Last night after posting my review of the Quantum Leap episode "July 13, 1985" I had trouble sleeping. While lying in bed something that would seem to be a small detail kept running through my mind. Addison Augustine's (Caitlin Bassett) words after seeing Dr. Ben Song (Raymond Lee) in 1985.
Ben! Oh, thank God. We've been trying to find you for hours. ...
There's no reason to believe that the statement was a lie or exaggeration. It also doesn't make sense. One second for Dr. Ben Song in 1985 is the same as one second for Addison Augustine in 2022. Dr. Song had only been in 1985 for a few minutes trying to figure things out. What's with the delay of hours?
Source of image modified: Quantum Leap episode "Future Boy"
A real world explanation would be that what should have been a two hour story was distilled down into one hour and this was a narrative shortcut.
An in-universe hypothesis would be that the hours were spent in the process of doing everything necessary to make the leap. However, all that should have only taken one hour max. Dr. Ben Song was making an unauthorized leap. The more time doing something sneaky increases the chances of getting caught and stopped. Dr. Ben Song also wasn't working alone. Janice's help makes the process of prepping for the unauthorized leap faster.
This is Quantum Leap. When Dr. Ben Song leapt into Nick Rounder then Nick Rounder would have been in Dr. Ben Song's body in 2022. Sometimes the leapee in the Waiting Room (Does the new Quantum Leap have a Waiting Room?) has a less "swiss cheese" memory loss than the leaper. Due to how critically important the situation was to the leapee the date, name, and location might have been the only sentient scraps of information the person Dr. Ben Song replaced could remember after getting to 2022. The leapee probably insisted his name was Nick Rounder and didn't remember the part about being an undercover cop. Getting this small amount of useful data Addison would have ran to the Imaging Chamber to make contact with Dr. Song.
That explains the few minutes of Dr. Song being in 1985 before Addison appeared. The leapee shows up and Addison makes contact minutes later. What about the hours that still seem to be unaccounted for?
What if Addison's statement was literal? They were looking for Ben's body for hours but Dr. Song's body was nowhere to be found? According to Quantum Leap rules if one leaps into themselves then there is no body in the Waiting Room.
Maybe Dr. Song's first leap wasn't into an undercover cop posing as a getaway driver in 1985. Maybe there was a leap prior to that and the leap was successful. Ziggy was out of commission temporarily due to the new software code that Dr. Song uploaded and therefore Dr. Song's first leap was effectively unmonitored and off the record. Just as Dr. Ben Song planned all along.
What if Dr. Ben Song was trying to make contact with someone? Someone who could only be contacted through the process of Quantum Leaping.
Did Dr. Ben Song visit the bartender seen in "Mirror Image" before leaping to 1985? That would account for the missing hours.
Wait ... Was Stawpah really Dr. Ben Song? August 8, 1953 is well outside the lifetime limit of when Dr. Ben Song can leap to. Dr. Beckett did leap along his genetic heritage and into his great-grandfather so one can canonically leap outside their own lifetime.
Do you see why I had trouble sleeping with all these thoughts in my head?
I need more details to help prove or debunk all of this. I guess I'll have to stay tuned to NBC now.