MacGyver: The Complete Second Season DVD Review:

Back again with more of his usual “MacGyverisms”, taking everyday items and turning them into all sorts of tools to help him on the missions he takes or just happens to fall into. Richard Dean Anderson is back as Angus MacGyver, with an even more stylish eighties haircut and the same charm that catapulted the show into success the first season. Not much has changed, although the supporting cast has increased and there are even more recognizable faces guest starring as well. Although the show is always entertaining, there are almost always moments which will make you groan as well, and it takes a tolerance for cheese to be able to fully appreciate the show.

While the first season of MacGyver began with him on missions, but with no real back-story of the company he worked for or anyone he was connected to at all, the second season has completely abandoned the idea of MacGyver as a lone ranger. MacGyver seems to have an endless supply of friends, and many of them are from the office he works in. It is almost as if MacGyver has a regular job, until he creates an escape with an umbrella. It also seems that many of MacGyver’s missions are suddenly coming from one of his friends being in trouble rather than a national crisis. There are still the episodes where he must travel to a foreign country to save someone or everyone, but he seems to have more friends getting in life threatening situations than anyone else.

Everything has improved with the release of the second season. The video and audio is much better than season one, with less grain in the image and less crackle in the soundtrack. As fantastic as that is, however, the greatest change is the packaging. Season one was a bulky set, but season two has switched to slim discs, and beyond that, they each hold two discs each. There are six discs, yet they are all in three slim disc containers making for a neat little package to fit on the shelf. Each disc still has the same artwork, featuring one of the random items that MacGyver would use in a bind. The DVD menus are plain and rather boring, but the artwork is almost fitting considering that the season was on air in 1986.

There are no special features, which may not come as a surprise to anyone who purchased the first season, but this season has still been given a better treatment.



Ryan Izay