One Category Where "MacGyver" Was Indisputably Great
There's a great deal of historical rewriting about the legacy of TV's "MacGyver" since the release of the series' DVD sets back in 2005 and 2006. Unlike other shows from the era, most reviewers seem to be trying to compare "MacGyver" to the quality of modern-day made-for-cable series that produce eight episodes per season with massive budgets unbeknownst to any television producer working in 1985 when "MacGyver" came out. Even reviewers that are generally favorable to the show always have to qualify their commentaries with reminders of the show's cheese factor and dated storytelling. Well yeah....it was produced a quarter-century ago and the nature of episodic television has transformed dramatically since then, as is evident even when watching some of the most revered shows of the time like "Hill Street Blues", "St. Elsewhere", and "Family Ties", all of which generate cringeworthy moments when rewatching three decades after their initial broadcasts.
But as I revisit my "MacGyver" DVDs this summer, I'm struck by the extent to which the series outmatched its peers in the 1980s and continues to with present-day television, and that is in the category of musical soundtrack. Modern TV series seem to have really cut back on original musical scores, opting either for placement of studio recordings from national recording artists or for generic, interchangeable escalations of soundtrack intensity leading into commercial breaks. There's very little emphasis on original compositions than there was in the past. But even among shows from "MacGyver's" era, the compositions were generally just frequently repeated offshoots from the show's theme song during action scenes or drippy, melodramatic "tender moment" music placed in sitcoms. The level of sophistication that went into compositions on "MacGyver" was very rare, and even though the music has that 80s vibe to be sure, it holds up remarkably well and I find that as I'm reviewing these DVDs, they stand out as ear candy often upstaging the actual filmed sequences.
"MacGyver's" original composer was Randy Edelman, who composed the theme song and just a handful of the series' earliest episodes and then semiregularly composed future episodes in the first, second, and third seasons. Edelman's larger-than-life presence with the compositions he did for the series makes it seem surreal that he only composed 16 episodes total. The theme song itself was a delight, a synthesized toe-tapper conveying a Mr. Wizard-meets-Indiana Jones vibe consistent with the series with a very period-specific sound. But even the theme song pales in comparison to Edelman's compositions on those early episodes, which were as thorough and sophisticated as anything I've heard on a TV soundtrack, particularly when set to scenes set in international locales as most early MacGyver episodes were.
Edelman's compositions channeled the settings and the mood extremely impressively whether the setting was the Middle East, South America, or Africa. The early "MacGyver" episode "The Golden Triangle" was set in Burma. While MacGyver's Swiss Family Robinson tactics thwarting a hapless Burmese Army seemed insanely awesome at the time, I will confess that this episode doesn't hold up particularly well, but even after the immensely cheesy final action scene, Edelman's musical fadeout that accompanies the largely silent final scene acknowledging the newly acquired freedom of Burmese villagers enslaved by their government turns an otherwise dopey premise into a surprisingly powerful scene. I'm assuming Edelman didn't work cheap since he was hired for only a handful of episodes for each of the three seasons he worked on, but the depth of his compositions on an episode-by-episode basis continues to blow my mind 28 years later.
After the first five episodes of season one, Edelman bowed out from regular composition duties save for one additional episode in the first season. His successor would have big shoes to fill, and long-time TV composer utility man Dennis McCarthy seemed an unlikely source to rise to the challenge. But it was clear from the first episode that McCarthy composed that he would in fact meet that challenge, with some compositions that perfectly captured the science-adventure hybrid tone of the show. And he did so without ever copying Edelman's much more synthesized compositions. McCarthy composed episodes for all of "MacGyver's" seven seasons, even though he did just a couple each in the sixth and seventh seasons. McCarthy filled a lot of these hours with some recycled material from prior episodes, which is the rule for episodic television as opposed to the exception that was Edelman's original scores for every episode. With that said, however, McCarthy introduced new compositions each season, almost all of which were memorable and high-quality, albeit in a dated 80s sort of way that might not perk up the ears of the average 18-year-old who never lived through the era.
McCarthy's best composition for the series came in the first season episode "Nightmares", one of the series' all-around best episodes. That episode ran the gamut from incredible suspense, scientific wizardry, and engaging melodrama with an undertone of haunting desperation for MacGyver and his eventual teenage sidekick, and the composition brilliantly captured each scene and the chasmic swings of intensity set to film. It was only the fifth episode McCarthy composed for the series but managed to accomplish the near-impossible in that it made Edelman's early music seem less irreplaceable.
"MacGyver" moved production to Canada in its third season, and in order to satisfy some contracts with the Canadian government, it was required that the series employ a mostly Canadian crew. As a consequence, Canadian composer Ken Harrison joined the series for season three and in the final two seasons, became the primary composer. Far from an affirmative action hire, Harrison proved his mettle immediately with three exceptional scores for the highly suspenseful Sasquatch-themed episode "Ghost Ship", the Southern prison farm-themed episode "Jack in the Box", and the Murdoc episode "The Widowmaker", which featured Harrison's most sophisticated composition for "MacGyver". Harrison's role with the series was closer to Randy Edelman's than Dennis McCarthy's in that most of his episodes featured entirely original scores that rarely failed to impress in their sound quality and their emotional range. Even as the series reached its creative nadir at the same point where Harrison became its primary composer in the final two seasons, Harrison brought some first-rate scores to the table that were the high point of several episodes.
Edelman, McCarthy, and Harrison were "MacGyver's" three primary composers, but in the sixth and seventh season, a final member was added to the team named William Ross. Ross was the only of the four composers whose work for the series was largely bland and generic in the way that most other series' original compositions are. But even Ross had one shining moment with his dark and intense musical score for the classic sixth season episode "Lesson in Evil", which was Ross' first episode composing for the series.
Very few TV shows have a musical legacy to boast about and its a shame that so little is said about the musical legacy of "MacGyver", which was usually feature-film quality. Television today doesn't seem to place much of a priority on sophisticated original compositions, and depending on the nature of the show that may well be a good thing. On the other hand, it would be nice if at least some modern shows, particularly a show like "Burn Notice" which is very much a modernized throwback to classic 80s action shows including "MacGyver", would attempt a soundtrack worthy of its predecessors. Because as someone who has consumed MacGyver's adventures many times and is revisiting them again this summer, the series' music is the one thing guaranteed to hold up each and every time I review it even on occasions where the story content doesn't hold up as well.
But as I revisit my "MacGyver" DVDs this summer, I'm struck by the extent to which the series outmatched its peers in the 1980s and continues to with present-day television, and that is in the category of musical soundtrack. Modern TV series seem to have really cut back on original musical scores, opting either for placement of studio recordings from national recording artists or for generic, interchangeable escalations of soundtrack intensity leading into commercial breaks. There's very little emphasis on original compositions than there was in the past. But even among shows from "MacGyver's" era, the compositions were generally just frequently repeated offshoots from the show's theme song during action scenes or drippy, melodramatic "tender moment" music placed in sitcoms. The level of sophistication that went into compositions on "MacGyver" was very rare, and even though the music has that 80s vibe to be sure, it holds up remarkably well and I find that as I'm reviewing these DVDs, they stand out as ear candy often upstaging the actual filmed sequences.
"MacGyver's" original composer was Randy Edelman, who composed the theme song and just a handful of the series' earliest episodes and then semiregularly composed future episodes in the first, second, and third seasons. Edelman's larger-than-life presence with the compositions he did for the series makes it seem surreal that he only composed 16 episodes total. The theme song itself was a delight, a synthesized toe-tapper conveying a Mr. Wizard-meets-Indiana Jones vibe consistent with the series with a very period-specific sound. But even the theme song pales in comparison to Edelman's compositions on those early episodes, which were as thorough and sophisticated as anything I've heard on a TV soundtrack, particularly when set to scenes set in international locales as most early MacGyver episodes were.
Edelman's compositions channeled the settings and the mood extremely impressively whether the setting was the Middle East, South America, or Africa. The early "MacGyver" episode "The Golden Triangle" was set in Burma. While MacGyver's Swiss Family Robinson tactics thwarting a hapless Burmese Army seemed insanely awesome at the time, I will confess that this episode doesn't hold up particularly well, but even after the immensely cheesy final action scene, Edelman's musical fadeout that accompanies the largely silent final scene acknowledging the newly acquired freedom of Burmese villagers enslaved by their government turns an otherwise dopey premise into a surprisingly powerful scene. I'm assuming Edelman didn't work cheap since he was hired for only a handful of episodes for each of the three seasons he worked on, but the depth of his compositions on an episode-by-episode basis continues to blow my mind 28 years later.
After the first five episodes of season one, Edelman bowed out from regular composition duties save for one additional episode in the first season. His successor would have big shoes to fill, and long-time TV composer utility man Dennis McCarthy seemed an unlikely source to rise to the challenge. But it was clear from the first episode that McCarthy composed that he would in fact meet that challenge, with some compositions that perfectly captured the science-adventure hybrid tone of the show. And he did so without ever copying Edelman's much more synthesized compositions. McCarthy composed episodes for all of "MacGyver's" seven seasons, even though he did just a couple each in the sixth and seventh seasons. McCarthy filled a lot of these hours with some recycled material from prior episodes, which is the rule for episodic television as opposed to the exception that was Edelman's original scores for every episode. With that said, however, McCarthy introduced new compositions each season, almost all of which were memorable and high-quality, albeit in a dated 80s sort of way that might not perk up the ears of the average 18-year-old who never lived through the era.
McCarthy's best composition for the series came in the first season episode "Nightmares", one of the series' all-around best episodes. That episode ran the gamut from incredible suspense, scientific wizardry, and engaging melodrama with an undertone of haunting desperation for MacGyver and his eventual teenage sidekick, and the composition brilliantly captured each scene and the chasmic swings of intensity set to film. It was only the fifth episode McCarthy composed for the series but managed to accomplish the near-impossible in that it made Edelman's early music seem less irreplaceable.
"MacGyver" moved production to Canada in its third season, and in order to satisfy some contracts with the Canadian government, it was required that the series employ a mostly Canadian crew. As a consequence, Canadian composer Ken Harrison joined the series for season three and in the final two seasons, became the primary composer. Far from an affirmative action hire, Harrison proved his mettle immediately with three exceptional scores for the highly suspenseful Sasquatch-themed episode "Ghost Ship", the Southern prison farm-themed episode "Jack in the Box", and the Murdoc episode "The Widowmaker", which featured Harrison's most sophisticated composition for "MacGyver". Harrison's role with the series was closer to Randy Edelman's than Dennis McCarthy's in that most of his episodes featured entirely original scores that rarely failed to impress in their sound quality and their emotional range. Even as the series reached its creative nadir at the same point where Harrison became its primary composer in the final two seasons, Harrison brought some first-rate scores to the table that were the high point of several episodes.
Edelman, McCarthy, and Harrison were "MacGyver's" three primary composers, but in the sixth and seventh season, a final member was added to the team named William Ross. Ross was the only of the four composers whose work for the series was largely bland and generic in the way that most other series' original compositions are. But even Ross had one shining moment with his dark and intense musical score for the classic sixth season episode "Lesson in Evil", which was Ross' first episode composing for the series.
Very few TV shows have a musical legacy to boast about and its a shame that so little is said about the musical legacy of "MacGyver", which was usually feature-film quality. Television today doesn't seem to place much of a priority on sophisticated original compositions, and depending on the nature of the show that may well be a good thing. On the other hand, it would be nice if at least some modern shows, particularly a show like "Burn Notice" which is very much a modernized throwback to classic 80s action shows including "MacGyver", would attempt a soundtrack worthy of its predecessors. Because as someone who has consumed MacGyver's adventures many times and is revisiting them again this summer, the series' music is the one thing guaranteed to hold up each and every time I review it even on occasions where the story content doesn't hold up as well.
posted by Mark at 11:46 AM
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