Another Unpopular Opinion

Every so often I like to air an unpopular opinion about some film or TV series that seems to be beloved by many, but which I think is overrated or just plain crap.  Recently, my heart sank when a streaming channel I get via my Roku box, finished its re-run of seventies/eighties cheesefest The Love Boat and replaced it with Quantum Leap.  I'm sorry, but I have never understood the following that the latter has garnered.  I tried watching it when it first started showing in the UK, but quickly gave up as it became evident that, despite an apparently interesting science fiction premise, this was, in reality, simply a peg to hang a series of utterly mundane, often nostalgia-driven, period dramas upon.  I mean, it sets up the idea of its protagonist being able to travel through time, then confines his time-travelling span to his own lifetime.  OK, I know that made it cheaper to produce as everything was set in the US of the fifties, sixties and seventies, but it immediately precluded any interesting science fictional or proper historical adventures.  Then we have the problem of the apparent randomness of his jumps into different people's bodies at different times - they aren't random.  Each time, he's put there for a purpose to 'set something right' in their lives (and change history in the process - but we'll come to the problems that sets up later).  But who or what is guiding his jumps?  Aliens? Some kind of authority that stands outside of time and is dedicated to maintaining the 'true' timeline?  God?  Sadly, it always seemed that the programme's makers tended toward the latter explanation - both the most boring option and one that sits diametrically opposed to its science fiction premise.  Worst of all, if it really is God guiding him to solve other people's problems each week, (although, to be absolutely fair, the makers never actually deigned to give a fully coherent explanation, just strong hints), then doesn't it just reduce it all to Highway to Heaven with time travel?

Then there's the problem with our hero's changing of history every time he 'sets something right'.  Each of these would, obviously, change the very future from which he comes.  Indeed, logically, back in that future, his colleagues helping him shouldn't be able to tell that history had changed, because their memories of it would have changed, as would his.  Yet, every episode they are able to tell him how it has changed.  While changes to one or two personal time lines might not have a huge effect on the future, cumulatively, they could well create significant alterations to history - yet this is never addressed, with his future apparently remaining constant.  Then there's the very idea of 'setting things right' - who says that history didn't work out the way it should have in the first place?  This brings us to the idea, embodied in Quantum Leap, that there is, somehow, a 'correct' timeline for history and that certain events in the past have 'changed history'.  Which is nonsense: history isn't a river, it doesn't flow down a natural route from which it can be diverted.  History is simply an accumulation of events - what happens happens and its consequences are history.  There was no predetermined path.  Even if there was, as Quantum Leap seems to presuppose, who or what has been derailing it to the extent that someone needs to change it?  Again, the issue is never addressed in this ill-thought out series.  Which is what I really resented - the pretence on Quantam Leap's part that it was some kind of science fiction show when, in reality, the science fiction premise is simply a gimmick to enable what amounts to an anthology series with a continuing central characters involved in some very mundane (and not very interesting) adventures. It never tries to properly explore any of the more interesting issues it raises, instead opting for the laziest path possible and relying on schmaltz and 'heart-warming' middle America values to try and build an audience.  Look, if I'd wanted to watch weekly tales of divinely inspired do-goodery then I'd have watched the aforementioned Highway to Heaven.  Basically, Quantum Leap is just sentimental pap of the worst kind and, frankly, I preferred The Love Boat - that had no pretensions and knew that it was cheesy feel-good prime time fodder.