‘Quantum Leap’ Reboot: Caitlin Bassett Guessed 1 Addison Twist Before It Was Revealed
NBC’s Quantum Leap reboot twists the original show in many ways. The new leaper is Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee), but his hologram is not only a woman, Addison (Caitlin Bassett), but his fiance and the person who was originally set to leap. Bassett said she guessed one of the twists before filming the Quantum Leap pilot.
Showbiz Cheat Sheet spoke to Bassett on Oct. 7. She shared her insight into one of the major twists in the Quantum Leap reboot. Quantum Leap airs Mondays at 10 p.m. on NBC.
Caitlin Bassett guessed that Addison should’ve been the one to ‘Quantum Leap’
Ben Song is a different leaper than Sam Beckett (Scott Bakula) in the original Quantum Leap. Had it been Addison, it would have been even more different, letting a woman time travel and change the past.
“It was funny, when we first shot the pilot in Vancouver, I remember asking the showrunner,” Bassett told Cheat Sheet. “I was like, ‘It’s weird because it feels like she’s more qualified to be the leaper. With his brain, why would you Swiss cheese that? You would want him as a hologram.’ The show runners were like, ‘No no no, that’s not true’. Then we went and shot 101 and they were like, ‘Yeah, we lied.’”
Addison’s training for the ‘Quantum Leap’ reboot will still help Ben
The Quantum Leap reboot is about Ben reviving Sam’s quantum leap project. But, the switch means that Ben hadn’t trained for quantum leaps the way Addison had.
“I think she’s trained for everything,” Bassett said. “I think she’s trained to fight, I think she’s trained medically. She’s trained probably linguistically but the goal was that he was the hologram and he has all these languages.”
Now, Addison can only relay that training to Ben when he’s in the past. It’s important to Bassett that Addison not rely on the computer, Ziggy, too much.
“As an actor, I really try and be intentional about when I go to Ziggy and when I use my own knowledge because Dean [Stockwell] was really good at that, Al in the original,” Bassett said. “A lot of things that Al helped with were things Al knew how to do. Al knew how to fly a plane. Al knew how to box. So Ziggy can give you information but because I trained to be the leaper, I have knowledge on hand that Ben doesn’t. And I like to play with when it’s me and when it’s Ziggy.”
Will Addison ever leap?
Right now, Ben keeps leaping into different time periods and the team can’t bring him home. Is there any chance they could switch places and Addison will get her chance to leap? That would truly make the Quantum Leap reboot a monumental evolution.
“I don’t know, I have not heard that yet but they don’t tell me anything,” Bassett said. “They intentionally, out of all the actors, the other day the show runner whispered something to Ray as a note for a scene that I couldn’t hear. So there’s all sorts of things I don’t get to know about their plan for this.”
