MacGyver: The Complete First Season DVD Review:

This eighties television classic features one of the most inventive heroes to ever grace pop culture. MacGyver knows how to escape nearly any situation by using whatever materials may be handy. It seems like no matter where he may be; whether it is a tool shed or a small village in the jungle, there always seem to be the right ingredients for some sort of explosion.

MacGyver is an anti-James Bond of sorts, saving the day as Bond did (and still does) but without a few key elements. MacGyver never drinks, he respects women, and he absolutely hates guns and dressing up. There is even an episode in which MacGyver imitates Bond. This is perhaps the worst episode in the first season, directed by Alan Smithee, a long-standing pseudonym given by the DGA when the actual director refuses to have his name attached to the project. Simply put, this is usually a sign of a disaster, so bad that the director wants his name removed.

In fact, many of the early episodes are fairly bad, both technically and artistically speaking. Aside from the pilot episode, many of the early episodes find MacGyver in a foreign country on a task, which end up pairing him with either a child or a beautiful woman. Aside from the fact that the child, and sometimes the woman, are often irritating, their dialogue is also badly dubbed. It seems as though none of MacGyver’s dialogue is dubbed, which helps, but is also puzzling considering how awful the supporting cast sounds.

Even if the sound had been perfect many of these early episodes would still seem to pale in comparison to later seasons, or at least the second half of the first season, mostly because of the lack of reoccurring supporting cast members. I think that the show’s writers realized that however charming Richard Dean Anderson may have been, there was a need for more familiar characters each week. Soon they introduced (or reintroduced) a few characters who soon reappear continually. They also finally got around to answering the question of who MacGyver worked for. At first it just seemed that MacGyver had a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The DVD package for MacGyver is a box set with five slim-case discs. Each disc holds four or five episodes. While the slim-discs were a good idea, the box is still far larger than is ideal for more shelves. Each disc is unique, with a picture of some everyday item that MacGyver may use to save the day. The slim-disc cases seem to have been thrown together with less effort, however. There are low quality images of MacGyver, which look almost photocopied.

The transfer of the episodes is also disappointing at points. Aside from the obvious audio problem, there is also a great deal of image issues. Many scenes have inconsistencies from shot to shot, some looking fine while others are grainy and scratched. Although it has been twenty years since these episodes were filmed it seems as though a little bit more attention could have been spent transferring them. Many die-hard fans will be disappointed to find a lack of special features as well.

Although the discs are not very well produced, and in many ways are going to frustrate fans, there is no denying that the draw of MacGyver has not faded as much as some might have expected. The episodes rarely seem dated, although some of the female guest stars give away the time with their eighties fashion, and I imagine that many young men today would still watch and enjoy MacGyver’s creative yet moral solutions to every problem.

Ryan Izay

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