Scott:

(about Dean)  This is his way of being taller than me.  (to Dean)  Feel better?

Dean:

Yes.  It feels great.

Scott:

(to audience, cheerfully) Hi, folks.

Dean:

How you all doing?  You like those two episodes you saw?  Well, (pointing to Don) this guy created it all.

Q:

I read an article, I think it was in the Times, with Mr. Bakula, and he was saying in the article that he'd like to play a character with AIDS.  Number one, is there anything like that coming?  And number two, is there anything that's off limits, that you won't touch?

Scott:

Well, the off-limits line, I think you should direct to Don or Deborah or Michael.  I think there's an episode out there about AIDS.  I don't know what it is exactly, and I don't know if they have something in the works, but I don't think that a show like ours needs to be bound by too many of the normal things you can or cannot do.  And I think so far that we live up to that, so hopefully . . . .  It's unfortunate that there is even an AIDS show to do.  But I think we might be able to do a different one than the other shows and shed some different light on it.  Don can answer the rest of it.  Or Deborah.

Don:

Yeah, it's a tough one.  We do not have an AIDS show in the works, although I don't feel that there's anything off limits for Quantum Leap at all.  We have been working on a show where Sam leaps in as a gay (audience goes "Wooo . . . .").  That has not worked out to date.  It's been written by – we've had a gay writer working on it.  I'm not happy with the script.  There are a lot of reasons . . . (audience laughs as they bring in the stool for Scott and take away the chair, with Don's jacket hanging on the back of it.)

Dean:

We're getting upstaged over here.

Michael:

Uh, the jacket . . . .

Scott:

They're selling the jacket.  The proceeds will go to . . . .

Don:

I don't want to lose the jacket!  (continues)  It's a tough subject.  Because I want to present it in a balanced light.  I want to be able to represent all views.  I hate any kind of bigotry, be it against gays, blacks, minorities of any kind, in its form.  It just – sucks, and life's too short.  But we have some pitches coming in.

Deborah:

We got a pitch about a twelve-year-old boy, and the story basically was dealing with his family's acceptance of his fate.  And it's so heavy.  It's a matter of finding the heart and the warmth and the humor.  And I think we'll do it.

Don:

We will eventually do them both, probably.  The difficult thing is to do the [script] within the parameters of the show.  The show is a very difficult show to write.  It looks easy; it's not.  It's a very tough show to write, with all the parameters we've set up for it.  So, yes, there's nothing off limits.  I've never had the network says to us, "You can't do this, or we don't want you to do this."  So, I think we'll (indistinct).

Q (Same):

Just one quick thing on the lighter side:  My sister-in-law, and a couple of people in the family, my fiancée included, think that Dean and Scott are probably two of the sexiest guys on TV.

Dean:       

They're right, they're right!

Q:

I wondered if there's anywhere they could write and get a glossy.

Scott:

Send to Universal, "Quantum Leap", care of, I think it's 100

Don:

Tokyo, now.

Dean:

100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California – anybody know the zip?

Several Audience Members (in unison):

91608!

Dean:

91608.  Thank you.  And we are.  We're the sexiest guys . . . .  Probably because it rubs off from me onto him.

Q:

Hi, this is a question for Deborah Pratt.  It's very unusual to find a lot of women in the position that you have.  I was wondering whether or not you were planning any shows on abortion.  And I know that you've written a lot of the (indistinct) and I was wondering how you did research for shows like that.

Deborah:

A lot of it comes from my past.  Summers in the South.  Summers in California, 1965 (laughs slightly).  Just experiences.  Life experiences and trying to understand them and help people to understand what goes on in some situation.  And the unique, wonderful thing about taking Sam Beckett and putting him into someone's life is that all of a sudden you have these fresh eyes looking on a perspective from the middle out.  And I get to say a lot of things that I believe, that I question, and – so far it's worked out pretty good.  I'm writing a show now where he comes back as a sixteen-year-old girl, eight and a half months pregnant.  (Scott stands up and begins walking like he's pregnant; the audience laughs and applauds.)

Q:

This is a question for Mr. Bakula.  You sang on the very first episode, "Imagine".  Are you . . . .

Dean:

(interrupting)  Ever hear of Milli Vanilli?  (Dean points to himself smugly, indicating that he had done the singing.)

Scott:

In his dreams.  (to questioner, politely)  I'm sorry that that rude boy interrupted you.

Q:

I was wondering, are you planning to pursue any kind of a singing career, and if you'd like to get back to Broadway?

Scott:

I'd love to get back to Broadway sometime.  I sing as often as I can.  Before I came out here, I spent ten years in New York, doing predominantly musical theater, and I had a rock band from the fourth grade on, so I . . . I've been singing a lot.  They're very good about letting me do it on the show, and they work it in very nicely, in a lot of different ways.  So I'm real lucky that way.

Q:

Is there a certain song you'd like to sing on the show?

Scott:

(nonchalant)  No, I mean, I think getting to sing "Imagine" was . . . (gestures) . . . It's probably one of the greatest songs ever written.  And Don wrote that episode.  Don actually wrote both of the episodes you saw tonight, and Michael Zinberg, at the end, directed the Vietnam episode.

Q:

This question is for Scott Bakula.  Can you tell me what your favorite episode was, and why?

All:

(laugh, sighs)

Don:

We always get that.

Scott:

Yeah.  Y'know . . . .

Dean:

(interrupting)  That's two questions, that's too high to count.

Scott:

What?

Dean:

Two questions, and he can't count higher than that.

Scott:

(gives Dean a dirty look)  That's hard for me.  There are certain aspects of every episode, almost, that I enjoy, because every episode is different.  I really loved the first episode this year, going back home.  That ranks as one of my favorites.  I love the episode where I played a young retarded man.  I love the "La Mancha" episode that Don directed.  I loved the Watts show.  I loved the episode in the deep South, I love the episode where I did . . . it goes on and on.  I'm the luckiest guy in town, to play this show.

Dean:

And he'll get an Emmy for the coming home show.

Scott:

(makes an upset face) No, no.

Dean:

He should have gotten it this year, but . . . .

Scott:

He said I'll get it this year, and said that's the kiss of death, and who was right?  So that takes care of next year.

Don:

You saw him playing his father in that episode, which was a terrific job.

Dean:

(to Don) Was that him?

Don:

That was him.

Scott:

(to Dean)  It was you again.  You sing for me, you played my father . . . .

Don:

Dean's not around enough to know who's playing what, y'know?  The guy works one day a week.  He has the softest job in television and he's trying to think "Should I come back at him now, or will it show up in the next script?" (panel laughs)

Q:

But they're great days.

Scott:

Yes, they are.

Q:

I'm a big fan of the show, and I think Scott and Dean are the best actors on TV.  I'm a late fan of the show, and I missed the first pilot movie, and I was wondering if there were any plans to rebroadcast the movie.

Don:

That's interesting.  Not at this time they don't.  They did rebroadcast it once, the second year, I believe.

Deborah:

I heard that Quantum Leap is the second-most taped show on television.  People collect Quantum Leap.

Don:

That's because we're on Friday nights at eight.  (Indistinct)  People are not watching television.  We're trying to move back.  We've been trying.  Hopefully we will move back, to Wednesday night at ten (smiles) – or perhaps Wednesday night at nine.  NBC, I think, will move us back.  Because our audience is definitely not a Friday night audience.  We have a pretty hip audience, and those people aren't hanging around watching television on Friday night.

Q:

Yes, we are!

Dean:

Don't misunderstand.  The people that really love the show are gonna watch it no matter where it is.

Don & Scott:

(simultaneously with Dean) No matter where it is.

Dean:

The other people who want to watch it, they have their lives, and they go out on Friday . . . (audience begins to laugh as if to say 'Thanks a lot' as Dean realizes that didn't come out at all the way he meant it to.)

Don:

Look, they're leaving right now!

Dean:

They're taping this.

Don:

He didn't mean it.

Q:

I want to say, first of all, that I have been taping the show since its inception and I thank God for Quantum Leap.  It's the first time in fifteen years that I can say on television that they've actually done something creative.  The writing is excellent, the production is wonderful, and it's a real pleasure to see that on commercial television.  I'd almost given up on it.  One question that has been with me since I first saw the show is, where did you get the idea for the series?  (Scott laughs knowingly as everyone looks at Don; Dean again tries to take credit.)

Scott:

I'll take him outside for a while.

Don:

(laughs)  It, uh . . . .  Where do you get an idea?  No, I won't go into that.

Deborah:

(resigned)  Four o'clock, one morning . . . .

Don:

She can tell you that.  We happen to be married, so (Deborah takes Don's hand and the audience goes ‘Awww . . .' and applauds.)

Deborah:

Four o'clock one morning, he goes, (quietly) "Hey, hey, hey!  Listen to this!  OK.  There's this guy, he travels around in time.  But he only travels within his own lifetime, so he doesn't go back, ‘cause that's not believable . . ." (a bit sarcastically)  As if traveling in time is believable?  (Audience laughs)  "And that's believable.  And he's got a sidekick who only he can see."  I said, "Yeah, but when he goes in, doesn't he . . ."  He says, "No-no-no.  He goes in and people see him kinda . . ."  And I'm going "Wait, it's four o'clock in the morning.  At least let me get a cup of coffee and wait here!"

Don:

It's true.  Actually, what happened was, I wanted to create a series that was different, ands I wanted to be able to do an anthology.  Which – television networks and studios don't want to do anthologies, because people really don't watch them and they're very hard to syndicate so that they can recover their money; they deficit-finance these things.  And I just wanted to do something that would have a different story to tell every week.  And I thought, "How can I do it?"  And I was reading Timothy, uh . . . I can't think of it, "Coming of Age in the Milky Way," I was reading Einstein's theory of time, and I suddenly went, "Wait a minute, what if I did a time-travel show?  No way, nobody believes a time-travel show."  Like Deborah said, I woke up at four one morning and said, "What if he only travels in his own lifetime?  People will believe that."  (Audience and panel laugh)  "And if I can get a star or two that people will like to watch every week, they'll tune in to watch them on their adventure and then I can do any kind of story I want to do every week, and that'll be a lot of freedom."  And, boy, was I wrong on that.  It's so hard to write this show, as I say.  I was right and I was wrong.  That's how it really came about.

Q:

(to Scott and Dean)  My little sister turned sixteen last week, and I was wondering if you could hold up a sign and let me take a picture?  (They do!)

Scott:

What's the sign say?

Q:

Happy sweet sixteen, Violeta.  (audience "Awww's")

Q:

Yeah, actually this question is directed to the three producers, or maybe to Mr. Bellisario.  I know that you write a lot of the episodes yourself, and your wife, and I was wondering whether or not all the episodes are staff-written, or whether or not you have some freelance submissions to the show.

Don:

No, the episodes are not all staff-written, although . . . .  We take outside submissions, if they come through an agent, that's fine.  We look for writers all the time.  It's very difficult to find a writer that can do the show.  It doesn't matter how good the writer is, the show is a really tough show to write.  You have to know what's really going on and what we're looking for.  But, yes, we do have outside writers.  This year we had how many . . .?

Deborah:

Four.

Don:

Four.  And we're always short of scripts.  Even among the staff.  So we're always looking.

Q:

I was just curious.  Because you mentioned how difficult the show is to write a number of times, and I was wondering whether or not you publish a guideline for writers as to what the rules are?  (Deborah holds her fingers about two inches apart to indicate)

Don:

Yeah, it is about that thick.

Deborah:

It's about that thick.

Don:

Yeah, the rules of what you can and cannot do.  And then the story arenas that we're looking for, and people come in with some – hopefully people come in with fresh ideas.  Usually what happens is that people come in with the idea that we've already been exploring.  Which is what makes it difficult.

Q:

Do you know Al's birthday?

Don:

Yeah, I do, for him, not Dean.

Scott:

1928. (Panel dissolves into smart remarks at each other.)

Don:

Dean's birthday . . . .

Dean:

But I can still play fourteen.

Don:

Being my alter ego, Dean's birthday's probably my birthday.

Q:

Which is?

Don:

Actually, he's a little younger than me . . . .

Q:

The year doesn't matter, just the day.

Don:

Oh, August eighth.

Q:

He's a Leo.  (Indistinct, regarding attitude being non-Navy.)

Don:

I don't think his attitude is military at all.  His attitude is more, "Hell, no, we won't go."  Or it was.  I made it because I wanted to have him play off of something different than what I thought the character was really like.  I wanted it to be a shocker.  Why I made him an admiral?  I dunno.  The uniform looks good on him.

Q:

I like Marine dress blues better than Navy whites.

Don:

I don't know.  I just liked him as a Naval admiral.  (to Dean)  You like being a Navy admiral, or would you rather have been a Marine general?

Dean:

(considering)  Uh . . .  (comments from panel)  I was trying to think who would get the most . . . whacks, y'know?  The Marines?  No, I like the way it looks.  It's clean, y'know what I mean?

Q (different):

I have to agree with you on the Navy whites ‘cause I'm going into the Navy, so . . . .  This is to Deborah Pratt.  Do you have any ideas in the works for maybe Sam jumping into the future?  It would still be during his own lifetime.

Deborah:

Yeah, we have ideas, of course we have ideas.  But you'll have to talk to him on that.

Don:

What?

Deborah:

Or into the far past.

Don:

When does Michael work on these things?

Deborah:

Actually, we've had pitches and we've tossed around Sam coming into the future.  And there's a whole trip that's one stumbling block after another.  And one from a production standpoint of view – when you create the future, it's pretty well all new.  So we do have a budget, and we do have to adhere to it.  And we have a very short shooting schedule.  So we have not quite come up with a way to do it.

Don:

Well, we probably will go into the future at some point.  We were talking earlier – we talked about this earlier with Dean.

Deborah:

Yeah.

Don:

Where we go back and follow Dean in the future, back at . . . .

Dean:

This is me in . . .?

Deborah:

At the Imaging Chamber.

Don:

The Imaging Chamber.

Dean:

It's a hard show to write.  We've been trying to think of an environmental story, and it's hard to fit it into the Quantum Leap equation.

Don:

See, we'd really like to do an upbeat show as much as possible.  The one you just saw now was about as bittersweet an ending as we do.  That, and the one that Deborah wrote, in Watts.  The one in Watts was probably the most "down" ending we've ever done.  I just didn't want to do that kind of show.  I wanted to do a show that was fun and uplifting and everybody walked away with a good feeling, and maybe learned a little something in the process.  In the future, I wanted to take Dean and have him take us through the Waiting Room, and the Imaging Chamber and all of those things.  And that is a big production problem, and it's very costly.

Q:

Also Dean, and/or Scott, do you have any future projects in the works besides Quantum Leap?  (They look at each other.)

Scott:

No, not at this time.

Dean:

No, I'm just trying to learn to play this (holds up a recorder he's had in his hand the whole time.)

Scott:

(mock-exasperated)  Will someone please ask him to play it, so he can get it over with?

Dean:

The reason I'm learning to play this is because I have a five- and seven-year-old, and we're educating them in the home, and they have to learn to play this.  So I have to teach it.  I've been playing this now for ten days or two weeks.

Scott:

Do they have to play it with cigars?  (Dean is also holding a cigar.)

Dean:

No, they don't have to play with cigars.  (He begins to play, fairly well, and then makes a mistake.  Audience laughs.)  I wrote that myself.  (Don laughs, someone says it sounded like "Mr. Tambourine Man," and Scott laughs.)  I don't believe it. I wrote that myself!

Scott:

I know what that is . . . .

Dean:

It's called "Hey, Sugar, C'mon Over."

Scott:

With your tambourine man . . . .

Dean:

No, leave him outside.

Q:

Hi.  First I want to say, Dean, when I was seven, my father taught me to play the recorder just before Christmas . . . .

Dean:

All right!

Q:

This question is for Don and for Scott as co-creators of Sam.  I wonder, what is Sam's theory as a person who spends time in the lives of these different people?  What is Sam's theory of their experience the moment that Sam leaps out of their lives?  Are they aware that . . . (Don and Scott look at each other.)

Don:

I can tell you where they go while Sam is living their lives.  They're in the waiting room, which is a medical-looking room.

Deborah:

Very antiseptic.

Don:

Very antiseptic, with people in white garments or robes, all enclosed and examining them and probing them and checking them; a lot of strange lights, futuristic.  And when they come back and leap back, they immediately think that they have been kidnapped by aliens.  And if you check, that's when it all started, y'know, right about the time Sam started leaping.  All those encounters of the third kind began to happen.  They were all quantum leaps.  We're going to be doing a show at the end of this season; hopefully, if . . . (looks pointedly at Deborah)

Deborah:

I'm working on it!

Don:

(overlapping) . . . somebody I know . . .

Deborah:

I'm working on it!

Don:

. . . will get the script written.  Which will be a three-parter (audience "Ooo"s).  And it'll be a three-parter that will take place in (indicating Scott and Dean) . . .  Notice how they're hanging on everything I say, too?

Dean:

I'm hoping it's a golf story.

Scott:

With a recorder in it.

Don:

Which will be a three-parter that will take place in the same town over three decades, in which Sam will leap into three different people.  So he will solve some problem in the first decade, the Fifties, and there will be an overall story, probably a murder to solve, a three-decade long murder.  And he will leap into one character, leap out, and be in the same town ten years later, and in another character.  And then we will meet the first character that he leaped into, who has now come back.  So we'll have to address exactly what you asked.  And Deborah's addressing that at the moment.  (She laughs, so does the audience.)  (to Scott)  What do you think?

Scott:

Well, y'know, I make up a lot of my own stuff as we go.  But this is just in my own, y'know, little mind as I'm doing some of this stuff.  There's a part of me that feels . . . in this make-believe world that I find very real . . . that deep, deep, deep in this person's body, in their subconscious, that part of that subconscious is aware of what happens.  Just as part of my subconscious that's left in the present is aware of what's happening.  It doesn't manifest itself while I'm in that body.  But when I'm gone, there is a trace, there are traces of what went on.  (to Don)  We did – we have addressed this.

Don:

Jung.

Scott:

You wrote it.  The double leap, in the Italian episode.

Don:

That's true.  One of the very first shows.

Scott:

And the guy came back and he was like "Whoa."  And the girlfriend said (in accent), "You look like you got hit on the head or something, you got a headache."  And he said, "I don't remember anything," or whatever.

Deborah:

Talk about your earth moving.

Scott:

(laughs)  Yeah, that's right.  So that's, y'know, that's just my own little rationale.  So, he or she, they're not coming back totally . . .  Someone says, "Just yesterday, you saved the little boy from drowning and you breathed in his mouth."  And there's something that says, "Oh, yeah, did I?  I don't . . ."  So it's not like total amnesia.  But see, that's just me.  I made that all up myself, and he's over there . . .

Don:

(shrugs) Works for me.

Deborah:

On page 7 of the handbook that comes out like this (indicating thickness again) you always say that when Sam leaps out, he leaves that person's life a better place for when they come back in.  So if he is in . . . Friday, you walked out with the biggest term paper of your life due, and Monday – it was done.  Would you quibble?

Scott:

And I mean, just as I feel that I leave that person's life a better person – Sam does – I feel like there's like a little swap going on.  So – that's it.

Q:

First of all, I'd like to say I would like it if someone could leap into my life, because I came here instead of doing a paper.  I'd like to address my question to Mr. Bakula.  As an actor, how did you feel working against no one, doing the scenes with you and yourself as your father, and then having to play against nothing, and then . . . .

Scott:

Yeah, it was very hard. I think when they did Back To the Future, the guy who applied my makeup was not the same guy who designed it, but he had done makeup for Back To the Future and he talked about, y'know, "For six months, we worked on this one scene."  And we did it all in ten days.  I was scared to death about it.  Because I, literally, I was up at two-thirty, and I went into prosthetics at three, and at seven o'clock, everybody came in to start work, and I'd be ready to shoot at around eight o'clock.  We'd shoot my father all morning, and then at lunch, I'd take the makeup off and shoot the other side of the scene the rest of the afternoon.  It was scary because you don't know what it's gonna come out, how it's gonna come out.  And I had to trust my director.  I had input from everybody else who was watching dailies.  Don, Deborah, Michael, and (indicates Dean) this guy helps me tremendously all the time.

Dean:

And my mother.

Scott:

And your mother was there, that's right.  And, y'know, it was kind of a little bit of a crapshoot.  Fortunately, I felt the script was exceptionally well-written, and so most of my work in that area was already done.  So I just had to hope that I was pulling it off, and you don't always know.  I hadn't done this ever before.

Dean:

He never pulled it off, though, until the end of the day, when the work was done (audience groans, Scott gives him a look).  I meant the prosthetics (he pantomimes taking off the makeup).

Don:

Scott always goes into every character.  It's an interesting thing.  Doing television, in doing television, you're so rushed.  And Scott studies the character for the next script that he's gonna play while he's playing another character.  So he has to prepare for one character while playing another character, which is extremely difficult.  In this case, he had to do, y'know, two of them to prepare for.  And then Scott came to us and said, "Gee, I'd like to come in and loop some of those lines 'cause I want to make sure that the dad comes off really the way I'd like to see him come off."  And I don't think you had, to my knowledge, that much to do, because it all came off.  So he hit it in front of the camera.  He was consistent in playing his father in the mornings, and then he was consistent in playing himself the rest of the day according to the character playing himself at age sixteen, which is very difficult, and I think a tribute to his acting ability.

Scott:

You don't often get a chance to ever play anything like that anywhere in your career, so, y'know, I felt lucky to even make a stab at it.  So that was thanks to Don who said, "You wanna play your father?"  And NBC fell dead on the floor.

Don:

Right.  But they gave us a little extra money to let you do it, and . . . although we went way over, didn't we, Michael?

Michael:

(dryly)  Not way over.  "Way over" is a relative term.

Q:

Hi.  My question is pretty basic, since I just started watching the show this season.  Who is this person that Dean Stockwell's character speaks to all the time and how does he know all this information and why is Dean's character a hologram and . . . .

Dean:

Ziggy, you mean?

Q:

Yeah.

Dean:

Ziggy's not a person.

Don:

There's Gooshie . . . .

Dean:

This was explained, as it were, in the pilot.  Ziggy is a name given for a huge computer, a state-of-the-art computer in the present/future tense.  And he's operated by a guy with bad breath named Gooshie.

Don:

Little guy.

Dean:

Ziggy is the name of the computer.  The thing that I have, Dean Stockwell, is a handlink to Ziggy (through gritted teeth) which I won't talk about.

Don:

Well, he doesn't want to talk about it because we changed the handlink this year, and he's like a child.  Y'know, "I want the old one back."

Dean:

I want my old handlink back.

Don:

"I want the old handlink back . . . ."

Dean:

Who liked the old handlink?  (hands go up, and there are cheers from the audience.)

Don & Scott:

Who likes the new handlink?  (fewer hands go up.)  Oh!

Dean:

All right!

Don:

Who knew there was a difference?

Deborah:

And Ziggy is hooked up into every newspaper, every book, every piece of information . . . .

Dean:

Yeah, Ziggy's a huge computer that can really plug into everything.  And the explanation in the pilot was that he (pointing to Scott) has an implant that was put in his neurons – and what's the other, mesons?

Scott:

Mesons.

Dean:

His optical . . . .

Don:

(laughing) He does not know what he's saying, I'm telling you.

Dean:

So that he, at a certain frequency can see this hologram . . . .

Scott:

(mock awe)  This is incredible, because I thought you only remembered your own lines.

Dean:

I change my own lines.  So this hologram can go back where he (pointing to Scott) is in time and he can see him, and he's the only one who can see him.

Scott & Don:

(indistinct since they're both talking)

Dean:

Until the Christmas show.

Scott:

The Christmas show.

Don:

It sounds complex.  It's very simple.  It simply is that, where Dean is standing in the Imaging Chamber; it's a vast chamber, miles across, empty, nothing there.  And when he tunes in, or the computer tunes him in to Sam, everything, Sam and everything around Sam appears as a hologram in that chamber.  And to Sam, Al appears as a hologram.  There's nothing else in the chamber.  If he touches something . . . we did that one episode, where he held a music stand.

Deborah:

"Blind Faith."

Don:

And the minute he let go of the music stand, it disappeared.  But if Al is touching something, Sam can also see that.  That's it.  It's just a hologram.  They're both holograms to each other.  One in 1995 . . . .

Deborah:

(sotto voice)  1997, we've been on for two years.

Don:

(with a look at Deborah)  One in whatever year he's in.  It's a device.

Dean:

You said it's a big room.  I like that.  Miles, huh?

Q:

I have a trivial question for Scott and a deep question for anybody who wants to tackle it.  The trivial question is, will Sam ever get that great beard that Scott's character had at the end of Sibling Rivalry?  (a few women scream).  Didn't he look gorgeous like that?  It was great.

Scott:

(managing not to look embarrassed)  I think that would make it hard for the woman roles.  Unless we do another circus show.

Dean:

I loaned him my beard.  And it was just for the one movie.

Q:

And the other question is, it seems that ever since the two episodes we saw tonight, Sam has been a little . . . um . . . cranky compared to past seasons.  He doesn't hear Al out sometimes, he seems to want to get in and get out as soon as possible (audience laughs throughout all of this as the panel looks at Scott).

Don:

(feigned innocence)  We don't write the scripts that way.

Q:

And then he gets involved and gets to care about them.  He always gets to love these people by the time he leaves them.  I was wondering if that was intentional at all.

Don:

We don't write 'em that way (looks pointedly at Scott).  This is a personal thing going on . . . .

Q:

I don't believe that.  He's too good.

Don:

No, there's nothing intentional, really.  I'll have to look at that.

Deborah:

In any good script, you look for conflict.  And sometimes that works as conflict.  I think if it's in there, it's just to give Dean something different to play, or give Scott something different to play, so that we can give them different attitudes about different situations.  It's good scriptwriting.

Scott:

(Shrugs, grins)  I've . . . had my period?

Q:

I have a question for the writers.  Why do you seem so unwilling to go into like a different century or something, stuck in . . .?

Don:

Ah!  It's going to sound crazy, but I truly believe that you leap him into the Civil War, you leap him into Rome, it becomes unbelievable.  It's believable if he's in the '50's or the 60's, because y'know, people have cars, they look a lot alike, they dress the same, they talk the same.  It's more believable that way.  It's the only thing I can tell you.  It's just a personal thing, that's why I did it.  I just felt it would be totally unbelievable, everybody would be looking and going (derisively), "Oh yeah, right, he's wearing a Roman toga, yeah, right."

Q:

Well, I wasn't born in the Fifties, so it's unbelievable for me, too.

Don:

The Fifties?  Well, see, I'm so old it's . . . .

Q:

I have a question for Dean.  Why are you holding your cigar?  It's not lit.

Dean:

It went out.  I can remedy that.  (He lights it.)

Q:

Yeah, since most of my questions have been answered, how would you all (indistinct).  I was wondering, since I didn't catch on at the beginning of the season, when the show first started, how did and why did Sam get chosen to do these leaps?  He was actually alive before, he had his family and his life, how is he doing these leaps, why was he chosen?

Don:

Michael, you want to answer that?  (Zinberg shakes his head.)  OK.

Sam, in the beginning episode, the pilot episode, Sam is a quantum physicist who has developed an experiment called "Quantum Leap," a project, where he's gonna travel in time.  He goes into an accelerator and figures out how to do this, they punch the buttons VOOM he goes flying off into time, but somebody interferes.  "Somebody" could be Time, it could be God, it could be Fate, it depends on what you want to believe it is.  And that person has said, "How dare you go leaping about in time?  I'm gonna grab you and I'm gonna use you.  And I'm gonna use you to do good.  And I'm gonna use you to change some things that went wrong."  And that's the whole concept.  And what he's trying to do is, if he can continue to change things, maybe one of these times, whoever's jerking his string will jerk him back to his own time, and he'll then return to where he . . . .  But in the meantime, his attitude is, "I'm gonna enjoy this."  Because in the very first episode, he got to talk to his father, who was dead.  And he said, "This isn't so bad."  And as Al said at the end of the episode tonight, I'd give anything to be able to talk to my brother again, my sister, my father, mother, the whole thing.

Q:

It's made us all think about, possibly, our own families.

Deborah:

Yeah.

Q:

That's great.  Also, there was an episode at Halloween time, that was great.

Don:

That was written by Chris Ruppenthal . . . is Chris here?

Deborah:

Is Chris here?

Don:

No . . . .

Scott:

We now call him "Ruppenboogie" because of that.

Don:

If he can't be on the stage, he doesn't want to be here.  No, it was written by Chris Ruppenthal, as well as two or three other episodes.

Q:

Yeah, and Stephen King, did he have any kind of . . . .

Don:

No, Stephen King had no input, but we had to get Stephen King's permission to do that.

Deborah:

But he was thrilled.

Q:

It was fun.

Scott:

Yeah, they have the same agent, so it helped (Panel looks at Scott).  They have the same agent, Chris and Stephen King.

Q:

I have two questions.  The first is for Deborah Pratt.  As a journalist making the transition to writing, I was wondering how you made the transition from being an actress to a writer and a producer and some of the difficulties you had.

Deborah:

I got very angry as an actress, as a black actress, as a female actress, because the roles were so limited.  And in my frustration, I was bitching.  And someone said, "Well, change it!"  So I locked myself up in my apartment and I started writing, and I started knocking on doors and using every contact that I have.  I had a friend whose father was a producer at Columbia and I said, "Will you please read this?"  And it was a late-night soap, 1979.  He liked it and he put it into development.  It became a daytime soap.  It didn't sell, but it made me think, "Oh, wow, I can do this."  And then I had a big background in comedy, so I started writing comedy.  And Mr. Bellisario hired me as an actress and I had the chutzpah, or whatever you call it, to come up and say, "I wrote a script for Airwolf, and would you read it?"  And he says, "So you want to be a writer?"  I said, "Yes."  And he said, "Well, this is wrong and this is wrong and this is wrong . . . .  Rewrite it!"

Don:

Page one was OK.

Deborah:

So by about my seventh rewrite, it got made, and I enjoy seeing the magic of a script turned into film.  One of my favorite things.

Don:

Deborah's really good at writing the . . . she really does write wonderful social issues.  She likes to deal with those, she does great on writing the stories about women.  I think you've written three now, where he's leaped in as a woman?

Deborah:

Just two.

Don:

Well, you're writing the third.

Deborah:

Oh, three, yeah.

Don:

You're writing the third right now, where he leaps in as a pregnant woman.  And you've written two where he leaps into a black.

Deborah:

But I wrote fluff, too.  "Sea Bride" was fluff.  That was it.

Q:

Oh, and the second question is for Mr. Stockwell.  I was wondering who designs the clothing that you wear. Is your feeling about that clothing reflected in the fact that you're so blue-collar tonight?  (Dean was wearing jeans and a denim jacket.)

Dean:

Say that last line again?

Q:

Who designs . . . .

Dean:

The last part.

Q:

Are your feelings about that attire reflected in the fact that . . . .

Dean:

No, no.  No.  Well, Al is a character, and I play the character, and he has a costume and a costume designer.  As a matter of fact, when we started this, Don and I had some conversations about it, serious ones, about how the guy would look.  And we decided that we needed someone to help us come up with the concept of something really off-the-wall.  And Don knew of this gentleman, Jean-Pierre Dorleac, who was nominated for an Emmy for a show, he should have won.

Scott:

Should.

Dean:

But did not win it, unfortunately.  And he's the one that puts together all of my outfits.  We started out together, and we went shopping, he made some, and everything, and we got on a frequency where we both knew what it was going to be and we liked it.  And now I don't even have to.  Whatever he sends down, I put on.  Ninety-five percent of the time.  He's good.

Don:

He'll change the tie . . . .

Dean:

He comes up with great stuff.  I pick stuff out myself sometimes, but we understand it and it's consistent, although it's always different.  I'm glad you like it.  But this is no reflection, this is what I go to work in (indistinct, something about "no fun" to wear) the same thing I work in.

Q:

Hi.  My question's been answered, too, but I just wanted to comment on the show.  I think it's great.  I mean, I never watch TV, but this is the best show.  I think a lot of people were nominated for Emmys that should've won.

Scott:

Thank you.

Q:

[Regarding auditions]

Don:

When Scott came in and read, I didn't want to say right on the spot, "Oh, boy, you're the guy!" y'know, and get all excited and then he'd go wild and ask for y'know, eight million dollars.  But he came in, he read, he walked out, and . . . it was the first time I'd met Scott.  And I said, "He's perfect.  This is the guy."  And then when I heard Dean would be interested in doing it, I was really excited, because I . . . Dean had just finished Married To the Mob, out just about that time.  And Dean came in and read and did . . . I mean, he was the character.  He was just there.  And it was like, wonderful.  And it's been that way ever since.  These guys are just great to work with.  Non-star stars.  By that, I mean no attitude on either one of them.  They're just there to work and have fun.  And the whole set reflects it.  It's just a lot of fun.

Q:

Whenever Sam leaps into a woman, how come he never has to kiss a man?

Don:

I think we should . . . .

Deborah:

Came close!

Don:

I think we, did you see . . . .

Deborah:

"Gloria?"  "What Price Gloria?"

Don:

In "Gloria," he came real close!  There's some out-takes there we're not sure about . . . .

Scott:

Aw, come on!  Come on . . . .

Deborah:

I always thought of Scott Bakula as John Wayne in heels.  The guy's really macho.  The first time he came out in "Gloria" in that chiffon dress with the stockings and the pumps.  And I watched him walk like this . . . (she demonstrates).  He gave me a whole new perspective.

Q:

My question's for Dean Stockwell.  First of all, I want to say your work's great, I really enjoy it.

Dean:

Thank you.

Q:

My question is, how difficult was it for you to go from being a child actor to an adult star?  It seems like in Hollywood it's very difficult to make that transition.  I was just curious how difficult it was for you to do that.

Dean:

It was tough.  But, I mean, I don't think anyone in any field of endeavor, or no field of endeavor, has an easy time going from childhood to adulthood.  Y'know, it had its difficulties and I'm grateful that I made it through and I'm doing well.