NBC orders the Quantum Leap revival to series

Today, in news we can only assume was engineered to make the exact writer of this particular Newswire give an otherwise entirely uncharacteristic “Yippee!”: NBC has announced that it’s picking up the Quantum Leap reboot for a series order, on the strength of its pilot.

This is per Deadline, which reports that the Quantum Leap revival—which will star Raymond Lee as, presumably, a new scientist with a swiss-cheesed memory and a mandate to change history for the better (in mostly TV-friendly ways)—has rightly assumed its position as the first series pick-up of the 2022 season. In addition to Lee (whose recent credits include the upcoming Top Gun: Maverick and AMC’s Kevin Can F**k Himself), the cast for the series includes Caitlin Bassett, Ernie Hudson, Mason Alexander Park, and Nanrisa Lee. (That’s a pretty big sizing up of the roster from the original show, which saw just Scott Bakula and the late Dean Stockwell in regular roles, teaming up with a new guest cast in a new era every single episode.)

One of the biggest questions about the series, of course, is whether Bakula himself will appear in it; the revival is apparently set in-continuity with the original series, which concluded with a text message that Dr. Sam Beckett “never returned home.” Bakula, meanwhile, is currently waiting on a pick-up order from NBC himself; his new series Unbroken is apparently waiting on word of a possible launch this November.

Of course, the very nature of the endlessly mutable Leap-averse means it’s entirely possible the show could get around Bakula’s absence by introducing a version of Sam who’s, say, leaped into someone else and who then runs into Lee. (If the Quantum Leap writers need help crafting any of these scenarios, hit us up, the fan fiction folder is full.) The new series is being showrun by Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt, whose co-credits are all over genre TV of the last decade: Alcatraz, Hawaii 5-0, Gotham, God Friended Me, and more. Original Leapers Donald P. Bellisario and Deborah Pratt (who also voiced the show’s iconic opening) are both set to executive produce.