"MacGyver" Reboots
All summer I've bounced back and forth between skepticism and restrained excitement that my favorite boyhood show, "MacGyver", was being rebooted by CBS. On one hand, my youthful attachment to the original series will be nearly impossible to duplicate now that I'm a crusty, middle-aged cynic, so part of me wished they'd leave well enough alone. On the other hand, what's the harm in giving another creative team a chance to pay homage to a series that meant so much to me and my peers at the time.
Early indicators were not good. A pilot was made and despite disastrous reviews by fans of the original and CBS executives, the series was still picked up and put on the fall schedule, with the series passed off to a new showrunner, Peter Lenkov, who successfully commandeered the long-running and well-received remake of "Hawaii Five-O". This was encouraging as "Hawaii Five-O" is one of the few remakes worthy of the original product, suggesting more effort would go into authenticating the original franchise. Throughout the summer, updates about the remake gave me equal measures of relief and concern about the treatment that my beloved "MacGyver" would get. And tonight was the night I'd see how it measured up.
My thoughts on tonight's premiere were about what I expected, which is neither a firm compliment nor a snarky putdown. It was a decently entertaining hour of television that set a foundation for some characters I might be able to get into with further development. The plot was serviceable and the pacing and suspense were on point. It was the definition of a Friday night popcorn show. Did it in any way measure up to the good name of "MacGyver"? Certainly not tonight's pilot.
My biggest problem from the get-go with the new "MacGyver" is that he's simply the member of a team, and not the lone wolf tour de force who needed no other man or woman's help to get shit done back in the 1980s. The result is that the "MacGyver" reboot feels more uninspired than a conventional reboot, and instead comes across more like an assembly line procedural indistinguishable from any number of other current crimefighter series, particularly on CBS. In what way is the new "MacGyver" different from "Scorpion", a series that was a MacGyver-by-committee clone itself when it premiered two years ago? There was little to this hour that didn't feel entirely conventional. Even the majority of the MacGyverisms were recycled to some degree from the original.
Given a chance to ease into their respective roles, perhaps the cast can fit their respective characters like a glove and carve out a distinctive identity that raises this reboot to another level. There was nothing disqualifying about what I saw tonight, unlike the ridiculously awful WB "Young MacGyver" pilot that thankfully never made it to the air back in 2003, so I will continue watching it with my fingers crossed. Thus far, though, they have a very long way to go to be worthy of the "MacGyver" legacy.
Early indicators were not good. A pilot was made and despite disastrous reviews by fans of the original and CBS executives, the series was still picked up and put on the fall schedule, with the series passed off to a new showrunner, Peter Lenkov, who successfully commandeered the long-running and well-received remake of "Hawaii Five-O". This was encouraging as "Hawaii Five-O" is one of the few remakes worthy of the original product, suggesting more effort would go into authenticating the original franchise. Throughout the summer, updates about the remake gave me equal measures of relief and concern about the treatment that my beloved "MacGyver" would get. And tonight was the night I'd see how it measured up.
My thoughts on tonight's premiere were about what I expected, which is neither a firm compliment nor a snarky putdown. It was a decently entertaining hour of television that set a foundation for some characters I might be able to get into with further development. The plot was serviceable and the pacing and suspense were on point. It was the definition of a Friday night popcorn show. Did it in any way measure up to the good name of "MacGyver"? Certainly not tonight's pilot.
My biggest problem from the get-go with the new "MacGyver" is that he's simply the member of a team, and not the lone wolf tour de force who needed no other man or woman's help to get shit done back in the 1980s. The result is that the "MacGyver" reboot feels more uninspired than a conventional reboot, and instead comes across more like an assembly line procedural indistinguishable from any number of other current crimefighter series, particularly on CBS. In what way is the new "MacGyver" different from "Scorpion", a series that was a MacGyver-by-committee clone itself when it premiered two years ago? There was little to this hour that didn't feel entirely conventional. Even the majority of the MacGyverisms were recycled to some degree from the original.
Given a chance to ease into their respective roles, perhaps the cast can fit their respective characters like a glove and carve out a distinctive identity that raises this reboot to another level. There was nothing disqualifying about what I saw tonight, unlike the ridiculously awful WB "Young MacGyver" pilot that thankfully never made it to the air back in 2003, so I will continue watching it with my fingers crossed. Thus far, though, they have a very long way to go to be worthy of the "MacGyver" legacy.
posted by Mark at 7:55 PM
2 Comments:
I noticed that too about the MacGyverisms recycled from the original (the smoke was just like DOA MacGyver).
And the handprint copying from "The Human Factor"....and the thumbprint lift from both "Halloween Knights" and "Two Times Trouble".
Post a Comment
<< Home