Quantum Leap #5: Raped

Raped

(20 June 1980)

Sam is...Katie McBain

The Mission...seek justice for Katie's rape

Before going into this I feel I should offer a little explantion partly because I haven't done one of these reviews since 2018 and the title of this one may make people wonder what the hell I'm writing about. Quantum Leap was a TV series that ran from 1989 to 1993 and featured scientist Dr Sam Beckett lost in time and jumping from body to body, decade to decade (mainly from the 1950s to the 1980s), doing good deeds so that he can move on and eventually get back to his own body in the space year 1999. Throughout his travels Sam leapt into a number of women which always meant actor Scott Bakula having to drag up and this intrigued the teenage me so I thought I would review all of Sam's female-based adventures within this blog. Other reviews can be found elsewhere on this blog; just click the Quantum Leap tag

This entry however I did have second thoughts about due to the subject matter. My reviews are often light hearted and this is a very dark subject however I did commit to doing these reviews and I wanted to see that through plus the original production team would have taken quite a risk in producing an episode with this subject matter and I didn't want to ignore that. Please stop reading now if the subject may cause offence or be a trigger.

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Throughout these reviews, we've seen Sam tackle various aspects of female life and this episode focuses more on the darker side. In some senses it feels like a companion to the earlier What Price, Gloria? with its sexual harrassment storyline. In the 21st century crime shows use the subject of rape regularly but in 1991 it was still quite taboo on TV so I dare say it was brave of the production team to run with the storyline especially considering you had a man in the lead role taking the place of the female victim but at least it has a female writer, Beverly Bridges. When I origianlly watched most of the series on BBC2 weekend mornings in the mid 1990s this one was omitted due to the subject matter and I only caught up with it later. This episode also has the distinction of being one of the rare episodes in which the 'mirror image' actor gets to do more than look just shocked and even has actual lines plus their name in the opening credits. Cheryl Pollack, who plays the real Katie, shines in the court scenes.  

Opening at a hospital in Mill Valley, California during the hours after the assault, Sam leaps in and vows to bring her attacker to justice. He has his usual quick grumble about becoming a woman but that is soon shelved once he learns that Katie has just been raped. On the face of it he has a straightforward mission especially as we know who the attacker is, local rich kid and Katie's ex Kevin Wentworth, alothough the story plays with the idea that sex may have taken place consensually with Katie crying rape later as she was known to be 'a tease'. Sam's friend and observer Al once again plays devils advocate in suggesting that Sam may be here to stop Kevin being convicted.This idea never really sticks though especially when the real Katie testifies in court. While Sam may have the courage to take on the small town mentality and Kevin's powerful family, he doesn't have all the facts of the case. It's here that the show's sci-fi element comes in handy as the real Katie is back in 1999 at Project Quantum Leap and with the help of Al she is able to appear in court and give her testimony while Sam, the only person who can hear her, parrots her speech. 

The fact that Kevin then goes free presents a bleaker ending however it seems a bit at odds with the plotline because Sam needs to complete his mission to leap out. The eventual ending does satisfy though as a freed Kevin tries to assault Katie again and gets a beating from Sam. We are given little information about what happened in the originl plotline apart from the fact that the McBains move away and presumably the rape would have weighed heavily over Katie's life perhaps causing serious problems. With this ending Kevin would presumably have been arrested for the later attack. His sort of entitled rich kid would doubtless have still been offending simply because he could get away with it had he not been brought to account by Sam. For all we know the rape of Katie McBain in 1980 may have been the first time so Sam was sent back to nip it in the bud. Earlier drafts of the script supposedly had Katie growing up to become a lawyer specialising in prosecuting rape cases. This would make a lot of sense as you could argue that without the trial, successful or not, putting her on that path a lot of criminals would go free. I also wonder if this story changed anything in Sam himself and his attitude to becoming a woman and I'll look out for that when revisiting subsequent episodes.   

It's also interesting that the epsiode is set in 1980. Quantum Leap by and large liked to stick around the 1950s and 1960s so setting an episode in the 1980s, a decade which had finished only two years previously, would be their equivelent of doing a modern day story. The show rarely showed the outside of the project and the world of 1999 and to good effect as nothing dates like a vision of the future and the later episode Killin' Time, which saw a killer leapee escape from the project, showed that. In fact the show had only just ventured into the 1980s with its previous episode, Permanent Wave which was set in 1983. The fashions and styles of the time are also quite muted so we doubtless get a better picture of the 1980s than the earlier decades. 

There isn't much of a supporting cast, mainly the detective Officer Shumway and Katie's lawyer ADA Nancy Hudson who help Katie and her family but they do well. Matthew Sheehan who plays Kevin keeps just right side of creepy to make you wonder if he did it (although there is never really that much doubt) before fully revealling his true self as he breaks into Katie's back garden by which time you really are glad to see Sam knock the stuffing out of him.  

Overall it's interesting to see such a tough subject being handled in this era of television and on a feelgood fantasy show such as this. You would certainly not be able to make it like this today which you could say of a number of Quantum Leap stories especally our next one in which we'll be taking a leap back to the 1960s to sing some soul songs.