Quantum Leap! and queerness.
May. 16th, 2023 04:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravenOkaaaay we have to talk about Quantum Leap.
I love the new version very, very much. It's like the original in that it's a sweet, good-hearted sci-fi time travel show, where people leap back in time and put right what once went wrong. It's different in that in the old one it was Sam and Al running around in the past solo, but this version has Ben (leaping through time) and Addison (helpful hologram; also Ben's fiancee, though for reasons he no longer remembers that and it's very delicious) in the past, but the rest of the team back home in 2022 are also part of the story. I love all of them. There's no grimdark here, only fallible people doing their best to be good to each other and do the right thing for everyone even though it's hard. The show is, let's be real, kind of cheesy, and the time-travel handwaves in the plot are very much in evidence, and it sometimes gives the impression that it's trying to do something much bigger than its runtime. But I love it unironically anyway, and admire beyond measure that a non-streamer tv show in this benighted 2023 can keep telling us that we need to do what we can, and that there is always the chance of a better future, and uh, trans rights are human rights.
Speaking of which. In the lovely cast there are Ben and Addison, a Korean-American smart guy with a bunch of immigrant feelings and a tough-as-nails commissioned officer respectively, and also Jenn, who is a tough-as-nails former criminal with a soft heart, and Magic who is the point of continuity between the new and old shows which I think is just brilliant. And then there's Ian, the chief software architect for Ziggy, the hilarious-slash-terrifying supercomputer that runs Project Quantum Leap. Ian is played by Mason Alexander Park, last seen as Desire in the Sandman adaptation, and they are nonbinary, and unsurprisingly they are my favourite.
(Ian, really. It seems to be their birth name, which I find both charming and hilarious. What nonbinary hipster calls themself Ian. A time-travel expert named after the first Doctor Who companions, that's who.)
Anyway. Ian is my favourite nonbinary person I have seen on tv. They feel extremely authentically nb and queer - yes, they use they/them pronouns which honestly would be enough to endear them to me, but they feel like a real person, a real queer person. Ian is young and gifted and a little overwhelmed by events, gets obsessive about music and video games, cares for people very much, falls asleep to the sound of air crash documentaries. (Hello, I am queer and I feel seen.) They love Ziggy so much they describe it as part of them. They are full of passion and joy and have a bitchy streak a mile wide, and I would love them for any one of those things. If we had a thousand nb characters on tv I might not care so much about this one, but I think I would anyway.
But Ian’s story has a complexity, too, which I really enjoy. They’re conscious, all the time, that time travel is a wildcard and they're dabbling in things they don't quite understand; they doubt their own moral centre in a way that really gets to my heart. It's so fucking queer, to doubt your rightness of self in that way. Ian's best friend seems to be Addison, in a very loving unspoken way (yes, it's a loving mixed-gender friendship and it's not even my birthday). Ian tells her at one point that they were a lost and suicidal child, and for a minute I wanted to be annoyed that this was a sad trans story, but the thing is, this isn't a sad trans story. This is a fucking triumphant trans story. Ian is a trans adult raised by a loving family, allowed by time travel and what Sam Beckett called the hand of God to help save any number of people, including a trans child who occupies the same space as themself. They are so fiercely loved by those around them; they are held to be precious. And they are brilliant, almost inconsequentially so; like brilliance and queerness can be, but need not be, related.
And also they are just very funny. ("Oh great, the first time Ben has a gender creative experience and I have to go look after Ziggy.")
Which could be enough about Quantum Leap and queerness but surprise, surprise, there's more. [spoilers!] Ian doesn’t know the truth of it, but they have a future self, who is in their late forties or early fifties. That version of Ian has spent the later years of their life in a freezing wasteland, amid the shattered remains of their life's work. They are a nonbinary person shorn of their outer queerness, no more fabulous outfits or loving relationships or even pronouns, when there's no one left to use them. They’re exhausted and alone. And yet, when they appear for the first time, they step out of the shadows and hold up a flaming torch. And I love it. How queer; how alight with hope.
And here's the thing: Ian's future should be erased by the Quantum Leap project, which puts right what once went wrong. But it isn't. The twentysomething nerd who's the main timeline character will eventually carry a light through time, and if this is one vision of a queer life I am glad to have it.
If you want to watch the show, and I hope you do, let me mention content notes for transphobia and various other things; please feel free to ask.
I love the new version very, very much. It's like the original in that it's a sweet, good-hearted sci-fi time travel show, where people leap back in time and put right what once went wrong. It's different in that in the old one it was Sam and Al running around in the past solo, but this version has Ben (leaping through time) and Addison (helpful hologram; also Ben's fiancee, though for reasons he no longer remembers that and it's very delicious) in the past, but the rest of the team back home in 2022 are also part of the story. I love all of them. There's no grimdark here, only fallible people doing their best to be good to each other and do the right thing for everyone even though it's hard. The show is, let's be real, kind of cheesy, and the time-travel handwaves in the plot are very much in evidence, and it sometimes gives the impression that it's trying to do something much bigger than its runtime. But I love it unironically anyway, and admire beyond measure that a non-streamer tv show in this benighted 2023 can keep telling us that we need to do what we can, and that there is always the chance of a better future, and uh, trans rights are human rights.
Speaking of which. In the lovely cast there are Ben and Addison, a Korean-American smart guy with a bunch of immigrant feelings and a tough-as-nails commissioned officer respectively, and also Jenn, who is a tough-as-nails former criminal with a soft heart, and Magic who is the point of continuity between the new and old shows which I think is just brilliant. And then there's Ian, the chief software architect for Ziggy, the hilarious-slash-terrifying supercomputer that runs Project Quantum Leap. Ian is played by Mason Alexander Park, last seen as Desire in the Sandman adaptation, and they are nonbinary, and unsurprisingly they are my favourite.
(Ian, really. It seems to be their birth name, which I find both charming and hilarious. What nonbinary hipster calls themself Ian. A time-travel expert named after the first Doctor Who companions, that's who.)
Anyway. Ian is my favourite nonbinary person I have seen on tv. They feel extremely authentically nb and queer - yes, they use they/them pronouns which honestly would be enough to endear them to me, but they feel like a real person, a real queer person. Ian is young and gifted and a little overwhelmed by events, gets obsessive about music and video games, cares for people very much, falls asleep to the sound of air crash documentaries. (Hello, I am queer and I feel seen.) They love Ziggy so much they describe it as part of them. They are full of passion and joy and have a bitchy streak a mile wide, and I would love them for any one of those things. If we had a thousand nb characters on tv I might not care so much about this one, but I think I would anyway.
But Ian’s story has a complexity, too, which I really enjoy. They’re conscious, all the time, that time travel is a wildcard and they're dabbling in things they don't quite understand; they doubt their own moral centre in a way that really gets to my heart. It's so fucking queer, to doubt your rightness of self in that way. Ian's best friend seems to be Addison, in a very loving unspoken way (yes, it's a loving mixed-gender friendship and it's not even my birthday). Ian tells her at one point that they were a lost and suicidal child, and for a minute I wanted to be annoyed that this was a sad trans story, but the thing is, this isn't a sad trans story. This is a fucking triumphant trans story. Ian is a trans adult raised by a loving family, allowed by time travel and what Sam Beckett called the hand of God to help save any number of people, including a trans child who occupies the same space as themself. They are so fiercely loved by those around them; they are held to be precious. And they are brilliant, almost inconsequentially so; like brilliance and queerness can be, but need not be, related.
And also they are just very funny. ("Oh great, the first time Ben has a gender creative experience and I have to go look after Ziggy.")
Which could be enough about Quantum Leap and queerness but surprise, surprise, there's more. [spoilers!] Ian doesn’t know the truth of it, but they have a future self, who is in their late forties or early fifties. That version of Ian has spent the later years of their life in a freezing wasteland, amid the shattered remains of their life's work. They are a nonbinary person shorn of their outer queerness, no more fabulous outfits or loving relationships or even pronouns, when there's no one left to use them. They’re exhausted and alone. And yet, when they appear for the first time, they step out of the shadows and hold up a flaming torch. And I love it. How queer; how alight with hope.
And here's the thing: Ian's future should be erased by the Quantum Leap project, which puts right what once went wrong. But it isn't. The twentysomething nerd who's the main timeline character will eventually carry a light through time, and if this is one vision of a queer life I am glad to have it.
If you want to watch the show, and I hope you do, let me mention content notes for transphobia and various other things; please feel free to ask.
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