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Did you catch that ‘Stargate’ Easter egg in the latest ‘Quantum Leap’?
Gotta love when sci-fi fans drop in a fun one for the other sci-fi fans.
There are plenty of stars known for more than a few iconic roles in science fiction, and character actor Robert Picardo arguably ranks pretty high on that list. His latest sci-fi credit? Quantum Leap, and it includes a fun little nod for fans of another sci-fi franchise Picardo put his stamp on a while back.
In the latest episode of Quantum Leap, “Leap. Die. Repeat.,” we see Ben (Raymond Lee) drop into a nuclear reactor experiment in 1962. The episode itself is a wild time loop adventure, with Ben reliving the leap over and over, leaping into several different people present when the nuclear reactor explodes. Picardo just happens to play one of those folks as a guest star, portraying the leader of the project trying to impress the government with his cutting edge tech.
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His character’s name: Dr. Edwin Woolsey. As fans of Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis might notice, Picardo’s character shares the same last name as his longtime recurring Stargate character, Richard Woolsey. It’s a fun nod to Picardo’s longtime genre contributions (he of course played The Doctor on Star Trek:Voyager, as well), and for Stargate fans, it’s always fun to see a Woolsey on the small screen.
Picardo joined Stargate SG-1 in a small role as Richard Woolsey, who oftentimes served with an oversight committee designed to keep tabs on Stargate Command. Though he was a bit of a thorn in SG-1’s side early on as a stickler for the rules, it soon became clear that Woolsey was a good guy at heart, he just did his good through bureaucracy, and he eventually became an ally of the SG-1 crew.
His role in the Stargate universe got even bigger in the final season of spinoff Stargate Atlantis, when Woolsey is put in charge of the entire Atlantis expedition. It made for a great season-long arc, watching the evolution of this by-the-book character forced to grapple with how you sometimes have to bend and break the rules to save the world, fend of alien invasions, and do what’s right.
But for now, we can catch up with this nuclear scientist version of 1960s Woolsey streaming now on Peacock, along with the rest of Quantum Leap’s first season. There will also be plenty more leaps to come, as NBC has already renewed the series for a second season.
