In the near future, physicist Dr Sam Beckett theorized it is possible to time-travel within one's own lifetime, and obtains government support to build his project "Quantum Leap". Some years later, the government threatens to pull funding as no results have been made, and Sam decides to test the project accelerator by himself to save the project before anyone can stop him. He is thrown back in time, and on gaining consciousness, finds that while he physically exists in the past, he appears to everyone else as a person that he had "leapt" into and further has partial amnesia related to his own identity. A hologram of his friend, Admiral Alfred Calavicci, appears, visible and audible only to Sam, and helps to explain to Sam that he must correct something that went wrong in the past, aided with the resources of the project's supercomputer Ziggy, as once that is corrected, he should be able to leap back to the present. Despite successfully correcting the past, Sam continues to leap randomly to another place and time within the second half of the 20th century, "putting things right that once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home."