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Quantum Leap (2022)
Season 1, Episode 5:
Salvation or Bust
Written by Benjamin Raab and Deric A. Hughes
Directed by Silas Howard
Original air date: October 17, 2022
1879
Ben leaps into Diego de la Cruz, an elderly gunslinger, in The Wild West. He's there to stop a band of outlaws, led by the villainous Josiah McDonough, from terrorizing the citizens of a town called Salvation, California at the behest of a railroad company.
Tropes:
- Badass Pacifist: Ben does all he can to figure out a peaceful solution without being forced to kill McDonough. He succeeds with the townspeople's help.
- Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: The railroad company has hired McDonough and his gang to terrorize Salvation's townspeople into leaving town so the railroad can clear it out.
- Chekhov's Gunman:
- Addison points out how several of the episode's side characters have their own talents that Ben can use to save the day. He's able to rally all of them and use their talents to catch the bad guys peacefully.
- There's also the guy who points at McDonough's wanted poster when "Diego" asks what's going on, who later gives "Diego" a weird look after overhearing him talk to Addison. It turns out he knows who Ben actually is and when he comes from.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Ben starts swilling alcohol in the saloon after he realizes that his only options are escape with Valentina and let the town die, face McDonough and get shot, or be forced to kill McDonough.
- Eating the Eye Candy: Addison is very into Ben wearing Old Western duds and compliments him on the look.
- Every Man Has His Price: McDonough's gang pays the deputies to leave town, with Henry as the only holdout. The gang also attempts to coerce "Diego" the same way. The gang plans on terrorizing anyone who doesn't accept the money and wants to remain.
- Giving Radio to the Romans: Downplayed, but Ben remarks to Addison how they're able to use their 21st century know-how to punch up the town's defences, e.g. inventing tear gas decades early.
- The Gunslinger: Diego, the leapee, is supposed to be a famous one. But by the time of this episode, he's very much past his prime.
- Internal Homage: To a few episodes of the original Quantum Leap:
- To "Honeymoon Express," which also has a B-plot about a congressperson wanting to shut down the project back in the future.
- To "The Last Gunfighter," which is also a leap into an aged gunfighter who must face an adversary.
- To "The Leap Between the States," which is also a leap to the 19th century.
- To "Deliver Us From Evil," in that there's a dramatic reveal of another leaper present in the past.
- It Will Never Catch On: When Ben mentions telephones, Valentina expresses skepticism about the new "talk-boxes" ever catching on.
- Mythology Gag: The fact that Ben managed to actually leap to 1879, given how Sam had started a leap thinking he did.
- Obstructive Bureaucrat: Congresswoman Kavita Adani, who is on the committee overseeing the project, pays it a visit to determine why they're using so much power all of a sudden. After interrogating much of the senior staff, she pretty much concludes — correctly — that Ben has used the accelerator, and threatens to shut the project down.
- Percussive Maintenance: Like Al before her, Addison ends up smacking her handlink when it fails to respond to her satisfaction.
- Politically Correct History: Discussed and justified; the town of Salvation is a melting pot of several different races, and it's made clear that main reason the town is so important to everyone is because they don't face the same prejudices there as they would in the rest of the country.
- Posthumous Character: Valentina's father, who was Diego's estranged son. He was the original founder of Salvation, and the town holds him and his legacy in high regard. He's dead by the time Ben leaps in.
- Retcon: Ian tells Magic that the project can't pinpoint target specific dates and places to leap into. The original series did exactly this in "A Leap for Lisa," "The Leap Back," and "Lee Harvey Oswald." The Evil Leapers also did this in "Revenge of the Evil Leaper."note
- The Sheriff: McDonough kills the original sheriff pretty early on. Later on one of the deputies becomes the new sheriff.
- Shout-Out:
- Several to other Fish out of Water Westerns:
- The scene where Ben asks for a glass of water, and gets a glass full of murky brown liquid, is a reference to Back to the Future Part III.
- The plot about terrorizing the townspeople into leaving their town to make way for a railroad is the core conflict of Blazing Saddles. The town in this episode even has a black sheriff by the end.
- The plot of the townspeople coming together to stop the baddies has shades of ¡Three Amigos!.
- The resolution of the plot even mirrors that of the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "A Fistful of Datas," in that it features a protagonist using futuristic inventiveness to defeat a foe that completely outclasses him, in order to save a younger relative.
- There's also a shout-out to The A-Team, when Ben says, "I love it when a plan comes together."
- Several to other Fish out of Water Westerns:
- Take a Third Option: Ben's only apparent choices are to kill McDonough in a gunfight (which is counter to Ben's pacifism), take Valentina and abandon Salvation (which is what happened in the original history), or get shot by McDonough and lose everything anyway. Upon Addison's urging, Ben instead rallies the townspeople and uses various booby traps to trick McDonough into a cage, where the outlaw can be delivered to the US marshals in exchange for reward money that can then be used to buy off the railroad company and keep the town safe.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: Ben is a pacifist and is appalled that Ziggy has calculated that he'll have to win a gunfight against McDonough.
- Wham Line:Leaper: You made a serious miscalculation coming here, Ben.
Addison: Did he just call you Ben?!
Ben: How did you know my name?
Leaper: I know everything about you, Dr. Ben Song from the year 2022. I know what you're doing, but if you value your life, you need to stop following me. Do you understand? - Would Harm a Child: Discussed. McDonough says that he doesn't like killing women or children, but sometimes he's forced to out of self-preservation.
- You Didn't Ask: Magic offers to have Ben go back in time and save the congresswoman's brother from a car accident, so she agrees to continue funding the project. However, Magic doesn't tell her that they don't yet have a way to pinpoint an exact destination in time.
