MacGyver: #134 MacGyver's Women (S6E8)

Episode Title: MacGyver's Women
Episode Number: S6E8

Ranking: 134 of 138

sitcomsonline.com

Summary: When Maria presses MacGyver to consider commitment, MacGyver dreams that he's a cowboy in the wild west who helps two mail-order brides escape from a group of outlaws.

Quotable Moment: 

Maria: Are all American men frightened of marriage?  Or is it they are frightened of women?

 MacGyver: Oh, come on.  What are you talkin' about, "all American men"?

Maria: Okay.  Some American men.   Like cowboys, who are faithful to their horse, but not with a woman.

Best Part: When MacGyver escapes the noose and signpost trap with only his belt buckle and upper body strength.

Worst Part: The mustache.

Opening Gambit: Like I said in the last post, I am not a fan of dream episodes.  Much like clip shows, they seem pointless to me.  However, I think that dream episodes are generally more useless than clip episodes because they contribute nothing to the show.  I can only think of a handful of episodes from the dozen or so shows I watch that I can actually get behind because they do actually further the character, inspire character growth, or contribute in some way to the plot of the show.  "MacGyver's Women" is not one of them.  To me, it's just an excuse to dress Mac up in a cowboy costume and plop him into the old west just for kicks.  It doesn't fit with the formula of the show, and it doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of things.  I've said this before, and I'll say it again: if you're going to add an element to a story, it needs to be something meaningful.  If it's just there for fun or a joke, then you're not doing your job as a storyteller justice.

But I'll admit, it isn't even the fact that it's a dream episode that's got me putting "MacGyver's Women" (and next week's episode) this low on the list.  Well, not entirely.  After all, "Good Knight MacGyver," while still not up there on my list, is significantly higher than the western episodes.  No, my biggest problem with this episode (and call me shallow if you wish; I'll stick to my guns 'til the end) is that stupid, ugly mutant caterpillar that attached itself to Richard Dean Anderson's face and then died there.  Don't remember a mutant caterpillar?  Scroll up to the picture from the episode and take a gander at that atrocious mustache.  Even from that angle, it's hideous, and I can't take Mac seriously with that thing on his face.  There are plenty of outlaws in the western episode that are clean-shaven - why can't Mac be like them?  I know, I know - it sounds really petty, but the mustache really, really bothers me.  A lot.

Psych: #119 A Nightmare on State Street (S8E9)

Ah, Psych.  That enigma of a show, brainchild of Steve Franks, that started out as a crime-comedy show, tried its hand a bit at drama and decided drama was for losers, experimented with realism, then decided that realism is also for losers, and finally in the last few seasons threw its proverbial hands up in the air and shouted, "What the heck?  We've made it this far; we can do whatever we want, so let's add zombies and food trucks and terrible British accents, and no one can stop us!"  Remember that show?

I love Psych.  I discovered it years ago when I was watching The Hardy Boys DVD I'd recently gotten - yes, the late 70s/early 80s show starring Shawn Cassidy and Parker Stevenson in all his man-perm glory - and one of the commercials was for this detective show where the main character is hyper observant and pretends to be psychic.  I found it on Netflix, and I was sold.

The show is many things: funny, stupid, goofy, silly, sometimes serious, occasionally deep, sweet, awkward, endearing, frustrating, immature, outlandish, exciting, and just an all-around good time.  The show has a cast of deeply memorable characters with incredible chemistry.  Personally, I'm most invested in the father-son relationship of Shawn and his dad Henry, the frenemy relationship between Shawn and Detective Lassiter, the budding but just out of reach romance between Shawn and Juliet, the hilarious bromance of Shawn and Gus, and the ever-solidifying friendship between Detectives Lassiter and O'Hara.  And I know that I just listed almost every major character in the show.  Just goes to show how expertly put together Psych and its cast are.

Now, there are some episodes that I hate.  There aren't many of them, but those that I genuinely do not like will be dealt with first.  I'll be going from my least favorite episode all the way up to my favorite, so even though things may look grim now, be at peace, for there is light ahead!

Without further ado, I present to you the first blog post in my Psych: Ranked! series.

Episode Title: A Nightmare on State Street
Episode Number: S8E9

Ranking: 119 of 119
Ranking Category: The Banes of My Existence…Pointless Remakes, and Zombies.

Summary: Gus begins to have trouble separating dreams from reality when uncertainty about his friendship with Shawn and his future begin to plague him.

TV.com

Quotable Moment: "As much as I try not to take my work home with me, when I'm alone in bed, and I turn out the light... I see them.  They talk to me.  They tell me how they wish they made a different choice in life.  How they wish they had taken a different path to work that final day, or, or made absolutely sure they locked the front door.  We all come into this world the same way we go out.  Alone." -Woody (directly after this he gets eaten by a zombie)

Highlight: Probably the moment between Shawn and Gus in the Psych office after Gus's dream therapy session, in which he claims not to need Shawn but Shawn's still there for him anyway.

Lowlight: Zombies.

The Hat Game: I've watched most of the Psych episodes at least two, maybe more times.  "A Nightmare on State Street" isn't one of them.  I've only seen it the one time, and I'm not exactly thrilled to be watching it again.  Why?  One word: Zombies.  I hate zombies.  My husband's tried to convince me that zombies are awesome, at least in video games, where you can blow them up.  My best friend's tried to convince me that Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies is worth watching.  They both failed.  Well, partially.  I can handle the zombies in the video game The Last of Us because they look like fungus more than the undead.  And I still refuse to watch Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies, though I did give in and watch Pride & Prejudice (which I loved).  But I digress.

From what I remember from "A Nightmare on State Street," it's really a very poorly written excuse to throw zombies in the mix.  There's no real plot, no depth, no meaning.  What makes it even worse is that it's the second-to-last episode of the entire series, and what should be a monumental episode leading up to the finale is stupid, gross, and not engaging.  And it's a dream.  I greatly dislike dream episodes (oddly enough, I'm going to be covering a Wild West dream episode in my next MacGyver post) because they contribute nothing to the plot, ultimately mean nothing to the story, and are, in my opinion, a waste of time.  The only exception would be episodes like "The Polarizing Express," where Shawn goes on a weird It's a Wonderful Life adventure in order to deal with an internal crisis.  But episodes like this, where it's just a frivolous excuse for stupid jokes and gratuitous amounts of the undead?  For turning these beloved characters into zombies themselves?  It adds nothing to the story.  Changes nothing.  It's forty-some-odd minutes that never actually happen, and so are pointless.

Most of my reviews are not going to be this negative.  And I'll probably find a few things I forgot about that I enjoy as I re-watch this episode.  But overall, from what I can remember, this is dead last (or should I say undead last, har har) on my list because (1) zombies are gross and (2) dream episodes are pointless.

MacGyver: #135 Friends (S2E20)

Episode Title: Friends
Episode Number: S2E20

Ranking: 135 of 138

CBS.com

Summary: After one too many brushes with death, MacGyver seriously contemplates resigning from the Phoenix Foundation at his surprise birthday party.

Quotable Moment: 

MacGyver: Pete... for the past seven years I have done nothing but travel around the world getting shot up, locked up, blown up, and all I've got to show for it are a couple of empty rolls of duct tape.

Best Part: Either the part where Mac tells Pete he wants to resign or the scene where Penny proves she's not as gullible regarding Jack's tall tales as he thought.

Worst Part: Just the general fact that it's out of character, and a clip show.

Opening Gambit: Something that you will discover about me early on is that I don't like clip shows, and I don't like dream episodes.  Both, to me, are fairly pointless and don't contribute anything substantial to the overall arc of a show.  The only exception to this is when the clips shown in an episode inspire new and emotionally-driven dialogue discussing something that was not addressed in the episode itself.  For example, in "Hindsight," the conversation between Pete and MacGyver about the coma in "Passages" is a great moment for me, because we get to see Pete learn about Mac's near-death experience and discuss mortality.

 But this episode, from what little I remember, does not really inspire introspective dialogue and doesn't really make a difference.  Sure, you've got the whole thing about MacGyver wanting to quit, but that isn't the focus of the episode; instead, it's focused on past episodes, and mostly shows us things we've already seen.  I do appreciate MacGyver's internal conflict about his job at the Phoenix Foundation, but I feel like that could have been much more effectively addressed with a full episode dedicated to this crossroads he has come to.  The decision to keep going has less impact on me when it is buried beneath a pile of memories and clips I've already seen before.

I do remember, however, that the episode was dedicated to a co-worker (I think he was maybe a grip?) of the cast, and while that is very thoughtful and sweet, I think that it could have been even more touching if there had been a full new episode dedicated to him rather than one cobbled together with scenes from earlier episodes.

I don't foresee this episode climbing any on the list, mainly because of my distaste for clip shows, but maybe I'll find some nuggets of goodness buried beneath all the "been-there-done-that"s cluttering the episode.

MacGyver: #104 Hellfire (S1E8)

*Edit: This episode was way better than I remembered it to be, so it's been moved up to #104.  I've adjusted the rest of the list accordingly.

*Note: I've decided to add another short section to my reviews (cleverly entitled "Opening Gambit"), because I find it interesting to see what, if anything, changes from what I remember about an episode before and then after I re-watch it.  So from now on, at the beginning of my reviews, I will have this section with my opinion on the episode beforehand, and why I initially put it where it is (or in this case, was) on the list, and then I'll write my post-ep thoughts under the "My Conclusion" section.

Episode Title: Hellfire
Episode Number: S1E8

Ranking: 104 of 138

CBS.com

Summary: MacGyver goes to visit some of his friends who have just struck oil, but when the gas ignites and threatens their livelihoods, they must take on the mantle of hellfighters if they want to save everything they've worked for.

Quotable Moment: 

Laura: [to Bill] Okay!  Look, you're going in!  This one last time.  But the two of you together.  That's the way you got this far. [to Mac] Look!  You'll fry your tail in there without Bill.  Damn it, he's the best!  So are you.

Best Part: Surprisingly, my favorite scene was where Mac and Bill try to get the dynamite out of the powder room without blowing themselves up (which Mac almost fails spectacularly at).  Despite remembering that part as boring, it turned out to be one of the most exciting parts, right alongside the firefighting scene at the end.

Worst Part: The ten minute lull about 25 minutes in where they focus far too long on Mac and Bill's getting the dynamite back to the site of the fire.


Opening Gambit: Much like with "Countdown," I put "Hellfire" low on my list because I didn't remember it to be particularly engaging or interesting.  As far as I recalled, it had its good and interesting moments, but for the most part, it fell flat for me.

A lot of this had to do with the fact that I generally find "man vs. man" or "man vs. self" conflict much more interesting than "man vs. nature."  I generally like "bad guys" that a character can more directly confront, whether those enemies end up being other people or his own inner demons.  But natural disasters?  Especially for a show like MacGyver, this is normally not my cup of tea.  There are quite a few rather tedious scenes that I remember dragging on a bit too long, and even though they are building the suspense and showing the delicacy and patience the situation requires, they failed, as far as I remember, to hold my attention.  Of course, that was probably a "me" problem much more than it was a problem with the episode itself - I typically prefer fast-paced action over slow-building suspense.

MacGyver: #136 Countdown (S1E14)

Episode Title: Countdown
Episode Number: S1E14

Ranking: 136 of 138 

CBS.com

Summary: MacGyver and his bomb-defusing partner from Vietnam are called in when a cruise ship is targeted by a bomber who calls himself Viking.

Quotable Moment: 

MacGyver: You know, Charlie and I busted 51 bombs together in Vietnam.  Charlie used to put a little scratch on the wall above our bunks every time we'd get back from doing one.  We used to tell anyone who would listen that we were going for the record.  The day we shipped out, he counted'em.  Fifty-one.  Then he laughed - just laughed.

Best Part: When Mac tries to impress Susan with his robotic egg-cooking, and fails spectacularly. Also, Mac's speech about Charlie's bomb-counting ritual in Vietnam.  Emotionally charged and powerful moment.

Worst Part: Charlie Robinson's death.

MacGyver: #49 Black Rhino (S5E8)

Edit: After re-watching this episode, I realized that it was much better than I remembered it to be, so I have since moved it to a substantially higher place on my list.  Instead of being #136, it is now #49.

Episode Title: Black Rhino
Episode Number: S5E8

Ranking: 49 of 138

CBS.com

Summary: When the youngest Colton brother takes it upon himself to go after a bounty that his older brothers had never been able to score - a poacher, Ladysmith - MacGyver goes to Africa to find him and ends up joining the hunt for the killer as well.

Quotable Moment: 

MacGyver: Kate, I've gotta tell you.  That is the sickest, cruelest, most inhumane thing I've ever seen in my life.

Best Part: The fight between MacGyver and Ladysmith on the dam.

Worst Part: When they come across the rhino that had had its horn removed and had to be put down.

Doctor Who (Ninth Doctor): #10 Aliens of London (S1E4) - Part 1

Episode Title: Aliens of London
Episode Number: S1E4

Ranking: 10 of 10 (Part 1 of 2)

Since this is a two-parter, I'm counting"Aliens of London" and "World War Three" as one collective episode, but will be reviewing each episode separately - thus, they will both be ranked as #10 in the reverse countdown, despite being reviewed as individual episodes.

As this is a blog that comprehensively reviews TV shows, there will be spoilers.

Summary: Rose and the Doctor return to earth to find out that she's been gone and considered missing for 12 months instead of the intended 12 hours.  On the tail of their return, an alien spaceship crashes into Big Ben for the world to see, exposing the existence of aliens to the masses.  But is there more going on than it seems?

Place/Time: Earth, London, 2005

Aliens/Monsters: The Slitheen

Quotable Moment: "900 years of time and space, and I've never been slapped by someone's mother!" -the Doctor

Best Part: Harriet Jones, MP of Flydale North.

Worst Part: Any of the farting scenes are highly uncomfortable.

MacGyver: #137 The Mountain of Youth (S7E14)

Episode Title: The Mountain of Youth
Episode Number: S7E14

Ranking: 137 of 138

CBS.com

Summary: Jack Dalton drags MacGyver along on a quest to discover the Fountain of Youth in a politically unstable third world country.

Quotable Moment: 

MacGyver: You're up to something more than the betterment of mankind, I know it.  Deep inside, I know it!

Best Part: The entire first scene where Jack is trying to convince MacGyver to help him find this Fountain of Youth.

Worst Part: Any time that I was spoon-fed a ridiculous piece of information and expected to accept it without questioning its validity, which happened far too often in this episode.

MacGyver: #138 The Kill Zone (S3E11)

Episode Title: The Kill Zone
Episode Number: S3E11

Ranking: 138 of 138

CBS.com

Summary: MacGyver and Pete face off against a stubborn scientist who refuses to allow her deadly, mutated superbug to be destroyed.

Quotable Moment: 

Pete: What a loss.

Best Part: I really enjoyed the faith and loyalty Pete and Mac had in one another this episode.  Their friendship is really well represented here.

Worst Part: Dr. Millhouse’s and Ace’s last moments.