Scott Bakula: Dr. Sam Beckett

The Leap Back - June 15, 1945

Dr. Sam Beckett

[Al has been knocked unconscious by Clifford]
Sam: Come on, Al, you gotta wake up!
Ziggy: I just explained, Doctor. Admiral Calavicci cannot regain consciousness for another 8.7...
Sam: Damn it, Ziggy, tell me somethin' I don't know!
Ziggy: Tina's having an affair with Gushie.
Sam: A way to save Al and Suzanne!
Ziggy: Stop Clifford from pushing the car over the cliff.
Sam: How? He's in 1945, I'm in 1999.
Ziggy: I didn't say it was easy.

Sam: Ziggy?
Ziggy: Yes, Dr. Beckett?
Sam: You've made brilliant theoretical hypotheses with minimal data over the last four years.
Ziggy: That's true.
Sam: I'd like you to do one now.
Ziggy: I don't think so, Doctor.
Dr. Donna Eleese: Why not?
Ziggy: I'm dealing with too many data-limiting factors: the Admiral, this Captain Tom Jarret he's leapt into, a year no one had the foresight to preload into my memory banks. Actually, I was doing quite well absorbing the year until Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. It depressed me. Try me in 11.6 hours.
Sam: What if the Admiral doesn't have 11.6 hours?
Ziggy: I believe your brain is still slightly magnafluxed, Dr. Beckett, or you'd remember I never experience guilt. That's a flaw found only in human computers. Good night, Doctor. Have fun, you two.
Sam: Ziggy!
Dr. Donna Eleese: It won't do any good.
Sam: Why did I give him Barbara Streisand's ego?

Ziggy: Why do human beings die for love?
Sam: Check Shakespeare.
Ziggy: Thank you, Doctor.
Sam: Not now!
Ziggy: Why not? With a million-gigabyte capacity, I'm quite capable of rubbing my tummy, patting my head and doing a trillion floating point operations at once.
Sam: Because I don't have time to get into a philosophical discussion.
Ziggy: I've finished reading Shakespeare. I see your point.

[after switching places with Sam, Al is for once the one leaping into the body of Captain Tom Jarret, a war hero]
Mike: You look terrific! Considering.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Considering? Considering what?
Mike: What? Tom, you just spent three years in a POW camp. They didn't feed you much, did they?
Admiral Al Calavicci: Bowl of rice a day.
Mike: Germans fed you rice?
Admiral Al Calavicci: The VC.
Mike: VC?
Sam: Al, Al, you're not Admiral Al Calavicci; you're Captain Tom somebody, and you better start acting like him until Ziggy tells us what you're here to change.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Oh. How?
Sam: How?
Admiral Al Calavicci: [typing on his dead hand-link] There's nobody home.
Sam: Don't look at me, look at him!
Mike: Everybody's home. They're all still asleep. Is that some new kind of walkie-talkie?
Sam: Uh, yeah, yeah, yyyou're testing it for the government. It's top secret.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Oh, yes, this is top secret, and I'm evaluating it for the Pentagon.
Sam: That's good. Now, put it away.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Put it away.
Mike: Just got liberated from a POW camp, and they've already given you a new duty assignment.
Admiral Al Calavicci: It's just like the Navy.
Sam: Army.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Army.

Sam: I know how to open the chamber door. I designed Ziggy with a back-door code, so that I could override any command, even one dealing with catastrophic failure. All we have to do is get the code to Gushie.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Oh, well, that should be easy enough. All we have to do is wait half a century.
Sam: Well, in a sense, yes, but for us, it'll be instantaneous. Now, we've gotta figure out what the date is where I'm at today.
Admiral Al Calavicci: September 18th, 1999.
Sam: Your Swiss-cheesed brain remembers today's date?
Admiral Al Calavicci: My fifth wife is suing me for more alimony, and that's the court date. There's some days you don't forget.
Sam: Okay. Okay. We deliver a letter to Gushie on September the 18th, nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Who's gonna wait 54 years to deliver a letter?
Sam: The post office. And my dad's lawyer, Doc Krosnov. We mail Doc Krosnov a letter, right? With, say, a hundred bucks.
Admiral Al Calavicci: For the stamp.
Sam: No, no, no, no, no, it's 1945. $100 will do very nicely. We mail him a letter, with $100 and instructions to have the code delivered to Gushie on September the 18th, nineteen-hundred and ninety-nine.
Admiral Al Calavicci: It could work.
Sam: It's gotta work.

Sam: Ziggy?
Ziggy: Yeeeeessssss?
Sam: Do you have enough...
Ziggy: Data to give you a reasonably accurate projection as to why Admiral Calavicci has leapt into Crown Point, Indiana, in the year 1945?
Sam: Yes.
Ziggy: No.
Sam: Do you have any data on Admiral Calavicci?
Ziggy: He'll kiss the girls and make them cry.
Tina: [sighing] Oh, ain't that the truth.

Admiral Al Calavicci: Do you have any Sweet 'n Low? Or Equal?
Kelly: Sweet 'n low? Equal?
Sam: Oh, no, no, no, no. They didn't have any artificial sweetner in 1945. Okay? But...
[he looks at Kelly]
Sam: ...boy, did they have women with big kazooms!

[Clifford has just learned that his fiance Suzanne is now going to marry Tom, i.e. Al]
Clifford White: You can't be serious. We're to be married in two days! What are my mother and father gonna say about that?
Sam: Cancel the church, cancel the reception, cancel the tux, the cake...

Sam: The lightning strike could've been misread by Ziggy as a catastrophic collapse of the radium accelerator ring surrounding the imaging chamber. Ziggy would've automatically sealed the chamber to protect the project from radium radiation.
Admiral Al Calavicci: But when they realize that the ring didn't collapse, then they're gonna open the door!
Sam: Well, see, once the door has been sealed, it can't be reopened by Ziggy until the radiation half-life of the radium ring has... expired.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Why do I feel this is gonna be a big number?
Sam: Well, no, no, not in cosmic terms. See, it's, it's, uh... 1,600 years.

[Suzanne is in a passionate embrace with Al]
Clifford White: Suzanne Elsinger! What are you doing?
Sam: Suckin' face, pal, with my buddy here. It's very big in the '60s, '70s and '80s.

[when Suzanne - after some hanky-panky with Al - goes for a whiz, Sam follows her into the bushes]
Admiral Al Calavicci: Sam!
Sam: [returns] What am I doing?
Admiral Al Calavicci: You dog!
Sam: Well, it's your filthy mind!
Admiral Al Calavicci: Yeah, well, I want my mind back! These choir boy thoughts are drivin' me nuts!
Sam: Well, they didn't seem to stop you a few minutes ago.

Sam: Oh, my God. Your brain's Swiss-cheesed.
Admiral Al Calavicci: My brain is fine.
Sam: No it's not, the leap Swiss-cheesed it.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Stop saying that!
Sam: It's nothing to be ashamed of! Do you remember the first time I leaped? I couldn't even remember my own name.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Al. My name is Al.
Sam: [after waiting expectantly for a few seconds] Al what?
Admiral Al Calavicci: [laughs awkwardly] You think I've forgotten my last name?
Sam: [laughs and smiles] I'm about to bet on it.
Admiral Al Calavicci: Well, you'd lose. It's Beckett. Al Beckett. Ha!
Sam: It's Calavicci. Al Calavicci. HA!
[laughs]
Admiral Al Calavicci: [very confused] Calavicci? It's not Beckett?
Sam: No!
Admiral Al Calavicci: Well, then, who the hell is Beckett?
Sam: Me. I'm Beckett.
Admiral Al Calavicci: [yells] GUSHIE!