QUANTUM LEAP’s Chris Grismer Previews ‘Big Changes’ and Tonal Shifts in Season 2

QUANTUM LEAP returns on Wednesday, October 4, as Ben (Raymond Lee) finds himself in unexpected trouble: After thinking he was (finally) heading home, he instead discovers that he’s in 1978…on a top-secret military flight. (Melissa Roxburgh, Francois Arnaud, Aaron Abrams, and P.J. Byrne guest star in the hour, This Took Too Long!”)

“I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Ben doesn’t leap home,” showrunner Martin Gero shared when the season 1 finale aired. “And so for us, it’s exciting because it’s kind of unknown territory. This first season, Ben, Janis, and Future!Ian, they didn’t know exactly where he was going to land as he went, but they kind of had a path plotted. Whereas now, we don’t have that. So it’s very much more in keeping with the original show, where Ben is kind of just in the great unknown of time. And where he’s gonna go next and why is kind of a mystery. There was always something kind of mystic in the first incarnation of the show, and I think we get back into that in a real way in season 2.”

As Ben tries to figure out what went wrong, he also has to grapple with one of his biggest hurdles on a leap so far.

 “We wanted to expand on Ben’s struggle to return home,” directing producer Chris Grismer tells Give Me My Remote. “And obviously there’s some new twists and turns in the new season that prevent it.”

Notably, things will be tough for star-crossed lovers Ben and Addison (Caitlin Bassett), whose reunion has once again been delayed. “Ben and Addison’s relationship, obviously, they can’t just start back up again,” Grismer says. “But there’s some new, even bigger twists in store for the relationship.”

But it’s not just a massive premiere—the stakes have been raised for the entire sophomore season. “I am really excited about a lot of the storylines in season 2,” Grismer says. “And the fact that we go back as far as the 1600s and we go to Egypt—it’s just a really, really great season.”

“I think this year, each episode is its own thing,” he continues. “That’s what we say to the directors, and what I tried to do when I direct on the show, too. Each episode has a heart in the storytelling and we try to tell that visually. This season has had some big changes and some big tonal shifts; we definitely tried to capture those visually with the directors and the cinematographers.”

QUANTUM LEAP, Season Premiere, Wednesday, October 4, 8/7c, NBC

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• QUANTUM LEAP: What You Need to Know About the Series Premiere
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