222 M.I.A.

[MichelleD]

Jumping in on a thread nobody has posted on in awhile. This episode and The Leap Home episode are a couple of the most moving ones. It gave me a new perspective on Al's character. On the surface there is this womanizer but underneath is someone who has had to deal with a very painful past. I wanted to give him a big hug and make things okay for him. I understand the comments about how it's not right Sam would tell Al he can't change things for himself but changes things for him and Donna to get married. However, Sam does have partial amnesia and through most of the series doesn't remember he is married or remember the events in the different leaps clearly. And as has been pointed out, Al wasn't up front about Beth being his first wife; Sam was much more straightforward about what he was doing. The tables are turned somewhat in The Leap Home when Al tells Sam some things weren't meant to be and he can't change things. It makes the characters more human to have them want to make things better for themselves and/or their families.

[iMonrey]

This is a very emotional episode and the ending was very moving. But overall I think it's flawed. The emotion is driven by Sam's refusal to try to change Beth and Al's past, yet the very next episode makes something of a hypocrite out of him. I also don't see the general harm in Sam simply telling Beth "I have it on good authority, through my police contacts, that Al is still alive." Beth still might have married the lawyer guy, but that would have been a much more practical approach then whatever Al was trying to get Sam to do, and far less harmless.

Ironically, I think Beth might have ended up marrying Dirk because her "ghost dance" with Al convinced her he really was dead after all and was saying goodbye to her!

Finally, the actor who played Dirk looked like too much of a skeeve for Beth to marry.

[blue enigma]

Originally Posted by iMonrey

This is a very emotional episode and the ending was very moving. But overall I think it's flawed. The emotion is driven by Sam's refusal to try to change Beth and Al's past, yet the very next episode makes something of a hypocrite out of him. I also don't see the general harm in Sam simply telling Beth "I have it on good authority, through my police contacts, that Al is still alive." Beth still might have married the lawyer guy, but that would have been a much more practical approach then whatever Al was trying to get Sam to do, and far less harmless.

I like this episode and it is extremely moving but I agree with you that it's flawed. Both for the reasons you've given and also just story-wise. The Al/Beth part of the story is very compelling and emotional. I mean, we know who Beth's husband is as soon as she tells Dirk her last name, even though Sam doesn't, so we're waiting for the moment when it's revealed to him and meanwhile Al is slowly coming apart at the seams through the episode. But the other part of the leap, the Skaggs backstory is kind of meh to me. It's not really well-developed -- it's really just there to drive the other part of the story.

Originally Posted by iMonrey

Finally, the actor who played Dirk looked like too much of a skeeve for Beth to marry.

lol, he really does. And of course he really is. He knew Beth was married, that her husband was MIA and he took advantage of her vulnerability.

[Lightning McQueenie]

Originally Posted by blue enigma

The Al/Beth part of the story is very compelling and emotional. I mean, we know who Beth's husband is as soon as she tells Dirk her last name, even though Sam doesn't.

Do we? Maybe if you've watched later episodes in the series before, but I don't believe that any point in the first two seasons before this episode Al's last name is ever actually used...

[blue enigma]

Originally Posted by Lightning McQueenie

Do we? Maybe if you've watched later episodes in the series before, but I don't believe that any point in the first two seasons before this episode Al's last name is ever actually used...

I'll have to watch 'Honeymoon Express' again but I'm pretty sure he is addressed as Admiral Calavicci at least once in that episode. In which case, yes we do know. But it's been a while since I've watched that episode though, so maybe I'm wrong about it being mentioned in it -- maybe he's only addressed as Admiral.

[Lightning McQueenie]

Originally Posted by blue enigma

I'll have to watch 'Honeymoon Express' again but I'm pretty sure he is addressed as Admiral Calavicci at least once in that episode. In which case, yes we do know. But it's been a while since I've watched that episode though, so maybe I'm wrong about it being mentioned in it -- maybe he's only addressed as Admiral.

I'm pretty sure he's only referred to as "Admiral"

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Originally Posted by iMonrey

This is a very emotional episode and the ending was very moving. But overall I think it's flawed. The emotion is driven by Sam's refusal to try to change Beth and Al's past, yet the very next episode makes something of a hypocrite out of him. I also don't see the general harm in Sam simply telling Beth "I have it on good authority, through my police contacts, that Al is still alive." Beth still might have married the lawyer guy, but that would have been a much more practical approach then whatever Al was trying to get Sam to do, and far less harmless.

Ironically, I think Beth might have ended up marrying Dirk because her "ghost dance" with Al convinced her he really was dead after all and was saying goodbye to her!

Finally, the actor who played Dirk looked like too much of a skeeve for Beth to marry.

Actually this approach has the flaw that Al was listed as M.I.A for a reason. It means the appropriate authorities (who I don't see why an undercover cop would have connections with or the clearance to receive such information, not to mention how the hell would Jake know the name of Beth's husband, the whole mystery of the episode is that it's never mentioned) are unaware of his current location and activity thus nor whether he's dead or alive.
The only thing I can see this accomplishing is frightening her because this is information there is no way Jake or even Sam (since she doesn't know him either) should know.

It does however bug me how he ran out on poor Beth upon seeing the photo on the mantel which revealed Al as her M.I.A husband. Even in his refusal to try to reunite them he could have still kept his outing with her. Though this would have prevented him from his true assignment to save Scaggs despite that he obviously leaps upon success, the series never directly clarifies whether or not Sam could still leap if he fails. This also leads to a debate between the importance of Al and Beth's marriage vs. Scaggs' life since without having the identity of Beth's husband sooner, by the time he did Sam was forced to choose between them.

It annoys me quite a bit how this episode makes a huge hypocrite out of Sam even considering that he does not know that he'd succeeded with Donna. Still he made the effort to reunite himself with his own wife yet refused to give the same to his dearest friend.
Al is a damn loyal friend to both he and Donna to have kept his mouth shut on that subject in this particular situation. Though honestly I would have liked to see him throw at least the attempt in his face. Then in the very following episode Sam once again makes a hypocrite of himself and this time Al does throw it in his face as well as the fact that he was blessed with the chance to even see his family again, good for him.
Actually in that very same scene Sam angrily shouts: "Why can I help total strangers but not the people I love!?" when he in fact had just refused that chance.

Al is an amazing man and friend to not only never throw Sam's hypocrisy in his face but to also even at his own self sacrifice support Sam's personal quests of both Donna and Tom. It saddens me that Sam could have been so selfish particularly with Beth and Tom but it just shows us that he's not perfect and that he like Al had carried some deep scars from his losses. Something the two men have in common.

Though made several years ago this is an excellent point:

Originally Posted by JuliaM

Al was deliberately decieving Sam about what he was supposed to do. Yes, there are episodes where it can be said that Sam acts selfishly to change something for his own best interest but when that happens he's very up front about it.

It's true that in Sam's personal pursuits of Donna and Tom he didn't lose sight of the person he was sent to help and straight up told Al what he was doing. In Vietnam it's not actually clear what the actual task was though the novel Mirror's Edge suggests that he could have in fact been there for Tom.

Al certainly made a mess of his attempt by not being straight forward with Sam and not making him aware of the true task. In fact doing so would have made Sam more likely to have been able to accomplish both getting Beth to wait for Al as well as save Scaggs but it doesn't excuse that Sam refused to try for his best friend what he bent the rules to recover for himself. As the saying goes 'two wrongs don't make a right'.
Not that Sam would have been able to accomplish it by that point even without Scaggs' life in danger since it would have been beneficial in the beginning to have introduced Jake as a friend of Al's, the honest approach he used in Mirror Image. It proves that the knowledge that Al is alive is believable to Beth coming from a friend of his.
Sam had come on very strongly upon first approaching her as Jake and even straight up (falsely) admitted to snooping into her records. Then he'd barely gotten away with the calalillies. She was pretty alarmed by his knowledge of something as simple as her favorite flower. So even by the point in which he'd gotten Al's identity she still could have been deciding whether not she trusted him. If he'd told her he knew Al was alive it would have likely come across as cruel or frightening as I had stated of iMonrey's suggestion.

This in fact is what kept Sam from succeeding here and the perfect set ups of each of Beth's run ins with Dirk is what caused him to doubt the attempt. The PQL rules were not at play here. There truly seemed to be no coincidence in Dirk's appearances including through his mother but what Sam refused to consider was Al's suggestion of the Devil working as God does through Sam.
Later the season 3 episode The Boogym*n does seem to support this.
"Who gave you the right to go bungling around in time, putting right what I made wrong!?"
We then have the evil leapers to support another force opposite the one which had enlisted Sam effecting lives. Whom we are even introduced to while they are on a mission to destroy a marriage. It could even be possible that Dirk was Alia. The line "She's (his mother) not sweet, she has a single son and wants grandchildren" is so suggestive it's just twisted enough to have come from someone intending to steer Beth away from Al.
(Though if Sam had touched Dirk at some point, which I don't recall for certain we'd have known).
Think about it, the fact that Al was even a POW was certainly not God nor a coincidence.
So while Sam was not in the wrong for this view, I don't buy that excuse for not trying.

The fact that Sam was later able to amend this alone proves that it was in fact achievable and a wrong. Sam is not able to make a change that isn't meant to be made.
Let's take Leap of Faith for example. Why wouldn't he have just been leaped in early enough to stop Tony from committing the murders? Then there'd be no trial for him to stand and thus a murderer is not made of Father Mac. Here's why, Tony's life was turned around when it had been threatened and then spared and Father Mac's eyes were opened when he had nearly taken a life. He begun rehab and made something of his life as well. Tony needed to see through the eyes of his victims to realize his wrong and Father Mac needed to be in the wrong to see what was right. To see how far gone had strayed from God and be lead back to Him. Recall he'd thanked Sam for stopping him from killing Tony.
Let's also remember that Sam was not able to save his father and sister.

I am glad that Sam was able to amend his failure to Al. It may have been Al's own fault not Sam's that the initial attempt was not doable in the end but Sam had no excuse to not have wanted to try. It's like Diane McBride had said when she'd replaced the chairmen of the committee: "Whether or not they succeed is not so important as the fact that we try."

In fact I wrote a short story several years ago about the day Al and Beth meet Sam at Star Bright and Beth who had believed the man who came to her in '69 and told her Al was alive in Vietnam had been a dream was mesmerized to find herself standing before him. She even confronts him about it.

Originally Posted by blue enigma

I'll have to watch 'Honeymoon Express' again but I'm pretty sure he is addressed as Admiral Calavicci at least once in that episode.

Not he is not. He is addressed as simply 'Admiral'.

[Donofrio_QLTD]

OK. Predictable? Over-the-top? Weird? Desperating? No clue of what's going on and why everyone and everything is acting the way they are? 3 acts out of 4 and you may still believe some of that... then comes the final BLAST and you realize that it never even mattered what you may have thought before because now you know that this isn't just an instant good episode, but a instant GREAT one with nothing but pure genius in it.

The best Quantum Leap episode EVER? Now, that's a hard one. I must say that, while this isn't my particular favorite QL episode, I reckon that it may just be the BEST one ever made. Nothing ever went wrong. Always a delight to watch. One episode my mother saw with me. She was in tears when Al disappeared with that leaping effect after he had kissed Beth and she whispered his name and began to cry. So was I.

An episode that developed Al to the fullest. If he hadn't grown on you before, with this episode he definitely did. It explained so much about him as a character, his behavior, his reasons, his ideas, his way of life, his roots themselves, and not only in the context of this episode, either. So emotionally intense. Very hard not to cry. Even some of the photography at the end is handled in such a way that it makes you produce tears and then hold them in your eyes, but masterfully crafted so you couldn't miss anything on the screen because of blurriness or something.

The episode that marked the rest of the series, especially some of the dark atmosphere that was very present and alive throughout most of the 3rd and 4th seasons. Best work by Donald P. Bellisario.

My rating: Excellent. Just because I couldn't rate it any higher than that. Not exaggerating.

My review of the season: Not my favorite one, even though I loved most of the episodes. Even "Sea Bride", the only one I voted "fair", I think, always had something good to offer. Definitely the season that had the most classic trademarks. Any episode people can recognize, even people who were never fans of these series, is without any doubt from this season.

[ladystoneheart]

I really didn't expect the twist about Beth so I really felt sorry for both her and Al. He is usually the comic relief part of the story,I mean except the parts he reveals his background.Yet this one is the most intense thing about him I have seen so far ( well,I had to change my mind after watching Leap Home P 2)

Also I have never seen a young Dean Stockwell until that frame
He was so cute back in the day

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Originally Posted by ladystoneheart

I really didn't expect the twist about Beth so I really felt sorry for both her and Al. He is usually the comic relief part of the story,I mean except the parts he reveals his background.Yet this one is the most intense thing about him I have seen so far ( well,I had to change my mind after watching Leap Home P 2)

Also I have never seen a young Dean Stockwell until that frame
He was so cute back in the day

If you are interested in seeing the young Dean Stockwell in that photo in action, see A Long Day's Journey Into Night. He can also be seen as a child in the 1949 version of Secret Garden.

[ladystoneheart]

Originally Posted by Sam Beckett Fan

If you are interested in seeing the young Dean Stockwell in that photo in action, see A Long Day's Journey Into Night. He can also be seen as a child in the 1949 version of a Secret Garden.

Last night I watched that film and I must say that he was amazing.The movie requires your full attention while watching it with lots of dialogue.

Also I didn't know that he was a child actor! In fact I didn't know much about Mr Stockwell other than as "Brother Cavil" from BSG. Because I hated the character passionately,it took me some time to accept him as a good guy if that makes any sense

[Donofrio_QLTD]

Originally Posted by ladystoneheart

Last night I watched that film and I must say that he was amazing.The movie requires your full attention while watching it with lots of dialogue.

Also I didn't know that he was a child actor! In fact I didn't know much about Mr Stockwell other than as "Brother Cavil" from BSG. Because I hated the character passionately,it took me some time to accept him as a good guy if that makes any sense

Off-topic: If you want to see Dean as a child, try to get "The Boy With Green Hair". It's a movie from 1948. I haven't seen this myself in its entirety, except maybe for a couple of scenes, but they say it's a dramatic comedy. He actually plays the boy with the green hair and for what I've read on the internet it's considered a classic.

[Lightning McQueenie]

Originally Posted by Donofrio_QLTD

Off-topic: If you want to see Dean as a child, try to get "The Boy With Green Hair". It's a movie from 1948. I haven't seen this myself in its entirety, except maybe for a couple of scenes, but they say it's a dramatic comedy. He actually plays the boy with the green hair and for what I've read on the internet it's considered a classic.

Another young Dean Stockwell movie is "Down to the Sea in Ships"

[blue enigma]

Originally Posted by Lightning McQueenie

Another young Dean Stockwell movie is "Down to the Sea in Ships"

That's a very good movie. Excellent cast.

[ladystoneheart]

Originally Posted by Donofrio_QLTD

Off-topic: If you want to see Dean as a child, try to get "The Boy With Green Hair". It's a movie from 1948. I haven't seen this myself in its entirety, except maybe for a couple of scenes, but they say it's a dramatic comedy. He actually plays the boy with the green hair and for what I've read on the internet it's considered a classic.

Originally Posted by Lightning McQueenie

Another young Dean Stockwell movie is "Down to the Sea in Ships"

I am definitely going to check those out. I saw the promotional stills from the movies and he was so adorable! A big awww=)

Not to go on off-topic again,is there a specific section for actor's other works here? Only the characters board took my attention.

[blue enigma]

Originally Posted by ladystoneheart

I am definitely going to check those out. I saw the promotional stills from the movies and he was so adorable! A big awww=)

Not to go on off-topic again,is there a specific section for actor's other works here? Only the characters board took my attention.

Down to Sea in Ships is a really good one.

There is an off-topic section, so you can check there for information on the actor's other works. An even better source, if you haven't already checked it out is the IMDB site (www.imdb.com). Type in the name to get to each actor's page, which has their list of work, bios, trivia, awards they've won/been nominated for, etc. Scott and Dean's pages are pretty comprehensive.

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Originally Posted by Donofrio_QLTD

Off-topic: If you want to see Dean as a child, try to get "The Boy With Green Hair". It's a movie from 1948. I haven't seen this myself in its entirety, except maybe for a couple of scenes, but they say it's a dramatic comedy. He actually plays the boy with the green hair and for what I've read on the internet it's considered a classic.

Oh I have heard of that film, my best friend saw it.
Also there is Kim about a young boy (Dean) living on the streets of India.
I haven't seen this or most of the films named here, I've seen more of Scott's films than Deans. But Kim is supposed to be well done.

[ladystoneheart]

Originally Posted by Sam Beckett Fan

I haven't seen this or most of the films named here, I've seen more of Scott's films than Deans. But Kim is supposed to be well done.

I have also heard of Kim but haven't seen it.
Which Scott movies could you recommend then? I don't know I can ever accept him as a bad guy with Sam Beckett in my mind

Back to the episode,Al says he didn't know anybody was going to hurt. Didn't Ziggy present a guess about Sam's leaps everytime? Why he didn't know about Sam's partner? Because Beth was in the picture?

[blue enigma]

Originally Posted by ladystoneheart

Al says he didn't know anybody was going to hurt. Didn't Ziggy present a guess about Sam's leaps everytime? Why he didn't know about Sam's partner? Because Beth was in the picture?

Al never ran any other scenarios. He assumed Sam was there for Beth because he was so focused on that. And Ziggy may not have necessarily offered other scenarios if Al didn't ask.

[Lightning McQueenie]

Having had a look on IMDB, the most surprising Dean Stockwell role I saw was the voice of Duke Nukem in Captain Planet :P

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Originally Posted by ladystoneheart

I have also heard of Kim but haven't seen it.
Which Scott movies could you recommend then? I don't know I can ever accept him as a bad guy with Sam Beckett in my mind

If you don't want to see Scott as a bad guy than pretty much the only film I know of NOT to see is In The Name of the People. I only once caught the last half hour or so myself but that is all I needed to find it an uncomfortably tragic film. Basically he murdered a teenage girl and is given the death sentence by lethal injection. To see Sam Beckett in that position was quite unsettling for me.

Those I DO recommend are Lord of Illusions , Above Suspicion and Blue Smoke. I believe Netforce was also good but I can't recall it really. He's also enjoyable in the TV series Murphy Brown where his character has a lot of Al in his personality.

Anyway I apologize I believe I begun the discussion that steered us off topic here.

Originally Posted by ladystoneheart

Back to the episode,Al says he didn't know anybody was going to hurt. Didn't Ziggy present a guess about Sam's leaps everytime? Why he didn't know about Sam's partner? Because Beth was in the picture?

"I didn't run any scenarios through Ziggy except mine."
This suggests that Ziggy doesn't deliver until asked. We see in The Leap Back that she tends to perform on her own pretenses and is quite the smart a**. After all she does have a big ego.

[Lightning McQueenie]

Originally Posted by Sam Beckett Fan

"I didn't run any scenarios through Ziggy except mine."
This suggests that Ziggy doesn't deliver until asked. We see in The Leap Back that she tends to perform on her own pretenses and is quite the smart a**. After all she does have a big ego.

It's quite possible that while Ziggy has access to several databases, the information can only be processed and likely events needing changing and the likely outcomes can only be predicted if someone runs the program with that information as the input. It's like we in the mathematical and computing sciences say, you only get out what you put in.

In the Leap Back, for example, once they figured out that Sam was in 1945 from the letter, they said that they had to find information from that time and put it through Ziggy. Once Ziggy had the information, then Gooshie and his team must have been working overtime with the prediction programs trying to figure out what was the most likely scenario. Of course, Ziggy takes all the credit but it's really the human computer users who do the hard work :P

[ladystoneheart]

Originally Posted by Sam Beckett Fan

If you don't want to see Scott as a bad guy than pretty much the only film I know of NOT to see is In The Name of the People. I only once caught the last half hour or so myself but that is all I needed to find it an uncomfortably tragic film. Basically he murdered a teenage girl and is given the death sentence by lethal injection. To see Sam Beckett in that position was quite unsettling for me.

Those I DO recommend are Lord of Illusions , Above Suspicion and Blue Smoke. I believe Netforce was also good but I can't recall it really. He's also enjoyable in the TV series Murphy Brown where his character has a lot of Al in his personality.

Anyway I apologize I believe I begun the discussion that steered us off topic here.


"I didn't run any scenarios through Ziggy except mine."
This suggests that Ziggy doesn't deliver until asked. We see in The Leap Back that she tends to perform on her own pretenses and is quite the smart a**. After all she does have a big ego.

Oh,I thought the otherwise. I assumed once they get to know whereabouts of Sam,Ziggy automatically delivers the possibilities to Al.
I am sorry for going OT again but thanks for the suggestions. Lord of Illusions will be my first,then

Originally Posted by Lightning McQueenie

Of course, Ziggy takes all the credit but it's really the human computer users who do the hard work :P

Indeed=)

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Originally Posted by ladystoneheart

Oh,I thought the otherwise. I assumed once they get to know whereabouts of Sam,Ziggy automatically delivers the possibilities to Al.

Honestly I never put thought into this concept and am not fully certain what to make of it. Thinking about it now it does seem like something of a flaw because it doesn't seem right that Ziggy would withhold information however there is a suggestive moment in The Leap Back. When she interrupts Sam and Donna during making out to announce that she has a theory on Al's leap and then goes silent until Sam prompts her to continue. This suggests that she does at times need persuading to talk.

Yeah...I've got nothing else right now. XD

[Lightning McQueenie]

Can I just say "BOOOOOO!" to the three people who only voted this episode as Good :P