In Review: Quantum Leap (S2 – EP1) This Took Too Long!

Synopsis: In This Took Too Long! Instead of leaping home as expected, Ben finds himself in 1978 aboard a top-secret military flight, transporting a mysterious cargo. When the flight comes under attack, the plot deepens as Ben and the crew discover the sobering truth behind their mission.

The Story

Having not returned home from his Quantum Leaping, but with all his memories back. Ben finds himself thrown into the middle of a top-secret military operation over the skies of Russia in 1978. The mission is a cargo run, but when his plane and crew are shot down it soon becomes clear that they have been set up by the US Government as a decoy. However, when the real planes are threatened by the USSR it soon becomes a mission to save the lives of the people who are flying the real mission. Further complicating things is the fact that Ben has found himself stuck with a dysfunctional group of soldiers who are being led by an inexperienced female leader who has seemingly been set up to fail. Despite all of this. Ben finds a way in which to get this mismatched group of soldiers to work together while still allowing the rookie leader the space that she needs to lead.

The Acting

Raymond Lee is fantastic in this episode as Ben Song as we see just how vulnerable his character can be when he does not have backup from Addison, Magic, or any of the people at Project Quantum Leap. So for the first time, we get to see a Ben Song who is truly on his own and really having to use every resource that he has in order to get this group of people to trust him. We do get scenes of Ben and Addison, but they are through various flashback sequences that are dotted throughout the episode. These usually pop up when it is something relevant to the problem that Ben is working on.

Lee gets a great supporting guest cast, which is very much led by Melissa Roxburgh who plays Ellen Grier. The female officer that the US military is trying to throw under the bus by having her lead a dummy operation, which consists of a group of war-weary soldiers who have all been involved in various black ops. Roxburgh brings a real sense of both strength and vulnerability to this role as she finds herself surrounded by a group of pessimistic soldiers who are all ready to throw in the towel. 

All the actors did a great job with this episode, which put me in mind of the movie The Flight of the Phoenix, which is a 1965 movie that focused on a group of oil workers who crashland in the Sahara and starred the late Jimmy Stewart. The dynamic between the various characters in the episode was very similar to what we saw in that movie.

Overall

A fairly solid start to the second season with a bit of a cliffhanger that is pretty much telegraphed throughout the episode and obvious given that Ben is very much left to his own devices.