How does that shocking reveal change everything? ‘Quantum Leap’ team chimes in at WonderCon

With just two episodes left in the Quantum Leap revival’s first season, the team jumped to WonderCon 2023 in Anaheim, California this weekend, for a riveting panel consisting of stars Raymond Lee (Ben Song), Caitlin Bassett (Addison Augustine), Ernie Hudson (Herbert "Magic" Williams), Mason Alexander Park (Ian Wright), Nanrisa Lee (Jenn Chou) and executive producers Dean Georgaris and Deborah Pratt.

SYFY WIRE was in attendance as fans got to see the panel kick off with an exclusive sneak preview of tonight’s penultimate episode, “The Friendly Skies,” which features Ben leaping into the short skirt of an early ‘70s flight attendant on an international flight bound for disaster (check it out tonight at 10 p.m. ET on NBC, and streaming the next day on Peacock).

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Obviously, last week’s reveal that Ziggy may just be the mole has huge ramifications moving forward, including in this week’s episode. So moderator Jim Halterman began his panel questioning there. Georgaris noted that to arrive at such a shocker, the breakthrough really came when one of the writers noted that “our present is actually someone else’s past, and that the Ziggy that we use continues on in the future.”

“Mole is an interesting term, we assume that if someone’s a leak of information, we think linearly, we think mole. We don’t think Quantum Leap world, which could just be, ‘Oh yeah, Ziggy just checked Ziggy’s records,” he continued.

Next, Halterman turned to Lee to discuss the ramifications of moving forward, possibly without Ziggy’s help. But since this was Lee’s first time participating as talent for a con, he was a little preoccupied.

“Yeah, I’ll be honest, I was just staring out for a second and I was like, ‘This is so cool y’all. It’s conceptually crazy to know that folks watch our show, and then to see your faces is a whole ‘nother experience,” Lee said. “And I’m deeply moved that y’all could be here in support of us and wanting to know what we have to say. So it’s really cool. So um… could you repeat that question again?”

Ziggy?

“Yeah!” Lee exclaimed. “It’s going to allow for us to trust our instincts as humans, to see how we can get ourselves out of this situation. We’re at a time when perhaps technology is getting more and more unreliable and we have to trust our human instincts, and to be able to connect with one another to make the right decision. So it’s kind of a great commentary on life right now.”

Halterman then asked Bassett about how Addison, who's been upset by glitches in the past, would react to such technical difficulties.

“One of the testaments to… especially to this version where we have this phenomenal team, is that when things go wrong, we have more than one person to rely on. Obviously Ben is phenomenal at everything, as Sam [Beckett] was, but now we have this team of human beings who care so deeply about each other. And to go with what Ray was saying about a commentary on today: If we trust each other, we can get the job done.”

QUANTUM LEAP -- "Salvation or Bust" Episode 105 Photo: NBC

Of course, the Ziggy reveal is also going to impact Ian immensely.

“Ziggy is an extension of Ian in many ways, as any creative person takes great ownership over their creations, over their art, or their technology, whatever it is,” Alexander Park said. “And I feel like so much of Ian’s identity is linked to this machine, it’s linked to their value and their worth and their place at Quantum Leap, so for that technology to be questioned and to potentially be the thing that endangers everyone, is something very difficult for Ian to have to go through, because that is just an extension of who this person is. So it was a lot of fun going into this episode with that, because it gave me a lot of colors to play with, because up until then I’ve been a bit chaotic in dealing with just kind of Ziggy on the fritz. But it was nice to see what would happen if Ian was just stripped of one of the most primary reasons for their own purpose and existence in the Quantum Leap program, and where does that put them?”

For his part, Hudson couldn't have been happier to land the role of Magic, a callback character from the original series.

“It’s just a wonderful character for me to get a chance to explore and figure out. But I love the possibilities of all of us realizing that so much is riding on our choices,” Hudson said. “And I think it opens the door that maybe we can make other choices. And that’s really what’s exciting to me about it.”

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As far as nods to the original series, who better to comment on that than current executive producer Pratt, who served as executive producer, head writer, and voice of Ziggy on the original Quantum Leap?

“I say this over and over again, if there’s any time in history we need hope, it’s now. And I feel like this show has always represented hope. And the fact that all of us want to come home, that we don’t need to be afraid of each other, that we need to know and understand and walk in each other’s shoes, and that if we can evolve to that point, we can become better people,” Pratt said. “And that’s what the show gets to do on a weekly basis: it gets to take someone like Ben and put him into someone else’s life and someone else’s shoes and tell a story that is a universal story about how many times all of us wish that Ben or Sam would leap into your life and make it a little bit better.

"So we have that hope, which is why it was so important to me to not bring Sam home, to keep him out there," Pratt continued. "I still get letters from people saying, ‘I keep waiting for Sam to leap into my life.’ So if we can maintain the core value of the original concept, I think it will always be entertaining, it will always be heartfelt, it will always reflect on history, and it will always make us better people. And I thank you for coming to the table and listening.”

“I just want to say one more thing that Deborah did,” chimed in Georgaris, “which is, she reminded us that you don’t need a cape, and you don’t need superpowers to be a superhero. You just need to actually be a human being who cares about someone else.”

New episodes of Quantum Leap air Mondays at 10 p.m. ET, and stream next-day on Peacock.