Moments of Transition: Does Quantum Leap ‘Let Them Play’ out?

It’s 2012. Ben Leaps into the body of Coach Carlos Mendez, the head of a school basketball team – one that seems to be only moments away from winning or losing a game. With one player injured Ben/Carlos sends in Gina, who has been on the bench for the match. The team win but Ben learns that his decision could have major repercussions.

It turns out that Carlos is her father and that Gina is trans. Though he and his wife have been supportive, it’s been difficult enough for her father to get her assigned to the team and the chances of her actually playing have always been remote. Now, with the spotlight on Gina, the school principal is getting pressure to formally ban her from playing and there’s plenty of people on both sides of the equation that are committed to their position.

But the changed timeline after the win shows the intolerance spiraling, Carlos fired, Gina running away and eventually dying on the streets. With the whole Project team, particularly Ian, invested in the outcome, will it take more than just Ben to stop a tragedy from taking place?

*spoilers*

I’ve said a number of times that part of the great Quantum Leap remit and potential – the beauty of its unique opportunity to take in a range of styles – is the way it can be positioned to tackle difficult subjects through the lens of changing times and attitudes…and this week it finally engages on far more important social issues than the more usual caper-ish, mystery or mild family angst of many entries so far in this reboot.

Simultaneously entertaining and educating an audience about emotive subjects that – if tackled in the wrong way – will bring more frustrations than solutions, can be a difficult line to walk. Let Them Play, not only well-intentioned but unapologetically proactive throughout, clearly approaches its subject with specific intent but also speaks from the heart on very basic issues such as acceptance and the ability to celebrate being different, within your own family and the wider community.

It was inevitable that Mason Alexander Park’s Ian Wright would also figure into the story. The non-binary actor (also seen recently in The Sandman) plays the chief programmer at the Project and is usually situated back (forward?) in 2023 – one step removed from the events of the Leap itself. Here, however, they are incorporated into proceedings in several key ways. Initially, Ian raises interesting points about the time-line that affect the rules of the show itself. After Ben’s immediate changes, Ian admits they don’t remember what originally happened, only the fresher time-line which Ben has initiated in which Gina was allowed to play by her father in that first game. Later at the climax of the Leap, Addison sneaks him into the Imaging Chamber so they can experience the events of Gina’s match first-hand, which suggests the unique connection between Leaper and Observer is pliable enough to have Ben helped by other members of the team in future. There’s also a key scene during the episode where Ian talks with Addison. She talks about her own experience in the military and how, in retrospect, she feels guilty for her lack of support for some of her fellow transgender soldiers, especially as she was aware of the policies that would affect them that were starting to be issued. Ian has his own painful memories and regrets and admits that when younger, they attempted suicide. It’s a powerful moment and if it makes even one viewer reach out for help dealing with their situation or for someone they know, then it will be worth it.

While bravely, noticeably and welcomingly standing against outright bigotry and having much reason to celebrate its pride, I’m not entirely sure this episode of Quantum Leap was a completely level playing-field representing the positions that some people have. But what it does do is compassionately raise a variety of issues with passion and vigour and if they are discussed later around the water-cooler then the episode can be deemed a huge success…

But to be completely fair, the episode for all its assured positives, isn’t without some frustrations and some convenient over-simplifications of its own. There are scenes where the episode feels less like a drama and more like a public awareness awareness-campaign or PSA (with even a montage of people looking directly into camera, or quoting statistics, showing literal graphs, flowcharts and key figures concerning representation, attacks and even suicides). And yet while these are illuminating and the character of Gina undoubtedly faces obstacles over which we want her to triumph ( a range of people with insulting placards at the final game make an oppressive visual and we know they still exist today, but it’s unlikely they’d have been allowed to demonstrate so pointedly at a high school game… and a parent of one of the other players who complains before her cheering at the end) the story in question already has her from a loving and supportive family, officially ‘out’ amongst her peers and with a multitude of other people ready to help and advise her. Frankly, she’s never presented as someone who is going to run away and die on the streets for lack of general acceptance. The pivot then becomes whether that will specifically extend to her being allowed to compete with other girls on the team… which is absolutely a valid desire for her to have. But the episode really doesn’t address the counter-stance against it as anything other than placard-waving homophobia or bigotry. Almost anyone who isn’t wholly supportive of Gina is played as a bigot or bully. There’s one exception: I think the best scene in the entire episode is between Gina and her team-mate when the supportive friend admits that she’s not entirely sure if she’d feel different about Gina being trans if they were up for the same sporting position, but that she values their friendship and wants to try and work through it. That seems like the most painfully honest line of the night.

The final game inevitably sees Gina and her team win, though it’s not entirely clear what that changes on a wider scale. We know that Coach Mendez will be getting more support (including from his union rep) to keep his job but that would likely have happened anyway and while Gina has the support of her team, there’s no clarification to whether the game changes the school’s attitude or the protestors. It’s also fair to say that Ben’s actions themselves factor into proceedings but it’s more the support of Gina’s peers that swing her into a more positive mode and keep her playing.

The character of Ian also turns out to be important in another way. We learn that the person who originally told Ben to Leap in modern times was someone who may well have been a Leaper-in-progress themselves. The fact they might have inhabited the body of ‘Dottie’, a trans slam-poetry reading performance artist to do so, initially feels like over-connective tissue for the wider themes of ‘not recognising yourself in the mirror’. (However, there’s some creative leeway here because ‘Dottie’ is played by Shakina Nayfack who also wrote and directed the episode). Dottie reveals they have no memory of meeting Ben but they do have missing time and the recurring image in their memory of the face that was ‘at the wheel’. Magic recalls having the same kind of feeling after Sam Beckett’s Leap into his body in Vietnam. Dottie is asked to draw the face she thinks of – and it turns out to be not Sam Beckett (which would have been so cool) but Ian Wright (which certainly adds complications). Now we know that at some point Ian is/was/will be involved in Ben’s Leaping and will Leap himself – but we don’t know the agenda. (Interestingly, Jen is there when Magic works out the ‘Leaper’ aspect but isn’t there when Dottie produces the actual sketch of the Leaper’s possible face, so quite how that’s going to play into the over-all secrecy department, who knows?)