Dr. Samuel Beckett is a fictional character and the protagonist on the science fiction television series Quantum Leap, played by Scott Bakula.Initially, the audience knows very little about Sam, much as Sam knows little about himself due to holes in his memory dubbed the "Swiss cheese effect"—a side effect from the time travel (and an effective trope to allow the writers to add to Sam's character as the show went on). Eventually, it turned out that Sam was a true Renaissance Man, equally good at math/science and the arts. His skills allow him to adapt to the various situations that he finds himself in, although many of those situations still take Sam off guard with comical results.
