Every week I will be posting a new topic titled "Episode Discussion". In this we will discuss an episode, what we liked about it, what we didn't like, etc.


Episode 83 - Unfinished business

While on a gold-panning expedition, MacGyver, Jack and Pete are stalked by a vengeful female assassin.

votes from October 2006
Poor [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Average [ 1 ] [8.33%]
OK [ 3 ] [25.00%]
Good [ 4 ] [33.33%]
Excellent [ 4 ] [33.33%]
Total Votes: 12

Archived comments
Sheepy Posted on Apr 10 2006, 02:08 AM

MacGyver Posted on Apr 10 2006, 05:27 AM

MacsChick Posted on Apr 10 2006, 02:14 PM

MacGirl Posted on Apr 12 2006, 04:05 PM

MacNymph Posted on Apr 14 2006, 04:13 PM

Rockatteer Posted on Apr 14 2006, 04:27 PM

Sheepy Posted on Apr 15 2006, 08:25 PM

MacGyverGod Posted on Apr 17 2006, 12:43 PM

Toni Posted on Apr 19 2006, 09:07 AM

MacGirl Posted on Apr 20 2006, 04:52 AM

MacsChick Posted on Apr 20 2006, 02:08 PM

Old Fan Posted on Apr 22 2006, 08:20 AM

MacGirl Posted on Apr 22 2006, 04:06 PM

I noticed that too, MacGod. I think one explanation could be that the show wasn't meant to be "seven years in succession" of Mac's life. I did notice that it jumped around a lot like that. I kind of think of it as more a series of "snapshots" of his life... a situation here, an episode there, a few moments somewhere else.

This is one of my favorites of the 4th season.

Well, I think all of you have covered Deborah completely. She's a lying, treacherous, murderous woman who deserves what she gets. Point made.

I am watching it now, and at the part where she is in the mask (she we can't see that it's her yet) and she is taking Pete and firing off her gun. Then Mac and Jack find Pete's equipment and blood. I noticed the ID thing too after reading the nitpicks section.

I like the flashbacks myself. I may be the only one. I like too how Jack and MacGyver are so worried that it's Murdoc, after all with their experience with him, I can see how that would be a worry.

Question: Wouldn't Mac and Pete have been notified about the date of Deborah's release? Maybe it was decided that day, and they left a message for Pete and Mac at the Foundation? Maybe not. If had a crazy woman like that after me, and she had tried to kill and had gone to prison, I'd want a warning. Not a knock at the door. Or in this case a gun pointed at my best friend.

I love the interaction between Deborah, and Pete and Jack. The look that Jack gives her, and the rock in her back--perfect example of Jack's coming through in a clinch.

Pete's story at the end the scorpion and the turtle- great analogy and a little sad. Deborah's death is so pointless, stupid, ironic and yet fitting for a scorpion.
I watched the pilot episode last night and I loved the line of Mac's "Did you ever see a scorpion sting itself to death?" I think that fits here perfectly.

I voted good. I liked it.

Hmm.. is that standard practice?

I always thought that this episode didn't really feel like a clip show, because it had so much of it's own story going on, which is something I quite liked about this episode.

I don't think they paid much attention to the date. Afterall she was just another bad guy/gal they threw in jail, nothing more.

Agree. I like this way of handling clip show too.

This was a pretty good episode. I wish it wasn't a clip show, though. I think Deborah deserved a proper episode.

One problem with the episode is that there isn't much suspense for anybody who reads the opening credits. There are only two guest stars listed: Bruce McGill and Kristian Alfonso. So even if people don't remember the name of the actress who played Deborah, they'll still know that the villian is a woman, and certainly not Murdoc.

I kind of wish Deborah didn't die at the end. She would have been a good recurring villain. In fact, I could imagine a great episode in which she teams up with Murdoc.

Watching this episode now. Kinda spoiled by the fact I saw the credits at the start and knew the villain was Deborah. Pretty silly to have them thinking about Murdoc when anyone watching knew it wasn't.

Yeah right.

Although I suppose you could also argue that the viewer often knows more about whats going on because of the "eye of God" vantage point. We see what the bad guys are doing, we know what they are planning, but the other characters don't, so I suppose the writers treated this as one of those situations.

I have to say it did seem like they were trying to build suspense and get the viewers wondering who was after them, while all the time (as you pointed out) anyone who saw the opening credits would have a fairly good hunch it was Deborah.

Mac, Pete and Jack together in the outdoors made this one good. When I first viewed this episode when originally aired you were trying to figure out who was after them. As a kid you did not pay much attention to the guest stars names in the opening scenes. The suspense was built by not showing you the assassins face, was it Murdoch? They made it harder to tell it was a woman by having her where heavy over sized clothes. I liked the interaction between Mac, Pete and jack some comical scenes such as Pete getting soaked by Jack working the panning pump. Pretty good episode overall.

Bear in mind, though, that MacGyver aired before the Internet era, and therefore before IMDB. It would take someone with a pretty good memory to remember the name of an actress like that, especially a year and a half after she first appeared in the show. I can see people thinking, "Hmm... OK, that name sounds kinda familiar..." but not remembering exactly who she played.

I didn't really like this one.

I'm not a fan of the clip shows or the use of Deborah for that matter, but I did like seeing Jack, Pete, and Mac together. Jack is my favorite secondary character and I really liked the outdoor elements of this episode, just wish it had been fully fleshed out as an episode instead of so many flashbacks. I vote just OK.

Just watched this one again today.
I'm not a fan of flashback shows either (like a lot of people on here), but this one worked pretty well and I voted good.
To me the flashbacks illustrated how distracted our heroes all were - first because they were 'on holiday' and had no reason to think about danger, plots, roving assassins and so on and then later because they had no clue who the villain was and were taken off guard by Pete's being snatched. Breaking the story up with 'explanations' of why a particular villain might be responsible worked well.
It would have been better not to credit Deborah at the beginning of the episode, because they did a really good job of making her anonymous - it wasn't even that clear whether our villain was male or female and that's usually quite hard to hide.

I thought it was a shame they killed her off too - Deborah and Murdoc paired up would have been awesome!

The ultimate bad guy duo! I would have loved to have seen this and am surprised that didn't happen.

A lot of ideas and thoughts haven been pondered but never used. I think it was John Sheppard who said he would've liked to team up Murdoc and Zito.

I was surprised at the feelings she had for Mac. I agree Jedi. There was a whole volume of possibilities with her!

I actually wish they hadn't killed Deborah... She always seemed like she'd have an interesting origin story, and maybe even a good redemption story. It seemed like MacGyver had reached her to some degree... so maybe there was a reason she was who she was.

Deborah is just a very interesting character, for some odd reason. Such a bummer...

They should have brought back Axminster for this episode.

Me too! RDA and Kristian Alfonso had really good chemistry too.

She says it was great fun filming those two episodes, so yeah... opportunity lost there I think.

I always like the flashback seen with the exploding bed. The expressions on Mac's face are priceless. He hardly says anything, yet communicates so much!

It was only season 4 and they were already trying to go back to the well with flashback episodes? It seems like a cop out, and writers being lazy. The plot would have been fine without the flashbacks....


Like many on here, I like the episode..but it's like 30 mins of flashbacks and 10 minutes original LOL

What do you mean ONLY season 4? A lot of TV shows were lucky to make 4 seasons back then.

Plus they did the first flashback episode back in season 2 with Friends.

It was very common of 80's TV shows to ave flashback episodes regardless of whatever season they were in.

The most interesting about this is, it happens every two seasons. Friends, Unfinished Business and Hind-Sight.

It just seems silly, they couldn't think of a complete episode so they just slapped together dialog to go together to go with the setup for the flashback.

I agree Denzien, yes, flashbacks were very common in the 80's , even shows like Seinfeld did it....

Even Stargate SG1 did it.

I thought it was cool to have a look back on old adventures. Thanks to Hind-Sight, it made me hungry for older episodes. Wondering what those episodes where about, yet I didn't have them at the time. Children of Light: MacGyver with scruffy shoulder length hair or On A Wing And A Prayer: MacGyver with ponytail in the jungle. That was awesome.

I think this clip show handles the clips the best, little short interludes instead of 7 minute scenes, also the flashbacks are pretty entertaining, so I gave it a good. I'm always left wanting a little more with Deborah's character - she needed a little more dialogue or back story or wavering to make her a really compelling character. Also it would have been nice to see MacGyver try to manipulate her back a little bit in this one. I'm talking myself into "fair" now, but I already voted lol.

I always felt Deborah was a missed opportunity. Her death was a bit... lame, in my opinion. =P

But Deborah telling MacGyver that he won because she couldn't find anything in him to hate is profound statement when you think about it.

Though I'm sure MacGyver has at least one annoying habit. Since RDA put so much of his personality into Mac, I bet ya it's excessive gas. lol

Profound... but is it true?? It didn't ever show her hesitate, which would have been more powerful - she blew him up in a boat, and would have stabbed him if he hadn't electrocuted her!! Seems like she was defeated by a combo of luck (something about diver cables saving Mac after the explosion ) and Mac's resourcefulness.

There is an awful lot of talk of farting with the Stargate cast but I feel like Mac is a little more polite than RDA