Synchronicity (New Quantum Leap Season 2) [Part 2]

(Continued from Part 1)

Well, actually, I can only tell you half that story. There is a massive series of swirling macrocosms at the heart of New Quantum Leap Season 2, and the full tale of Ben and Addison's loss and healing is caught in that maelstrom. More to the point, most of the episodes are caught up in that particular arc as well. To take things in all at once would dilute the focus I am going for, so I find myself furtively turning the rudders to try and cut against this grandiose current. I can't avoid it forever, but if I can avoid it for around 2000 more words then all the better. Mercifully, there are still some standalone leaps to talk about, and even some of the ones tied into the arc have elements to them that can still be discussed here. Consider this segment one last dance with the original remit of Quantum Leap: putting a leaper up against the dark heart of American history itself, looking that darkness right in the eye and defying it. Making the world a better place, one ordinary life at a time. It will not satisfy the macrocosm's hunger, but it will sate it just long enough for us to prepare. 

A Quantum Microcosm, Shared In The Entanglement Of Synchronicity (New Quantum Leap Season 2) [Part 1]

Well, how about that? You came back to hear some more about the new Quantum Leap. Or you came here fresh and are all confused now. I don't know, I just take this conversational tone to get my foot in door. Whatever the case, last time we discussed the first season of New Quantum Leap. To make a long story (which you hopefully read or will read) short, it radically reinvented the structure of the show, adding in B plots and season arcs and mystery boxes to be opened with gasps and oohs and ahhs. I thought it was pretty good, and not without its merits. It did good enough to get a second season, and that is what I'll be talking about here for an amount of words. Notably, though, this is it. Somewhere along the line, Quantum Leap failed with its second season and it did not get renewed for a third. For the first time since I began this journey in 2022, I know a world where there is no new Quantum Leap on the horizon. It's unfortunate, but I am okay with it. I have made my peace, and we will discuss the thirteen episodes we got... but what went wrong?

Frezno's Comics Challenge: September 2024 (Annihilator)

Here we are, once again, and this time I'm really being challenged. Not since the great Unflattening have I had to cover a comic with such intricacies going on under the hood. I'm not sure I fully understand it myself, but by God I have an angle on it and I'm going to try. I tried this time, Sean. I want that on the record. It might help to quantify and clarify what and who we're covering this go around. Annihilator is a comic written by Grant Morrison, a comics legend and a Scottish magician of some import and influence. I've encountered them before, long ago on the Halloween marathon. Their comic Nameless is one which, I'm sorry to say, completely stymied my critical analysis skills to the point where I threw up my hands and went "I don't get it". I've never done that before. Shameful. Now I've learned a little about talking about comics (just a little) and I'm back up against the infinite imagination and incantations of Morrison. Alright. What have you got for me?

Coming Soon: Yet Another Sixteen Screams For Halloween

 Hey all! It's been a little bit, and I have been cracking at words when I can break through the crippling sense of writer's block. It's a lot, but I have to deal with it because the busy fall season is fast approaching. November with its Na-- They did what? Uh okay, I mean... Non-Specific November Writing Month. I have some stuff in the pipeline here for September. A few more Comics Challenges, and New Quantum Leap Season 2. Then I can get at the main stuff. Which, here's the announcement and leadup to one of them. That's right, October approaches and it is once again time for the SPOOKY MARATHON in which I spend every other day on here briefly talking about something spooky. I got like half a list made up, but for the rest that's where you come in! I am open to spooky media suggestions, so please follow the... following guidelines.

-I think at this point I know my way around the Internet and can get my hands on most cinematic material, but for obscure edge cases keep that in mind.

-My only real trigger/phobia, beyond a very specific case, is wrist or throat slashing. If such scenes are signposted in the movie such that it's obvious they're going to happen, I can avert my eyes in time. If there's only one or two such scenes in the movie, it's fine with a warning. If it's something where such things are the main method of murder, that's a hard pass.

-I am open to other media, like brief forays into TV shows or comics or what have you, but it's not my main area of expertise and I'll need a relatively affordable or even cost-free way of access to cover it. This part I may be able to handle on my own, but it's a case-by-case basis and depends on context.

I don't have much else to say but that, I'm actually banging this out before I run to the store and do yardwork so it's a fun race against time. Woo, deadlines. Here's a picture of Juniper from Fields Of Mistria, a farming sim game I've been streaming on Monday nights. I'm love her. Happy September, and see you soon for comics and Quantum Leap and then the spooky stuff.