Incorporeal Traveler

Tag Area: Time Travel Trope
Short Story

The Man Who Never Lived


Strange Nicholas van Allensteen joins with a universal mind to journey back before the start of time. —Michael Main
[. . .] This is an experiment in mental monism, you know, along the time-space continuum that forms material totality.”
I looked at Nicholas and, despite all my conversatons with him, I did not comprehend.
No image currently available.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Movie Cartoon

Casper the Friendly Ghost Theatrical #34

Red White and Boo


Every Casper cartoon had the same plot, including at least one (“Red, White and Boo”) from 1955 where Casper wonders whether people in the past will also be scared of him, so he uses a time machine to visit a caveman, Robert Fulton, Paul Revere, General Washington, and a Revolutionary War battle. —Michael Main
Gee, maybe people in the past won’t be scared of me.
Casper, the Friendly Ghost, startles a horse in front of Paul Revere
  • Comedy
  • Audience: Families
  • Definite Time Travel
Comic Book

Unusual Tales #20

The Time Cap


Phil Winship, an executive at an American company in Iran, finds an odd cap in the desert that transports him to a strange laboratory. —Michael Main
Now I realize what happened! This cap is some sort of time-travelling device!
In the first of three panels, a modern man sits in a chair with his cap
                attached to electrical equipment as an ancient woman and two men look on.
  • Science Fiction
  • Audience: YA and Up
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

Scrooge


A faithful musical retelling of the original (complete with humbugs and the ambiguity over whether viewing the past and present consists of actual time travel). —Michael Main
Humbug! Insolent young ruffians coming here with their Christmas nonsense!
A cartoon Scrooge highkicks at the front of a top-hat-wearing Christmas crowd.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e01–02)

Genesis


Physicist and all-around good guy Sam Beckett rushes his time machine into production—funding is about to be cut!—and as a consequence, he leaps into the life of a USAF test pilot, where Sam and his holographic cohort Al have a moral mission. And after setting things right in that pilot’s life, Sam—“oh, boy”—takes a few moments to win the big baseball game in 1968. —Inmate Jan
One end of this string represents your birth, the other end your death. You tie the ends together, and your life is a loop. Ball the loop, and the days of your life touch each other out of sequence, therefore leaping to one point in the string to another . . .
A worried Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett), dressed as a test pilot, stares out of
                the small cockpit of the experimental X2 plane.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Sports
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e03)

Star-Crossed


Why would anybody leap into English Professor Gerald Bryant during June 1972? Sam is certain that his mission is to he can reconcile his own future quantum physicist girlfriend with her father so that her fear of commitment won’t cause her to leave Sam at the alter in another twelve years. —Michael Main
Don’t ya see, Al? I’m here to give Donna and I a second chance.
Teri Hatcher (as Donna Elesee) and Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) study a book
                together at a library table.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e04)

The Right Hand of God


Sam leaps into professional boxer Clarence “Kid”Cody in 1974, where he must win his first legitimate fight in a year to save the sisters of St. Mary’s, start a new life with Dixie, and also—if things work out as expected in the Rumble in the Jungle—escape the mob. —Michael Main
That surprise punch in the last inning . . . it was inspired.
Michelle Joyner (as Sister Angela) leans to one side and waves into a boxing
                ring.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e05)

How the Tess Was Won


Sam leaps into Doc Young, DVM, back in 1956 Lubbock, Texas, where it seems his purpose is to out-rope, out-ride, and out-posthole-dig cowgirl Tess McGill in an effort to win her heart. —Michael Main
You can’t expect me to do this and not get involved. So if Tess falls in love with Doc, I’d appreciate it if you just leap me outta here as soon as possible.
Covered in mud in a pig sty, an exasperated Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) holds
                up a piglet.
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e06)

Double Identity


Sam does a double leap at one location: First into hitman Frankie LaPalma at the moment when he and Don Geno’s former girlfriend are in the sack together, and then as Don Geno himself. —Michael Main
Who ever heard of one lousy hairdryer blacking out all of the East Coast?
Dolled-up Terri Garber (as Teresa Pacci) leans back and reaches up to give
                Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) a romantic kiss.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e07)

The Color of Truth


Upon arriving in an Alabama diner in 1955, Sam sits at the counter and sees an elderly Black man looking back at him from the mirror. —Michael Main
You’re hear to save her tomorrow, not to initiate the civil rights activity in the South.
Howard Matthew Johnson (as an older Black man, Jesse Tyler) looks out from a
                reflection in a window at Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett).
  • Eloi Silver Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e08)

Camikazi Kid


It seeems that the only way Sam can fulfill his mission of stopping 17-year-old Cam Wilson’s older sister from marrying shithead Bob is to race Bob “for pinks” in hopes that Bob will lose his cool and show his true self, but that’ll only work if Sam (as Cam) and his buddy Jill can soup up Cam’s pink mommobile with a blast of nitrous oxide at exactly the right moment of the race. —Michael Main
Older Brother: Come on, Mikey, we gotta rehearse.

Mikey: [waving] Bye-bye!
In the front seat of an old car, Holly Fields (as Jill) explains the workings
                of a new dashboard gadget to Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett).
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s01e09)

Play It Again, Seymour


Sam arrives in 1953 as a private eye who looks like Humphrey Bogart and has to solve the mystery of his partner’s murder while trying to figure out his relationship with his partner’s wife and the eager kid at the newsstand. —Michael Main
Kid, if I’m lucky I’m gonna spend the rest of my life leaping around from one place to another instead of face down in a pool of blood.
Dressed in overcoats and fedora hats, Claudia Christian (as Allison Grimsley)
                and Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) stare into each others eyes.
  • Science Fiction
  • Mystery and Crime
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e01)

Honeymoon Express


Sam pops into newly married Tom McBride (a New York policeman), who is headed to Niagara Falls with his new bride (a budding lawyer and the daughter of a senator). The two of them engage in the usual honeymoon activities—fighting off ex-boyfriend thugs, rolling underneath moving trains, studying for the bar exam—while unbeknownst to Sam, Al is at a Senate committee meeting in Washington, D.C., fighting for the life of Project Quantum Leap. Oh, yes, and it’s now official: Sam and Al believe that God has taken control of the project, although Al refuses to be pinned down as to which god she is. —Michael Main
This committee has decided that your 2.4 billion dollar funding request for Project Quantum Leap . . .
Dean Stockton (as Admiral Al Calavicci) sits at attention in his dress-white
                uniform.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e02)

Disco Inferno


Sam finds out what it’s like to be a stuntman in a family with broken dynamics and (to him but not Al) in an era with broken music. —Michael Main
Disco’s not gonna last forever. I got a feeling it’s probably gonna die in a couple of years.
Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett in a white suit with wide lapels) strikes a disco
                dance pose with one hand pointing high into the air.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e03)

The Americanization of Machiko


In 1953, Sam steps off a bus as a sailor returning home from Japan with—surprise! to Sam and everyone else—a new bride named Machiko. —Michael Main
“I try to find a husband . . . to find my husband”
Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) and Leila Lee Olsen (as Machiko, dressed in a
                Japanese robe) pick daisies on the roadside.
  • Eloi Bronze Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e04)

What Price Gloria?


Sam leaps into the body of executive secretary Samantha Stormer during a time rife with sexual harrassment that hadn’t yet been challenged or even given a name. —Michael Main
You know, this is degrading. First he chases me around the office, then he says I gotta wear lipstick
A fed-up Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) sits at a dinner table wearing a fancy,
                low-cut dress and frilly hat.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e05)

Blind Faith


Who knew that if Sam leaped into a blind pianist’s body that he’d be able to see with his own eyes and stop a Central Park killer? —Michael Main
He says he wants to play.
In a tux and sunglasses, Scott Bakula (as Sam Beckett) sits at a concert piano
                while Dean Stockton (as Al) holds his sheet music.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
TV Episode

Quantum Leap (s02e06)

Good Morning, Peoria


Somewhat disoriented Sam—as Howlin’ Chic Howell at a 50’s radio station—must help station owner Rachel Powell defend rock’n’roll from the town elders and mobs of pitchfork-carrying, record-burning hayseeds. —Michael Main
Fred, I appreciate your opinion, but no matter how many editorials you publish, I am not gonna stop playing rock’n’roll.
No image currently available.
  • Eloi Gold Medal
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Novella

The Hemingway Hoax


Literature professor John Baird and conman Sylvester Castlemaine hatch a plan to get rich forging Hemingway’s lost stories, but before long, Baird is confronted by an apparent guardian of the many timelines in the form of Hemingway himself. —Michael Main
I’m from the future and the past and other temporalities that you can’t comprehend. But all you need to know is that yiou must not write this Hemingway story. If you do, I or someone like me will have to kill you.
A Hemingway-esqu man has various heads and appendages coming out of his head.
  • 1991 Hugo
  • 1991 Nebula
  • Science Fiction
  • Horror
  • Comedy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Pug


In the time of Napoleon, a sickly English girl discovers a dog in her garden, and the dog leads her through a door to other times and places. —Michael Main
(Imagine our relief to learn of Waterloo.)
The July 2011 issue of Asimov
  • Fantasy
  • Definite Time Travel
Short Story

Videoville


In late 1986, geek Tim Stanek (he prefers the term “nerd”) and his high-school buddy Louis are approached one night by an unheard-of sort of person: a sensitive and inclusive football jock who asks them to come with him on a mission that needs their particular kind of resourcefulness. —Michael Main
AAPL, AMZN, GOOG, NFLX
False-color nebulae and stars.
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel
Feature Film

A Christmas Carol


Patrick Steward delivers a nuanced portrayal of Scrooge in this faithful adaptation. Much of the dialog came verbatim from Dickens’s original, and the costumers paid careful tribute to John Leech’s original illustrations. —Michael Main
Scrooge: Is there no chance that boy will be spared?
Christmas Present: Not if the future remains unaltered.
Dressed in a black Victorian tophat, black coat, and black gloves, Patrick
                Stewart (as Scrooge) raises his cane as if to strike.
  • Fantasy
  • Debatable Time Travel
Miniseries

16 episodes

시지프스: The Myth

  • Sisyphus: The Myth
  • Sisyphus: The myth
  • Sisyphus: The Myth
  • by 전찬호 and 이제인, directed by 진혁
  • 16 untitled episodes (JTBC-TV, Korea, 17 February to 8 April 2021)

Young genius Han Tae-sul is the focus of dangerous people and a mysterious woman—Gang Seo-hae—from a war-torn near future.

Sadly, the story comes close to being a slick static timeline, but alas, the writers could not follow through. —Michael Main
The Downloader is a real piece of work. There’s only a ten percent chance of success, eh? And even if they make it, half of them get caught by the Control Bureau.
A static-y head shot of Park Shin-Hye (as Gang Seo Hae) with long black hair
                and a worried look.
  • Eloi Honorable Mention
  • Science Fiction
  • Definite Time Travel