The Color of Truth - August 8, 1955

This is probably one of the best remembered episodes of Quantum Leap. It was also shown just after the Oscar winning Driving Miss Daisy was released in the cinemas.

Sam leaps into the body of Jesse Tyler in the Deep South in 1955. Sam neglects to check whose body he has leapt into and sits in the chair at a diner.

It is a whites only diner and Jesse is an old black chauffeur for elderly Miz Trafford whose food order he was supposed to pick up.

Sam's actions arouses racial hatred and his family is targeted. Al thinks that Sam is there to prevent Miz Trafford being involved in a car accident, but Sam gets involved in civil rights.

I guess that the producers thought that Quantum Leap could be used as a history lesson and highlight prejudice and racial hatred in the past. The youthful me who watched this when the episode was first broadcast would had agreed with them.

The older more cynical and jaded me these days, less so. I did think the writing was clunky. Sam Beckett is supposed to be so clever yet he has zero knowledge of segregation in 1950s America. Drinking from a whites only fountain is just plain unforgivable and led to his granddaughter nearly being killed.

Of course the other reason why i'm so caustic is. For years I have heard sci fi fans going on about how progressive shows like classic Star Trek and Quantum Leap were. How they used stories to highlight issues of race and sex.

Yet a vocal section of the same fans never stop going on about political correctness gone mad in current shows like Star Trek: Discovery or a female led Doctor Who.

These so called fans are happy to ride on the coattails from the risks Roddenberry or Bellisario took in the past.

I love this episode which I have just watched yet again having decided to rewatch all of Quantum Leap.

It highlights the inequality of the era in a sensitive way and it is shocking when you think this was only 70 years ago.

A great episode in a great series and well worth watching.