I thought Sam could only leap within his
own lifetime...so how could he leap and take
Al's place in 1945?

The episode says that Sam can do it because his atoms and Al's got mixed together. It is a convoluted explanation just like the Civil War episode (leaping along his DNA line).

It's been 6 years since I last saw this one...
so I forgot that explanation. Thanks...
But it should be playing soon on Space.

You gotta feel sorry for Sam at the end when
he picks up the hand link in the car and then
realizes he's stuck in the past again. Boy,
this episode more than anything convinces me
of "God, Time or Fate's" cruelty. Sam barely
got to remain in the future before he had to
go back and save Al from dying. Poor Sam.

Anyway, for someone with a swiss-cheesed brain,
Al seemed to remember alot about his life.
He even remembered about Sam's wife, Gushie,
Ziggy, etc.

Also, isn't it a bit too coincidental that the
Imaging Chamber door was opened at the same
moment that Al dropped the letter in the box.

Okay, Al seems to imply that a stamp costs 100$
in 1999. I don't think so!

Rene, my memory of this episode is that Sam tells Al to send the letter to the Beckett family lawyer in 1945 to hold it UNTIL 1999 (ala Back to the Future Part II) and the $100 is to just grease the wheels for this unusual request.

When Sam tells Al to include 100$, Al says, "For
the stamp" and then Sam tells Al it's only 1945,
so 100$ should do nicely....so that implies
a stamp costs 100$ in 1999.

Well, the show WAS made in the early 90's, right? So maybe the writers anticipated that money would grow less worth, like a dollar would equal a penny now.

I know...but we nitpickers don't deal in reality...so I guess a stamp costs 100$ in the
US... :)

I realize that Sam was happy to be home, but
there was no mention of the guy in the waiting
room at all.

Also, there seems to be a problem as to who is
occuppying which aura at what time. When Al
and Sam switch places, the episode suggests
that Sam looks like himself, while Al looks
like Tom, the guy he leaped into. So this
suggests, that Tom, in the waiting room,
looks like Al, correct. Or am I getting this
wrong : I mean, Tina's comments about "He
sounds just like Al" and "You even hug like
Al"...so does Sam look like Al and Tom look
like Sam in the waiting room?

Anyway, let's say my first suggestion is correct :
When Sam leaps into Al, Al leaps back into
the waiting room, looking like himself, Sam
now looks like Tom, and Tom definitely now
looks like Sam. Oh...I'm getting a headache now..
also I forgot what my point was going to be...

I always thought Al was being sarcastic when he said "For the stamp".

Last night, I saw this episode during the Sci-Fi Channel QL 8 hour marathon. On the question of whether a stamp costs $100 in 1999 in the QL universe, I stand by my original answer. When Sam comes up with the solution to mail the Beckett family lawyer the code with $100 and then hold the letter for 50 years, Al does say: "For the stamp?". However, the line is delivered with a quizzical look. Plus, Al is suffering from a swiss-cheese memory so it is doubtful that he would remember what a stamp cost (especially when he couldn't even remember his last name!). Sam's next line is: "NO. (emphasis mine). It is 1945. $100 will do nicely." Why will $100 "do nicely"? Well, since the previous lines concerned Sam's plan, I take that $100 will grease the wheels for this unusual request. Can you imagine the hyper-inflation that would be necessary for a lousy stamp to cost $100? Thus, I can't imagine that the QL producers meant to imply that (and I don't think they did).

Here is the exact dialogue (so that the whole $100 stamp business can be seen in context):

Sam: I know how to open the chamber door.

Al: What?

S: I know how to open the chamber door. I designed Ziggy with a back door code so that I could override any command even one dealing with catastrophic failure. All we have to do is get the code to Ziggy.

A: Well, that should be easy enough. All we have to do is wait half a century.

S: Well, in a sense, yes. But, for us, it will be instantaneous. Now, we have got to figure out what the date is where I am today.

A: Sep. 18, 1999.

S: Your Swiss-cheesed brain remembers today's date?

A: My fifth wife is suing me for more alimony and that's the court date. Some dates you don't forget.

S: OK. OK. We deliver a letter to Gushie on Sep. 18, 1999.

A: Who is going to wait 54 years to deliver a letter?

S: The Post Office and my Dad's lawyer - Doc Crosby. We mail Doc Crosby a letter with, say, 100 bucks.

A: For the stamp?

S: No. No. No. It is 1945. 100 dollars will do very nicely. We mail him a letter with 100 dollars and instructions for the code to be delivered to Gushie on Sep. 18, 1999.


So, does Sam imply that a stamp costs $100 in the QL universe in 1999? My answer is still "no".

I agree. I assumed Al was implying that *lawyers* cost more than $100 in 1999, so $100 might as well be for the stamp, because it would do nothing to sway the lawyer.

But, of course, this is 1945, so $100 would be enough for the lawyer.

:0)

THE BEST EPISODE OF ALL TIME!!

Okay, for Anonymous' sake, I admit that this episode has some great moments. Any ep featuring the Project itself and the rest of Al's tireless co-workers has to be good! [Esp. for me, who just started really watching this show in reruns on SciFi, and who has not seen the pilot. The only person I'd seen was Verbena Beeks, in the previous ep.]

And the switching of Sam and Al was cool. It provided some great lines and moments: when Al thinks his last name is Beckett, "Revenge is mine, thus saith the hologram!", Al's sudden knowledge of martial arts, Sam's dirty mouth.

I also found this ep to be the most depressing one I've seen so far. I liked Donna, but I didn't like her *enough*. She whined. I don't blame her, but still...she is Sam Beckett's wife, running PQL in his absence. They get all of one night together, interupted midway by Ziggy. And at the end, when Sam picks up the handlink, you can tell he thought the retreival program worked. But Gooshie doesn't answer, and then he *knows*....
I cry fairly easily at sad TV, but this was so heartwrenching I couldn't even find my tears. Ouch.

Also, I'm ticked that they used an idea I came up with for a fanfic before I saw this ep: someone getting locked in the Imaging Chamber. Darn it...

Oh, and Dean Stockwell deserved that Emmy nomination....

So what happened to this handlink that was left in 1945? Any thoughts?

Well it went to the wharehouse after going through check-in at hanger 18. It is stored just to the left of the ark and just below hoffa and the video that shows the real killer of JFK.

Tom probably gave it to Suzanne, the question is if it's still intact in 1995 will it suddenly start working when Ziggy comes on line?

Maybe it is a circular time device. Some of the circuits were used somehow by Doctor Beckett to make ziggy and in his time jump program.

The calender in the diner says July, even though the date is June 15.

Uh, "Runs with no brain.", you mean the MOVIE, don't you? Most stuff in '63 was celluloid, not videotape.

Thats what we want you to think. Videotape has been around for quite sometime.

I stand corrected. When Sam comes out of the imaging chamber, Donna has dark hair, not blonde.

This is something that frustrated me, because at this point in my watching of the series I was very much focussing on the 'Sam can't get home' part. (No story there, I just was.) But when Al's unconscious and can't be woken up, Sam realises he has to be the one to leap in and fix things. Now, all he really has to do is not be unconscious; none of his Special Beckett Powers are needed here. So if he wants to stay home so badly, why not leap *Tom* into Tom? He'll be in 1945, Al and Sam will be in 1999, and all's right with the world!

(Needly nitfix: Yes, they didn't have a lot of time to think of it. But I thought of it while I was watching, so in as much time as them...and Sam's gotta be way way smarter than me!)

GIS.

Sci-fi just re-aired this episode on sci-fi. I guess for me this episode really raises the question of where & when someone in the imaging chamber can communicate with a person in the past.

It seems as though there are two separate timelines moving simultaneously. When someone leaps into another person an hour for that person in 1945 is the same as an hour for me in 1999. And I cannot appear to that person at any time in the duration of that leap.

At issue here was the need for Sam to leap back to save Al. Why couldn’t he just appear to Al earlier before he got knocked out so he could warn him? It would certainly be better to have Al in the past leaping around so Sam can continue to work his retrieval program.

And even if the Imaging Chamber doesn’t “work that way” since he was targeting his leap back into Al. Couldn’t he have leaped at any time to save Al? I don’t understand the rush.