I’ve been pondering lately the way the MacGyverisms changed as the show went on… and why.

In particularly the first 2 seasons we had a lot of scientifically based MacGyverisms with lots of chemistry and physics being used to create all manors of chemical concoctions from fertilizer bombs to bicycle butane torches.

But in later seasons the MacGyverisms are noticeably less technical and less scientific then the earlier seasons.

And I can’t help wondering why. Did the writers lose their technical “edge”? Did they lose the motivation? Run out of ideas? Maybe they lost the science consultants and had to start making stuff up themselves?

I can’t help thinking that the change in MacGyverisms is one of the major factors which changed the feel of the show. Probably the single biggest draw card for me was the scientific stuff we saw in the MacGyverisms of the first 2-3 seasons. Mixing chemicals applying physics to situations, all that really drew me into the show, but I think that was lost in later seasons.

What does everyone else think?

I agree, and it was noticed... slowly, but it was.

Why? Maybe the writers wanted more character driven stories, and not build around a "MacGyverism" of the week.

OR

With MacGyver not being a DXS agent anymore, maybe it was assumed that he wouldn't utilize his skills to the extent as he did as an agent.

OR

Lazy writers...? Nah! There has to be more to it than that. Even though I noticed the change, I was already hooked on the show. It didn't really get frustrating until (maybe) late season 6 into season 7, when he was in to helping individuals and not going on assignments. But what really drew me to the show was the non-violence aspect. Looking for the MacGyverisms came later. And I was screening shows for my son to watch, and MacGyver fit the bill most of the time.

I got to think about this more... Good question, Rocky! Although I don't think I really answered you...

Maybe as the show got more and more popular someone started to worry more about people trying to copy the MacGyverisms and doing some damage? I know they missed vital bits out but maybe that stopped being enough to put the producers minds at ease.
I don’t think they ran out of ideas. There must be more cool MacGyverisms that could have been used on the show but I personally can’t think of any when I try to come up with them for a story.
Another thing could be that some of the less adventure type story lines that occurred in the later season don't really require the same type of MacGyverisms to get MacGyver out of the situations he's stuck in.

I agree with Rock. the first few seasons really made the show stand out for me because of the MacGyverisms.

I agree with the above. I think that kids were trying to copy some of the bomb making macgyverisms and other dangerous macyversims seen in the earlier episodes. I think the pressure on the writers from everyone about the danger of attempting some of these macgyverisms especially the ones involving chemicals forced the writers to use less macyverisms per episode and less volitile macgyverisms. I think the writers starting running out of simple non dangerous macisms and just decided to make the macisms appear less and less in the episodes till they nearly disappeared thus contibuting to the demise of the show itself.

The change doesn’t block my enjoyment of the show in the later seasons, but it certainly does give them a very different feel.

I think this is on the right track:

The later seasons had more character-driven and issue-oriented stories, and with Mac's character more fully developed they may have wanted to rely less on the "MacGimmick" and more on Mac himself. Knowing just how wide a range RDA was capable of as an actor gave them a lot more ground to work on than if he'd just been a gung-ho macho action figure.

It’s the difference between problems with solutions and problems with resolutions. It's one thing to use available materials to get out of a tight squeeze and ride off into the sunset (or dash across the border), and another to focus more on the interpersonal and emotional impact of a difficult situation – which might not be something that can be easily solved with gadgetry. The biggest issues can’t be “solved” at all, not in a quick hand wave anyway.

Everyone has raised some interesting points. I think it is a combination of factors. The writers were definitely more character focused in later seasons and the episodes were centered on solving personal and social problems. In these cases, MacGyverisms were not likely to solve the problems.

The MacGyverisms worked best when they were applied by MacGyver to get himself out of trouble. These scenarios were most frequent when he was doing assignments or going one on one with a bad guy.

The MacGyverisms themselves were very cool, especially in the earlier episodes and I really enjoyed them when Mac explained what he was doing and the expected outcome. The earlier Macisms were very techy and the producers did leave out critical details so that people couldn't reproduce them. I think though that some people still did try to reproduce them, sometimes with unintended consequences. In get-rich-through-lawsuit America, the producers and the studio may have decided to tone down the Macisms to avoid potential litigation.

I also think the more technical MacGyversims were expensive to produce. First of all, someone had to research them, someone had to test them, then the writers had to figure out how to incorporate them into the show, the tech experts had to rig them so they would work when RDA did them, etc. Many of them would have needed to be tested a number of times to get things right on the film. The lower tech Macisms would not have cost as much to produce, and with Paramount looking to cut costs (relocating to Vancouver), it isn't too far of a stretch to assume that the studio pressured the production crew keep the costs down by reducing the number of Macisms.

So that's my take: shift in the focus of the show, fear of lawsuits, and pressures to keep costs down. Take it for what its worth.

Since I grew up with later seasons and discovered earlier seasons in my preteens I never mind it. Of course what I liked is the more MacGyverisms throughout an episode.

But that aside. The hi-tech isms seemed more complicated to imitate than low-tech. I once imitated his escape out of the submarine in Deep Cover with a toy gun and it worked. If that was a real gun, I'd probably shot a hole in the roof. Either hi-tech or low-tech they're always dangerous to imitate.

Though I like the variation between scientific and less scientific isms. It might help the kids to better understand what he's doing.

there are a couple of books out there that take a close look at all MacGyverisms and explain why/how they work or why they won't work IRL. quite an interesting read.

Are you talking about the How to handbooks?

I read one of those once and thought it was a joke. They treat the MacGyverisms as if they would actually work "as is", and use the same hokey "Hollywood science" explanations they used on the show... right down to the missing out of vital ingredients.

I was obviously expecting something a little more serious from the book than what I got.

There were those, I never read that one though, i have the little black one, and there was another one i cant remember the title of, it's a Hardback book, and there are also Sneaky uses for every day things and Sneakier uses for every day things. Although the sneaky/sneakier books don't have much to do with MacGyver directly, but they're an interesting read.

Hmm... I'd be interested to know the name of them.

Sneaky Uses for Everyday Things

and

Sneakier Uses for Everyday Things

both books are by Cy Tymony , and he's got another one coming out "Sneakiest Uses for Everyday things"

there's also a "what would MacGyver do" which, I think just has real life stories of people being inventive in MacGyver-like ways.

and there's the revised edition of the "Unofficial Handbook" how different is it from the first edition?

I have the sneaky uses book (the first one)

I was referring to the black book you said you had.

Hmm... I've wondered about this, too. Maybe part of it had to do with the character more believable. Mac was supposed to be a regular guy, not some PhD physicist or chemist. My honest opinion is that some of the eppys in the first two seasons were kind of far-fetched. They became a little less "out there" in the third season, and also the Macisms became more believable, using *truly* everyday stuff. Also, I think cost probably had something to do with it: it's a lot cheaper and technically easier to come up with 50 different uses for a paperclip, a Swiss Army knife, and duct tape than it is to always be blowing something up.

I like the earlier ones as well, and I think that with his background in physics, they are certainly feasible. I mean, according to "Hell Week," he was a physics major in college. If that's the case, it certainly would not be difficult for him to create the kinds of things he was creating.
I think the writers were trying to make it more character based but I wish they would have had more to go on if they stuck to the original premise.

Since MacGyver is supposed to be so ingenious he can fix anything, it only contributed to the character and made him more unique and fascinating. When in later seasons the -isms were lacking, I did feel that I was watching more of a regular guy detective show that could have been produced by anyone, not the original Mac with the clever premise.

I think that this is evident because of the changing times. The 80's had shows like "Weird Science" and the "A-Team." This was a technical age when the computer was really coming into play and 'nerds' were cool (Not that Mac was a nerd). But the 90's brought the thinking that nerds were uncool and should be picked on. I think that the writers steered away to keep MacGyver with the times, although this gave us some of the hokiest escapes in the series (see The Stringer, water pressure). It would have been a much different show had the whole attitude stayed with it.

Speaking as someone who was there: picking on nerds wasn't a new idea in the 90's, and it was alive and thriving in the 80's. My own former career as a punching bag attests to that, although the word 'nerd' wasn't the term we used in the 60's and 70's. Let's see -- I was usually called a 'brain', a 'freak' or a 'weirdo', and for a short time we were called 'cones' (after the Coneheads) and occasionally 'wonks'. Mostly, I was called less printable things.

Bullying the 'brains' goes back decades, probably centuries. Although science became more important to the US during and after WWII, it was still very uncool, even in places such as Los Alamos, where you'd think brains would be valued.

My own experience was that nerds didn't become 'cool' until the late 90's, when the technologically proficient began to stand out as indispensible to ordinary, everyday life. Those of you who live and breathe pop culture, consider the images in such movies as "Back to the Future" and "Peggy Sue Got Married" -- set in the 50's, with bullying in full flower.

The real change as I saw it came when desktop computers and the internet transformed the business world, and the 'nerds' became the folks with power and money. When a nerd became the richest man on Earth, and didn't care whether he was cool or not, nothing was the same.

It didn't really hit the schools hard till after that -- my high school had a computer lab, but only the 'freaks' spent time there. Some of them went on to become the first employees of Microsoft . . . funny how things work out. Microsoft may be Evil, but nowadays it's the former Popular Kids who try to organise high school or college reunions and wonder why some of us don't want to attend, or why we turn a deaf ear when asked to contribute to the alumni funds of schools that looked the other way when we were being assaulted by the football stars. ("No, you weren't my friend. You were my tormentor. Yes, I'd like fries with that.")

</soapbox mode>

And technology now informs social life as well -- look at us here, socialising online!

That last line sounded like a political slogan

There was still bullying, but films like "Revenge of the Nerds" and "Animal House" tried to show nerds as heroes in the end. How it actually happened in real life, that's another story.