If the series premiere last week NBC’s reboot of “Quantum Leap” felt a little out of place, it turns out that was deliberate. Much like with “Firefly” or “Star Trek: The Original Series,” what was the original pilot is being reworked into a mid-series episode.
Speaking with Collider recently, showrunner Martin Gero confirmed that the initial pilot for the series wasn’t the series premiere. Instead, the network opted to push back and rework what was shot into what will be the sixth episode of the show’s run:
When asked about adjusting the pilot and inserting a new episode to introduce the series, Gero explained the rationale:
“So, to clarify the timeline, we shot a pilot in March, and that pilot was finished in April and submitted for approval from the network.
For a bunch of reasons, that pilot wasn’t right. And so, we had a big conversation. People give network TV a lot of s–t, but one of the things that it does really right is make pilots. Pilots are very expensive, but they really do teach you an enormous amount about the show.
So, after watching the original pilot, which will be a fantastic episode six, it just didn’t feel buzzy enough to be the first episode of the show.”
In terms of reworking the pilot, Gero says the leap-of-the-week format of the show made it fairly easy to switch it out with a new episode at the beginning and keep much of what was shot for later:
“I brought up doing a brand-new first episode. Everyone was like, ‘Oh, God, are we throwing out this very expensive pilot?’ And I was like, ‘No, because we can maintain the leap.’
The show is pretty modular, that way. So, the majority of that leap is in episode six, with some of it being reshot to contextually fit in that spot.
That then allowed us to take all the incredible lessons we had learned and write a brand-new pilot, and then shoot a brand-new pilot.”
It was actually in the middle of shooting what would become the actual first episode when Gero stepped in as full-time showrunner for the series.
Raymond Lee stars as physicist Ben Song as he restarts the time travel project that sent Dr. Sam Beckett into his endless loop of leaping from body to body.
“Quantum Leap” airs on NBC on Mondays with two episodes having aired to date. Both episodes are currently available on Peacock.
