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I turned on my TV this morning to see Rachel from Friends appearing in Quantum Leap - now that’s a crossover that I thought I’d never see. Apparently Sam Beckett had leapt into Chandler’s body to try and convince Rachel not to have her nose job, as she looked perfectly lovely with the one she had. But Sam Beckett failed and thus failed to sabotage Friends and in some ways it went on to be the more successful programme. I think that’s what happened. I am quite tired. As someone suggested on Twitter wouldn’t it have been a great episode of Quantum Leap if Beckett had leapt into Gary Sparrow from Goodnight Sweetheart. More rubbish alternate Universe TV programmes should do crossovers to make things even more confusing. Might have been better if he’d leapt into Phoebe the barmaid and convinced her not to procreate with this time travelling Casanova. But to be honest, Sam Beckett would be on dodgy ground there as he had his fair share of tonsil tennis on his many adventures.
I’d like to see him leap into Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors and punch the Monty Python bloke in the face and then seek out Joey from Bread and punch him too.
And we all want him to travel back in time and write Waiting for Godot, obviously.
It’s fun spotting future stars in old programmes. We’re working our way through the later series of Seinfeld at the moment and lots of future stars turn up in small roles including Sarah Silverman and a buff looking John Michael Higgins (who you’d recognise from Christopher Guest’s films or maybe as the unPC commentator in Pitch Perfect) who took me about 20 minutes to identify. You watch old programmes with an altered perception and a sense of god-like omnipotence over the performers. I know what will happen to you in the future. You don’t know, but I do. Oh Kramer, do be careful now.
I suppose what’s equally interesting is all the actors in those shows who didn’t go on to greater things, who got their little break, but it didn’t lead to a bigger one. Is there any way to spot the ones who will succeed in entering the public consciousness in their own right and the ones who won’t. Impossible to do this in hindsight, of course. Silverman seems like something special in her small part of Kramer’s fidgety girlfriend, but is that just the knowledge that she will be impinging. Is it all just a stupid lottery or do those who deserve it make it to the top? Well, you know which version I need to believe in to be able to sleep at night.
Even though I work in the business I still get the weird excitement and disbelief at seeing someone famous for doing something, doing something else. It seems impossible that they weren’t always the character we know or there was a point when they weren’t a star. But of course, that’s just stupidity.
But now we’re all mini-Sam Beckett’s, traveling back to our younger days and watching the things we watched in the past with a different eye, with Ziggy (or the imdb website) letting us know about the futures of the people involved, though unable to change them or give one of the unknown actors the nudge that will see them propelled to superstardom. Or maybe give one of the known ones a nudge and tell them not to bother.
Anyway, Seinfeld still holds up pretty well and Quantum Leap is brilliant mawkish rubbish. At least we know that now.
