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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 Mirror Image
    9.1/10(953 votes)

    #1 - 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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  2. Background image for The Leap Back
    8.7/10(678 votes)

    #2 - The Leap Back

    S4:E1

    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.

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  3. Background image for A Leap for Lisa
    8.5/10(546 votes)

    #3 - A Leap for Lisa

    S4:E22

    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.

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  4. Background image for It's A Wonderful Leap
    8.2/10(501 votes)

    #4 - It's A Wonderful Leap

    S4:E18

    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.

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  5. Background image for Justice
    8.1/10(491 votes)

    #5 - 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
  6. Background image for Raped
    8.1/10(517 votes)

    #6 - Raped

    S4:E6

    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.

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    The 20 WORST Episodes of Quantum Leap

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  8. Background image for The Leap Between the States
    8.1/10(452 votes)

    #7 - 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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  9. Background image for So Help Me God
    8.0/10(9 votes)

    #8 - 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
  10. Background image for Deliver Us from Evil
    8.0/10(508 votes)

    #9 - 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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  11. Background image for Trilogy (3)
    8.0/10(481 votes)

    #10 - 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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  12. Background image for M.I.A.
    7.9/10(7 votes)

    #11 - 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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  13. Background image for Nowhere to Run
    7.9/10(483 votes)

    #12 - 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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  14. Background image for Killin' Time
    7.9/10(472 votes)

    #13 - 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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  15. Background image for Another Mother
    7.8/10(9 votes)

    #14 - 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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  16. Background image for The Leap Home (1)
    7.8/10(4 votes)

    #15 - 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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  17. Background image for Shock Theater
    7.8/10(4 votes)

    #16 - 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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  18. Background image for Running for Honor
    7.8/10(490 votes)

    #17 - Running for Honor

    S4:E12

    June 11, 1964: As a track star in a Navy college, Sam must prevent the death of his ex- roommate, who was expelled because he was gay, and who is slated to die at the hands of a group of bigoted cadets.

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    Director:Bob Hulme
  19. Background image for Temptation Eyes
    7.8/10(485 votes)

    #18 - Temptation Eyes

    S4:E13

    February 1, 1985: A serial killer stalks San Francisco while Sam as Dillion Powell, a TV reporter, protects a beautiful psychic who's working on the case, from becoming the next victim. The young lady is very clear of sight, as Sam and Al soon discover.

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  20. Background image for Trilogy (1)
    7.7/10(463 votes)

    #19 - 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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  21. Background image for Trilogy (2)
    7.7/10(478 votes)

    #20 - Trilogy (2)

    S5:E9

    June 14, 1966: Finding himself back in the same small Louisiana town, in the arms of Abigail, now twenty-one, Sam must prevent an angry crowd of townspeople from lynching his fiancée, following the disappearance of a young boy whom she had been babysitting.

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  22. Background image for The Wrong Stuff
    7.6/10(487 votes)

    #21 - The Wrong Stuff

    S4:E7

    January 24, 1961: The fates make a monkey out of Sam when he leaps into Bobo, an astro-chimp who must avoid succumbing to the experiments of an Air Force neurologist.

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    Writer:Paul Brown
  23. Background image for Ghost Ship
    7.6/10(465 votes)

    #22 - Ghost Ship

    S4:E16

    August 13, 1956: Flying over the Bermuda Triangle, Sam, as the co-pilot, must prevent the flight from returning to Virginia, to get a seriously ill passenger to a doctor before she dies. Flying through the triangle is riskier than it seems, and Sam, deprived of Al's help when the hologram fades out, must get them through alive.

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  24. Background image for Genesis (2)
    7.5/10(10 votes)

    #23 - 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
  25. Background image for The Color of Truth
    7.5/10(11 votes)

    #24 - 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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  26. Background image for Jimmy
    7.5/10(8 votes)

    #25 - 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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Best Episodes Summary

"Mirror Image" is the best rated episode of "Quantum Leap". It scored 9.1/10 based on 953 votes. Directed by James Whitmore Jr. and written by Donald P. Bellisario, it aired on 5/5/1993. This episode scored 0.4 points higher than the second highest rated, "The Leap Back".