Sam leaps into a familiar face to many-sex therapist Dr. Ruth Westheimer, as we have the only episode of the series where Sam leaps into the life of a famous person-who is there to play herself in the waiting room talking to Al.
I'll give the writers credit for doing something different, but I have to deduct points for a really predictable and dull episode. I deduct more for the repeated use of language involving sex that made this episode deserve a warning for parents who might usually watch the show with their older children that this is one in which they should send the kids out of the room before viewing.
What we saw was Sam suddenly trying to be "Dr. Ruth" on her radio show discussing intimate sexual matters. Two people running/producing the show seemed to hate each other and since one was male and the other female, we knew before Al told us Sam was there to be matchmaker to them that they would fall in love and either get married or be headed for marriage by show's end. Indeed that is what Al told Sam and that became a major subplot. "Hollywood" thinks every married couple hated each other when they first met, or shortly after.
Sam thinks a caller to the show, a young woman, Annie, who says her boss is pressuring her into having sex is the person he is there to help. He gets to meet her and advise her, but cannot get her to quit her job soon enough. He meets the man and he, predictably, tells the opposite story about the young woman pressuring him, even though he's happily married. Sam doesn't buy it, and we viewers are only given a few minutes to consider who is telling the truth before it is proven who is lying.
For my part, the Annie plot was not interesting. She tells "Dr. Ruth" that her boss is really pressuring her to have sex with him and that she is afraid he will hurt her, yet argues when Sam (Ruth) tells her to quit her job and get away from him. She is supposedly a secretary for this attorney and she wants to go to law school-suggesting she's no dummy. Yet even though she's afraid of this guy hurting her, and even though she could likely get another job with any of the millions of lawyers somewhere in the country (she had no roots to New York where she had recently moved to) she didn't want to leave his employ. It would have been different if she said, "Oh, I can handle him. He'd never do anything to hurt me." With judgment like that, I cannot see her making it as an attorney.
There is a second subplot involving Al getting counseling in the waiting room from Dr. Ruth, who tries to figure out why he has had five failed marriages and help him with his longtime girlfriend, Tina, who we have heard Al speak of for years. We actually see conversations too-long between Al and Ruth with her giving all sorts of general, obvious advice about how Al needs to be more open with Tina, and with himself about his feelings for her.
One element that the series never addressed comes into play. I observed one scene where Annie is talking to Dr. Ruth. Ruth is famous for being quite short, I believe right about 5 feet tall. Yet Annie, a woman of average height, has to tilt her head up to look Dr. Ruth in the eye. If she sees Sam as Dr. Ruth-the premise of Quantum-leaping-then she should be seeing a rather short woman. I guess it's a good thing Sam never leaped into a 3-year-old and we had to see the mother lift her little one into a car seat that seemed to us to be rather large.
Just for the humor of it, they had a couple of scenes where Sam is trying to give advice and Dr. Ruth's voice and accent takes over instead of his voice. They also wanted us to enjoy Dr. Ruth physically outfighting Annie's boss, including a mirror image that seems to show the doctor exhibiting some martial art skills.
There was far more sex talk than was necessary, and it was a deterrent to the show. It may not have been "R" rated graphic, but it was definitely too specific for the millions of 9-14 year-olds who surely watched this series, with or without their parents around.
So we have a main plot that has the protagonist doing things that make no sense-staying with her boss, whom she fears, and two boring sex advice plots, one involving Sam and two colleagues who fight about everything which "proves" they love each other, and the other involving Al and Dr. Ruth, who stands, I believe, as this series' only real "Guest Star" playing herself. When you add up the plusses and minuses, I think the fair score here is a 4, which means I'll be skipping it next time I view these DVDs.
I'll give the writers credit for doing something different, but I have to deduct points for a really predictable and dull episode. I deduct more for the repeated use of language involving sex that made this episode deserve a warning for parents who might usually watch the show with their older children that this is one in which they should send the kids out of the room before viewing.
What we saw was Sam suddenly trying to be "Dr. Ruth" on her radio show discussing intimate sexual matters. Two people running/producing the show seemed to hate each other and since one was male and the other female, we knew before Al told us Sam was there to be matchmaker to them that they would fall in love and either get married or be headed for marriage by show's end. Indeed that is what Al told Sam and that became a major subplot. "Hollywood" thinks every married couple hated each other when they first met, or shortly after.
Sam thinks a caller to the show, a young woman, Annie, who says her boss is pressuring her into having sex is the person he is there to help. He gets to meet her and advise her, but cannot get her to quit her job soon enough. He meets the man and he, predictably, tells the opposite story about the young woman pressuring him, even though he's happily married. Sam doesn't buy it, and we viewers are only given a few minutes to consider who is telling the truth before it is proven who is lying.
For my part, the Annie plot was not interesting. She tells "Dr. Ruth" that her boss is really pressuring her to have sex with him and that she is afraid he will hurt her, yet argues when Sam (Ruth) tells her to quit her job and get away from him. She is supposedly a secretary for this attorney and she wants to go to law school-suggesting she's no dummy. Yet even though she's afraid of this guy hurting her, and even though she could likely get another job with any of the millions of lawyers somewhere in the country (she had no roots to New York where she had recently moved to) she didn't want to leave his employ. It would have been different if she said, "Oh, I can handle him. He'd never do anything to hurt me." With judgment like that, I cannot see her making it as an attorney.
There is a second subplot involving Al getting counseling in the waiting room from Dr. Ruth, who tries to figure out why he has had five failed marriages and help him with his longtime girlfriend, Tina, who we have heard Al speak of for years. We actually see conversations too-long between Al and Ruth with her giving all sorts of general, obvious advice about how Al needs to be more open with Tina, and with himself about his feelings for her.
One element that the series never addressed comes into play. I observed one scene where Annie is talking to Dr. Ruth. Ruth is famous for being quite short, I believe right about 5 feet tall. Yet Annie, a woman of average height, has to tilt her head up to look Dr. Ruth in the eye. If she sees Sam as Dr. Ruth-the premise of Quantum-leaping-then she should be seeing a rather short woman. I guess it's a good thing Sam never leaped into a 3-year-old and we had to see the mother lift her little one into a car seat that seemed to us to be rather large.
Just for the humor of it, they had a couple of scenes where Sam is trying to give advice and Dr. Ruth's voice and accent takes over instead of his voice. They also wanted us to enjoy Dr. Ruth physically outfighting Annie's boss, including a mirror image that seems to show the doctor exhibiting some martial art skills.
There was far more sex talk than was necessary, and it was a deterrent to the show. It may not have been "R" rated graphic, but it was definitely too specific for the millions of 9-14 year-olds who surely watched this series, with or without their parents around.
So we have a main plot that has the protagonist doing things that make no sense-staying with her boss, whom she fears, and two boring sex advice plots, one involving Sam and two colleagues who fight about everything which "proves" they love each other, and the other involving Al and Dr. Ruth, who stands, I believe, as this series' only real "Guest Star" playing herself. When you add up the plusses and minuses, I think the fair score here is a 4, which means I'll be skipping it next time I view these DVDs.
