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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!

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...

Seasons5

  1. Background image for The Leap Home (1)
    9.2/10(967 votes)

    #1 - The Leap Home (1)

    S3:E1

    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.

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  2. Background image for The Leap Home (2): Vietnam
    9.1/10(893 votes)

    #2 - The Leap Home (2): Vietnam

    S3:E2

    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.

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  3. Background image for Mirror Image
    9.1/10(958 votes)

    #3 - Mirror Image

    S5:E22

    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?

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  4. Background image for Shock Theater
    8.7/10(609 votes)

    #4 - Shock Theater

    S3:E22

    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.

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  5. Background image for The Color of Truth
    8.4/10(868 votes)

    #5 - The Color of Truth

    S1:E7

    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.

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  6. Background image for So Help Me God
    8.2/10(10 votes)

    #6 - So Help Me God

    S2:E9

    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.

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    Director:Andy Cadiff
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    The 20 WORST Episodes of Quantum Leap

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  8. Background image for M.I.A.
    8.1/10(8 votes)

    #7 - M.I.A.

    S2:E22

    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.

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  9. Background image for The Leap Between the States
    8.1/10(454 votes)

    #8 - The Leap Between the States

    S5:E20

    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.

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  10. Background image for Camikazi Kid
    8.0/10(807 votes)

    #9 - Camikazi Kid

    S1:E8

    June 6, 1961: Sam leaps into the life of a teen-age hot-rodder who must stop his sister from marrying a wealthy bully.

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    Director:Alan J. Levi
    Writer:Paul Brown
  11. Background image for The Boogieman
    8.0/10(668 votes)

    #10 - The Boogieman

    S3:E5

    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.

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  12. Background image for Future Boy
    8.0/10(534 votes)

    #11 - Future Boy

    S3:E13

    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.

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  13. Background image for Last Dance Before an Execution
    8.0/10(485 votes)

    #12 - Last Dance Before an Execution

    S3:E19

    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

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  14. Background image for Deliver Us from Evil
    8.0/10(511 votes)

    #13 - Deliver Us from Evil

    S5:E7

    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.

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  15. Background image for Trilogy (3)
    8.0/10(485 votes)

    #14 - Trilogy (3)

    S5:E10

    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.

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  16. Background image for A Little Miracle
    7.9/10(551 votes)

    #15 - A Little Miracle

    S3:E10

    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.

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  17. Background image for Nowhere to Run
    7.9/10(485 votes)

    #16 - Nowhere to Run

    S5:E4

    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.

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  18. Background image for Killin' Time
    7.9/10(474 votes)

    #17 - Killin' Time

    S5:E5

    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.

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  19. Background image for Genesis (1)
    7.8/10(5.6k votes)

    #18 - Genesis (1)

    S1:E1

    September 13, 1956: Sam Beckett wakes up in 1956, disoriented, suffering from amnesia, but he has the awful realization that he does not belong there...

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  20. Background image for Genesis (2)
    7.8/10(933 votes)

    #19 - Genesis (2)

    S1:E2

    September 13, 1956: After Tom Stratton comforts his wife and prevents her from having a premature birth, instead of leaping to save his wife and child. He instead realizes that instead of leaping home, he's lept into Ken Fox, a minor league baseball player in Texas at the end of the 1968 season, in the middle of a game, where he must make the winning play in order to leap further. Ken Fox makes a home-run, and Sam leaps into Dr. Gerald Bryant as a school teacher in the middle of a class.

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    Director:Unknown
    Writer:Unknown
  21. Background image for Jimmy
    7.8/10(9 votes)

    #20 - Jimmy

    S2:E8

    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.

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  22. Background image for Another Mother
    7.8/10(10 votes)

    #21 - Another Mother

    S2:E13

    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.

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  23. Background image for Black on White on Fire
    7.8/10(571 votes)

    #22 - Black on White on Fire

    S3:E7

    August 11, 1965: Sam leaps into a black med. student engaged to a white woman in order to ensure that he and his fiancée survive the Watts Riot together.

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  24. Background image for Private Dancer
    7.8/10(539 votes)

    #23 - Private Dancer

    S3:E14

    October 6, 1979: An aspiring dancer working as a waitress in a strip club is in danger of being led into a life of prostitution unless Sam, as "Rod the Bod," can convince her to audition for a spot in a professional dance group. But, since she's deaf, the choreographer doesn't believe she has the time to give the young lady the attention she'll need.

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    Director:Debbie Allen
    Writer:Paul Brown
  25. Background image for Justice
    7.8/10(4 votes)

    #24 - Justice

    S4:E4

    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.

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    Director:Rob Bowman
  26. Background image for Trilogy (1)
    7.7/10(467 votes)

    #25 - Trilogy (1)

    S5:E8

    August 8, 1955: A pair of unsolved murders marks just the tip of the iceberg when Sam leaps into a sheriff in a small Louisiana town. Rumors of a history of family insanity, the suspicions surrounding his daughter Abigail's involvement in the murders, and ghostly visions of his institutionalized wife just make matters worse.

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Best Episodes Summary

"The Leap Home (1)" is the best rated episode of "Quantum Leap". It scored 9.2/10 based on 967 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".