[00:00:00] Speaker A: You welcome back, fellow travelers, and please.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Help me in welcoming back the one and only Deborah Pratt. Deborah, thank you so much for joining me today.
[00:00:09] Speaker C: Oh, always, Sam. It's always a pleasure to be here.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Well, I really appreciate it. It's been a lot of fun the past few times we've been able to get together, and I'm looking forward to talking more about warrior One. The Kickstarter is now over $34,000, so just a little under 10,000 shy of hitting that goal, crossing the finish line.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: How are you feeling about things, nail biter?
[00:00:36] Speaker C: I think the biggest issue is, I mean, the true deep fans have come to the table to support me and gamble on a new intellectual property.
I'm looking for the audience for this. I mean, it's a wonderful story about a young girl in the future that I pulled from the Vision Quest books, but her story is like a simplification and a journey into the Vision Quest world.
This is a world where we've survived the great quakes of 2029. We have unified as a world. Atlanta Rose, South America sank, but we domed it so it's underwater city.
I mean, it's a cool world to be in. And we put our genetics into animals, and we created these alternate species, and their humanity is so new to them, they forgot.
Sorry. They remembered the powers that we've forgotten, and they start to teach them back to us. So this young girl has Mastapo, who's in the main books as a mentor, and she's kind of in her head, and she's remembering the lessons she's learned in this story. And then we put our genetics into machines, and they become sentient, because now they have human genetics. They're biological androids, biodroids called the Black Guard.
And they look at our history, and they look at our history of violence and hatred and corruption and all the bad things that we were trying in this new utopian society to weed out and eradicate. And they just felt like we were horrible stewards of the planet, and they start to destroy us, annihilate us. And that's kind of where this story begins. And then, Jeddah, a story is, what do you do when you're 17? You've got a mother and a father and a younger brother. You've led a protected life, and suddenly that all changes in an afternoon.
And she's got to learn how to live on her own, to survive, to find water and food. And I'm writing this to inspire, I think, young people who live in the world today, who have so much to face in this coming future. And how do you find courage within yourself? How do you find strength and fortitude and the determination? Because she's got to pick up a weapon. She's got to learn how to use it. She's got to kill or be killed. And most important, she's got to find her family.
And in order to do that, she needs to become a leader. And I think that's so missing in our world today. So the book and the story itself have this wonderful underpinning. And as I've told this story to people, I have one girl who started to cry. She was about 25, and she said, I have to read this book. I have to play this game because I want to do this game. And there's a series, and the series idea is pretty unique, but I'm not talking about that yet.
Pretty unique when we show some of the pictures. But I actually, years ago, shot a short film called Warrior One.
Troyan. I don't think she'd even graduated college. And I said, do me a favor and be in this short film. And she was wonderful. We shot it.
It was about 15 minutes. It was a series of, I don't want to say webisodes that I was thinking of way back 15 years ago could be that much, but feels like.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: That much to me, anyway.
[00:04:27] Speaker C: It won seven awards in this one film festival that I put it in, and I thought, God, okay, I just need better graphic. Not better graphics, but better CGI. And I said, I'm going to put it on the shelf and I'll come back and do it. And I think if the graphic novel takes off, I want to go back and revisit that film. So I've got this found footage of Troy and Belisario for all you pretty little liar fans.
[00:04:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And they'll be seeing that photo right now, actually, of Troyan in the costume.
I'll put that up. But it is Fascinating to see sort of the early genesis of the world. And these, you know, Troyan wasn't the only one to play a part in that, because you played a part in that as well. You used yourself kind of as a model for this right now. I'll share this image from Airwolf, actually, of you in the white jumpsuit that is very similar to the one that Jetta wears on the COVID Can you talk a little bit about that and the inspiration behind using that kind of idea, that template?
[00:05:36] Speaker C: Well, yes. So Marilla, who was this Uber genius, I think she had an IQ of over 200, was the pilot, and sidekick to Archangel on the Bearwolf series, and it's kind of what started my career as a writer. I wrote an episode called Fallen angel for that show. Of course, my first draft had me saving everybody.
But if you look at me in that character, in that white jumpsuit, because the Archangel always wore white, so I always wore white, and I learned how to fly a helicopter, which was way cool, and I got to fly Airwolf. It was like driving a 18 wheeler.
It's a lot of machines to lift off the ground and land.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I could imagine.
[00:06:29] Speaker C: And I had a great time in that character. I liked the fact that she was smart and beautiful and witty, and.
[00:06:40] Speaker D: I.
[00:06:41] Speaker C: Thought it was a really good show, especially those first couple of.
Then, you know, Jeannie Bruce came in, and I thought she did a really good job.
But I liked Marilla, and I think a lot of people liked her. And when I was looking at the artwork that was coming in, I said, just make her a younger version of me. Here's an example.
What she should look like and what she should wear.
She's got way more hair. I want her hair.
[00:07:15] Speaker D: Anyway.
[00:07:16] Speaker C: I'm very excited about it. And then that's it. When Troyan did the part, she's got all this great mermaid hair. And so I think I incorporated the two of us together.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Well, I'm so pleased that you shared those reference images with me so that I can share them with everybody now, because being able to see that and then hear what you're talking about and then also see the images of Jedi and see the COVID for Warrior One, and then also some of the interiors. Speaking of which, you mentioned Mastopo earlier, and there's this wonderful page that you shared both with and without dialogue. So I'll share the one without dialogue right now.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: Can you talk a little bit about.
[00:08:04] Speaker B: What it means? Because it is very much kind of a part of that hero's journey. Everybody kind of has that mentor figure and talk a little bit about Mastopo's role in Jeddah's life and the importance of these flashbacks for her.
[00:08:18] Speaker C: Well, she never thought she was good, but she qualified to go into tutelage with Mastapo, and Mastapo is a splicer, and her human genetics, as a matter of fact, her mother was one of the first splicers. So she's at a very high level of what are called the Visionistic arts, and they are really based in the history of human abilities. So telepathy and astral projection and the ability to manipulate water. So when you look at, for example, Jesus Christ in the Bible, his ability to manifest water into wine. So you're changing molecular structure, his ability to walk on water.
[00:09:03] Speaker D: Those are all the things know.
[00:09:07] Speaker C: When I was writing the book, I.
[00:09:08] Speaker D: Thought, well, Jesus Christ said, do as I do.
Well, he meant everybody.
[00:09:15] Speaker C: So we all had that capability and.
[00:09:18] Speaker D: Had government, religion, whatever, gotten in the.
[00:09:22] Speaker C: Way and said, no, only Jesus can do that. I thought, wow, what would happen if we could do that? If you could read somebody's aura and.
[00:09:30] Speaker D: See if they were lying to you or if they were a healer because.
[00:09:37] Speaker C: They carried a blue aura or a green aura.
[00:09:40] Speaker D: So I actually have a book that.
[00:09:43] Speaker C: I'm building out of the Bible, 80 page Bible that I wrote when I created warrior. I mean, when I created the Vision Quest Book of series.
[00:09:52] Speaker D: But it's really about, again, inspiration.
[00:09:56] Speaker C: Let's go back to our own powers. These don't have to be superpowers, but that's not to say you cannot guide.
[00:10:03] Speaker D: Them, but you are guided to use them for good. And that's where I think we will.
[00:10:11] Speaker C: Evolve as a species. So there's a whole underpinning in the Vision Quest books and will be in the warrior One books of become a.
[00:10:19] Speaker D: Warrior in that sense that we all have this genetic code in us that we can recall.
[00:10:32] Speaker C: So it's a remembering, and I call them the knowings that we all know how to do this. And I'll give you a weird example of it, and that is, how many times have you thought of a friend or somebody that you haven't seen in a while and they're on your mind, they're on your mind, and all of a sudden the phone rings and it's.
[00:10:50] Speaker D: Them and they go, oh, wow, I.
[00:10:52] Speaker C: Was just thinking about you.
We have telepathy as an inner knowing and how many other things. I mean, when you feel something and.
[00:11:03] Speaker D: You'Re trepidacious about it, and you usually.
[00:11:07] Speaker C: Walk this one path, and this one day you decide, I'm not going to go that way, and you go another way, and some disaster happens in the way you would have gone.
Because we've forgotten how to listen to ourselves. We've forgotten how to project that of ourselves. And those are the things that the vision quest and warrior One, I think.
[00:11:28] Speaker D: If we tap into it on a.
[00:11:31] Speaker C: Collective consciousness level, I think it'll all come back to us. You know what they say about if.
[00:11:37] Speaker D: One monkey learns a craft, all of.
[00:11:41] Speaker C: Them learn it simultaneously. Those abilities exist. So the question is, how do we come together as a collective? So that's why? I'm looking for the audience that's open.
[00:11:53] Speaker D: To evolving and connecting, not just with each other, but with our higher selves.
[00:12:00] Speaker C: And our higher powers.
[00:12:03] Speaker D: And the fact that I've kind of.
[00:12:05] Speaker C: Made artificial intelligence a little bit of an enemy. The fact is they will drive us to either annihilation or they will drive us to our higher selves. And so I think the books are.
[00:12:16] Speaker D: Phenomenally relevant to where we're going and what's going to happen next.
[00:12:24] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: I love a lot about that. And we talked a little bit last time in particular about technology and AI and the effects that it has. But one thing that I wanted to mention, the idea of this collective consciousness and the idea that it's something that we already have and it's something that can bring us together is something that's so appealing, especially right now, when you see so many of these deep divisions in the world and people fighting and.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: Dying for things, that if we could.
[00:12:53] Speaker B: Just sit down and have a conversation and connect on some level, a lot of this could be avoided.
And I think that you write really beautifully in that Mastopos scene that the first door in is emotion. And I really enjoy the notion of.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: That because in so many other mediums.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Or other stories that are similar to that hero's journey or whatnot, usually emotion.
[00:13:19] Speaker A: Is something that is either it comes.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: At the end or it's something that has to be excised. Like Jedi are told, like, no emotion, no fear, no know. And this is something that's very much the opposite of that, that it's like to embrace the emotions and that that's your first way in. It doesn't come at the very know.
Like in the Matrix, when Neo has to be told that I can't remember the character's name, that Carrie Ammoss's character loves him to become the one.
[00:13:46] Speaker C: That sort of thing.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Yes, Trinity, yeah. Thank you.
When Trinity says, you're in good company, but I just love that.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: That's kind of the first step in.
[00:14:00] Speaker B: Could you talk a little bit about that? And not only what that means to you for us as human beings, but also what that means to the story.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: Well, I think we have been detached.
[00:14:11] Speaker D: From our emotion of love.
[00:14:15] Speaker C: That's the big emotion we live, and we are being trained to live in fear. So there really are only two emotions. One is love, one is fear. And if you act out of love, a whole other array of possibilities open. If you act out of fear, that direction is down a deep, dark rabbit hole. And right now, we are being manipulated as far as I'm concerned, to act only out of fear, and that leads to hatred, and that leads to war, and that leads to mistrust and all the negative things that are happening. We have to get back to love. Like the Beatle said, love is the answer. And if we love ourselves, which is the other thing, you're taught to hate yourself for whatever it is, we've forgotten how to be human.
That's the big journey in this story for each of us. How can we be the best human that we can be, the highest and most evolved level of humanity that we can be? If we can get together on that, on a consciousness level, there is enough food, there's enough water, there's enough land, there's enough everything. But it's the greed that has made people say, well, no, I have to have all of this. I have to earn. What did Bob Eisner, Iger, whatever he said, $79,000 a day so that I can show you I'm more powerful than you are.
God, if we ever could get over that, there's a place for us all. But because people want to control it, because they have to. It's like he who dies with the most toys wins. When you die, none of it matters.
None of it matters because we're going to another level, whether it's up or down or whatever you believe.
So what I'm trying to do is connect the spirituality within all of us. And if you look at Chetta A, she is of mixed persons. I wanted her to look like everybody in the world so that you could see yourself in her, so she has Mastapo to shake her and remind her of her potential. And bot, the little robot that's in the story, she reads Jetta's emotions to say, you're feeling sad or you're know, these are irrelevant emotions to your survival situation.
Don't be sad.
And then says, do these things.
Put a shield around yourself.
Change your molecules from positive to negative so that you are invisible. All of these things.
Okay, maybe I'm crazy. I believe are possible, but I think it has to come on a collective conscious level so that if people find this book, and truly billions of people find this book, I think we can stop the evil that's encroaching on this perfect planet. This is paradise.
And we can work together so that there's equality and equity in everything we do, instead of just taking what the Earth has given us for free and saying, oh, well, this is mine. If you want it, you've got to pay.
Well, what if you didn't have to? What if it was a shared mentality so that everybody had enough, and then we become enough, and then all these other aliens that are out here in this freaking giant universe go, oh, my God, they finally got it, those humans.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Let's go talk to them, right? Absolutely. Yeah.
They won't be scared of us or scared of what they might have to do to us in order to hem us in. They'll realize that we can coexist.
I think that's beautiful.
[00:18:23] Speaker A: And obviously, it's something that was evident.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Even in Quantum Leap and the classic series. And one of the reasons why I think it means so much to me to this day, is being able to learn some of those lessons and learn those lessons about equity and inclusion and harmony and being able to.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Sometimes Sam had to result to fisticuffs, but for the most part, there always seemed to be a better way out.
And I've talked about this many times. It's one of the reasons why thou shalt not is one of my favorite episodes, because in the end, Sam is willing to paint himself as a target of a violent outburst, as opposed to being the one that has to resort to violence in any way to make a point.
But we talked a little bit last time about the architecture and some of the inspirations behind that. But there's this beautiful page, and I'll share that right now. And I think I might have actually shared this one last time, but I wanted to do it again because this one is free of dialogue, and it's wonderful because it gives you this great window into what the world looks like, the Atlantean world. I can't make out the last bit of text there.
[00:19:38] Speaker C: You're looking at that blue purple building.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Okay. That's what I thought it was, but I wasn't 100% sure. Yeah. So it's the Atlantean World fair, and it's this beautiful. We've got flying cars, we've got these beautiful buildings, these spires, all of this sort of stuff, when creating the world and creating the architecture for the world, and especially dialoguing with an artist about that. Can you talk a little bit about that process? Because I'm fascinated by how that works, going from a creator's head and then relaying that to an artist and then having it Come out of their pen.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Regardless of the inspirations that lay behind that.
[00:20:10] Speaker C: It's a really interesting story, because before Will Wilhelm, who was the amazing artist behind the drawings in Warrior One, I had spoken to other artists so I have other videos and images and world maps, the whole thing. This goes deep anyway. But I'm talking to Willville, him who's brilliant. And I said, the world that they live in, think of it as if you took a design for a building and you planted it in the Earth and the Earth grew it, and people went. And one artist said to me, oh, you mean like Antonio Gowdy, who, if you know anything about his architecture, it looks like it grew from the Earth. And I'd never heard of Antonio Gowdy when I first had this conversation. And literally I got on a plane. Troy and I got on a plane, we went to Spain and we looked at his artwork. And when I saw the sacred cathedral, the family sacred cathedral, I think it's titled.
I said, yeah, La Sagra. Thank you. Well said in Spanish as well.
I like that. That was it. So if you look at a lot of the drawings, they're very Earth grown. I don't have to put it any other way because I wanted us to.
[00:21:40] Speaker D: Be more part of the Earth.
[00:21:43] Speaker C: It's like we're genetically placed with the Earth anyway.
[00:21:46] Speaker D: Our carbon fibers are from this planet. We are this Earth.
[00:21:51] Speaker C: It is us. Which is why we need to respect.
[00:21:54] Speaker D: It before it's too late.
[00:21:58] Speaker C: And the answers are all there. I mean, the fact that we're having.
[00:22:02] Speaker D: Sea rise right now and there are.
[00:22:06] Speaker C: A combustible, or not combustible, but electronic batteries that can be derived from seawater, so we don't have to use fossil fuels anymore.
[00:22:19] Speaker D: The tech is here, it's here.
[00:22:23] Speaker C: We could stop the elevation of the temperature of this planet by just everybody.
[00:22:28] Speaker D: Switching to seawater batteries so that it.
[00:22:31] Speaker C: Causes the electricity to drive the cars. It could be done overnight. It could be.
[00:22:39] Speaker D: But there are people who would not be making $79,000 a day, right?
[00:22:46] Speaker C: And so they're not going to give it up. And people like Tesla, who wanted to.
[00:22:50] Speaker D: Give away free electricity, got duped by general electric, who said, tear up your.
[00:22:57] Speaker C: Contract, we can't afford to pay you residuals. And the man died poor. And he was probably one of the.
[00:23:03] Speaker D: Greatest minds of all time.
And that's where we have to shift.
[00:23:10] Speaker C: We have to see the equality in each other. And I always joke to say, it won't be until some alien with three heads and twelve arms comes down.
[00:23:19] Speaker D: Everybody looks human, friend, and goes, I'm like him, right?
[00:23:30] Speaker B: Well, I think that obviously the story with Jetta's parentage and even seeing early on her in the car with her brother and her father and her mother. And seeing these different skin tones and these people living together, it is absolutely a statement of equality and inclusivity, which I think is incredibly important and remains important at a time when I know there are some people that would like.
[00:23:56] Speaker A: To think that it's all been solved.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: And there's no need for any sort of change or growth in any direction.
But recently, to shift Gears for a.
[00:24:06] Speaker A: Moment, recently, the Quantum Leap revival, the.
[00:24:10] Speaker B: Latest episode, one night in Koreatown, touched on the uprising in Los Angeles in 1992. And I had the opportunity to talk with Benjamin Rabb and Derek Hughes. And Ben and Derek are great and had been on the show before for paging Dr. Song, and it was really great to be able to speak with them about this episode. And I felt like I learned a lot not only speaking with them, but also getting the chance to speak with the director, Tamika Miller. And one of the things that was lovely is in speaking with.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: Speaking with Ben and Derek, even last.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: Time around, for paging.
I mean, everyone seems to love you, which I can only imagine why.
But even Tamika was talking about how it was wonderful to have your presence there and how she learned from you as well. Little things here and there. And Ben and Derek specifically name checked the episode. Again, one of my favorite episodes of.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Quantum Leap, black on White on Fire.
[00:25:03] Speaker B: As being an inspiration for them when they were working on this episode. That was kind of for them. That was the template that was where they had to start in order to craft this episode. And while one night in Koreatown ends.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Up being a very different episode from.
[00:25:16] Speaker B: Black on White on Fire, you can absolutely see that connective tissue.
Now, I've seen Ben had posted some behind the scenes pictures on social media. Obviously, you were there for some of the shooting and filming of that episode. Can you talk a little bit about your experience, not only seeing that episode be made, but also hearing Ben and Derek and Tamika talk about you being an inspiration for them and your work, inspiring them to do this work on this.
[00:25:48] Speaker D: Well, they're all wonderful.
[00:25:50] Speaker C: But I have to say, when I saw the breakdown, I thought, oh, this is a really interesting take.
And I went back and again looked at the research of the fact that.
[00:26:04] Speaker D: Before the Watts riots erupted, there was.
[00:26:08] Speaker C: A Korean woman who owned a shop.
[00:26:10] Speaker D: Who shot a young black girl for no reason, who got some small fine.
[00:26:17] Speaker C: And know diverted sentence, but it angered the black community.
And again, you go back to the black community and the fact that because of redlining, they weren't allowed to buy.
[00:26:30] Speaker D: Property to create their own homes, to.
[00:26:34] Speaker C: Create income apartments and all the other things.
[00:26:39] Speaker D: So the Koreans came in, and they.
[00:26:44] Speaker C: Were not restricted in the same way. And then they kind of learned this.
[00:26:50] Speaker D: Hatred, and it exploded.
[00:26:53] Speaker C: And I thought, wow, this is a.
[00:26:55] Speaker D: Whole other lens to look at why these things happen.
[00:27:00] Speaker C: And then when I got the script.
[00:27:01] Speaker D: I literally cried because it personified what.
[00:27:07] Speaker C: Quantum Leap is to me. It had history. It had humor. That one scene where Ben goes into an argument with his father, totally in Korean, and he says all these dramatic, important, powerful things, and the father goes, when you learn to speak.
I laughed out loud reading it. I laughed out loud watching it.
Humor, history, I hope, when I cried, literally, when I read it on the page, when he gets between the police.
[00:27:44] Speaker D: And this young black kid who he's.
[00:27:46] Speaker C: Been against from the beginning, and said to the police, do your job. Help me save my son, I get teared up even thinking about it. And he put his hand back, and.
[00:27:55] Speaker D: They held hands, and I said, this is the penultimate of a Quantum leap.
[00:28:02] Speaker C: And I said that to Ben and to Derek, who's half Asian, half black, he's of mixed people.
[00:28:09] Speaker D: And I said it to Mika, and they all understood.
[00:28:15] Speaker C: That it's when our.
[00:28:16] Speaker D: Humanity comes through that you tell the best Quantum Leap story.
[00:28:22] Speaker C: And it had all that heart.
[00:28:24] Speaker D: So it was history, human heart.
[00:28:25] Speaker C: I mean, history, humanity, and heart.
[00:28:32] Speaker D: And humor. History, hope, humor, and heart.
[00:28:34] Speaker C: Yeah, those four, my four H's, I tell that to all the writers, and when you hit them, you move people to the core. And that's the power of television, and that's the power of Quantum Leap.
[00:28:48] Speaker D: That's why it can come back 28 years later and tell these stories about human beings and how those emotions. And that's what I write in my writing. That's what I create in my writing. I want to tell stories that move people.
[00:29:09] Speaker C: Warrior one has it.
[00:29:10] Speaker D: The vision Quest has it. Everything that I've written.
[00:29:14] Speaker C: And from the beginning, pitch. When Don Bellisario and I went in to pitch to Brandon Tardikov, and he made his comeback three times, tell his story, he felt it.
And it wasn't until that third time where he said to me, tell it to me like I'm six years old.
Once upon a time, there was a.
[00:29:39] Speaker D: Man like, I'm 86.
[00:29:43] Speaker C: And I learned so much from those two questions about being a writer. And I had a great mentor in Don Bellisario, in a sense, that he said, this is an incredible idea. Let me teach you how to be a know. I was a total baby coming out, singing and dancing and acting, and I wanted to write. And I had ideas. And he said to me, he said, you have probably one of the most creative minds I've ever encountered in my life.
And he said, and I know how to get the job done.
[00:30:21] Speaker B: He does.
[00:30:22] Speaker C: He was honest with me. He said, as a black female, it'll be really challenging for you to be seen and heard by these people.
Let me show you. And I thought it was a great collaboration.
He brought in Al. He brought in the military, which, you know, he.
So one night in Koreatown, as a matter of fact, we did a screening at the Korean theater up the street from me. And to see it on a big screen was even more powerful.
Intimacy of seeing it in your home, on your screen, whatever size it is. Some of these screens at home are 90 inches.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: Right.
[00:31:10] Speaker C: I think it will touch people and the more people that see the series. But if you really want to just hone in, one night in Koreatown has it.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
I want to ask you real quick, because I don't think we talked a little bit about this. I think the first time you were on. But I'm curious, when did you first get the idea for Quantum Leap? Like, how did it first sort of come to you as this story about this person that can travel through time, inhabiting other people and writing?
[00:31:48] Speaker C: I was reading a short history of Time by Stephen Hawken, and I got to the point on quantum particles and quantum leaps and the fact that they could coexist and change at the same time.
[00:32:08] Speaker D: And.
[00:32:12] Speaker C: It'S all about spacetime, continuum, and all the great nerdy stuff that you and I love.
And then I remembered a television series that was my favorite show. I think it only lasted a season, but it might have been in the 60s called the Loretta Young Show.
And every week she would twirl out of this door in the beautiful dress, and then she would tell the story. So, like Twilight Zone, like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, like Thriller, there was always somebody that came out and book it and did the show, set it up in the beginning and ended in the end. Rod Sterling would come out in the beginning and tell you, and then he would wrap it up at the end. But you came to see them just as much as you came to see the anthology of the stories that. And I said, what if we built in a character?
Originally, I wanted it to be a woman. I wanted them to be a woman. It was just way too. 1989 was way too early.
And I said, because time and space are limited, a second person can't appear in the room with me. There's no room for them in time travel, and they would have to knock me out and send me into them. And everybody looked. I mean, Don looked at me like I was crazy, and I said, they would then be in that life and have to figure out how the life worked and have to figure out what they were there to do and see. And then Don said, they need an observer.
And then that was how Al came in, and somebody needs to be doing this very expensive program, and that's how the government came, said, but somebody's guiding it. Is it God? Is it time? Is it Ziggy? We talked about there has to be an.
You know, I love the new quantum computers that, you know, is Ziggy really in charge? Has AI said, I got to fix you guys. I got to go back, fix you guys? There's a whole philosophy in my mind that maybe I'll put in the movie that will explain that. But that was the process of what it was. It was realizing that time and space is limited, and you cannot travel in time.
As a secular person all by yourself. You have to replace another person. You have to walk in their shoes. And it was a great opportunity for that. I think the show took. When I first pitched Sam leaping into a black man, everybody at the studio said, no, no, year three, year three. And I picked up the phone and I called Brandon, and I said, now, let's do it. Now. I want to do black man. I want to do a woman. I want to talk about social issues. And he said, yeah, she's right. And they went, okay, you can try it. And I think when that happened.
[00:35:29] Speaker D: And.
[00:35:29] Speaker C: I wrote that episode and we shot it and aired it, it changed the paradigm because everybody went, whoa, I get this. I get this. And the idea of walking in someone else's shoes in another time to understand history because you're living it, is what elevated the show and elevated the conversation with people. And to Don's credit, he said, do not preach about what you're talking about in the story. Show both sides of it, and let the audience, who will be intelligent enough to figure out where they stand, but they'll listen to the other side, which is what we don't do. Again, why the show is so timeless.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:21] Speaker B: We'Ve always talked about it color of truth as kind of being the episode that really saved the show in a lot of ways and created that new direction for the show.
In season two, in particular, the classic series, we learn a lot more about Al as a character and about his background in Vietnam and being a POW.
[00:36:42] Speaker A: And, of course, we get to the.
[00:36:43] Speaker B: Finale of season two, we learn that.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: He was married, and we learned about.
[00:36:47] Speaker B: Beth for the first time. And, of course, that's something that comes back into play in the series finale in Mirror Image, and Sam, at the time, in Mia, was unwilling or believed.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: He was unable to correct Al's past and keep Al and Beth together. And in mirror image, he realizes that that's not true.
[00:37:08] Speaker B: And so he leaps and speaks to.
[00:37:11] Speaker D: Beth.
[00:37:14] Speaker B: And he appears. Correct me if I'm wrong, but he appears as himself, right? Like, he doesn't leap into anybody. He just kind of walks into the room and walks up to Beth and says, I have a story I want to tell you. And then we find out that Al.
[00:37:26] Speaker A: And Beth stayed together, that Beth never remarried.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: And then in the new series, of.
[00:37:32] Speaker A: Course, we find that Al. Of course, due to Dean's passing, Al.
[00:37:37] Speaker B: Has passed, and Beth is now a widow.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: But one of the things that we.
[00:37:42] Speaker B: Learn in one night in Koreatown that's really interesting is that magic and Beth have started this relationship.
And it's fascinating for a lot of reasons, because, of course, magic is heading up the project now, much like Al was initially. Magic is also a former Vietnam vet, has had his own struggles with PTSD, has talked openly about having those struggles. But the other thing that we learned in one night in Koreatown, in addition to him being in this relationship with Beth, is that he struggled with alcoholism.
[00:38:10] Speaker A: After they lost Ben.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: And it was incredibly impactful, especially for me, as listeners know.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: I'm a recovering alcoholic myself, and I.
[00:38:19] Speaker B: Loved the approach that was taken.
[00:38:21] Speaker A: I loved.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: Obviously, everything that Ernie did was just magnificent. And following Magic's journey throughout the course.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: Of this episode, not only with the.
[00:38:29] Speaker B: Relationship with Beth and the struggle with.
[00:38:31] Speaker A: Alcoholism, but his own trauma due to being in Detroit in the long, hot summer of 67 and now having to witness 1992 again. And then, of course, it's impossible. And one of the things that we've.
[00:38:45] Speaker B: Always tried to do here at this podcast is contextualize the episodes when they're set, when they were written, and when we're talking about them. One night in Koreatown, you cannot separate it from what happened a few years ago, obviously, in the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests surrounding the murder of George Floyd.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: So, thinking about all of that, putting kind of all of that together, I.
[00:39:05] Speaker B: Would love to know what you think about Magic's character, the growth that we've seen in this episode, and the decision for magic and Beth to be a couple.
[00:39:14] Speaker C: I think it's really cool. I mean, a.
[00:39:17] Speaker D: They're a biracial couple. Let's go right there.
[00:39:21] Speaker C: B.
[00:39:21] Speaker D: They have this commonality in Al and in Quantum Leap.
I think that the beauty of this.
[00:39:38] Speaker C: Reboot is that we get to live.
[00:39:40] Speaker D: In the present and.
[00:39:46] Speaker C: In the present because we can spend time, we can get to know these other characters. Unlike in the original show, we couldn't go to the present because we couldn't afford to build a fabulous stage.
[00:39:58] Speaker D: And I think that gives us time.
[00:40:05] Speaker C: To get to know these incredible characters. I mean, Ian and Addison and Jen and Magic all deserve their own storylines.
And so the longer the show stays on the air, please watch, please stay with us. Please write into NBC and Universal and say, do not take this show off.
[00:40:30] Speaker D: The air because it's important television.
[00:40:35] Speaker C: I think that it's just an opportunity to expand the franchise.
I say this all the time. If there are nine spinoffs of Star Trek, three running concurrently right now, and nine motion pictures, why could not this have happened with Quantum Leap?
So I go out to the writers and the fans of the show who.
[00:41:02] Speaker D: Are writers and say, how would you do Quantum Leap?
What would you do to tell this.
[00:41:09] Speaker C: Story and give the opportunity for an anthology?
[00:41:13] Speaker D: We do a little movie every week.
[00:41:16] Speaker C: We take you to a time and place. It is not critical race theory.
[00:41:20] Speaker D: It's critical race history.
We're the only show that is not.
[00:41:26] Speaker C: So constrained by political correctness because we're in another time. So you can talk about the events.
[00:41:33] Speaker D: That occurred in the race riots from.
[00:41:37] Speaker C: The 20s all the way to Black Lives Matter to show not enough has changed. But if I get in your face today and say it to somebody today who feels like equal opportunity and all these other things, they're troublesome and they're threatening and all this other stuff, you.
[00:41:59] Speaker D: Get an understanding of why they are.
[00:42:03] Speaker C: What was put in place after the Civil War that prevented people of color from owning property, from finally earning money, putting it in a bank, and having the white bankers say, oh, well, we're just going to close the bank and.
[00:42:16] Speaker D: Take your money, and causing that mistrust.
[00:42:21] Speaker C: There'S an opportunity to understand history. If you don't stop ignoring it and burning books, this is critical race history.
[00:42:32] Speaker D: It's critical world history. And if you erase the truth of it with that quote, history repeats itself.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: Right?
[00:42:46] Speaker B: Yeah. We're doomed to repeat it. One of the things that I mentioned to Ben and Derek is I'm a firm believer that while it is important to embrace those personal histories and those personal narratives and that it's important to be able to walk into a library or a bookstore and see these sections devoted to Black history or LGBTQ plus history and whatnot. That at the end of the day, it's all our history and that we all have to do our part and take some sort of ownership and responsibility for that history and that keeping yourself informed and being able to look at these different perspectives, as you just said, if we don't do that, then we're doomed to continue repeating these things.
[00:43:29] Speaker A: Magic has that heartbreaking line about how.
[00:43:33] Speaker B: The gist of it being that these things just keep happening and that the systemic oppression always lights the fuse of these things.
Unfortunately, seeing an episode which is inspired.
[00:43:46] Speaker A: By an episode about the events in.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: Watts in 1965, which talks about the events in the summer of 67, and specifically Detroit, which had some of the worst violence and property damage since Tulsa, which you go back to Tulsa in the 20s, you see these things just continue happening. And then, of course, 1992, and then, of course, again in 2020, if we had that awareness.
[00:44:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: If I did not have to go.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: To Quantum Leap, frankly, to learn about.
[00:44:19] Speaker B: Watts, which is what I did when I was a youngster, because it wasn't really in the history books that we had in school, if kids today didn't have to go to Quantum Leap to learn about these events in 1992, that, yeah, there would be much more awareness, and there'd be the opportunity to create these dialogues and these differing perspectives. Ian has a great line, even in the episode, talking about the fact that the information was changing so fast and so rapidly, and there were all of these different perspectives, and there was mistrust and anger, and so much of that.
[00:44:54] Speaker A: Happened because people weren't looking at the.
[00:44:57] Speaker B: History surrounding the events. They weren't thinking about the Latasha Harlan's murder, like you had mentioned earlier.
[00:45:02] Speaker A: They weren't thinking about what it would.
[00:45:05] Speaker B: Mean to see a black man on the side of the road being beaten by police officers for no parent reason whatsoever while an immigrant films it. George Holiday was from Argentina. So there's so much at play when you look at these events. And the ignorance breeds this fear, this.
[00:45:25] Speaker A: Hatred, this contempt that unfortunately causes this cyclical fashion of events.
[00:45:34] Speaker C: The laws that allow for it to happen, the laws that for decades, maybe even centuries, that have allowed blacks to be beaten and murdered and the perpetrators, the police, get off. There are laws on the books that protect their actions that you can't take off, or no one is willing to take off to change that, to truly give equal rights, there is systemic problems that need to be addressed, which is one of the reasons I wanted to go into the future in the vision quest and in warrior One to say, come with me and let's imagine a better future.
If I ever get to do what I really want to do with Warrior One, in the vision Quest, which is to invite people to actually build the future with me, I think we can find out where the problems are, weed out the people that are hateful and negative and dark, and say, you can't come play. You come in here and you act like that, I disintegrate you.
You are not in this world, and you get enough people. That's why I said, it's this collective consciousness that is so imperative that we get to. And you look at how powerful that is when you look at things like a major event.
Star wars, when it first came out, was a huge collective consciousness burst of bringing people together into the force.
911 was an event that pulled people in around the world to say, what can we do? We were unified in that moment. The entire planet was unified to say, what can we do so that this doesn't happen again?
Princess Diana's death brought the world together. There are cultural events that collectively bring us together.
We can do it is the point. Driven by emotion.
We can do it for the good.
And then there's a way to, I think, help emotion for the bad. But we need to do it soon. We're hurting the planet.
The planet is going to hurt us, and it will win.
It will win, let me tell you.
Ask the dinosaurs. Earth went on.
[00:48:10] Speaker B: No, you're absolutely right, though, about those moments when people come together and the magic, for lack of a better word, that it can create. I remember very distinctly during Obama's campaign, he stopped in Indianapolis, which is where I was living at the time. And it was the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King.
[00:48:33] Speaker A: And on that same night, Bobby Kennedy.
[00:48:39] Speaker B: Had landed in Indianapolis, Indiana, and gave a speech which is just beautiful. And he paraphrases Eschyus in the speech, pain which falls upon the heart drop.
[00:48:50] Speaker A: By drop, which we cannot forget through the awful.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: I can't think of it right now, but it's a beautiful speech, and I think everyone should hear it.
And again, part of it is because. And this is not me patting myself on the back, but part of it is because I had a passion for history, and I understood the history of that moment. And seeing now a black man running for president and standing with thousands and thousands and thousands of people in a state which is normally a very conservative state, but in a city which was very liberal and progressive, especially at the time.
And after it was over and he comes out to Bruce Springsteen's the Rising, and it was just magical.
And as he leaves the stage, just that feeling like I'm kind of getting goosebumps thinking about it right now of walking back to my friend's apartment and this feeling of connectivity that we shared not only with one another, but with the thousands of people that were there.
[00:49:49] Speaker A: And with the man who would go.
[00:49:50] Speaker B: On to become president as well.
It's special. And I think the thing that people could mistake it for is it wasn't.
[00:49:59] Speaker A: Because someone was standing up there telling.
[00:50:02] Speaker B: Everyone what they wanted to hear or anything like that, but it was because there was this moment, this focus of this idealism and this hope for unity, for this collective consciousness like you're talking about. And I think that being able to.
[00:50:18] Speaker A: Hold that hope and make it almost.
[00:50:21] Speaker B: Manifest in your hands for even a brief moment, it shows you just how powerful it can be. And obviously that's something that warrior one.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: I think, can do as well by.
[00:50:32] Speaker B: Showing you these stories and being able.
[00:50:35] Speaker A: To hold that hope in your hand again.
[00:50:40] Speaker B: I believe strongly in the message, and I can't wait to see where it goes.
I have faith, I have hope that.
[00:50:49] Speaker A: It'Ll reach.
[00:50:52] Speaker B: Its goal and that it can do so by everyone who's listening to this right now. Even if you're not in a position to back the project at one of the reward levels, to go and just.
[00:51:03] Speaker A: Give a dollar, let's just get 10,000.
[00:51:07] Speaker B: People to just give one dollars and show everyone how many.
[00:51:11] Speaker C: That would be so important. I think I'm going to put up a $3 reward for the evolution of Warrior One so all the pretty little Liar fans will get a lost footage found image of what Treya looked like when she was being warrior One. For me, I'm excited about exactly what you're saying, that if people come and they discover us and they show, like.
[00:51:43] Speaker D: You said, give a dollar, give three.
[00:51:47] Speaker C: Get a screen saver, get the book at 25. This was my first adventure out on a Kickstarter, but it was really about to see if I could find the audience. And social media is so crowded with.
[00:52:04] Speaker D: Things, it's hard to scream out, hey.
[00:52:08] Speaker C: I've got something special. Come be part of it.
[00:52:14] Speaker D: And stay with us.
[00:52:15] Speaker C: I mean, if you go to Warrioroneworld, O-N-E Warrioroneworld.com, there's a button that, well, first takes you to the Kickstarter. If you're not a Kickstarter person, you can get there through Warrioroneworld.com. But also there's a button below that says, message Deborah. And those emails come directly to me.
[00:52:37] Speaker D: So if you have a question, if you have a thought, I try to.
[00:52:41] Speaker C: Get to them all. I try to answer them all.
[00:52:45] Speaker D: I believe in being a mentor to people. Don't pitch me any quantum leaps, though.
[00:52:52] Speaker C: Not allowed.
But come and talk with me. And I've gotten young girls who have talked to me about anorexia and racist issues and young men who talk about relationships.
[00:53:12] Speaker D: So it's really up to us to come together and to come together in.
[00:53:19] Speaker C: Love and maybe, just maybe, we win.
[00:53:23] Speaker D: An evolution to return to the knowings of the powers that we all have but for God.
So Warrior One is there you can.
[00:53:33] Speaker C: Go to get the books and go deeper into it on Amazon. The first four out of, I think, six that I'm doing, the fifth one's written. I'm not happy with the ending.
[00:53:43] Speaker D: I got to go back and get into that.
[00:53:46] Speaker C: But Warrior one, I think, is going to be a very accessible world. And Epic Games has said they're interested in doing the game so you could live in the world, which I think is where entertainment is going. You can test your skills now that's three years away. I warn you, these things take time.
[00:54:04] Speaker D: But with backing the Warrior One graphic novel.
[00:54:12] Speaker C: We can make a change.
So we got to hurry up. The great Quakes of 2029 are coming.
[00:54:23] Speaker B: That's right. We got to get this done. We got to get this done sooner rather than later.
See if there's anything we could do to maybe circumvent that. Yeah. The Warrioroneworld.com has the link to the Kickstarter and lots of great information and wonderful graphics and some of the stuff that you've even seen in this episode over on that website. And then, of course, the Kickstarter has even more. In fact, the Kickstarter has been updated with even more stuff since the last time I was drawing a week or so ago. I think there's a couple of pages.
[00:54:51] Speaker C: For the lettering have started to come in. So we're really getting this book together.
[00:54:57] Speaker D: And then it's a matter of publishing.
[00:55:00] Speaker C: It and getting it out to people. But I need to win this Kickstarter. It's like nail biting Kentucky Derby Time.
[00:55:08] Speaker D: I'm in the horse.
[00:55:09] Speaker C: I've just come around the final quarter and I need your help.
[00:55:18] Speaker B: Yeah. As of this recording, there's 13 days to go. So what we need to do is we need to get 1000 people to give a dollar every single day, at least a dollar every single day from now until then and then finish above that goal and get Warrior one produced. You can also go over to thevisionquest.com, which has information on the books as well as some great images and stuff from the creation of the world, the novels, which, of course, Warrior One is also a part of. One of the things I was thinking about even before we recorded is that there are these wonderful media franchises that I've followed over the years that have these wonderful side stories that take place kind of adjacent to maybe the main narrative or the narrative that most people are aware of primarily. And I feel like Warrior One really fits that Bill of being this wonderful side story that can be completely self contained, that you can joy on its own, but that it's a part of this larger world and this larger narrative that takes place. And I love stuff like that. I love it when an author, when I'll read the first book in a series and an author will just start small and kind of slowly build out a world, and you learn about this one city or this one culture or whatever, and then the next book, you have the characters move to a new location. All of a sudden, the world just.
[00:56:35] Speaker A: Starts to widen up a little bit.
[00:56:37] Speaker B: And you start learning more and seeing more.
And I look forward to the opportunity to do that with the world of Warrior One and the Vision quest.
[00:56:45] Speaker C: Pleasure, Sam.
[00:56:46] Speaker D: Deborah, thank you very much so much.
[00:56:48] Speaker A: It's always such a pleasure.
[00:56:52] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:56:57] Speaker C: Before we get out of here, those of you that have been with me.
[00:57:00] Speaker D: Through my career, over the years as an actor, as a writer, as a director, come watch Quantum leap, come get involved with Warrior One, and let's make a better world.
[00:57:19] Speaker C: Let's be the change we hope to.
[00:57:20] Speaker D: See in this world. And I think we can do it collectively together. I want my powers back.
[00:57:26] Speaker C: I need you guys.
[00:57:33] Speaker B: Absolutely. Let's give Deborah her powers back. Let's give all of ourselves our powers back.
[00:57:38] Speaker C: There are a lot of people out there. I'd really like to just see them for who they.
[00:57:46] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. That would be nice.
Well, thank you so much, Deborah. I really appreciate it. And again, you can follow the links below over to the Kickstarter or Warrioroneworld.com, where you can see some of the images that you've been able to see here today. Of course, Deborah mentioned the new pledge level, which would allow you access to some of those images, which would be really cool. And if you have any other questions, feel free. You can either send them my way or of course, as Deborah said, you can contact her
[email protected]. But in the meantime, leapers, as always, take care of yourselves. Take care of one another. Stay safe out there.
[00:58:22] Speaker A: And remember, always, always sleep responsibly. Bye.
