S01.E07: O Ye of Little Faith

[secnarf]

Quote

Ben leaps into a priest who has been called to assist a family in crisis on Halloween night. As he delves into mysterious and inexplicable events, he's forced to muster all his resources as a scientist before time runs out.

Original air date: Oct 31 2022

[AnimeMania]

1934 Maryland

Elyse Levesque as Lola
Shane Callahan as Charles
Josh Meyers as Uncle Percy
Colleen Foy as Magda
Chido Nwokocha as Doctor Felix Watts

[KaveDweller]

I'm really glad they gave a realistic explanation for everything and didn't try and hint at supernatural and demon stuff being real. I know it is a sci-fi show, but not that kind of sci fi. That mother sure sucked though.

I feel like this is another case where the episode was stronger because we spent more time with Ben in the past and not in the present. 

I wish we got more of Janice's warning though. Feels cheap to bring her back only to have her say nothing.

[Trini]

I'm not a fan of horror, so I'm not a fan of horror-themed episodes. However, I did like that we had a plot where Ben had to figure everything out by himself. TV amnesia is always wacky, but I think they need to be more clear about what Ben does or doesn't remember. Or just have him recover form the amnesia; because he seemed to remember his schooling and the internet, and I wasn't sure if it was established already that he remembered those things.

I kinda want to root for Ben/Addison, but I'm just not sold on this romance, even with Raymond Lee doing his best.

It was a little weird to have that 'girl talk' scene with Addison and Head of Security Woman Whose Name I haven't Learned Yet; that relationship hasn't really been established yet. Anyway, not much happened at HQ this week, but we did get the e-meow-gency line!

As for the main leap story: Wowwww - the mother was really going to kill her own daughter for money/a Hollywood dream? And where was this story taking place again? Because a Black doctor attending to a well-to-do white family seemed a little out of place in the 1930s. (Not that I didn't appreciate his presence.)

Not sure what say about the 5 seconds of the Janice plot.

[AnimeMania]

A very flawed episode since Ben was hallucinating before he took a drink of Percy's gin, it was what convinced Ben to take a drink in the first place. Ways to improve the episode would have been to have Percy dose everybody with the hallucinogenic so that the demon possession would be more believable to the rest of the family.

It also would have been a better episode if the evil leaper was jumping in and out of the possessed girl's body, so that he was controlling what the girl was saying, including the part when the girl says Ben was a leaper and could explain why she kind of saw Ben's real face. The black smoke and the Quantum Leap team's lost communication could have been explained by Janice's interference. The dead girl reveal at the end was all kinds of cheesy, I wish they could have thought of a better way to expose Percy and make him confess, like switching Percy's Gin glass with Ben's and then letting Daisy (clear-headed now) pretend that she is still possessed by a demon, breaks free of her bonds, and is suddenly alone in a room with Percy and makes him confess to his crimes, because she knows what he did and plans to drag him to hell.

[Skooma]

3 hours ago, Trini said:

As for the main leap story: Wowwww - the mother was really going to kill her own daughter for money/a Hollywood dream? And where was this story taking place again? Because a Black doctor attending to a well-to-do white family seemed a little out of place in the 1930s. (Not that I didn't appreciate his presence.)

Not sure what say about the 5 seconds of the Janice plot.

They also had the mother mention that she had voice lessons or whatever before her daughter was even born so it would help her make it in Hollywood.  The daughter had to be born a good half decade or more before 1920 and even further away from the first "talkie."  The writers don't do very much basic research on this show, do that.

Well we knew all along Janice was one of the good guys before this bit so I don't understand why the show was trying to pass her off as shady early on.  It fooled nobody who ever saw the original series.  Like I said in other episode threads for this show, she is Al's daughter.  Of course she is good.

This was just their "seasonal" episode I guess for Halloween time.  Better because annoying female hologram who's name isn't worth remembering wasn't in it as much.  Though they did give her one good line about Ben poo-pooing "possession" by pointing out he is doing just that. 

And, Ben, there is more to the universe(s) than your current 2020's current science.  Like exactly what you are doing which other scientists of your age, not knowing about this project, would poo-poo too so keep an open mind and don't just assume everything fits into your "box" universe.  Because one of these days you may come across something legitimately that you can't explain away as just a drug-filled, murder plot.  Always be prepared to think outside of the box and don't spend half the episode trying to uphold your version of reality. 

Granted the show's writers will let you off the hook always but it was a bad look as you just moped around talking to yourself and wanting reality to be "your" version of same while mayhem ensued.  Not the type of person you want to share a foxhole with when action is needed in the moment.

But then the Ben character always does seem to hesitate.  He is not light on his feet when action is needed.  Like last episode where he stops mid-rescue of a kid that could die to explain his childhood emotional stuff. 

So next week is the end of the season?  Yeah I know two parts to a season but that format is silly.  I forget about the show in the meantime and usually don't tune in again.  Janice is the only person that remotely interests me on this show at this point but apparently Al's old communicator is as flaky as ever and a 5 second appearance doesn't cut it.

[possibilities]

9 hours ago, Trini said:

Head of Security Woman Whose Name I haven't Learned Yet

Jen! I finally learned her name this episode!!

9 hours ago, Trini said:

the e-meow-gency line!

I am definitely going to use that. Ian looked great. 

I think Ben did just as well without a hologram assist as he usually does with one. 

[iMonrey]

Quote

Though they did give her one good line about Ben poo-pooing "possession" by pointing out he is doing just that. 

Although this underscores a fundamental problem with the show's new take on leaping. If Ben is "literally possessing" someone else's body - as opposed to simply switching places with that person, as in the original show - then where is Ben's own body? And what, exactly, is "possessing" these other bodies? Is it Ben's immortal soul? His spirit? His brain? We're into some heavy existential concepts here that the show isn't really equipped to explore. The original version of leaping could be confusing too but overall it made a lot more sense and didn't raise questions about souls or possession.

[Sarah 103]

11 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

A very flawed episode since Ben was hallucinating before he took a drink of Percy's gin, it was what convinced Ben to take a drink in the first place. Ways to improve the episode would have been to have Percy dose everybody with the hallucinogenic so that the demon possession would be more believable to the rest of the family.

I agree. I thought it was going to be something in the room that was causing people to hallucinate. The family already was religious, they didn't need to convinced that demonic possession was real. 

11 hours ago, AnimeMania said:

The dead girl reveal at the end was all kinds of cheesy, I wish they could have thought of a better way to expose Percy and make him confess, like switching Percy's Gin glass with Ben's and then letting Daisy (clear-headed now) pretend that she is still possessed by a demon, breaks free of her bonds, and is suddenly alone in a room with Percy and makes him confess to his crimes, because she knows what he did and plans to drag him to hell.

She can't be alone with Percy because you need the policeman there or nearby to hear the confession and arrest Percy and Daisy's mother. 

11 hours ago, Trini said:

e-meow-gency

This was one of the best lines of the show. Ian continues to get the best most comedic material. 

8 hours ago, Skooma said:

So next week is the end of the season?  Yeah I know two parts to a season but that format is silly.  I forget about the show in the meantime and usually don't tune in again. 

This has been the way television has been for decades. This is early for a mid-season hiatus, but this is not something new in television. 

So far, this is the best episode so far. I loved seeing Ben having to figure out how to use the limited technology available. The episode was great, and Addison was barely in it. I hardly missed her. It makes me realize how little she adds to show, which is a shame. 

[iMonrey]

Daisy must have super healing powers. Her face was sliced to ribbons throughout the episode but during her closing conversation with Ben most of the wounds were already closed.

I did appreciate the immediate jump to the new leap, something this show has failed to recognize as an important part of the format. Cutting away to the QL HQ for more exposition really kills the momentum.

[KaveDweller]

5 hours ago, Sarah 103 said:

I agree. I thought it was going to be something in the room that was causing people to hallucinate. The family already was religious, they didn't need to convinced that demonic possession was real. 

Yeah, I thought there was a gas leak in the room or something making the girl hallucinate and anyone who went in to see her. But I also didn't necessarily think she was being poisoned. I thought it could be an accident. 

A woman trying to kill her own daughter so she can become an actress is just sad.

[Trini]

15 hours ago, Skooma said:

They also had the mother mention that she had voice lessons or whatever before her daughter was even born so it would help her make it in Hollywood.  The daughter had to be born a good half decade or more before 1920 and even further away from the first "talkie."  The writers don't do very much basic research on this show, do that.

...

Thank you for mentioning this; I thought something was off about the mother's Hollywood ambitions.

[DoctorAtomic]

21 hours ago, KaveDweller said:

I'm really glad they gave a realistic explanation for everything and didn't try and hint at supernatural and demon stuff being real. I know it is a sci-fi show, but not that kind of sci fi. That mother sure sucked though.

I was hoping it would be some real reason. I never thought Boogeyman was the right direction for the OG show to go. This was a great murder mystery though! 

I also figured that Janis was behind locking out the imaging chamber, but that's not much of a stretch. We had assumed she was building her own. Which means her 'brain waves' are in sync with Ben, so they must have planned this prior to his leap. 

[peachmangosteen]

I enjoyed the hell outta that. As I've said, the show just keeps getting better for me. I'm disappointed it's going on hiatus next week. That seems like a bad idea. It's gonna kill the momentum.

[QuantumMechanic]

That was the first episode that really seemed something like an old-school episode.  Thumbs-up!  I think overall it's been improving, though I still think it was a HORRIBLE idea for love interest to be the hologram, especially with such a meh actress.

2+ month mid-season hiatus sucks, though.  I wonder how badly that's gonna hammer ratings as people find other things to watch and don't come back.

[kirkola]

On 11/1/2022 at 12:24 AM, AnimeMania said:

A very flawed episode since Ben was hallucinating before he took a drink of Percy's gin, it was what convinced Ben to take a drink in the first place. Ways to improve the episode would have been to have Percy dose everybody with the hallucinogenic so that the demon possession would be more believable to the rest of the family.

It also would have been a better episode if the evil leaper was jumping in and out of the possessed girl's body, so that he was controlling what the girl was saying, including the part when the girl says Ben was a leaper and could explain why she kind of saw Ben's real face. The black smoke and the Quantum Leap team's lost communication could have been explained by Janice's interference. The dead girl reveal at the end was all kinds of cheesy, I wish they could have thought of a better way to expose Percy and make him confess, like switching Percy's Gin glass with Ben's and then letting Daisy (clear-headed now) pretend that she is still possessed by a demon, breaks free of her bonds, and is suddenly alone in a room with Percy and makes him confess to his crimes, because she knows what he did and plans to drag him to hell.

I couldn't decide if the the writers  intended for Ben to see the demon & smoke first or not.  I mean it could be them trying to hedge bets on whether she was really possessed.  Or just a mistake.  The original series did that kind of "was it real or not" stuff from time to time, leading Sam to say "God, the universe, or whomever".

[peachmangosteen]

I thought the 'demon/smoke' was supposed to just be Janice trying to get through.

[DoctorAtomic]

Did Ben sniff the gin glass first? That could have led to the initial hallucination. 

[bybrandy]

I liked that we got to spend some time in Ben's shoes as Ben figured out a solution without help a the future.   Ben is so much more compelling than Addison. I know I say this every week but I wish Ian was he hologram.   Sigh.   

I'm less fussed that we don't know what Ben knows because I don't feel like it was ever much spelled out what Sam did or didn't remember either and AL would be like, "you are a medical doctor' and Sam would be all, "oh... um... yeah" and do medical doctory things.   Ben retaining most things he knows without knowing how much he knows feels right.  

I don't/ won't believe Janice is a bad guy but I don't think he show is trying very hard to sell me on that though.  What I have a harder time with is Magic and Janice just can't have a come to Jesus meeting to bring Janice onto the project with her agenda as a side project, sure she was rejected for being too close o the project but since the project is lying to congress about their status anyway they can also lie about Janice working there.

Plus Janice giving me an Addison light episode?   Yeah, she's just not the bad guy here.  I'd also be okay with Janice being the hologram.   

[marketdoctor]

Quote

I wish they could have thought of a better way to expose Percy and make him confess, like switching Percy's Gin glass with Ben's and then letting Daisy (clear-headed now) pretend that she is still possessed by a demon, breaks free of her bonds, and is suddenly alone in a room with Percy and makes him confess to his crimes, because she knows what he did and plans to drag him to hell.

This, though I didn't hate what they did, because Ben had a short amount of time, and was still recovering from being drugged.

Also, it was a cute twist at the end, but Goodwill was founded in 1906.  They could have had more fun with the 30's Halloween by setting it in 1938, and tying in War of the Worlds (also, Trick-or-Treating was less common before the 1950s, but it had to start somewhere). 

I liked how dream-Allison helped save the day, and how Ben didn't want to leave.  That can happen in a good dream.

[DoctorAtomic]

6 minutes ago, bybrandy said:

I'm less fussed that we don't know what Ben knows because I don't feel like it was ever much spelled out what Sam did or didn't remember either and AL would be like, "you are a medical doctor' and Sam would be all, "oh... um... yeah" and do medical doctory things.   Ben retaining most things he knows without knowing how much he knows feels right.

Sam had to play a piano concert in one leap and was freaking out until Al told him he played Carnegie Hall when he was 19, and all of a sudden he was a virtuoso. Al needed to show him the sheet music, but still. At least this time around Ben knew he had a partner. Sam never remembered he was *married*. The swiss cheese is largely plot based. It's fine for me too. He knows what he knows when he needs to know it. This time, he didn't know he knew Latin. 

8 minutes ago, bybrandy said:

What I have a harder time with is Magic and Janice just can't have a come to Jesus meeting to bring Janice onto the project with her agenda as a side project, sure she was rejected for being too close o the project but since the project is lying to congress about their status anyway they can also lie about Janice working there.

I don't think Magic was being too much of a bad guy in tracking her down, since we all know she's the key to why Ben leaped in the first place. She's going to want some quid pro quo to give up any information, or, she leverages that Ben leaped and threatens to spill the beans. Technically, the congressional oversight chair knows Ben leaped, so she's the one really covering up. 

1 minute ago, marketdoctor said:

Also, it was a cute twist at the end, but Goodwill was founded in 1906.

To be fair, she didn't say she was going to make a new charity called Goodwill. She said she knows about a small charity called Goodwill and would donate to help them grow. 

[bybrandy]

I don't think Magic was the bad guy for tracking her down either.  I mean Ben leaped after he was in discussion with her so Magic needs to know what she knows.  I'm just saying, I doubt this show is getting a second season... but if it does... I want these two sides to find a common ground.  Obviously they have to get to Janice first to get her to work with them.   I just don't feel like Janice and PRoject Quantum Leap should be so much at cross purposes that they can't find mutual bennefit working with each other rather than against each other and if they wanted me to think Janice was one of the bad guys they needed to not connect her to Al.

[Irlandesa]

4 hours ago, QuantumMechanic said:

That was the first episode that really seemed something like an old-school episode.

That's what I thought too.  Maybe Season 5 OG QL but still OG. 

I think it's because there was a good cast of characters and there was a mystery around how they all fit into the niece's ultimate fate.  I don't think we've quite had an episode like that.  Or at least I've felt like previous episodes have felt more paint-by-the-numbers to resolve the reason he was there but the real mystery was in the present.  But with this one, I felt the tension of the past day mystery.  And the subtle Goodwill reference was exactly the kind of drop that's cool for us to hear 85 years later.

[Clanstarling]

On 11/1/2022 at 12:58 AM, Skooma said:

They also had the mother mention that she had voice lessons or whatever before her daughter was even born so it would help her make it in Hollywood.  The daughter had to be born a good half decade or more before 1920 and even further away from the first "talkie."  The writers don't do very much basic research on this show, do that.

That and Gloria Swanson's first film was in 1915 (and the first talkie - The Jazz Singer - was in 1927).  Took me two minutes to get the specific dates.

Even so, I enjoyed this episode more than the others - for most of the same reasons as everyone else - that the mystery was in the past, and most of the story was in the past. Disconnecting Ben from the "present/future" was great. And sadly, his girlfriend isn't really needed (sadly for the character, but also sadly that she kind of drags the stories down, in my opinion).

The hokey reveal of the girl being alive just felt like a tribute to old time mysteries to me, so I didn't mind it.

Was it just me, or did it seem like Ben actually connected in some way to the priest when he was talking to the mirror? There seemed to be a vibe from the actor playing the priest, and it seemed to me that he was channeling the priest during the "exorcism."

Edited November 3, 2022 by Clanstarling

[DoctorAtomic]

2 hours ago, Clanstarling said:

There seemed to be a vibe from the actor playing the priest, and it seemed to me that he was channeling the priest during the "exorcism."

Ben said (to the mirror) - I don't have to believe because you believe, so I think the 'channeling' was a deliberate acting choice. 

[iMonrey]

Quote

This has been the way television has been for decades. This is early for a mid-season hiatus, but this is not something new in television. 

"Decades" may be over-stating it. The trend started on the WB and the CW in the mid to late 2000s. The big four networks began following suit sometime later, because it's cheaper to make fewer episodes and flood November and December with holiday specials and sports. 

I agree it's a bad idea though. A show like this is probably on the bubble and might lose its audience over the long break. I've certainly seen that happen with other shows. 

Ratings aren't great. 2.3 million total viewers with a 0.3 in the demo. They have apparently been sliding since the season premier too. Not a great trajectory. By comparison, The Voice has 5.9 million total viewers and 0.6 in the demo.

[Starchild]

On 11/1/2022 at 3:58 AM, Skooma said:

Well we knew all along Janice was one of the good guys before this bit so I don't understand why the show was trying to pass her off as shady early on.  It fooled nobody who ever saw the original series.  Like I said in other episode threads for this show, she is Al's daughter.  Of course she is good.

I expect to find out that her warning is that someone on the QL team is the bad guy, which is why they didn't tell anyone what they were doing. I'm fine with that, as long as it's not Ian.

Hopefully it's Addison and she get's hauled off to prison and Ian can become Ben's new guide. 👍

[jcin617]

Have they ever explained how the QL team remembers the original timeline once Ben changes the past?  Like the web pages about the girl’s death disappeared when she lived instead of died, but Ian still remembered what had happened originally.  

[Maverick]

 No, but that was never explained in the original version either.   I always assumed Al remember because he was linked to Sam, who was the one changing history.  In the new version, who knows. 

[DoctorAtomic]

Ziggy is the biggest supercomputer in the world. They probably have some 'original timelime' data. It's all very timey-whimey. 

[KaveDweller]

23 hours ago, Maverick said:

 No, but that was never explained in the original version either.   I always assumed Al remember because he was linked to Sam, who was the one changing history.  In the new version, who knows. 

There was an episode of the original where Sam lept into Al as a young guy, and accidentally (and temporarily) changed things so that Al got convicted of murder and never became the hologram. And a new hologram appeared and seemed to think he had always been there. Then it switched back and Al didn't seem to realize that had happened. So that actually contradicts how Al usually remembered everything the original way. But it was good drama.

I could buy that Addison remembers because she is in the imaging chamber, so maybe the entire QL headquarters is in some protective bubble because they are close to the imaging chamber? It would be hard to do their job if they didn't remember the original history, because they'd be like, "hmm, why did Ben leap into this priest if no one ever died? I swear I knew a minute ago."