JackGywer wrote:
But what bothered me, especially in the first season, was the ease with the women they gave him.
You could see in most episodes how he has been kissing women all the time. Whether he knew her or not!
(okay a bit over the top).
Wonder if they wanted to give him a certain image.
Maybe it worked that way in the 80's, no idea.
Ah yes, that was the 80's. At the time, though, I don't know if they were so much trying to give him the image of a ladies' man, or if they knew that a large part of the audience would be women and would happily put themselves in the position of those women. Later, when they tried to give him a steady relationship, those women rebelled, and so MacGyver remained unattached - the better for female fantasies.
uniquelyjas wrote:
I don't particularly like season 1. It feels like Mac was trying to find himself. I think he hit his stride in season 2. Anyway, the pilot didn't impress me much though it was still good. I don't know if I really dislike any episode! Lot's of MacGyverisms, but my brain isn't wired that way so it's cool and all, but I don't totally understand everything! LOL! I liked the fact that he had a "little brother". Wish they had explored that and his living at the planetarium more.
I can agree MacGyver was trying to find his way in season 1, or rather the writers were trying to find the character. Some of the dialogue in those early episodes still makes me cringe. But I liked the mystery of the character, and he was something so unique to TV at the time. I remember when the pilot first aired, he was on Sunday night opposite a new Steven Spielberg series, and MacGyver was really struggling in the ratings. I recorded the pilot because I was time-shifting while I watched Spielberg, but once I saw MacGyver I knew I wanted to continue recording and keeping it. Some weeks later, I accidentally recorded over the pilot episode and I was so upset because I knew it would be canceled soon and never rerun and I had lost it for good. Who could have guessed that MacGyver would have more staying power than Spielberg? Who knew that DVDs and the internet would be invented so that none of it would ever be lost??
I think that my expectation back then that the show would be short-lived helped me to appreciate each episode a bit more, and so perhaps it's my fond memories of those days, looking forward to each little treasure for as long as it would last, that keep season one as a favorite for me despite some of the dreadful writing. Also, as the character evolved, MacGyver started to "become" Richard Dean Anderson. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing, but I liked the character in the early days when RDA wasn't really playing himself. The original pilot script did seem to give more of a glimpse into his personal life, his planetarium home, his little brother, his pet frog, his hobbies and interests, but I rather liked keeping the mystery a bit longer and getting to know him gradually.
bftlovesRDA wrote:
I also loved the fact that when Mac was first introduced to "Colson", Dana Elcar's line was "so you're the screwball...."
One of my favorite moments in the pilot is the expression on RDA's face after Colson's "You must be the screwball" line. That is some brilliant subtle acting that RDA doesn't get credit for often enough, being known as an action-adventure hero.
bftlovesRDA wrote:
The use of the candy bars to stop the chemical leak had to be a brilliant plan from Mac but to me it was a little bit hard to believe....but like so many of the MacGyverisms this one was probably stretching the facts a bit.
My dad was a chemist, and not easy to get into a conversation, so I used to start conversations with him by asking questions like, "what happens when you mix sulfuric acid and chocolate?" or "what happens when you mix adipic acid and hexamethyline diamine with iron particles in a magnetic field?" and he would always answer without any real curiosity until the day I asked, "so, how do you make crystal meth?" and he finally asked "WHERE are you getting these?!"
He eventually became a fan of MacGyver himself (especially since it aired before Monday Night Football.) But regarding the chocolate, he said that it would thicken and solidify, but you would need a LOT of chocolate. That was true of a lot of the MacGyverisms - they worked, but probably not quite as easily as they did on the show.
Another thing to consider as we are rewatching these, is how the episodes stand up to audiences in the present day age of internet and cell phones. RDA has said that MacGyver wouldn't really work nowadays because almost every problem could be solved with a cell phone, and I agree with him. MacGyver's charm was that it was low-tech. When I was teaching, I would often bring in a few MacGyver episodes for those last days of school when the school year had really ended and the classrooms were being packed up, and I had to explain to the kids that "this was from the 80's before computers and cell phones." (Kids that age, when referring to a time so long ago as to be almost incomprehensibly ancient, will say, "that's from the EIGHTIES.") But it pleased me to see that kids could still appreciate it, and young fans are still growing up with the DVDs. Actually, the pilot stands up pretty well from that perspective. He could have lost a cell phone as easily as a walkie-talkie, and today's modern tech wouldn't necessarily have gotten him out of the predicament any faster. So bravo for a certain timelessness.
Kate