9.2/10946 votesLoading...#1 - The Leap Home (1)
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 9/28/1990
November 25, 1969: As himself at the age of 16, Sam has the opportunity to both win the high school basketball championship and save his family from their sad fates.
Director: Joe Napolitano
Writer: Donald P. Bellisario
9.1/10873 votesLoading...#2 - The Leap Home (2): Vietnam
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 10/5/1990
April 7, 1970: As a Navy SEAL in his own brother's squad, Sam must determine whether he is there to save Tom's life or ensure the success of the mission on which his brother was killed. Also Al from 1970 was a P.O.W.
Director: Michael Zinberg
Writer: Donald P. Bellisario
9.1/10932 votesLoading...#3 - Mirror Image
Season 5 Episode 22 - Aired 5/5/1993
August 8, 1953: Sam lands in a not-so-ordinary bar in a coal-mining town, where strange things are happening and familiar people don't know him. With the help of another Al, he still has something to set right ... or is there more than one thing he needs to change?
Director: James Whitmore Jr.
Writer: Donald P. Bellisario
8.9/10783 votesLoading...#4 - M.I.A.
Season 2 Episode 22 - Aired 5/9/1990
April 1, 1969: When Sam leaps into the life of an undercover cop, Al explains that his mission is to convince a navy nurse that her MIA husband is still alive, and to prevent her from marrying a lawyer she meets on the day Sam leaps in. But a series of coincidences causes Sam to wonder about the true nature of his mission.
Director: Michael Zinberg
Writer: Donald P. Bellisario
8.7/10597 votesLoading...#5 - Shock Theater
Season 3 Episode 22 - Aired 5/22/1991
October 3, 1954: Leaping into Sam Bederman, a mental patient who is suffering from acute depression, Sam receives an overloaded electroshock treatment, which causes his Swiss-cheesed memory to be replaced by personas from previous leaps. Al, finding himself visible to the mentally absent, must try to complete Sam's mission, and convince him to take another shock treatment, in order to leap Sam out before contact is lost forever.
Director: Joe Napolitano
Writer: Deborah Pratt
8.7/10668 votesLoading...#6 - The Leap Back
Season 4 Episode 1 - Aired 9/18/1991
June 15, 1945: Struck by lightning, Sam and Al find their roles reversed, as Sam returns to the future, and to a long-lost love, while Al leaps back to 1945 to prevent the death of a returning World War II hero and his former girl friend.
Director: Michael Zinberg
Writer: Donald P. Bellisario
8.5/10741 votesLoading...#7 - Jimmy
Season 2 Episode 8 - Aired 11/22/1989
October 14, 1964: Since mainstreaming the mentally disabled is not yet a popular concept, Sam must help Jimmy LaMotta, the "slow" young man he's leaped into, get a job and gain his co-workers' acceptance, to prevent his brother from returning Jimmy to the institution.
Director: James Whitmore Jr.
Writer: Paul M. Belous, Robert Wolterstorff
8.5/10535 votesLoading...#8 - A Leap for Lisa
Season 4 Episode 22 - Aired 5/20/1992
June 25, 1957: Sam leaps into Al Calavicci to prevent the death of his married lover. But when Sam accidentally alters history, and finds out too late about her untimely demise, it could mean the gas chamber for Al and disturbingly a whole new situation at Project Quantum Leap.
Director: James Whitmore Jr.
Writer: Donald P. Bellisario
8.4/10843 votesLoading...#9 - The Color of Truth
Season 1 Episode 7 - Aired 5/3/1989
August 8, 1955: Sam experiences racism firsthand when he leaps into the body of an elderly black man in the pre-civil rights South of 1955.
Director: Michael Vejar
Writer: Deborah Pratt
8.3/10486 votesLoading...#10 - It's A Wonderful Leap
Season 4 Episode 18 - Aired 4/1/1992
May 10, 1958: Sam finds himself behind the wheel of a New York taxicab, in the life of Max Greenman, a driver striving to win his own tag, a license to drive his own cab. His mission is aided with the help of a woman who claims to be a guardian angel.
Director: Paul Brown
Writer: Danielle Alexandra
8.2/10484 votesLoading...#11 - Justice
Season 4 Episode 4 - Aired 10/9/1991
May 11, 1965: Sam must don the robe of a Ku Klux Klansman in order to save the life of an ambitious young civil rights leader, who is trying to register black voters.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Toni Graphia
8.2/10506 votesLoading...#12 - Raped
Season 4 Episode 6 - Aired 10/30/1991
June 20, 1980: It's up to Sam to try to bring a rapist to justice when he leaps into the perp's victim, a young woman who may have been unwilling to press charges against the young man - the son of the pillar of the community.
Director: Michael Zinberg
Writer: Beverly Bridges
8.1/10682 votesLoading...#13 - Good Morning, Peoria
Season 2 Episode 6 - Aired 11/8/1989
September 9, 1959: Rock 'n' roll is about to become big, but not in Peoria. That is, unless Sam, as DJ Howlin' Chick Howell, can manage to keep the radio station where he's employed from being shut down by overly conservative town elders.
Director: Michael Zinberg
Writer: Chris Ruppenthal, Michael Zinberg
8.1/10521 votesLoading...#14 - Future Boy
Season 3 Episode 13 - Aired 3/13/1991
October 6, 1957: Sam leaps Kenny Sharp, better known as "Future Boy," sidekick to Moe Stein, host of the kid's show, "Time Patrol," who also happens to be building a time machine in his basement. Unless Sam can prevent Moe's daughter from attempting to have her father committed, Moe is destined to be killed as he tries to hop a freight train.
Director: Michael Switzer
Writer: Tommy Thompson
8.1/10445 votesLoading...#15 - The Leap Between the States
Season 5 Episode 20 - Aired 3/30/1993
September 20, 1862: In a bizarre twist of a genetic coil, Sam leaps into his great-grandfather, Captain John Beckett, during the Civil War. He must not interfere with his ancestor's romance with a riled southern belle named Olivia. He must also avoid being hanged as a Yankee dog by some home guard Confederate soldiers.
Director: David Hemmings
Writer: Richard C. Okie
8.0/10783 votesLoading...#16 - Camikazi Kid
Season 1 Episode 8 - Aired 5/10/1989
June 6, 1961: Sam leaps into the life of a teen-age hot-rodder who must stop his sister from marrying a wealthy bully.
Director: Alan J. Levi
Writer: Paul Brown
8.0/10616 votesLoading...#17 - So Help Me God
Season 2 Episode 9 - Aired 11/29/1989
July 29, 1957: Though he can't remember much more than habeas corpus, Sam finds himself the defense attorney for a young black woman accused of murdering the son of the most powerful man in a small Louisiana town.
Director: Andy Cadiff
Writer: Deborah Pratt
8.0/10625 votesLoading...#18 - Another Mother
Season 2 Episode 13 - Aired 1/10/1990
September 30, 1981: As a divorced mother of three, Sam's job of preventing his teenage son from running away, never to be seen again, is made more interesting by the fact that his youngest daughter can see both him and Al.
Director: Joseph L. Scanlan
Writer: Deborah Pratt
8.0/10653 votesLoading...#19 - The Boogieman
Season 3 Episode 5 - Aired 10/26/1990
October 31, 1964: Things do more than go bump in the night when Sam leaps into Joshua Raye, a horror novelist on Halloween. Although Ziggy claims he's there to prevent the death of a church deacon, things get even stranger when two more people die without warning.
Director: Joe Napolitano
Writer: Chris Ruppenthal
8.0/10474 votesLoading...#20 - Last Dance Before an Execution
Season 3 Episode 19 - Aired 5/1/1991
May 12, 1971: "Just think of someplace far away" is the advice Sam hears as he leaps into Jesus Ortega, a Cuban-American being strapped into an electric chair. A last second stay of execution gives Sam just forty-eight hours to either prove himself innocent or fulfill his mission so that he can leap before the Big Switch is pulled
Director: Michael W. Watkins
Writer: N/A
8.0/10499 votesLoading...#21 - Deliver Us from Evil
Season 5 Episode 7 - Aired 11/10/1992
March 19, 1966: Things are already on there way downhill when Sam leaps back into Jimmy LaMotta. Despite Sam's inaction, history continues to change for the worst. The cause is unknown until Sam discovers another time traveler on the scene, one who's determined to destroy Jimmy's family, as well as Sam.
Director: Bob Hulme
Writer: Tommy Thompson, Deborah Pratt, Robin Bernheim Burger
8.0/10472 votesLoading...#22 - Trilogy (3)
Season 5 Episode 10 - Aired 11/24/1992
July 28, 1978: Sam is an aging lawyer, recruited by Abigail, now thirty-three, to defend her when she is put on trial for the murder of Leta Aider, the woman whose daughter Abigail was accused of killing almost twenty-five years earlier.
Director: James Whitmore Jr.
Writer: Deborah Pratt
7.9/10540 votesLoading...#23 - A Little Miracle
Season 3 Episode 10 - Aired 12/21/1990
December 24, 1962: On Christmas Eve, Sam leap into Reginald Pierson, valet to a wealthy contractor, who is in danger of losing his soul in an attempt to demolish a Salvation Army mission, so he can build his "Blake's Plaza." Seeing a similarity to the Dickens's character, Sam and Al decide to "Scrooge" the greed out of the man.
Director: Michael W. Watkins
Writer: Sandy Fries
7.9/10473 votesLoading...#24 - Nowhere to Run
Season 5 Episode 4 - Aired 10/6/1992
August 10, 1968: As a Marine captain whose legs were amputated after a mishap in Vietnam, Sam finds himself in a veteran's hospital, where he must prevent the suicide of a fellow patient who would rather be dead than face life paralyzed from the neck down. Making matters worse, his wife seems incapable of accepting the fact that she and Sam's host can still lead a normal life, in spite of his condition.
Director: Alan J. Levi
Writer: Tommy Thompson
7.9/10464 votesLoading...#25 - Killin' Time
Season 5 Episode 5 - Aired 10/20/1992
June 18, 1958: Sam leaps into a tricky situation as an escaped killer holed up in a house with a mother and daughter as hostages. Escape isn't going to be easy for either Sam or his hostages, when the real killer breaks out of the waiting room, stranding Sam in the past, destined to die at the hands of a vengeful sheriff.
Director: Michael W. Watkins
Writer: Tommy Thompson
The Best Episodes of Quantum Leap
Every episode of Quantum Leap ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Quantum Leap!
Theorizing that one could time travel within his own lifetime, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished... He woke to find...
Genres:Sci-Fi & FantasyAction & AdventureDrama
Network:NBC
Best Episodes Summary
"The Leap Home (1)" is the best rated episode of "Quantum Leap". It scored 9.2/10 based on 946 votes. Directed by Joe Napolitano and written by Donald P. Bellisario, it aired on 9/28/1990. This episode scored 0.1 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Leap Home (2): Vietnam".