Tuesday, September 13, 2011

This might be the geekiest thing I've ever done. That doesn't involve comic books or video games.

I'm in an odd mood. Consequently, here's a list of all the fanfic crossover adventures I found that feature Sam from Quantum Leap by perusing the first dozen or so entries that turned up on Google:
(from fanfiction.net, http://www.tthfanfic.org/,http://www.slidersweb.net):
24 / Quantum Leap (1)
Angel / Quantum Leap (1)
Babylon 5 / Quantum Leap (1)
Batman / Quantum Leap (1)
Bewitched / Quantum Leap (1)
Big Wolf on Campus / Quantum Leap (1)
Bones / Quantum Leap (1)
The Borrowers / Quantum Leap (1)
Buffy / Quantum Leap (13)
The Cape/Quantum Leap (1)
Chuck / Quantum Leap (2)
Cupid / Quantum Leap (1)
Dark Shadows / Quantum Leap (2)
Digimon / Quantum Leap (1)
Doctor Who/Quantum Leap (5)
Early Edition / Quantum Leap (1)
Emergency! / Quantum Leap (1)
Enterprise / Quantum Leap (3)
Farscape / Quantum Leap (1)
Fearless / Quantum Leap (1)
Fraiser/ Quantum Leap (1)
Ganma / Quantum Leap (1)
Get Smart / Quantum Leap (1)
The Ghost & Mrs. Muir / Quantum Leap (1)
Ghostbusters/Quantum Leap (1)
Gilligan's Island / Quantum Leap (1)
Glee /Quantum Leap (1)
Greatest American Hero / Quantum Leap (1)
Harry Potter / Quantum Leap (2)
Highlander / Quantum Leap (2)
Highway to Heaven /Quantum Leap (2)
House / Quantum Leap (2)
Incredible Hulk / Quantum Leap (1)
Invisible Man / Quantum Leap (1)
JAG / Quantum Leap (1)
K-PAX / Quantum Leap (1)
Knightmare / Quantum Leap (1)
Knightrider / Quantum Leap (1)
Moulin Rouge / Quantum Leap (1)
NCIS / Quantum Leap (2)
Pirates of the Caribbean / Quantum Leap (1)
Pokemon / Quantum Leap (1)
Popular / Quantum Leap (1)
The Powers of Matthew Star/ Quantum Leap (1)
Psych / Quantum Leap (2)
Roswell / Quantum Leap (1)
Scooby-Doo /Quantum Leap (1)
The Sentinel/Quantum Leap (1)
Seven Days / Quantum Leap (1)
Sliders / Quantum Leap (1)
Star Trek / Quantum Leap (1)
Star Trek: Next Generation / Quantum Leap (1)
Stargate / Quantum Leap (2)
Stargate: Atlantis / Quantum Leap (3)
Starman / Quantum Leap
Supernatural / Quantum Leap (4)
That 70s Show / Quantum Leap (1)
Thunderbirds / Quantum Leap (1)
Touched by an Angel / Quantum Leap (1)
Voyager / Quantum Leap (1)
Wings / Quantum Leap (1)
X-Files / NCIS (1)
Yu-Gi-Oh / Quantum Leap (3)

Thoughts:
-Quantum Leap really lends itself well to fan-fiction. Fans can use the show to tell entirely original stories, or they can follow QL's premise and have him show up to "fix" some event in the show that they felt went wrong.
-One of the Doctor Who counts featured Jack, and no doctor, but his connection to the doctor was featured prominently, so I counted it here, rather than Torchwood.
-I opted that multiple stories featuring the same franchices cross-over pairings by the same author count only once ( ex) if samadams wrote two Simpsons/Quantum Leap stories, I'd only count 1) , regardless of whether the author intended for them to take place in the same continuity.
-For crossovers that contain more than two franchises, I'm counting only the most prominent one (besides Quantum Leap). Because, that's why.
-Some people posted the same story in multiple forums (under the same name, I expect, so it's fine), so the count may be off.
-I mixed up Knight Rider with Forever Knight, which really made me yearn for a Forever Knight Rider crossover.
-I always thought there should have been some follow-up of Giles' murder of Glory at the end of Season 5 of Buffy (um, spoiler), so seeing a crossover that dealt with that period gets my interest. I'm not crazy with the direction the author took it, but to each their own.
-Incredible Hulk / Quantum Leap wins for best title, "A Leap into Anger." Frankly, this was not a competition of giants.
-The Next Generation / Quantum Leap gets points for the plot where baddies try to take over the Quantum Leap facility; I suppose the ability to jump would make an interesting weapon.
-For obvious reasons, the Enterprise / Quantum Leap crossover combination is both obvious and brilliant.
-Buffy crossovers are clearly at the high count, but that's because the second site I found was actually a Buffy fanfic site that happened to have some Quantum Leap stories. Before the inflated count, Dr Who was in the lead, with 5. It's not surprising; in DW, we have another show whose nature lends itself to the fanfic crossover, for much the same reasons--he has a reputation for showing up wherever and whenever to fix things. Supernatural also had a very strong showing, and many made good use out of multiple characters named Sam.
-Most obscure: The Ghost & Mrs. Muir. Most bizarre: That 70s Show. Most inexplicable: Yu-Gi-Oh. Not in its existence, but in the fact that three different people decided to write a Yu-Gi-Oh/Quantum Leap crossover.
Last, my favorite premise has to be the Quantum Leap / Sliders, in which Dr. Beckett slides not into the character of Quinn Mallory, but into the actor Jerry O'Connell, with the mandate to prevent John Rhys-Davies for being fired in Season 3. I approve.

Later Days.

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