By coincidence I had just watched season 12 of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, shortly before I watched this fourth season of Quantum Leap. The connection between those two shows being the opening episode of Sunny featuring a musical, race-based, body-swap narrative which also touches on Quantum Leap (and features a brilliant cameo from Scott Bakula). The thing that brought it to mind though, was that the opening episode (and quite a few others) had me saying 'what are the rules?' as some of the writing seemed to be making up whatever they needed to get through an episode. There are perhaps not too many of these, but they bothered me by their focus on sudden exposition of things that come and go for the sake of convenience.
The second type of episode that this season produces is the overly serious but well-meaning 'issue' episode. The show has done these before of course, but in this season so many of them felt too burdened by their sincerity but yet not really delivering a satisfying message/conclusion; for instance both the KKK, and the rape episodes are commendable for their attempt, but have odd content and ending). Outside of these episodes, there are far too many which are just functional 'moral situation of the week' episodes, which ask us to buy into a situation and then watch it resolved. This is bread-and- butter for the show, but in this season they seem too isolated from the main characters. In the first and second season the writing managed to keep us engaged by virtue of Sam and Al, their relationship, and their connection to the plots. At times the coincidences (and Al's myriad of life experiences) stuck out, but at least they kept the players in the game; in this season there is significantly less of that, and too many episodes are 'okay' but do not really deliver.
This is not to say that they are bad, just that they feel fairly run-of-the-mill, and the gimmicks thrown in to spice things up do feel very much like a gimmick (in particular the soul-singing gender crossover doesn't really seem interested in doing much other than having Sam in a dress again). The chimp episode is a total gimmick – although that one did work for me, despite the 'message' element. Otherwise though it seems like a season without a strong direction; it continues to do what it did before, trying some new things in ways that don't convince, and throwing the occasional hail-mary to see if it can pull it off. The leap out of the season finale suggests that this will continue – as indeed will the 'what are the rules?' feeling. I'll have to see, but this fourth season isn't good enough to make me happy with it continuing in this way.
The second type of episode that this season produces is the overly serious but well-meaning 'issue' episode. The show has done these before of course, but in this season so many of them felt too burdened by their sincerity but yet not really delivering a satisfying message/conclusion; for instance both the KKK, and the rape episodes are commendable for their attempt, but have odd content and ending). Outside of these episodes, there are far too many which are just functional 'moral situation of the week' episodes, which ask us to buy into a situation and then watch it resolved. This is bread-and- butter for the show, but in this season they seem too isolated from the main characters. In the first and second season the writing managed to keep us engaged by virtue of Sam and Al, their relationship, and their connection to the plots. At times the coincidences (and Al's myriad of life experiences) stuck out, but at least they kept the players in the game; in this season there is significantly less of that, and too many episodes are 'okay' but do not really deliver.
This is not to say that they are bad, just that they feel fairly run-of-the-mill, and the gimmicks thrown in to spice things up do feel very much like a gimmick (in particular the soul-singing gender crossover doesn't really seem interested in doing much other than having Sam in a dress again). The chimp episode is a total gimmick – although that one did work for me, despite the 'message' element. Otherwise though it seems like a season without a strong direction; it continues to do what it did before, trying some new things in ways that don't convince, and throwing the occasional hail-mary to see if it can pull it off. The leap out of the season finale suggests that this will continue – as indeed will the 'what are the rules?' feeling. I'll have to see, but this fourth season isn't good enough to make me happy with it continuing in this way.