BECKETT,
Dr. Samuel "Sam"
(Quantum Leap)
P.O. Box 555
Stallions Springs
New Mexico 87501-4893
Driver's License No: 5738457
SS# 563-86-9801
DOD Umbra #004-002-02-016
DOB: 8/8/53
Sam is a quantum physicist. He works at a
secret government base 30 miles outside of
Destiny County, New Mexico. Born and raised on a
dairy farm in Elk Ridge, Indiana, Sam was
accepted to the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology at the age of 15. He has doctorates
in music, medicine, quantum physics, and ancient
languages [he can read Egyptian hieroglyphics]
and is well versed in several kinds of martial
arts [but he's been afraid of heights since he
was 9 years old]. A winner of the Noble Prize,
Time magazine called Sam “the next
Einstein.”
Sam manages a classified time travel project
known as “Quantum Leap.” It cost $43 billion to
develop with an additional $2.4 billion in
operating funds. Unfortunately, the government
grew impatient and wanted to see results for
their investment. Forced to prove his theories
of time travel or lose his funding, Dr. Beckett
entered a not yet fully operational time machine
and vanished. He found himself transported some
thirty years in the past occupying the bodies of
strangers. The time travel experiment beamed his
essence (soul?) rather than his full body and
forced him to assume the identities and problems
of others. If Sam looked into a mirror he could
only see the image of the body he occupied.
Homing in on Dr. Beckett's brain-wave
transmissions, the Quantum Leap parallel hybrid
project computer known as Ziggy monitored Sam's
activities.
Dr. Sam Beckett in one his
many assumed identities.
To keep in touch with Sam, Ziggy transmitted a
hologram image from the project's Imaging and
Accelerator Chambers [that only Sam, small
children and animals could see]. The hologram
took the image of a lecherous but likable
cigar-smoking Admiral Al Calavicci who observed
Sam's progress. To communicate with Ziggy, Al
[“the Observer”] used a portable hand held
calculator-like device. It delivered pertinent
biographical information about the person's body
that Dr. Beckett currently occupied. During his
travels Sam had occupied the bodies of a Mafia
hit man, Lee Harvey Oswald, a young and upcoming
Elvis Presley and himself (Sam) as a child.
When Sam had set things right in one person's
life, he involuntarily leaped through time to
another body. Who or what was controlling his
leaping was never fully identified. The only
side effect to the transference was Sam's
partial lose of memory. Upon arriving in his
next body, Sam said “Oh Boy!” because he never
quite knew what to expect [a man, woman, or
animal?]. The worst part of the transfer was
taking on the responsibilities and talents of
his host. Try popping into a trapeze artist's
body while in mid swing above the big top. Now
that's scary.
Al gives Sam advice on
football and boxing
Sam’s first "leap" took him to September 13, 1956
where he occupied body of Tom Stratton, an Air
Force Pilot who happened to be flying the X-2
plane. In his travels in time Sam was able to
save his Navy Seal older brother Tom from dying
in Vietnam on April 8, 1970. Sam's other family
members included his sister Katherine (“Katie”)
[born during a flood in 1957] who left her
abusive alcoholic first husband Chuck and now
lives happily in Hawaii with Navy Lt. Jim Bonnick and his mother Thelma Louise Beckett.
Unfortunately Sam's father died of a heart
attack in 1974 and all the leaping in the world
couldn't save him. Sam's wife was Dr. Donna
Alessi.
Trivia Note:
Scott Bakula played the role of Dr. Sam Beckett
on the science fiction series QUANTUM
LEAP/NBC/1989-93. Dean Stockwell costarred as Al
Calavicci, "The Observer." On the final scene of the
finale episode, aired May 5th, 1993, a printed
message appeared on the TV screen. It read: DR.
SAMUEL BECKETT NEVER RETURNED HOME. In the fall
of 2001, Scott Bakula leaped into the role of Captain
Jonathan Archer, the starship commander of the
first Earth spacecraft to begin deep space
exploration on the Star Trek science fiction series ENTERPRISE
that aired on UPN television network.
