In a second of calm within the E.R., Ben learns from his hologram helper and fiancée, Captain Addison Augustine (Caitlin Bassett), that he’s there to avoid wasting the lives of three folks. Logically, Ben proceeds to the nurses’ station to inquire concerning the three sufferers by identify, however they don’t seem to be within the hospital’s affected person database. Seconds later, a Code Trauma is introduced over the intercom, they usually study that the victims of a practice crash are arriving on the hospital. So many injured folks, in reality, that the lead physician pronounces: “If they’ll stroll, they’ll wait.”
As Ben takes time to seek out his bearings within the chaos, the Quantum Leap writers, administrators, actors, and crew are due the utmost credit score in making a scene that permits the viewer to really feel as discombobulated and unsure as Ben does. I discovered myself questioning in that second how…if in any respect…Ben goes to tug this leap off. This pressure went a good distance in reminding us about all that’s at stake, and all that Ben dangers, by leaping. Extra than simply his personal life, the lives of harmless folks dangle within the steadiness, and nowhere is that extra keenly felt than in medical drama.
It’s additionally within the medical area the place little escapes the discover of nurses. The nurse who Ben asks concerning the three sufferers places two and two collectively when these three names seem on the record of the injured from the practice accident. She questions the physician’s psychic talents and cash a brand new nickname for the leapee: Nostradamus. When Ben tells Addison that he plans on “saving lives with out ruining Alexandra’s within the course of,” he’s not joking…he’s strolling a really tremendous line.
Past the three those who Ben is tasked with saving, he additionally should navigate a giant downside with an experimental drug that the hospital is being incentivized to manage: an anesthetic known as Respiratrex. The drug has been proven to trigger extreme antagonistic reactions in these with preexisting circumstances. Ben chooses to change the pinnacle physician’s order for Respiratrex, which may result in Alexandra shedding her residency, at greatest, or tanking her entire profession in drugs at worst. A whole lot of future lives dangle within the steadiness as Ziggy stories that the unique timeline and the continued use of the drug causes the deaths of numerous harmless sufferers.
Ben has rather a lot on his plate on this episode. And now that Janis Calavicci (Georgina Reilly) is being held at Quantum Leap headquarters, the entire group is contending with their fair proportion of drama. If viewers are hoping that Janis’ seize results in extra details about Ben’s motives, then they’re in for disappointment. Actually, Janis tells Addison that she has to inform Ben to cease speaking, even when he remembers new particulars, as a result of the one secure place for that data is in his personal head.
We do study from Janis that there are “different folks” on the market, possible those who despatched the (possibly) evil leaper–Marine, Richard Martinez–into spacetime. If Ben talks to Addison about his reminiscence coming again, then these “different folks” can hear it–they’re listening. The extra these others know, the much less possible Ben might be profitable at saving Addison and fixing the issue that triggered his rogue-leap within the first place.
