Why isn't Quantum Leap Season 3 happening at NBC?

It was not good news for Quantum Leap fans in April. The series is not getting a third season, despite that cliffhanger ending.

The second season ended with Hannah sharing a code that she had created to fix the issue with leaping. She had found a way to get Ben back, but it required someone to take his place. Addison agreed to do it considering she was supposed to be the leaper in the first place.

It didn’t work, though. Instead, Addison and Ben were trapped leaping, leaving the rest of the team to try to figure things out. Maybe Hannah’s son could return in the third season and be the one to get them both back. Now we will never know.

NBC canceled the series unceremoniously. Why did that happen?

Quantum Leap struggled in the linear ratings

In a way, the decision to cancel the series wasn’t all that surprising. While NBC didn’t say it outright, it’s pretty clear that the linear ratings were to blame. TVLine pointed out that Quantum Leap sat last in the total audience and ninth in the demo figures when averages were taken into account. The only shows behind it in the demo were Magnum PI and La Brea, which were both also canceled/ending.

NBC needed to make shelf space for new shows. That’s the case every year, so we know that some of the poorer performing shows are going to get canceled.

What didn’t help Quantum Leap was that it was an expensive show. Period dramas are costly in terms of sets and the post-production. This series was a time traveling series that saw Ben go to different time periods. Sometimes he was in the 1990s, but there were times that he ended up in the 1960s, the 1950s, and even 1692! Trying to make all those time periods look realistic takes time and costs far too much for low linear ratings.

It's annoying, though. As a fan, I would love to at least have a TV movie to wrap up the storyline and get Ben and Addison back. Right now, they’re stuck in the same position Sam was from the original series, and we still have no idea what happened to him.