MacGyver: The Complete First Season

Ok, I'm promising right now that I am not making any bad MacGyver jokes over the course of this review. Especially those making reference to paperclips, rubber bands, a Swiss Army knife, and some matches. Those jokes have probably outshone the show in fame. Anyway, that said, I now have a newfound respect for this show after watching the pilot. This is because, in the pilot episode they made one of these jokes. They realized before the show was even picked up how ridiculous the premise was and poked fun at it. One of the female characters says sarcastically, "Oh how can you help them? Make a bomb out of chewing gum?" While MacGyver lovingly quips, "Why you got some?" Granted it wasn't a great one, but a show with that sort of self-awareness makes me happy. I tended to look down at MacGyver when it was on because I often compared it to Quantum Leap and was upset that Leap was less famous. Sorry, I used to make irrational judgments a lot. However, getting to watch these DVDs made me a bit happier about it.

So, MacGyver is about a secret agent played by Richard Dean Anderson. He's a science expert and a problem solver and uses household objects in interesting ways to get out of tough situations and fight bad guys. He's like if Jackie Chan and Bill Nye had a baby. He also has the power to relate extraordinary secret agent style events to a commonplace story of his childhood with a Matlock-like accuracy. Anyway, that's pretty much it. The secret agent edge is actually really funny because his job description is so incredibly vague. He's like "secret agent" for hire, and the people that tell him to do stuff are sometimes military and sometimes random scientists. And realistically I find the image funny of a bunch of people sitting in the Oval Office saying "Oh no, there's a fallen plane behind enemy lines. Let's get that guy that doesn't plan anything and just goes somewhere and hopes he finds the objects to accomplish the task." This is something I also found ridiculous. The fact that MacGyver always would go into some crazy army compound with exactly no plan and then apparently gets "lucky" in finding the exact right ingredients for his crazy hijinks.

One thing I did notice about the show is how over-the-top this first season started out. With the first few episodes he's fighting evil druglords in Burma, the Russian Mafia, whole armies, a bunch of flesh-eating ants, etc. I seem to remember him fighting corrupt agents and people stealing large sums of money. But apparently he was actually more of

a secret agent before and traveled to other countries and did crazy things like that. Also it's interesting to note that in this season we see that he lives in an observatory and sponsors a little brother. The music for the first few episodes was pretty good; I enjoyed that they'd take the music of whatever country he was in and then turn the theme song into that genre. It was good for this type of show.

This is really a hard review to write, because the type of person that would buy MacGyver on DVD really knows what they're getting into. Parts are corny, but Richard Dean Anderson pulls it off. The only other actor I recognized was in the episode titled "Thief of Budapest". The bad guy was the dude that played Dan Cain in Re-Animator. That's the caliber of actor we're dealing with here. In both that episode and "The Golden Triangle" I saw two of the worst child actors ever. Also in "Thief of Budapest" I swear to god they recycled footage from the original The Italian Job and it made up a fifth of the episode. Like I wish I was kidding, but it was definitely late 60's film quality and Mini Coopers had zero appeal in the mid-80's. This is in addition to the fact that Hungary started to look like Italy a bit (which is why I think they based the episode in Hungary, because it is a horizontal version of the Italian flag). I have yet to see that movie, so I can't say for sure, but it would be really funny if it was true. Regardless of these minor criticisms, the show's fun. It has a sense of humor about itself, and they had a very impressive budget for the Pilot episode. Honestly, it opens with Richard Dean Anderson climbing a huge rock in the middle of the desert with a swooping camera angle (which needed a helicopter to shoot it, I'm sure) showing his climbing prowess. I'd like to think that the opening scene of the pilot episode of MacGyver inspired the opening scene of Mission: Impossible 2.

I don't think I can write this review without giving you an example of stuff that he does. Such as saving a kidnapped female army general using a Swiss Army knife, a carrot, a sandwich bag, ice, various pots and pans, a metal platter, a chair, a toaster oven, a bottle of vegetable oil, two lawn chairs, a garden hose, and a phone. He grabs the carrot first, and you're thinking "Oh jeez, what's he gonna do with it." And then he just eats it because he's that much of a badass. Also don't forget about freeing scientists trapped behind

a wall of rubble with a fire hose, a random piece of metal, and a woman's shoe.

This previous topic brings me to the special features, there are none. Hell, for fifty bucks I could have interviewed the technical advisers for a few minutes and interplayed their interesting anecdotes and research background with scenes of the show. That and maybe a vignette of all of the close-ups of Richard Dean Anderson's hands (I'm being a bit facetious on that second one.) I just felt somewhat unsatisfied with special features that could be easy and entertaining. It definitely took away from what could have been a corny but still quality DVD.

DVD Grade: B