February 26, 2003

Guestvision By: Damon Sugameli

 

REFLECTIONS ON "MIRROR IMAGE"

Hello again, my friends!

Over the years, there have been great discussions and debates centered around the final episode, "Mirror Image." I have decided to try to shed some new light on the significance of this historic episode and what it means to the future of Quantum Leap.

The recurring theme that everyone brings up in these debates is the fact that Sam never returned home. While this is indeed an undeserving fate of someone as noble and heroic as Dr. Samuel Beckett, one thing that everyone neglects to mention (or perhaps chooses to ignore), is that he brought this fate on himself.

"WHAT?!? Have you gone mad, Dman? That’s blasphemy!! How can you say such a thing?" Now, hold on, before you all line up to lynch me, let me explain my basis for this line of reasoning. We need to listen more closely to the conversations that Sam had with the Bartender at Al’s Place (I am, of course, referring to the BAR, not this website! J ).

"You ARE the one who’s been leaping me, aren’t you?"

"I wouldn’t say that."

"Well, what would you say?"

The Bartender gestures toward the mirror. "That HE’S been leaping you through time."

Sam sees his own reflection staring back at him, and replies in denial, "NO WAY!! No way will I buy that!"

For the better part of Sam’s life, he has devoted most of it to science. And like most scientists, he usually reaches logical and scientific conclusions when attempting to explain the mysterious and the unknown. Sure, he was brought up with a strong sense of morality and to always do the right thing, but in the end, he almost always falls back to science. "There’s no such thing as ghosts! There are electro-magnetic currents within the Bermuda Triangle that are causing interference, not the supernatural." We all remember Sam saying these things, in one form or another, to Al on more than one occasion.

After Sam leaped, however, I believe his viewpoint became somewhat askew, partly due to the "Swiss-cheese effect." When Sam lost control of the situation he had placed himself into (a situation which he created out of his own free will, mind you), he had to try to rationalize why he could not be retrieved. Along with Al, he theorized that God, Time, Fate or Whatever, "pulled" him into lives and events that needed to be fixed. Since Sam couldn’t come up with any other scientific rationale for the situation he was in, he and Al went along with it, perhaps too well.

Sam may have very strong convictions as to what’s right and wrong, but he also has a terrible stubborn streak. He used accomplishing his missions as a scapegoat as to why he couldn’t go home, because he felt that GTFW needed him to put right what once went wrong. But what Sam never realized, and what the Bartender was trying to tell him, was that he had a choice: he could either continue helping more people or he could help himself by returning home. God never tells us as human beings how to live our lives. He gave us free will to make our own decisions, be they good or bad, selfish or selfless. We are held accountable for our own actions. And like most of us do at some point in our lives, we blame God if things go wrong. Sam stepped into the untested Accelerator out of desperation to justify his research. Something went wrong, and it became convenient for Sam to absolve himself of responsibility by saying GTFW is now controlling his leaps. As Ziggy would say, Dr. Beckett is only human.

The true theme of "Mirror Image" is this issue of being responsible for the lives that we make for ourselves. In Quanta-Dimensional Leap, Aurora has used some of the Bartender’s dialogue to prove this point and, if I may, I’d also like to point it out:

"I don’t want to do more, I want to go home."

"Then why haven’t you?"

"Because I don’t control my future, you do!"

"Sam, you will only do this as long as you want to… The catch is that you have to accept that you control your own destiny."

My own thoughts on what Don P. Bellisario was trying to convey in "Mirror Image" was that Sam has taken on an almost Christ-like persona, sacrificing his "life" in the present to save humanity from its own sins in the past. He feels responsible for solving all the wrongs of the world (a HUGE undertaking for one person, to say the least), and it is a burden that Sam has placed on himself and no one else. In my opinion, this is why he never returns home. Ultimately, he was the one who decided his own fate. No one else made that decision for him.

Perhaps this issue will be the focus of the upcoming movie. It has already been established to a certain degree that a leaper can project him/herself to a specific time and place through the power of thought. Therefore, I think it is plausible to say that the new leaper could travel within Dr. Beckett’s lifetime for the sole purpose of finding him and convincing him that he has done enough. And since it may take quite a while to track Sam down, the new leaper could help others along the way.

In 1995, Sam made a life-altering decision to help people who made the wrong choices in their lives and to guide them to correct those choices. It is Sam’s own choices that caused him to become trapped in the quantum void forever, and as a result, he has become one of many people that needs saving. Perhaps it is now time for someone else to take over, to help guide SAM to correct a wrong decision and change HIS life for the better. Sam has indeed proven himself to be a true hero, a thousand times over. But, even heroes need heroes to save them every once in a while. And there is no shame in admitting that. J

 

If you wish to contact me about Quantum Leap, this article, or anything in general, I can be reached at suggie176@hotmail.com or at the main forum here at Al’s Place.

Until Next Time!

Damon Sugameli AKA "The Dman"