Sam Beckett can leap back to NBC any day.
While the new version of “Quantum Leap,” which premiered Monday, takes place 30 years after the original series, executive producer Martin Gero says Scott Bakula has a place in his world.
“We would love to have Scott on the show,” Gero told the Daily News.
“It’s really up to him. The door is always open. Whenever he wants, as small or as big a part as he wants.”
Bakula, though, seemingly shut down any idea that he’s going to pop up anytime soon.
“In January, the pilot was sold and a script was sent to me because the character of Sam Beckett was in it, which makes sense, right? As so many of you have been asking me the last several months, ‘How could you do QL without Sam?’(or Al, for that matter) Well, I guess we’re about to find out,” he wrote on Instagram last week.
“That’s the story. As the show has always been near and dear to my heart, it was a very difficult decision to pass on the project, a decision that has upset and confused so many fans of the original series. However, the idea of anyone ‘leaping’ around in time and walking a mile in someone else’s shoes, remains a very appealing concept and so worthy of exploration, especially given the current state of mankind. In that spirit, I am crossing my fingers that this new cast and crew are lucky enough to tap into the magic that propelled the original ‘Quantum Leap’ into the hearts and minds of generations past and present. I wish them good luck and happy leaping!”
The original sci-fi show, which aired for five seasons from 1989 to 1993, starred Bakula as scientist Sam Beckett, a physicist who finds himself leaping through space and time and landing in other people’s bodies to correct historical mistakes. The series was canceled before Beckett ever made his way back home.
Gero’s new version picks up decades later with Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee), a quantum physicist who seems to have made his own first unauthorized jump of his own volition with the help of former Army intelligence officer Addison Augustine (Caitlin Bassett), who appears to him as a hologram.
As Ben bounces in and out, his team back in the lab, made up of security analyst Jenn Chou (Nanrisa Lee), artificial intelligence scientist Ian Wright (Mason Alexander Park) and boss Herbert “Magic” Williams (Ernie Hudson), try to bring him home.
“Of course there’s pressure because Scott Bakula is so beloved, and you can’t take anything away from that, but we’re creating a whole new show,” Lee told The News.
“The only thing that’s the same is the title and the mythology behind it.”
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