Top five cancelled sci fi shows part two - Quantum Leap

4. QUANTUM LEAP

Quantum Leap first arrived on our screens in 1989 from the pen of Donald P Bellisario, who had already worked on shows like Battlestar Galactica, Airwolf and had co-created Magnum PI with Glen A Larson.
Quantum Leap was the story of Dr Samuel Beckett (Scott Bakula), a brilliant scientist who is working on the theory that a person could time travel within their own lifetime. But in attempt to prove his theory right and save funding for his project he steps into the accelerator - and vanishes.

And so the adventures begin, with Sam trapped travelling in the past with his friend Admiral Al Calavicci (Dean Stockwell) a hologram who is his only link to his own time. During his first 'leap' Sam finds himself in the body of an Air Force test pilot. He finds he has taken over the man's life completely, even seeing the man's reflection staring back at him from the mirror. The pilot's 'essence' has leapt into a 'waiting room' which Al and Sam's other colleagues have set up back in his own time.
The pilot was supposed to have died in a botched test flight, but Sam saves the pilot, and then goes on to save the man's wife and unborn child before 'leaping' again, this time into the life of a minor league basketball player.
With each leap Sam finds himself compelled to put right what once went wrong and he comes to believe that God or some higher power is controlling his leaps, sending him where he can most make a difference.
The series was well received when it first aired in the US on March 26 1989, and with the help of some superb plotlines and great acting it went from strength to strength. The writers of the show pulled no punches, with Sam leaping into all sorts of situations. On several occasions Sam found himself as a woman, he found himself as a young man named Jimmy with Down's syndrome, he was Elvis Presley, Lee Harvey Oswald and even a chimpanzee.
For the fifth season cliffhanger Sam finds himself in a bar with a mysterious bartender (who by the way had been the bartender in the series' pilot episode.) When Sam looks in the mirror it is his own reflection he sees and his own driving licence in his wallet. Sam begins to believe that the bartender is in fact God or the higher power which has been controlling his leaps.
But sadly the cliffhanger had to be hastily rewritten as a series finale as NBC failed to renew the show for a sixth season. So Sam asked the bartender if he could make one final leap to put right something he had failed to do before and as the credits rolled we found out that Dr Sam Beckett never returned home.
Find out tomorrow who made number 3.

Watch the original TV promotion for the final episode of Quantum Leap