HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DANIEL!!!!!

And what WAS the finale?

Loving QL is why I couldn't take Enterprise seriously, even before it totally sucked. I watch Scott being all captainy and just think 'Boy, have you leapt into the wrong place.' Any minute Al's going to walk in through a wall and start drooling at T'Pol.

Speaking of Al, did anyone see that Stargate ep where Al was Jonas's mentor, only he was schizophrenic? Now that was weird. But well done, I didn't figure it out, the first time around.

Sam should have gotten home. It's not like they couldn't have found an excuse for him to leap again, someday.

Well, not so much someday, as much as maybe next season. Wasn't it, Dana, that they just weren't sure if they were coming back, so they went out on a cliffhanger?

But I'm good with sad finales.

Wasn't it, Dana, that they just weren't sure if they were coming back, so they went out on a cliffhanger?

I don't actually know. But the finale seems pretty final to me. They had all those people back from the course of the series.

I wanted it to end with seeing Al at the big project place, talking to the leapee in Sam's body, trying to find out where Sam is, only to work Sam's right there.

I'm not okay with sad finales because I am a big giant sap.

Don't forget, the written coda at the end of the final episode:

"Sam never made it back home"

or something to that effect.

It wasn't a cliffhanger, and it pissed off a lot of people needlessly. QL was a great show. Why end on such a downer note? There was no reason not to leave it open, or even say, "Eventually, Sam made it home".

It sucked. And seeing him as Captain Cardboard on Enterprise is awful. Bring Back Sam!!!

JesseBelle

I didn't think it was a sad finale at all -- it was more like, Sam, this is why you've been doing this. Here you are: some of the people you've helped, all your memories back. Here you are: free will. Look at the results you've gotten, when you were doing it by accident. How would you feel about doing it full time, on purpose?

It was sort of like an optimistic commitment, not something sad. I always got the sense that if he'd wanted to, he could have returned to the life he'd had, and that maybe he will, when he's done doing what he's doing. Sam always was the sort to take on the burdens of others, but I don't think he ever did so unwillingly.

I thought the ending was perfect and touching.

YEndingMV.

Okay. Found something:

Now the subject of great debate amongst its fans, the last episode of Quantum Leap, the infamous Mirror Image, was intended to be a season finale cliff-hanger. With the announcement of the show's cancellation well after the filming and much of the editing of Mirror Image was complete, the episode was hastily re-edited to turn it into a series finale. Although the episode was originally designed to address many outstanding questions about Sam's leaping, it raised many more new questions that it answered. Many fans were, and still are, unsatisfied with Mirror Image. There have been numerous requests over the years for a TV movie (or even a feature film) to bring proper closure to the series.

I was pretty pissed off at the QL finale. Sam should have gotten home.

I liked it. It made me cry. Remember the moment when he saw himself in the mirror -- his real face -- for the first time in however many years? Shamelessly tearjerking.

Sam's situation is tragic if you look at it objectively, of course ... but subjectively, he did so much good as a leaper, and he was used to it. I like the idea of him out there somewhere, striving to put right what once went wrong, home a pleasant swiss-cheesy memory.