103 The Right Hand of God

The Right Hand of God

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Al's Place Bartender - Brian Greene
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The Right Hand of God
October 24, 1974

Sacramento, California


Knocked out just as he leaps in, Sam has become Kid Cody, a boxer whose contract is owned by a group of nuns. Complicating things is a fight promoter who is forcing the Kid to throw his matches for profit. And then there's the girlfriend who wants him to retire from boxing altogether.

Now he must somehow win the championship to build the nuns a new chapel and maybe save a soul or two along the way.


Written by: John Hill
Directed by: Gilbert Shilton


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establishing Sam later as a Martial Artist, and having Sam be so out of shape... nope... I just couldn't buy that at all, nor how fast he supposedly GOT in shape!

Other than that, I did like it!
 
I'm a little surprised at how quickly Sam got into shape during this leap; he wasn't there all that long, after all. Still, it was a decent episode; I especially liked how Al kept falling asleep while he was trying to help Sam.
 
Well, it's not really said how long Sam is there. They just show a montage of his training. Like in Genesis...it seems like he's only Tom Stratton for a short time, but Al says something along the lines of "we've been celebrating for weeks". There was a sequence on Genesis too that kinda alludes to that, but its hard to pick out. Maybe that's what happens with The Right Hand of God. I like this ep a lot too.

Samantha Beckett
 
yeah my guess is that he was training for like a week or something i am really not sure. i loved this episode though becasue i loved Sister Angela's determination to get her "castle" back, and how she told her story to Sam. but the real treat was when i realized that Guy Stockwell is the bad guy, Jake something hehe. it was cool to see the Stockwell bros together. :)
 
Samantha Beckett said:
Like in Genesis...it seems like he's only Tom Stratton for a short time, but Al says something along the lines of "we've been celebrating for weeks". There was a sequence on Genesis too that kinda alludes to that, but its hard to pick out.
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Technically, the way it's supposed to work is that the amount of time Sam spends on a leap is the exact same amount of time that passes for Al and the Project. Once Sam leaps out, however, time continues to move forward for Al while Sam's body is traveling through time. Sam's aura in the Waiting Room is either a hollow shell or simply vanishes until Sam reappears in the past (none of us really know for sure what exactly happens). It's the passage of time between leaps that differs from one leap to the next. In the case of the pilot episode, 6 days passed between the time Sam leaped out of Tom Stratton and into Tim Fox. One can only assume it could take anywhere from a few minutes to several weeks before Ziggy could find where Sam landed.

Damon
 
yeah sometimes they seem to make it appear one way and then in otehr senses it appears another way. because in the novles they make it appear as if Sam's body becomes an empty hermit crab shell, and in the show it seems like it just disappeares until someone leaps in.
 
Sam doesn't seem to "remember" his martial arts training until the episode "Another Mother" and when it comes from instinct, he does stop to ask Al if he knows it.

Of course the other, more mundane, explanation could simply be that the writer's didn't think about Sam having any martial arts training until the second season and that's why we don't see it in the first.
 
Samantha Beckett said:
Well, it's not really said how long Sam is there. They just show a montage of his training. Like in Genesis...it seems like he's only Tom Stratton for a short time, but Al says something along the lines of "we've been celebrating for weeks".
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It's made clear, though, that project time does not equal Sam's time. He was instantly transferred to Fox from Stratton, but Al said it had been a much longer time for them at the project.
 
cookiemom6067 said:
Boxing is quite different from martial arts, isn't it? Using karate moves would be against the rules, yes?
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Since it wasn't 'kick boxing' I'd imagine they would be, yes.
 
Love Sam's suggestion to Al about what to do about the noisy neighbor due to I live by the washroom to my apartment complex. I wonder if any one has ever tried it? Why I note about the washroom is people tend to go in there and wash what sounds like loads of rocks at around 1am and some times 4am.
 
I don't think Sam's condition is a problem. He could easily have spent a couple of weeks in intensive training, and I believe Sam is in very good general condition to begin with. He would still have to work hard to get into fighting shape--and just to learn how to fight in the first place. It is a little harder to believe that his martial arts training doesn't come back to him though, but since that came later in the series, I just accept it as is.

but the real treat was when i realized that Guy Stockwell is the bad guy, Jake something hehe. it was cool to see the Stockwell bros together.
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It would have been very cool if they actually had any scenes together! It's too bad, but I suppose the script was already written before Guy was hired, so they couldn't arrange some reason to have Al in the room when Jake was present. I never would have guessed that they're related because they look so different, although Guy was only 2 years older than Dean.
 
Snish said:
I never would have guessed that they're related because they look so different, although Guy was only 2 years older than Dean.
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I know me neither and it definitly would have been cool to have the Stockwell bros in at least one scene together. But you are probably right as I believe it was mentioned in the interview on Season one that the scripts for proceeding episodes were written while the previous episode was still in shooting. So that makes sense that the script was written before they casted Guy.
 
:dreaming The Best Part: Kid's girlfriend... GOD SHE WAS HOT!! To this day, I want her. I want her so badly it hurts. I'm obsessed, possessed and undressed. Oops.

:lol The Funniest Part: Al's neighbor keeping him up every night. Mentioning what he wanted to do with the guys muffler cracks me up.

:realmad The Worst Part: Using future knowledge of the outcome of a fight to benefit his own neck... literally. But hey, it was early in the series and they weren't as strict on the rules as much as they are later, I guess. But still.

Otherwsie, this was a terrific episode! :hurray:
 
I liked everything about this episode except the nun. She bugged me. Her "faith" was so fragile, I thought she needed to go back to Faith School. It irritated me that she "believed" when this guy shows up; loses her "faith" when it turns out he's a cheat; finds it again when he wins the fight. Blech. By the way, Sister, it's not your chapel.

Sam's not so out of shape as all that. In Leaping Without a Net, Al comments that Sam is naturally athletic and has good balance (the fact that he's able to catch a 100-pound woman in mid-air proves that). Plus, these aren't REAL fights. They're fixed. Even the host wasn't in top fighting shape - he obviously drank, and the trainer knew that his training regimen was a joke. So, just as Sam could sing well enough for Syracuse (CaFS), he could fight well enough (with a little technique training) for a fixed fight.

I did love the girlfriend though. She nicely sidestepped a number of "blonde bombshell" cliches.

The Worst Part: Using future knowledge of the outcome of a fight to benefit his own neck... literally. But hey, it was early in the series and they weren't as strict on the rules as much as they are later, I guess. But still.
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Well, it's not like he made himself rich; he just solved the problem for his host.
 
Just like everyone else mentioned...it's tough to believe that Sam is that out of shape. BUT, as only the third episode in the series, we don't KNOW that he's naturally athletic yet, so you have to take it at face value. It's obvious that he's not completely lacking in ability, he just needs to tune up a little. Most of that stuff they had him doing for fighting is probably not something Sam would incorporate into his everyday fitness routine, you know?

I liked that this episode established the theme of faith. I think, just as Sister Angela had to hold on to her faith and Sam helped her renew it, she helped Sam find a bit of his own. Up until this point, he found the whole leaping thing pretty scary. He's away from home, has little memory, and has no idea how he is where he is. But I think talking with Sister Angela, and feeling that what he's doing is good...it helps him deal with the uncertainty. God (or whatever) is directing his leaps, and Sam has to have faith that he won't be put in situations beyond his capabilities, and that he'll eventually be able to get home. I especially love the scene where Sam lies down on the bed and starts singing along to Amazing Grace. It's moving.

Overall the episode is pretty bland though. My favorite part was seeing Nancy Kulp. Miss Jane finally gave up on Jethro and became a nun! :D
 
I choose to believe that it was BECAUSE of Sam's Martial Art's training that he was able to handle the intense fighting training and get back into shape so quickly...
 
RossBeckett said:
When Sam woke up he saw and heard Al sleeping on the imaging chamber floor, which means that he left the imaging chamber powered up which in effect wasted money. Ca-Ching! :lol

~Steve B.
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Oh no, Al wanted to be there for Sam when Sam woke up... He was just resting his eyes ;) haha.
 
An episode that definitely has its moments, but nothing really special. Kinda forgettable, like someone said before. The funniest part was when Sam sees that guy in the bar mixing all those drinks to make his "tea K.O." (T.K.O.?) and then everyone starts throwing that dry ice ball at each other until the drink gets to him and then when he drinks it he removes a toothpick from his mouth or something.

Some of the characters were a bit one-dimensional.

My rating: Fair. One I always try to avoid or leave it until the end.
 
I enjoyed the training scenes and the fight scenes. The rest of it was just "there." The whole premise about betting on fights and calling rounds was confusing at first. I liked the fact that they wrote Dixie as a not-ditzy blonde; they actually gave her character a little depth.

I did not like the way Al behaved in this one. I've had the same noisy neighbor problem - unmuffled dirt bike all day when I worked at night. Most days, I averaged 2-3 hours of sleep, tops - but I never had the urge to just lie down in the floor and go to sleep in random places. It just seemed that the writers were trying too hard to try to insert some "comedy" into this one.

Fight scenes bump it up a notch, so I'm going with "Good" on this one.
 
A middle of the road episode, this one. I actually really do enjoy the story, as I've always been interested in boxing. Guy Stockwell is amusing throughout. Just a shame he didn't get chance to have a scene with Dean. I also really like the two female leads. Even though they're radically different, both Sister Angela and Dixie are among my favourite female characters of season 1. The episode does have a significant flaw, though...and that's a lack of Al.

Al is badly underused here. The scenes with Al telling Sam about his noisy neighbour are the highlights of the episode, but he only has four proper scenes in this episode, and the last two are both too short (although I did enjoy his last minute appearance at the fight). For some reason, this is also like a forgotten episode to me at times. All other season 1 episodes stand out to me for either good or bad reasons, but this one is just middle of the road, really.

My rating. Average. A good premise that ultimately fails to deliver its potential.
 
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