ANDY ELLIS

Andy Ellis and Laura Dillon were two young Americans traveling together on a train to Rajmir, India. They had met a short time earlier in Barcelona and had gotten along very well, and as they continued their travels throughout Europe and Asia together, they had begun to fall in love. In fact, Andy urged Laura to consider marriage as soon as they returned home, but Laura, who had lived through a divorce when she was 12, was not ready to rush into a permanent commitment after so brief a summer romance.

Among their fellow passengers on the train were Andrea Collins, a courier for the US State Department, Diana Kingman, a meek American young woman travelling with her domineering mother Eleanor, James Grant, a British surgeon who had recently lost his right arm in an accident, Peter Kramer, a mysterious European traveling alone, Paul Webster, an American, Lyman and Blade, who wore the uniform of a conductor, and MacGyver. However, Hassan, a leader from a nearby village, hijacked the train by blowing up a trestle bridge and forcing it to stop. Hassan explained that he came from a poor village that had struggled to build a clinic but that when they had bought medicines from two Western businessmen, the medicine turned out to be poisoned, and 26 of his people had died. The businessmen had boarded the train, but because Hassan did not know their identities, he announced that all Westerners aboard the train would be held hostage without food or water until they themselves identified the two men and turned them over to face justice.

Laura was extremely frightened by the ordeal, and Andy, hoping to be a hero for her, tried to sneak past the guards to steal a horse and go for help. His escape was thwarted, however, when Kramer was startled and called out to him, but MacGyver was able to distract the horses and Hassan's men to bring Andy back safely without injury. Having secured Hassan's promise that the men would be given a fair trial, MacGyver fashioned a makeshift lie detector using a sphygmomanometer and an alarm clock, and Andy volunteered to be the first subject. The device indicated that Andy had answered truthfully and was not involved, but the buzzer sounded when he and Laura kissed, and MacGyver explained that it was love, not lying that had triggered the alarm. However, when Paul Webster set off the alarm, he revealed that he and Blade had been responsible for the tainted drugs. Webster was killed in his attempt to escape, but Blade was taken into custody, and the other passengers were permitted to return to the train to continue their journey by another route. Laura and Andy would likely continue to pursue their relationship when they returned home.

Portrayed by: Mark Tymchyshyn

Cross Reference: Badur, Batu Das, Blade, Andrea Collins, Laura Dillon, James Grant, Hassan, India, Diana Kingman, Eleanor Kingman, Peter Kramer, Lyman, Paul Webster

Episode Reference: Slow Death