MacGyver Season 6 Review
It happened again. Paramount released yet another barebones DVD package for MacGyver: The Complete Sixth Season. My hope is that Paramount springs for a few extras in the seventh and final season given that there are only 14 episodes in the final season. I'm not betting on it, however. Despite the typically lackluster treatment, it's comforting to have these priceless treasures available on DVD. Since I recorded episodes from the sixth season on ABC back in the 1990-91 season, the video cassettes are ancient and could buckle at any time, so it's a relief to have the full uncut episodes available en masse on DVD.
The penultimate season of MacGyver was admittedly the beginning of its creative nadir. The tone of the series grew from merely political to embarrassingly preachy on nearly half of this season's 21 episodes (officially, there were 22 episodes in season six, but one was held over until the seventh season). The array of stories and settings was still refreshingly diverse, almost to the point of resembling an anthology series, but the formula was noticeably losing its luster on more episodes than I'd like to admit. If there was a single "jump the shark" moment, it was the episode "MacGyver's Women", a dreadful and unnecessary second act to season five's Western dream sequence. While beautifully filmed, the script was laughably bad and spoke volumes about a writing and production staff that was growing tired and a premise that was growing stale.
Not to be a total downer, however, the sixth season of MacGyver had its share of true gems, and the quality of the season was still enough to warrant the additional season for the series, but just barely in retrospect. There's just something a little more battle-worn about a series that lasted SEVEN seasons as opposed to merely six, and it was a badge of honor to see MacGyver make it that far given the overwhelming obstacles it had to overcome every step of its journey. So despite its flaws, I choose to celebrate the greatness displayed in season six, and give the strongest recommendations to these episodes.....
"Tough Boys".....the season opened with a gritty, hip-hopped urban tale of a heavily-armored battallion of youth anti-drug vigilantes cleansing their neighborhood of crackhouses by way of fire bombs. The preachiness hit fever pitch at times, but the music was addictive, the primary characters well-drawn, and the plot smooth and flowing.
"Humanity".....a character-based episode featuring a Romanian soldier dedicated to the will of a fallen dictator taking MacGyver hostage after a failed terrorist attack in Bucharest, struggling between his sworn commitment to the cause and a desire to break free from an oppressive and bloodthirsty militaristic upbringing. The episode impresses me more upon further viewing and features one of the season's best scripts.
"Twenty Questions".....perhaps the series best (or worst, depending on your perspective) example of an "afterschool special gone terribly wrong", this features a pre-Blossom Mayim Bialik reprising her role as spoiled little rich girl Lisa Woodman, now an early teen hanging with a crowd of even worse spoiled rich kids who've taken to committing a string of burglaries, along with the even more unthinkable crime of drinking alcoholic beverages. Young Lisa gets taken in and MacGyver must save her from becoming a lifelong lush. Cheesy as it sounds, it a through-and-through guilty pleasure.
"The Wall"......the end of the Cold War posed some challenges to the MacGyver format, but it was dealt with well in this episode where unemployed former Stasi agents from East Germany are the antagonists in a plot to retrieve millions of dollars of gold stashed for decades in America as a means of laundering money. MacGyver's help reunifying an elderly German immigrant with his estranged granddaughter brings the plot to the surface. A cleverly weaved story that ends with the development of an unconvincing love story between MacGyver and the East German dame.
"Lesson in Evil"......my favorite episode of the season features incarcerated serial killer Dr. Zito engineering a bloody escape from his captors and promising MacGyver a "lesson in evil" that involves cryptic numerical clues, haunting manipulations of Greek mythology images, and an endless parade of plot twists and gallows humor from W. Morgan Sheppard, the outstanding actor who played Zito. Another Sheppard, John (perhaps a relative but I'm not sure), wrote the episode, among his finest work on the series.
"Harry's Will"......"B" actors from Marion Ross to Abe Vigoda to Rich Little to series executive producer Henry Winkler made appearances in this cornball salute to the classic film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". The MacGyver twist was that the treasure Mac was pursuing, a million-dollar diamond pendant, was left behind in the will of his grandfather who died in the fifth season finale. The episode was humorous and fun throughout, but suffered from a poorly-done closing scene with Rich Little that took away from the episode's overall entertainment value.
"Bitter Harvest"......one of three ecologically-themed episodes from season six, but easily the best, this episode features our hero stumbling upon a local warzone in California's Central Valley between the grape growers and the impoverished migrant workers picking the grapes in fields they suspected were marinating in illegal growth-enhancing pesticides. Variations on the "helping the migrant workers unionize" theme was a staple of 80's action TV, but the MacGyver treatment was by far the best, not settling for a caricaturized treatment of the numerous characters on both sides of the divide. The politics of company-town farm communities and their systematic abuse of cheap labor was articulated, in its relative subtlety, as well as any other hour of episodic television I've seen. Another episode that improves with repeated viewings.
"The Visitor"......a couple of con artists use high-tech special effects to convince some backwoods farm rubes (gotta love those Hollywood stereotypes of Middle American numbskulls) to book a flight with them to outer space unless MacGyver can same the family from their own naivete. Despite the overwhelmingly cheesy premise, the story works for a number of reasons and welcomes the addition of writer Brad Radnitz, who helped the series out with a desperately-needed burst of imagination in its final two seasons.
"The Wasteland".....a kick-ass quicksand-sinking scene opens this ecologically-themed episode, but it goes steadily downhill in quality through the course of the hour.
"Eye of Osiris".....one of the series' most ambitious episodes, MacGyver and a team of archaeologists search the Taurus Mountains of Turkey from the tomb of Alexander the Great and the legendary "eye of Osiris" rumored to be hidden there. While a couple scenes are embarrassingly derivative of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", the John Sheppard script is fiendishly clever throughout and the high-adventure production values positively stunning.
"Blind Faith".....Pete Thornton loses his sight, melodrama ensues. This was generally a weak episode, but I gotta give the writers props for keeping co-star Dana Elcar onboard despite the huge challenges of catering to an actor who was at that point nearly 90% blind. A lesser show wouldn't have risen to the occasion to accommodate the very worthy acting talents of Elcar.
"Faith, Hope, and Charity".....an extremely fun episode featuring a couple of old ladies running a bed-and-breakfast in the Minnesota wilderness, acting as grandmothers to a wounded MacGyver (he stepped in a poacher trap while tracking a gray wolf) while playing a sly game of cat-and-mouse with a trio of mob thugs tracking a million dollars worth of dirty loot. The shtick of the scrapping grannies grew a little tiresome by the episode's end, but the cleverness of MacGyver's off-the-cuff gauntlets for the baddies really makes this one a hoot. Another solid triple for writer Brad Radnitz.
"Strictly Business".....Murdoc finally re-appears late in the sixth season, recruited out of retirement by his vicious ex-employers and given another shot to destroy the one target who has always eluded him, which is of course MacGyver. The flaky "amnesia" theme is employed here, and unfortunately not very convincingly (how convicing can any amnesia plotline be?), but as always, the MacGyver vs. Murdoc chess match provides for an hour of top-notch entertainment in which is Murdoc is killed again....or is he?
Those were the best episodes of the season, and most of the episodes listed were in the first half of the season. The series' quality clearly declined, along with the ratings, in its second half. The season ended with the howler "Hind-Sight" which was essentially a pity party for Pete as he had his eye surgery, complete with annoying flashbacks of past episodes and a moronic someone's-coming-to-get-you subplot that was truly awful. Perhaps the series didn't deserve a seventh season after that season finale, but for better or for worse, it got one and you can expect my full review when Paramount releases it on DVD, hopefully before year's end.
The penultimate season of MacGyver was admittedly the beginning of its creative nadir. The tone of the series grew from merely political to embarrassingly preachy on nearly half of this season's 21 episodes (officially, there were 22 episodes in season six, but one was held over until the seventh season). The array of stories and settings was still refreshingly diverse, almost to the point of resembling an anthology series, but the formula was noticeably losing its luster on more episodes than I'd like to admit. If there was a single "jump the shark" moment, it was the episode "MacGyver's Women", a dreadful and unnecessary second act to season five's Western dream sequence. While beautifully filmed, the script was laughably bad and spoke volumes about a writing and production staff that was growing tired and a premise that was growing stale.
Not to be a total downer, however, the sixth season of MacGyver had its share of true gems, and the quality of the season was still enough to warrant the additional season for the series, but just barely in retrospect. There's just something a little more battle-worn about a series that lasted SEVEN seasons as opposed to merely six, and it was a badge of honor to see MacGyver make it that far given the overwhelming obstacles it had to overcome every step of its journey. So despite its flaws, I choose to celebrate the greatness displayed in season six, and give the strongest recommendations to these episodes.....
"Tough Boys".....the season opened with a gritty, hip-hopped urban tale of a heavily-armored battallion of youth anti-drug vigilantes cleansing their neighborhood of crackhouses by way of fire bombs. The preachiness hit fever pitch at times, but the music was addictive, the primary characters well-drawn, and the plot smooth and flowing.
"Humanity".....a character-based episode featuring a Romanian soldier dedicated to the will of a fallen dictator taking MacGyver hostage after a failed terrorist attack in Bucharest, struggling between his sworn commitment to the cause and a desire to break free from an oppressive and bloodthirsty militaristic upbringing. The episode impresses me more upon further viewing and features one of the season's best scripts.
"Twenty Questions".....perhaps the series best (or worst, depending on your perspective) example of an "afterschool special gone terribly wrong", this features a pre-Blossom Mayim Bialik reprising her role as spoiled little rich girl Lisa Woodman, now an early teen hanging with a crowd of even worse spoiled rich kids who've taken to committing a string of burglaries, along with the even more unthinkable crime of drinking alcoholic beverages. Young Lisa gets taken in and MacGyver must save her from becoming a lifelong lush. Cheesy as it sounds, it a through-and-through guilty pleasure.
"The Wall"......the end of the Cold War posed some challenges to the MacGyver format, but it was dealt with well in this episode where unemployed former Stasi agents from East Germany are the antagonists in a plot to retrieve millions of dollars of gold stashed for decades in America as a means of laundering money. MacGyver's help reunifying an elderly German immigrant with his estranged granddaughter brings the plot to the surface. A cleverly weaved story that ends with the development of an unconvincing love story between MacGyver and the East German dame.
"Lesson in Evil"......my favorite episode of the season features incarcerated serial killer Dr. Zito engineering a bloody escape from his captors and promising MacGyver a "lesson in evil" that involves cryptic numerical clues, haunting manipulations of Greek mythology images, and an endless parade of plot twists and gallows humor from W. Morgan Sheppard, the outstanding actor who played Zito. Another Sheppard, John (perhaps a relative but I'm not sure), wrote the episode, among his finest work on the series.
"Harry's Will"......"B" actors from Marion Ross to Abe Vigoda to Rich Little to series executive producer Henry Winkler made appearances in this cornball salute to the classic film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World". The MacGyver twist was that the treasure Mac was pursuing, a million-dollar diamond pendant, was left behind in the will of his grandfather who died in the fifth season finale. The episode was humorous and fun throughout, but suffered from a poorly-done closing scene with Rich Little that took away from the episode's overall entertainment value.
"Bitter Harvest"......one of three ecologically-themed episodes from season six, but easily the best, this episode features our hero stumbling upon a local warzone in California's Central Valley between the grape growers and the impoverished migrant workers picking the grapes in fields they suspected were marinating in illegal growth-enhancing pesticides. Variations on the "helping the migrant workers unionize" theme was a staple of 80's action TV, but the MacGyver treatment was by far the best, not settling for a caricaturized treatment of the numerous characters on both sides of the divide. The politics of company-town farm communities and their systematic abuse of cheap labor was articulated, in its relative subtlety, as well as any other hour of episodic television I've seen. Another episode that improves with repeated viewings.
"The Visitor"......a couple of con artists use high-tech special effects to convince some backwoods farm rubes (gotta love those Hollywood stereotypes of Middle American numbskulls) to book a flight with them to outer space unless MacGyver can same the family from their own naivete. Despite the overwhelmingly cheesy premise, the story works for a number of reasons and welcomes the addition of writer Brad Radnitz, who helped the series out with a desperately-needed burst of imagination in its final two seasons.
"The Wasteland".....a kick-ass quicksand-sinking scene opens this ecologically-themed episode, but it goes steadily downhill in quality through the course of the hour.
"Eye of Osiris".....one of the series' most ambitious episodes, MacGyver and a team of archaeologists search the Taurus Mountains of Turkey from the tomb of Alexander the Great and the legendary "eye of Osiris" rumored to be hidden there. While a couple scenes are embarrassingly derivative of "Raiders of the Lost Ark", the John Sheppard script is fiendishly clever throughout and the high-adventure production values positively stunning.
"Blind Faith".....Pete Thornton loses his sight, melodrama ensues. This was generally a weak episode, but I gotta give the writers props for keeping co-star Dana Elcar onboard despite the huge challenges of catering to an actor who was at that point nearly 90% blind. A lesser show wouldn't have risen to the occasion to accommodate the very worthy acting talents of Elcar.
"Faith, Hope, and Charity".....an extremely fun episode featuring a couple of old ladies running a bed-and-breakfast in the Minnesota wilderness, acting as grandmothers to a wounded MacGyver (he stepped in a poacher trap while tracking a gray wolf) while playing a sly game of cat-and-mouse with a trio of mob thugs tracking a million dollars worth of dirty loot. The shtick of the scrapping grannies grew a little tiresome by the episode's end, but the cleverness of MacGyver's off-the-cuff gauntlets for the baddies really makes this one a hoot. Another solid triple for writer Brad Radnitz.
"Strictly Business".....Murdoc finally re-appears late in the sixth season, recruited out of retirement by his vicious ex-employers and given another shot to destroy the one target who has always eluded him, which is of course MacGyver. The flaky "amnesia" theme is employed here, and unfortunately not very convincingly (how convicing can any amnesia plotline be?), but as always, the MacGyver vs. Murdoc chess match provides for an hour of top-notch entertainment in which is Murdoc is killed again....or is he?
Those were the best episodes of the season, and most of the episodes listed were in the first half of the season. The series' quality clearly declined, along with the ratings, in its second half. The season ended with the howler "Hind-Sight" which was essentially a pity party for Pete as he had his eye surgery, complete with annoying flashbacks of past episodes and a moronic someone's-coming-to-get-you subplot that was truly awful. Perhaps the series didn't deserve a seventh season after that season finale, but for better or for worse, it got one and you can expect my full review when Paramount releases it on DVD, hopefully before year's end.
posted by Mark at 9:21 PM
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