Bingo's Leap

QuantumMatt

Project QL Intern
Jun 26, 2006
46
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Manteca, CA
I was watching the episode "A Leap for Lisa" and Sam came up with a solution: taking "Bingo" (the nickname given to Al in his cadet days, apparently) and putting him through the accelerator and leaping him in time earlier so he could prevent the death of Commander Riker's wife by Chip. I keep wondering: Bingo leaps back and into the accelerator chamber would be an "earlier" Bingo. After Al tells Sam that it worked and they discover that Commander Riker's wife is alive and Lisa is alive, Sam leaps into Lee Harvey Oswald. There is something troubling me though- if Sam leaps out, then that means the "earlier" Bingo would leap in. If the "earlier" Bingo leaps in, what happened to the Bingo who they sent back in time? Would he leap out while the "earlier" Bingo leaped back in? If so, where did the Bingo leap to? Or would Bingo be destroyed or would the two Bingos be merged into one?

This is a fascinating mystery like the mystery of the handlink in another thread.

Matthew
 
Yeah I was just thinking that they leaped Bingo and then when they went back to the waiting room there he still will be because techniqually Sam is still in the leap.
 
QuantumMatt said:
I was watching the episode "A Leap for Lisa" and Sam came up with a solution: taking "Bingo" (the nickname given to Al in his cadet days, apparently) and putting him through the accelerator and leaping him in time earlier so he could prevent the death of Commander Riker's wife by Chip. I keep wondering: Bingo leaps back and into the accelerator chamber would be an "earlier" Bingo. After Al tells Sam that it worked and they discover that Commander Riker's wife is alive and Lisa is alive, Sam leaps into Lee Harvey Oswald. There is something troubling me though- if Sam leaps out, then that means the "earlier" Bingo would leap in. If the "earlier" Bingo leaps in, what happened to the Bingo who they sent back in time? Would he leap out while the "earlier" Bingo leaped back in? If so, where did the Bingo leap to? Or would Bingo be destroyed or would the two Bingos be merged into one?

All in all, we have 3 leapers: Sam, Bingo, and a 3-day-younger Bingo. Sam leaps into June 25th Bingo, thereby placing him in the Waiting Room back at the Project. Sam fails his mission to save Lisa, resulting in the Project leaping Bingo into a 3-day-younger version of himself. The two Bingos are now mixed up out of their correct time continuums, but only for the duration of the time Sam remains in 1957.

No "merging" of Bingos occurs, though. The 3-day-younger Bingo simply arrived in the Accelerator at the Project, completely clueless as to what's going on, because June 25th Bingo knows all the information about the leap. June 25th Bingo accomplishes his mission, thereby allowing Sam to leap out. Once Sam leaps out, the slightly younger Bingo is bounced out of the Waiting Room and knocks June 25th Bingo back to his correct time continuum. And of course Sam's reflection would have virtually never changed, as 3 days made no difference of aging. Got all that? :D
 
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That part never confused me, and QL Nut is exactly right...

What I find more interesting is that after Sam mentions that his "shadow" is gone and thus the plan must have worked, Al (the hologram) is like "Oh I hope you're right..."

He lived through it... how could he not already know???
 
QL Nut said:
All in all, we have 3 leapers. Sam, Bingo, and a 3-day-younger Bingo. Sam leaps into June 25th Bingo, thereby placing him in the Waiting Room back at the Project. Sam fails his mission to save Lisa, resulting in the Project leaping Bingo into a 3-day-younger version of himself. The two Bingos are now mixed up out of their correct time continuums, but only for the duration of the time Sam remains in 1957.

No "merging" of Bingos occurs, though. The 3-day-younger Bingo simply arrived in the Accelerator at the Project, completely clueless as to what's going on, because June 25th Bingo knows all the information about the leap. June 25th Bingo accomplishes his mission, thereby allowing Sam to leap out. Once Sam leaps out, the slightly younger Bingo is bounced out of the Waiting Room and knocks June 25th Bingo back to his correct time continuum. And of course Sam's reflection would have virtually never changed, as 3 days made no difference of aging. Got all that? :D

that sounds like a very very detailed version of what I said hehe. Well done Chris.:hurray:
 
naggindragon said:
That part never confused me, and QL Nut is exactly right...

What I find more interesting is that after Sam mentions that his "shadow" is gone and thus the plan must have worked, Al (the hologram) is like "Oh I hope you're right..."

He lived through it... how could he not already know???

I believe by saying that he ment for lisa and marcy.
 
naggindragon said:
What I find more interesting is that after Sam mentions that his "shadow" is gone and thus the plan must have worked, Al (the hologram) is like "Oh I hope you're right..."

He lived through it... how could he not already know???

I think it's an interesting question. When the timeline changes, does Al have the "new" (different) memories immediately? These events took place decades ago for Al, so why wouldn't the memories be part of his life as soon as the timeline changes? Is it because he's inside the Imaging Chamber, and he doesn't remember changes until he leaves?

I think this is the only time in the series that Al's life changes during an episode, except for Mirror Image, and we don't see Al react to the results of that. I think we can only speculate about exactly how it works.
 
Snish said:
I think it's an interesting question. When the timeline changes, does Al have the "new" (different) memories immediately?
Yes I find that question interesting too. The novels seem to suggest that it takes some time especially in Random Measures the one I most recently read becuase as a result of Sam changing an event in a young girl's life Al walked out of the imaging chamber married for a sixth time but he has no recollection of this woman or ever having known her at first, it comes to him slowly. Personally I don't like that concept as I don't much of Mcconnals other concepts eaither.

In the show they seem to suggest more that the new memories immediatly take over:

Example #1 : Leap Home Part 2: Vietnam
Sam allows Maggie on the mission which causes her to take a photograph of a POW Al. After she is killed, the men are looking at photographs and Tom says that he wishes she would have won the Pulitzer prize to which Al casually replies as if its nothing new:
"She did for her last photograph"
then after Sam sees the content of the Pulitzer winning photo, Al says in the same tone and manner
"What the hell, I get repatriated in five years"

Example #2: Trilogy Part III: The Last Door
At the end of this episode Al is telling Sam what Abigale's future looks like after reciving his help, and says that she's happy she's really happy.
Sam: How do you know that?
Al: Sammy Jo told me
Al hadn't left the imaging chamber between the old and new histories yet so he would not have seen her at the project yet he knows she's there as if she always had been regardless of Sam's effects on the project.

For some reason it seems that Leap for Lisa is a bit different in this manner, so I am not sure, strange.
 
Sam Beckett Fan said:
Example #1 : Leap Home Part 2: Vietnam
Sam allows Maggie on the mission which causes her to take a photograph of a POW Al. After she is killed, the men are looking at photographs and Tom says that he wishes she would have won the Pulitzer prize to which Al casually replies as if its nothing new:
"She did for her last photograph"
then after Sam sees the content of the Pulitzer winning photo, Al says in the same tone and manner
"What the hell, I get repatriated in five years"

I'm not sure it's a good example...
1. Between Maggie's Death and the scene you described,i'm pretty sure quite a few hours had passed-Enough time for Al to go out of the imaging Chamber and "get his new memories".
2. In the same manner between those two scene i think enough time had passed for Al to get some answers from Ziggy.

BTW may i say this all thing really reminds me of the movie "the Butterfly Effect"(or should i said it reverse.:))
 
OK I suppose that's true. But we don't know for sure that Al ever left in between the scenes. My guess was that he wouldn't want to leave Sam in his heartbroken state as he morned over Maggie. And he can just as easily cue Ziggy through the handlink.

btw: The Butterfly Effect is cool and Quantum Leap indeed has the same basic theme of a single flit of a butterfly's wings can cause an enture hurricane. I believe that's what the movie said but its been about two years since I saw it as it was in Psychology class as a senior in high school.
 
Sam Beckett Fan said:
OK I suppose that's true. But we don't know for sure that Al ever left in between the scenes. My guess was that he wouldn't want to leave Sam in his heartbroken state as he morned over Maggie. And he can just as easily cue Ziggy through the handlink.

btw: The Butterfly Effect is cool and Quantum Leap indeed has the same basic theme of a single flit of a butterfly's wings can cause an enture hurricane. I believe that's what the movie said but its been about two years since I saw it as it was in Psychology class as a senior in high school.

Likely from the time Sam got on the chopper at the LZ where Maggie was killed until the point where we see him in the bar drunk more than a few hours has gone by. The likliehood of Al remaining in the IC for that length of time is doubtful. That would mean a huge draw of energy to keep the IC running which would be a waste of resources.
 
if they put bingo in the accelerator, wouldnt that make him another leaper? and how would they get him back home?
 
I think the fact that Sam leaping out, meaning the "leaper" Bingo would have to take his place, and the younger Bingo taking HIS place would have sorted everything out.
 
isz said:
if they put bingo in the accelerator, wouldnt that make him another leaper? and how would they get him back home?

They were most likely able to set it up like in the Leap Back when Sam returned to his place as the leaper.

Donna: '45 is eight years before you were born, you can't leap farther than your own lifetime!
Sam: when we simo leaped our nurons and measons obviously merged. Part of me is Al.


And Bingo IS a version of Al. So it would make sense that it works simularly.
 
ian2k6 said:
if they put bingo in the accelerator, wouldnt that make him another leaper? and how would they get him back home?

I believe it has something to do with the leaper returning to their correct time continuum. Once Sam leaped back to the future in "The Leap Back," he no longer was a leaper due to Al taking his place. Once they sent Bingo through the Accelerator, he was only a leaper, per sé, for that small amount of time that he needed to complete his mission. Sam's presence as another leaper was connected to Bingo's leaping, because they had the same mission, only Sam happened to fail it. Since they were connected, having Sam leap out would allow June 25th Bingo to leap ahead a couple of days and allow him (and his 3-day-younger self) to return to their correct time continuums. So I believe that if the Project can find a way to get the leaper back to their correct time continuum, it ends the leaping "yoyo," so to speak. The problem is, it appears that there will always have to be a leaper stuck in the past; in this case it became Sam once he leaped out of 1957.
 
Snish said:
I think it's an interesting question. When the timeline changes, does Al have the "new" (different) memories immediately? These events took place decades ago for Al, so why wouldn't the memories be part of his life as soon as the timeline changes? Is it because he's inside the Imaging Chamber, and he doesn't remember changes until he leaves?

This one's tricky. Either Al has to remember any changes to his own life (unless they're faded because of being more than 40 years old), or Al is somehow exempt from changes in the timeline due to his neural connection with Sam and Ziggy, plus the fact that some of his neurons and mesons merged with Sam's after "The Leap Back." That would make him an anomaly, or in other words a product from an alternate timeline or a timeline that no longer exists after the changes.

The most logical answer would be that Al's memory is hazy, as were other details of his life which he forgot earlier in the episode. Perhaps Al was so caught up in the leap that he wasn't even thinking about how his life turned out because he was in the midst of his own past. But, the theory of Al somehow being an anomaly in the timeline can't work, because he became erased from existence once Bingo was executed in 1961. If it weren't for the Swiss cheese side effect to fall back on, there could have been some serious plot holes throughout the series.

And it's important to keep in mind that we can't have it both ways. So this creates a plot hole in that Sam still has a memory of "old" Al after he disappears. So if Sam remembers him, then once he returns it seems to imply that Al doesn't have the new memories of Lisa being saved. It has to be one or the other, not both. You could argue that perhaps the "ripple effect" takes a little bit of time to catch up to Sam and Al, but then Al shouldn't have instantaneously disappeared once the odds of his execution reached 100 percent. In leaps that directly affect Sam and Al's lives such as "M.I.A." or "The Leap Home," either Sam has to be a left over product of a nonexistent timeline, or new memories of his changes must instantly appear after his leaps, like after he saved Tom in "The Leap Home Part II──Vietnam." Given the fact that Al can be erased from existence and have his life changed after "Mirror Image," he and Sam must become directly affected by any changes, only Sam usually doesn't remember them from being Swiss-cheesed.
 
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