EXCLUSIVE: NBC has decided not to proceed with a third season of its Quantum Leap reboot starring Raymond Lee. The news comes more than a month after the two-hour Season 2 finale aired Feb. 20.
The development is not entirely surprising as the series, from Universal Television, has been on the bubble. That is in contrast to last season when Quantum Leap received a very early renewal in December 2022.
A follow-up to the original series, which aired on NBC from 1989-93, Quantum Leap is set in present day. It’s been 30 years since Dr. Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator and vanished. Now a new team has been assembled to restart the project in the hopes of understanding the mysteries behind the machine and the man who created it.
In addition to Lee, the series stars Ernie Hudson, Caitlin Bassett, Mason Alexander Park and Nanrisa Lee.
Co-showrunners Martin Gero and Dean Georgaris executive produced along with Deborah Pratt, Chris Grismer, Alex Berger as well as Steven Lilien and Bryan Wynbrandt who developed the reboot.
In a conversation with Deadline in February, Gero and Georgaris said the Season 2 finale wasn’t written like a series finale but it wraps the action up in a tidy and uplifting manner.
“When we got the early renewal for Season 2, we knew we were not going to end it on a cliffhanger,” 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.”
Georgaris also addressed Quantum Leap being on the bubble. “The new reality we’re all getting used to is, it’s not just about one rating anymore. It’s not just about one number. There are multiple platforms,” he said. “So the truth is, I think every showrunner and every show creator is living a bubble existence, for the most part. That just comes with it. And that’s fine.”
In an interview with Deadline in February, Universal TV President Erin Underhill also acknowledged that “the way that they wrapped that up is it could be a satisfying ending but they also could continue on” while noting that a decision was expected in April.
Expressing optimism while cautioning that a lot would depend on NBC’s development and 2024 drama pilots, she added, “I think everyone has a lot of support for that show and big fan base in terms of that being a major library title for us.”
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