FSW: Pimp My TV Edition (Peter's entry)

Friday Sketch War
Pimp My TV Edition
“Quantum Leap Trailer”

FADE IN:

SERIES OF SHOTS (1995)

Brief glimpses of shaky digi-cam footage:

A) SAM BECKETT (30s, likeable) works in a high-tech science lab.

B) He steps into a pillar of smoke.

C) He vanishes in a flash of blue light.

Meanwhile, the caption "1995" appears and fades, and a clear female voice narrates --

ZIGGY (V.O.)

In 1995, Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the main accelerator of Project Quantum Leap and vanished --

OVER BLACK

ZIGGY (V.O.)

-- until now.

EXT. MILITARY OUTPOST (1976) - DAY

A dusty, utilitarian building in the middle of nowhere. A caption -- "1976" -- appears and fades.

INT. INTERROGATION ROOM - CONTINUOUS

A small, white, antiseptic room with minimal furniture. A massive mirror takes up one of the walls.

MILLINGTON (20s, intense, creepy) looms over OTIS (8, farm boy, scared).

OTIS

I'm Otis Beaufoy.

MILLINGTON

No. You've temporarily taken Otis's place. Otis is cooling his heels in a lab in California, thirty years in the future.

OTIS

That's crazy!

MILLINGTON

Is it --

Millington GRABS Otis's arm (cree-py), and something odd happens --

Otis morphs into Dr. Sam Beckett.

MILLINGTON

-- Dr. Beckett?

He nods to the mirror.

MILLINGTON

Kill him.

Sam dives for cover just as GUNSHOTS shatter the mirror.

EXT. LAKESIDE (2010) - DAY

AL (60s, cantankerous) walks and talks with an UNSEEN FIGURE in idyllic surroundings.

AL

Sam randomly leaps from person to person, and decade to decade. Even I can't find him any more.

Most of this line is voiceover for a --

SERIES OF SHOTS>

A) Sam looks into a smeary mirror in a gas-station bathroom. His mirror image is an elderly black man. (Caption: "1958".)

B) Sam drives a Cadillac through the desert. He wears sunglasses and a hat, and he smokes a cigarette in a cigarette holder. In the car's rearview, Hunter S. Thompson looks back. (Caption: "1971".)

C) Sam clumsily applies lipstick in a ladies' restroom. In the mirror: an attractive blonde. (Caption: "1985".)

BACK TO SCENE

Still walking and talking.

UNSEEN FIGURE

Maybe we can help.

New angle REVEALS that the figure is MILLINGTON, now in his 50s, still intense, still creepy!

OLD MILLINGTON

So. What makes Sam tick?

EXT. NEIGHBORHOOD STREET (1993) - NIGHT

Fire trucks flash their lights on a suburban street as a three-alarm fire dies down. ONLOOKERS gape at the destruction. (The caption: "1993".)

A three-alarm fire dies down.

ONLOOKERS gape at the destruction.

Sam, in full firefighter's gear, hands a bottle of water to RHEA (30s), holding a cat, still attractive despite the soot, grime, and singed clothing.

SAM

I know what it's like to lose your home. You'd give anything to get it back, and --

RHEA

Wait, how did you even know we were trapped in there?

SAM

I'm a time-travelling scientist from the future.

Beat.

Rhea laughs.

RHEA

Whatever.

INT./EXT. SURVEILLANCE VAN - CONTINUOUS

Two scary-looking GOVERNMENT AGENT types watch Sam and Rhea with high-tech equipment.

AGENT #1

We've acquired the target.

RADIO VOICE (FILTERED)

Get him.

The agents depart the van, weapons drawn.

INT. SHABBY LIVING ROOM (2010) - DAY

GUSHIE, a little technician with bad breath and odd clothes, shows Al a cryptic readout on a homebuilt computer.

AL

What does any of this mean?

GUSHIE

Sam has a trackable signature. We can find him.

AL

Tell me where.

INT. MOD NIGHTCLUB (1966) - NIGHT

An over-the-top nightclub full of garish colors (caption: "1966").

A rectangle of light appears in the air; HOLOGRAM AL enters through it.

A PASSERBY walks straight through Al like he's a ghost.

Al crosses to --

A NEARBY TABLE

-- where *three* Sams sit, all scribbling equations.

AL

Sam. I'm back.

SAM #1

Al?

SAM #2

Al?

SAM #3

Al!

Sam #3 leaps up and tries to give Al a big hug.

He sweeps right through the hologram.

Al rolls his eyes.

EXT. WHEAT FIELD (1959) - DAY

In the middle of nowhere, a small airplane bears down on Sam, North by Northwest-style. Sam hits the ground. Holo-Al stands nearby, the wheat sweeping through him. (Caption: "1959".)

EXT. WHEAT FIELD - LATER

Sam and Al hide out from the plane.

SAM

Why would someone be after me?

AL

You've had this hero gig, going from place to place, setting things right that once went wrong.

This serves as voiceover for another quick --

SERIES OF SHOTS

A) In Yankee Stadium, Sam hits a fly ball into deep center field. (Caption: "1967".)

B) Sam pilots a Medivac helicopter through a sandstorm. (Caption: "1992".)

C) Sam kisses a movie starlet in a Douglas-Sirk-looking scene on a film set. (Caption: "1957.")

BACK TO SCENE

Right back where we were.

SAM

What, was somebody setting them wrong in the first place?

Al doesn't answer, but he looks worried.

The plane makes another pass.

INT. UNIVERSITY LAB (1958) - NIGHT

Al follows Sam through a lab full of boxy old-style lab equipment (caption: "1958"), and he's mad as hell.

SAM

I have to stop these people.

AL

I made you a promise. I promised you I was gonna bring you home.

Sam approaches a big red button.

SAM

Not yet, Al.

Sam hits the button.

Suddenly, the room dissolves into --

INT. HOLO-ROOM - NIGHT

Now Al is all alone in a plain room similar to the Enterprise's holo-deck.

AL

Dammit!

EXT. KHE SAHN, VIETNAM (1968) - DAY

Sam, now in military fatigues, drags a WOUNDED SOLDIER to shelter while bombs EXPLODE nearby and airplanes lay down STRAFING FIRE. (Caption: "1968".)

WOUNDED SOLDIER

Leave me! That's an order!

SAM

We just have to go a little further!

INT. PROJECT QUANTUM LEAP (2010) - DAY

Al, bruised and bleeding, picks his way through the lab we saw at the beginning.

Except now it looks like a bomb has hit it.

Smoke and sparks everywhere.

The same voice from the opening --

ZIGGY (O.S.)

Initiating auto-destruct sequence. Good-bye Al.

AL

What? No!

INT. CONTROL ROOM (2010) - NIGHT

A high-tech center that puts everything at Project Quantum Leap to shame. Three-dimensional holo-projections float about the desks and big e-ink maps cover the walls.

Al, still looking beat-up, sits handcuffed to a chair.

Millington stands by a control pad and lectures him.

MILLINGTON

You lost, Al. We won. And now, *we* decide what happens to Sam!

He turns a key on the control pad and pulls a lever.

EXT. FREE-FALL - DAY

A BLINDING FLASH OF BLUE as Sam leaps into a body that's in free-fall, 10,000 feet up, plummeting towards earth.

SAM

Oh boy.

SMASH CUT TO:

QUANTUM LEAP LOGO

The first few notes of the original theme song play faintly.

A jumble of different years fade in and out in the background.

"2010" fades in beneath the main logo, and sticks.

FADE OUT.