Wednesday, September 21, 2016

Quantum Leap -- Episode 54: Hurricane


Sam Leaps Into:
Archie Necaise, a sheriff.

Objective:
Prevent his girlfriend from being killed during Hurricane Camille.

Date:
8-17-69

Location:
Jackson's Point, Mississippi

Memorable Quote:
Do you marry someone after only a couple weeks?  ~Cissy
If it was the right someone, I'd marry 'em after a couple of hours.  ~Sam

Highlight:
Amazing performance by Tracy Kolis (Lisa).  I found a video online of her on Seinfeld and she has the same Southern accent (I was curious to know if she was really Southern, though the Seinfeld appearance doesn't necessarily prove it).

Lowlight:
A few too many lovey dovey Cissy/Sam scenes.  Marilyn Jones (Cissy) appeared in MacGyver as Debra in The Road Not Taken.  Hey Marilyn, if you're going to be so enamored by Sam and kiss him every 10 seconds, couldn't you at least have shown even a modicum of interest in MacGyver?!  You were the love of his life!  And you broke his heart!

Other thoughts, observations, and questions I didn’t ask when I was in fourth grade:
  • I'm a big fan of storms.  Not dangerous storms like hurricanes and tornadoes, but I'm in for a nice sized thunderstorm (or snowstorm) any day.  There's something about stormy weather that's spiritual and humbling.
  • Speaking of severe weather/natural disasters, you've heard of hurricanes, tornadoes, avalanches, volcanoes, and tsunamis, but have you ever heard of a haboob?  I saw a tv show once about haboobs and was surprised that I had never heard of them before.
  • I was reading about Hurricane Camille on wikipedia and apparently there was a legend about a hurricane party during Camille, but it's unclear how much of the story is true. The wikipedia page also mentions an ABC tv movie that was made about the hurricane party.
  • I didn't recognize him at first, but about halfway through Joe's scenes I thought to myself, "Is that Bill Buchanan?!"  I looked it up and it was!  The actor is James Morrison (Bill Buchanan is his 24 character).  I'm a big Buchanan fan, and Morrison is a great actor.

Final Analysis:
Strong episode.  The acting is excellent, the music superb, and the hurricane scenes are very well filmed (not including the stock footage).   All that said, I'm going to rank it a bit lower than it deserves (22 out of 54) because it's a little too dark and intense for my tastes.

3 comments:

  1. Your 'haboob' link is actually a link back to "the Road Not Taken" review.

    I like t-storms, but everyone else can have the snowstorms. I don't like snow.

    I like this episode okay. There is quite a bit of stock footage from Camille.

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  2. This was a decent episode with a clever twist I didn't see coming (though probably should have) and decent atmosphere with the hurricane even though the storm threat only seemed sufficiently ominous about 50% of the time during the hour. I really like actress Marilyn Jones and ironically she played the psycho killer lady (as opposed to being the victim of one) in a memorable 1984 episode of "Hardcastle and McCormick". Knowing that James Morrison was in the cast, I recognized the "young Bill Buchanan" from "24" but I'm not completely sure I would have without seeing his name in the credits. And it took me a little while but I eventually did recognize the brunette (Lisa) from that "Seinfeld" episode. The fact that I recognized her from that one episode I haven't seen in at least a decade speaks highly of her unique delivery.

    Overall, the execution was decent but I think they could raised the stakes of the suspense a bit given the stakes. Oh and I don't like storms generally and particularly not this week as my parents' area and most of my adopted home state have been receiving an endless deluge of torrential rains the last several days and are completely underwater with further threats of historic flooding in the days ahead. Perhaps that unconsciously left me with a more sour impression on this one. It's not a bad episode though and I'll put in the middle, in between "The Great Spontini" and "Southern Comforts".

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