One of the few programs on television with an Asian American male lead has been cancelled after two seasons.
The reboot of Quantum Leap on NBC which built a show about going back in time to correct the past is now history, Deadline first reported.
The show featured a diverse cast starring Korean American Raymond Lee as Dr. Ben Song, Caitlin Bassett as Song’s love interest, Addison Augustine; Nanrisa Lee as Jen Chu, non-binary actor Mason Alexander Park as Ian Wright and African American Ernie Hudson as the boss, Herbert “Magic” Williams.
Although the cancellation wasn’t announced until more than a month after the season 2 finale, the final episode wrapped things up nicely while leaving open the possibility of a third season-say the showrunners.
“When we got the early renewal for Season 2, we knew we were not going to end it on a cliffhanger,” executive producer Dean Georgaris said. “We were going to end it on the first scene from Season 3, and we’re going to end it with the two characters together, but in a way that you never expected. And that sort of says to the audience, ‘look at all the great places we can go.’ So if it feels like a completion for audiences, that’s wonderful. It is a completion of part of the journey, but I think for us, it serves as the launch for the rest of the journey.”
NBC renewed Quantum Leap in December of season 1 and its one of the first shows cancelled this season despite the show already having season 3 mapped out.
“We know what the shape would be for Season 3, where it would go and how it would end,” Gero said to TV Line. “We like to have these seasons feel like standalone novels in a series of books you really love and so, this season had a real beginning, middle and end, and always that little epilogue that is like, ‘This is where we’re going in the future.’ We know the shape of what the Season 3 book would be.”
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I have been a big fan of the original quantum leap and also the new one which looked promising, to maybe finding sam becket, but now that it’s cancelled I will no longer watch any NBC program.