507 Trilogy Part I <AKA One Little Heart>

[alsplacebartender]

Trilogy Part I
August 8, 1955

Potterville, Louisiana


In the first of a three-part saga, Sam leaps into the father of young Abigail Fuller, a girl accused by a local townswoman, Leta Aider, of killing her husband and daughter. Leta is the only survivor of her family and believes Abigail to be cursed.


Written by: Deborah Pratt
Directed by: James Whitmore, Jr.


Rate and comment on the first chapter of this trilogy!

[Vince Beckett]

The first of the only trilogy in the series. Very well done. Lots of mystery and drama.

[Grimlock]

Hands down the best Quantum Leap episode. Though I still have to rewatch (on DVD) the other two (Trilogy) episodes, so they might trump this one. At any rate the whole Trilogy is a remarkable event.

Good to see that the episode still gives me the creeps more then 10 years later.

[cookiemom6067]

Anyone else think that Abigail may very well have killed Bart? Even though we know

Spoiler Alert! (highlight to read)

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Violet was killed accidently

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. Consider that she says Bart was yelling at her, and then there's the oar. I think it was probably an accident (remember her hitting Aida with the vase of sunflowers) that Bart died, but I do think she hit him with the oar and may have been there when he died. I don't think it was probably a malicious thing, more of a reaction to being frightened, but I think she did it.

[Sam Beckett Fan]

I have a question about something in this ep.
Ok so at the beginning Al leaves Sam while he's in Clayton's room and he walks over to the window but almost at that second there is a gust of wind, Sam turns and sees a flash of Laura standing at the door and then the door blows shut in the wind and when he runs to catch up with her but she's gone and Abigale is standing there.

The question is, what happened there? Was Luara an illusion or something and why was Abigale standing there?

[Lightning McQueenie]

Laura was not an illusion - Al saw her too and yells at Sam something like "Laura gets out! Go!"

I think she must have sensed Abigail was in danger and wanted to help her... OR she realised that Sam was Sam and wanted to find out more about him, why he was there etc.

[cookiemom6067]

Originally Posted by naggindragon

Laura was not an illusion - Al saw her too and yells at Sam something like "Laura gets out! Go!"

I think she must have sensed Abigail was in danger and wanted to help her... OR she realised that Sam was Sam and wanted to find out more about him, why he was there etc.

SBF wasn't talking about the fire scene, she was talking about the scene near the beginning of the episode, before Sam even knows who Laura was.

I thought that was a little "woo woo," too, SBF - trying to set it up that Laura was a ghost, in order for us to find out later that she's not.

Interestingly, I have the Trilogy on video, taped from its original airing, and Laura is NOT in the fire scene. The person shown, and Al's reference are both to Leda Aider. That's a big QL "unsolved mystery" to me, because obviously Laura was there.

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Yeah thats right Cookiemom I was referring to the scene in the beginning. I know very well what happened in the fire scene or at least Kristen and I have our theory. After seeing the entire trilogy we think that Luara was there to save Lita Ater because

Spoiler Alert! (highlight to read)

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it was her that was responsible for Violets death(although not deliberatly of course), and she wanted to make up for it; show how sorry she was you know?

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Because by the time Luara appears Sam had already gotten Abigale out. She destracted him and that's how Clayton had to leap back in to his death.

Originally Posted by cookiemom6067

trying to set it up that Laura was a ghost, in order for us to find out later that she's not.

Yeah I read the episode guide here before seeing the ep and someting was said about Luara being able to see Sam and I took that to mean that she was a ghost or maybe it was something else it said to also lead me to that thought but whatever it was I was under the impression that she was a ghost.

[isz]

The best part of the Trilogy.Well done thriller and mystery. too bad the actress that played 10yo Abigail was so irritating(or was it the all character of 10yo Abigail...)

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Originally Posted by isz

The best part of the Trilogy.Well done thriller and mystery. too bad the actress that played 10yo Abigail was so irritating(or was it the all character of 10yo Abigail...)

Personally I say it was the characrtor of Abigale that was irritaing and even more so in the second one. The young actress was very pretty and did a great job of her role though. Both roles in fact as she returns in the third episode as Abigale's daughter Sammy Jo

[Sam Beckett Fan]

I was consitering something a few hours ago. Abigale is a girl believed by her entire town to have a curse on her. Well back in the 1600's during the time of the Salem witch trials one of the most famous accusers of witchcraft was a 1o year olf girl by the name of Abigail Williams. Although Abigail Fuller was the accused rather than the accuser it still kind of makes me think if Debrah Pratt consitered any of this when writing Abigail Fuller.

Note: I know The Crucible says that Abigail Williams is a young woman of 17, but The Crucible is dramatized or or so Wikipedia says. I personally however do not trust Wikipedia because its an excellent source of false information so keep in mind I could be mistaken(the claim that she was ten I mean).

[NYCSciFiFan]

I've seen the Trilogy before, but I've forgotten the details of the plotline, so forgive me if any of this is answered or countered in a later episode. (I did remember the next leap, though. Gak.) It's fun to watch these almost like a new viewer, thanks to my lousy memory and unpacked videos.

I watched this episode yesterday and I thought Al said "Leda gets out" during the fire scene. I don't think Al sees Laura (or her image) at all in the flames, only at the sanitarium in the rocking chair.

Did they say that the Sheriff KNEW where his wife was or was he blissfully ignorant of the fact that his wife was catatonic in a sanitarium? I found Laura's appearances to be sort of hokey. Either she can "project her astral image" or wears a fireproof aura, lol. They overdid it with the special effects, maybe?

Frankly, I think Abigail killed Violet and her father. She definitely has anger management issues and keeps saying she wants people dead. Sam's a sucker for a pretty little girl, isn't he? I would have gotten her a bed next to momma.

It's strange that Sam leaps just as his "host" is killed by the falling ceiling. Bad choice on Sam's part - while he always wants everyone to live, he should have considered what would happen to Abigail if she lost her father and hauled *** out of there.

[ohboy]

I agree with you at the end, in the senes that the little girl could have killed them. The first time through, I was upset that the question was never actually answered, even though it was a huge plot factor in the middle of the episode. Although she was a little girl, she did indeed have anger management issues.

Other than that, and I also agree about the special effects of the fire, it was a decent episode.

[bowspearer]

Originally Posted by ohboy

I agree with you at the end, in the senes that the little girl could have killed them.

Actually she didn't. You find out who did in part 3 though.

[julieannboo]

i thought Trilogy was brilliant. def. my favourite episodes.

i found the child character to be quite intense with her Father- it almost unnerved me.

The black and white sequence with the haunting music was very sinister.

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Last night bestie and I watched the trilogy and for me personally it was my first watch since the first I'd seen it years ago.
Now just about everyone here knows that I am not a fan of the trilogy story and that has remained mostly unchanged.

It has the unfitting feel of a Stephan King novel, especially this first episode and child Abigail is a horrid brat! That much of my original opinion stands.

Starting with a Stephen King factor she had this eerie moment where after Sam and Al have a conversation in Clayton's bedroom and he follows this flash he gets of Laura out into the hall, she's standing there with this haunting stare and says "Night daddy". Then turns and walks away. What the hell?!
And let's back track to that Laura thing, what was that? Then there is a second occurrence during the fire. In the third episode the camera focuses on her hand when she reveals the missing locket and you can see that it's burned. Sam then removes her head dressing long enough to reveal that she'd lost nearly all her hair and a burned scalp. This is suggestive that she'd been there in that fire. Returning to this episode, right before Lita Aider drops the lantern she can be heard crying out for someone not to hurt her and I'd automatically assumed she was faking being attacked by Abigail like the vicious b**** she is but could she have been yelling at Laura?
This doesn't add up for me though. When Sam caught sight of her there she'd disappeared in the blink of an eye, how is that possible and how on earth did she get out of the mental facility and to the house with somewhat suggestively no witnesses?

The 'Tell me all the ways you love me' bits were attention seeking clingy daddy's girl behavior and the way she b****ed to Sam that she was done discussing the incident with Violet was...well b****y and should have been reprimanded. Sam was the father he should have taken her firmly by the shoulders and told her:
"You do not talk to you father like that young lady! You were the last one to see the Aiders alive, do you understand what that means!? The accusations you're facing? We need to talk about this, I need to know exactly what happened if you want to convince people that you're innocent!"
He can be forgiven though because the situation, unlike anything he's ever heard of before had him kind of in a level of shock for most of the duration of the leap. Al conveniently missed all of Abigail's tantrum moments or I feel like he would have made a comment there. I'm reminded of the backstory bestie gave him and if it were canon I could imagine him saying:
"At the orphanage if we talked to the nuns like that we'd get a good smacking."

On this subject, it seemed like the Violet story was slightly altered when she tells it again as an adult in the third part. In the first version the fight seemed to be equally about the locket and then escalated to Abigail being crazy while in the second version she made it sound mostly about the locket. Which leads me to my next point, while it's true that children fight over trivial things because it's all they've got, I didn't find it real believable that a little girl would beat the **** out of another little girl over a locket and it actually supports that's she's the little psycho the town thought she was. Now if they were boys it would be different, violent psychical fighting is more of a boy thing. Then again I didn't find anything in this episode believable so that was kind of meaningless to point out. There was also a large missing link between the Violet story and Lita Aider almost strangling Abigail over getting that locket back; other than the fact that she'd wanted it what evidence was there that Abigail took the locket? Violet's body was missing for 25 years so there's no way Lita knew it was missing from around her neck.

Now returning to that fire, I was told that there is an original script in which Sam actually did NOT leap out in time and died but that doesn't make sense to me. How then did he leap from there into Abigail's nether regions unharmed? I'd like to know more about this, it's very intriguing.

There is no denying that the acting in all three episodes is wonderful. The Lita Aider character actually has a lot of similar aspects to the crazy woman in The Mist who was obsessed with God and preached the signs of the apocalypse from the bible. It is bestie's suggestion that Lita Aider's belief in family curses could be religion based along with it being the south in the 50's. This returns me to how I feel this story is very Stephen King. The Mist happens to be King and one of my favorites of his films (The only of his writing I have read is two of his novellas).
One positive thing I'll admit is that I enjoy seeing Sam as a father though it's also saddening because he'll never be a father to his own children and with a heart that would make him a great one.

To be continued in Trilogy part 2 thread.

[Sam Beckett Fan]

This is something I brought up in another thread but wanted to elaborate here.
Bestie drew my attention to a 1956 film called The Bad Seed which is far too identical in plot to not have been some of Pratt's inspiration here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bad_Seed_(1956_film)

As of today I've seen the film (which is the most significant difference between now and my prior mention of it in the other thread) and in contrast the Quantum Leap adaption is actually quite a bit milder in several ways including the Abigail character.

Spoiler Alert! (highlight to read)

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The eight year old in the film is in fact guilty and sociopathic.

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One thing that caught my attention was how well the mother in the film had tried to put her daughter in her place and not buy into her BS. Though I expressed having understanding I still wish Sam hadn't been such a pushover with Abigail. Though the line:
"Al do you think a little girl like Abigail could be capable of murder?" was very powerful and shows that he did try to check out the other side of the coin in this situation.

[Lightning McQueenie]

That DOES sound very much like the first episode of the Trilogy, with the child being the last one to see the guy she killed alive, having stolen a medallion (like the missing locket) and the "family curse" that psychopathy/insanity is genetic...

I might have to find this movie and watch it.

Apparently there was a TV series remake of this story/movie in the 1980s, so it's quite possible that Deborah Pratt had seen this not long before writing the Trilogy...

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Right, the Quantum Leap episode has many direct parallels with the film.
I've also heard of the 1980's remake and didn't consider it but you are likely right, it was that version that Pratt might have seen.

[Lightning McQueenie]

I just spoke to the Divine Miss D - Deborah Pratt on Facebook. I asked her if "The Bad Seed" was an inspiration for the Trilogy, she told me "I loved the Bad Seed. Conscious or subconscious - I hope it was!"

How cool is that?

BTW I can't resist posting these here...

[Sam Beckett Fan]

I'm gonna be honest here, first glance at that was a bit creepy. XD
How did you manage to contact Pratt on Facebook?

[Lightning McQueenie]

What was creepy? The photos? Or me contacting Deborah Pratt? Hahaha

Deborah is one of my Facebook friends. I was actually the one who organised her interview for the Quantum Leap Podcast. I've got lots of Quantum Leap alumni that I keep in contact with through Facebook and Twitter, including John D'Aquino, Beverley Leech, Jane Sibbett, Carolyn Seymour and Darren Dalton as well

[Sam Beckett Fan]

The photo was creepy hehe.
How lucky that you're friends with so many of the people who worked on the show. Especially Pratt.

[Lightning McQueenie]

Originally Posted by Sam Beckett Fan

The photo was creepy hehe.
How lucky that you're friends with so many of the people who worked on the show. Especially Pratt.

Yes, it was a bit nerve wracking to start approaching people asking for interviews, but once you realise they're just people it's easy. And every one of them says how much they loved Quantum Leap and working with Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell, most saying it was their favourite roles ever, so they're more than happy to share their experiences

[Sam Beckett Fan]

Honestly I'd be more nervous to approach them with fear that I'll bother them. XD
Over the internet however, such as Facebook or Twitter I'm pretty comfortable asking a question. Had I access to Pratt on FB I certainly would have asked her about 'The Bad Seed' myself and since I do not am very glad you did.

Ahem, sorry off topic. XP