I found the script and I must admit I'd feel insecure about the direction near the end as well.
The thought of Al as a leaper in itself was one I had trouble with.
On the one hand, the prospect of seeing Al's approach to a leap as the executioner rather than as an adviser is quite intriguing.
Season 3's 'Private Dancer' teases the difference between the two characters' priorities with Al's insistence that the focus should be on Diana's incomplete general education vs. Sam's on jumpstarting her dancing career via getting her into a legit dance school.
We can tell how differently that leap would have gone had Al been the leaper.
At the same time, however, moving Al from the sidelines to the front line is a clear gimmick much like transitioning Zoey from an observer to a leaper in 'Revenge' (and we all know that the entire evil leapers arc was a gimmick).
To go a Star Trek route as Al himself so creatively put it, is a step further into the gimmick zone, a step too far for me. For the record, I don't like the suggestive ending of 'Starlight Starbright' either.
On a more positive note, I adored the Al/Beth scene, as I stated before, it's a perfect contrast to Sam/Donna in 'The Leap Back' and gives us some insight into their relationship, their bond.
I found it intriguing how we got further confirmation that Bartender Al is GTFW and the whole different picture we get of his convincing Sam that he could control his leaping. If it was, in fact, he who'd sent Sam into the distant future, that's a leap choice Sam did not make so convincing him that he controls his leaping becomes invalid. Whether a deception, a cruel tease or something else, the revelation is seemingly useless apart from fixing Al's and Beth's marriage.
This has me questioning whether it was truly Sam's choice not to return home even in the aired content and what aspects exactly GTFW controls.
It raises a lot of other questions as well.
- How much does Al know about Sam's encounter with the Bartender? It's been a while since I've watched the show and don't remember how much Sam said once Al's instincts were successful in connecting to him in the imaging chamber.
- How did he manage to leap into the bar rather than ending up somewhere and somewhen random?
- The cliffhanger suggested that he'd been transported into his first leap but how is he leaping into other people while Sam is leaping as himself?
- Is it that Sam isn't leaping as himself? Can it be that because he's in the future surpassing his own lifetime, his counterparts don't have his place to fill so instead are held in the void Sam spent his time between leaps in? Or perhaps the bar has become the new 'waiting room'. The bar and the void might even be one and the same.