The New Quantum Leap Is Turning Into A Disaster
The Quantum Leap revival already lost 500,000 viewers between its first two episodes.
This article is more than 2 years old
The new Quantum Leap revival series has finally premiered, but things are already not looking good. According to recently revealed Nielsen ratings, the reboot series has already lost hundreds of thousands of viewers between the two weeks it has been on the air. Based on the first Monday it premiered, the series saw 3.348 million viewers with a rating of 0.47, and the second week saw those numbers plummet to 2.772 million viewers and a rating of 0.34.
What makes matters worse, is that critics and audiences are also similar in their reviews of the series on Rotten Tomatoes. Quantum Leap currently holds a 47% critic approval rating and a poorer 42% audience rating. The new series is meant to be a direct sequel to the original series, though many are stating that it fails to live up to the original in many ways. Scott Bakula recently revealed that he was not going to be part of this revival series, though his character Samuel Beckett is mentioned heavily in the series, and we think he could have seen this coming.
To be fair, we could see Quantum Leap becoming more favorable as the season trudges on, as the above ratings are only based on the two episodes that have been given thus far. There are plenty of shows that come out and perform mediocre while the writing of the entire story needs to be flushed out as the season goes on, but these are troubling numbers right now.
Quantum Leap also takes over the 10 PM EST slot that was once inhabited by Ordinary Joe, which has been canceled. Ordinary Joe premiered with 3.85 million viewers and a rating of 0.52 but divebombed to 2.69 million viewers by the second episode and a meager 1.41 million by its final episode. It could be that the time slot Quantum Leap is in, is not exactly the slot that people want to be in.
The NFL’s Monday Night Football program also airs at that time, so it could be that Quantum Leap is just not in a great spot, as most people are watching the MNF game. In fact, the Bills vs Titans MNF saw 10 million viewers come in with a 2.8 rating. Most of the people watching anything at that time slot are usually tuning into the game, so Quantum Leap might just be a terrible time slot currently.
Either way, Quantum Leap has released two episodes right now, and the consensus is that audiences are not connecting with this revival series in the way that NBC had hoped. The original series that starred Scott Bakula was heralded for its themes of empathy, inclusion, and love. That is something that this new series will need to replicate to drive home how special the story of a time traveler that lives another life is.
Quantum Leap might be on its way to being canceled if these numbers still plummet, which is sad news for Raymond Lee and the rest of the cast and crew. Hopefully, the show just got off to a rocky start, and there are better numbers coming soon.
