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MacGyver Online Forums > Episode Discussions > 1-17 Ruler

Posted by: MacGyverOnline 28 February 2017 - 02:17 AM

1-17 Ruler

Airdate: Feb. 24, 2017
Writer: Andrew Karlsruher
Director: Antonio Negret
Guest Cast: Aina Dumlao (Andie Lee) , Svetlana Efremova (Daniel Lee) , Christopher Heyerdahl (David Arthur Faraday)
Deborah Mace (Jenaveev) , Brandon O’Dell (Phoenix Tech) , Christine Horn (National Security Advisor)
Gregg Christie (CIA Director) , Bill Stinchcomb (DIA Director) , Kaleka (NSA Director) , Inge Uys (Dutch Tech)
Robin F. Baker (Dutch Cop # 1)

Bozer’s first overseas mission goes terribly wrong when Mac and the team are blamed for a terrorist bombing and the Phoenix Foundation is forced to disavow them leaving the team to avoid authorities and clear their names without any support from back home.

Posted by: tvero 28 February 2017 - 04:44 AM

The forum is back .

So glad. I missed you.

Posted by: Joe SAKic 28 February 2017 - 07:43 AM

Not bad, poorly thought out in the filming depo though. If you want to watch a classic MacGyver episode, watch last weeks H50 ... more MacGyver feel (in places) than the MacGyver reboot.

Posted by: Miasma 1 March 2017 - 06:33 AM

QUOTE (Joe SAKic @ 1 March 2017 - 03:43 AM)

Not bad, poorly thought out in the filming depo though. If you want to watch a classic MacGyver episode, watch last weeks H50 ... more MacGyver feel (in places) than the MacGyver reboot.

H50 is, overall, a higher quality show than MacGyver. When I first found out Lenkov was doing MacGyver, I started watching H50 to get a sense of what to expect, and it was pretty encouraging. I felt the show had a good mix of action, drama and bits of comic relief. It's not a brilliant show, but it's well-made, and I could easily picture how the team behind it could make a quality reboot of MacGyver.
But then the MacGyver reboot came out, and the quality just feels so much lower. It feels cheaper, it doesn't look as good, and the writing feels much more cookie-cutter. I'm not sure why that is.

I realized that one of the things that annoys me about the reboot is that it's always trying too hard to be funny. I was watching a rerun of the "Humanity" episode from the original series last night, and I kept picturing how, if that episode had been in the reboot, Jack would have been there, making constant wisecracks about Victor the entire time, instead of letting the drama between Mac and Victor develop. And, of course, all of the quiet scenes would have had some dopey music playing in the background, and we would keep getting cutaway shots to Bozer over-emoting about whatever. Etc, etc. It sometimes feels as if the reboot is written for people with ADD, like the writers don't trust the audience to stay engaged if the show isn't constantly making noice and jumping around.

Anyway, as for the "Ruler" episode last week-- It actually wasn't bad. I had hoped Patricia Thornton might show up, but still, it was enjoyable enough. But my comments above still apply. They need to tone down the constant wise cracks, the Bozer goofiness, etc. Not saying it needs to be super serious all the time, but it should be an adventure/drama with a few moments of comic relief, not a comedy show with a few moments of adventure.

(Sorry for the long-winded post! Hey, we didn't have a forum for a while, so now I need to make up for lost time! ha.)

Posted by: Joe SAKic 1 March 2017 - 07:23 AM

The mercurial MacGyver magic is mostly lost in this series because they're all tooooooooooooo connected. If it's not Riley's(I had to Google her name, she doesn't register at all with me) computer documenting, sussing out, & googling things in the eleventh hour, it's the fact that they're all following each other around like lambs. Thus there's absolutely no sense of anxiety, danger, how the eff is he (yes, MacGyver the name sake of this series) ever gonna get out of the mess de jour. Too much inane banter, too much connection, the music is average with respect to the potential direness of the situation(s), and the film sets are way too flat/generic. Other than that, it's perfect!!!!!

Posted by: DXS 1 March 2017 - 06:20 PM

The forum was still POOFed when this show aired.

I remember thinking..... "meh......"

This episode didn't impress me.

I hope the forum doesn't go down again. I felt like a part of my life was missing!

Posted by: denizen 1 March 2017 - 10:30 PM

There were a few issues but i think we're online for now.

Not impressed either.

Posted by: Macgyver12186 2 March 2017 - 05:22 AM

I enjoyed it

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 7 December 2017 - 01:47 PM

Huh. Not many posts in here

I take that opportunity to post the ratings from the premiere. Looking back at old ratings, it's interesting to see that for Season 1, competition was a lot higher audience-number-wise, and they still managed to pull over 6 million live viewers every Friday. Kinda diminishes the ratings for Season 2 that are lower despite weak competition.

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 4 January 2018 - 02:58 PM

There will be a Rerun of this Episode on Friday, January 26 on the usual airtime of 8pm ET/PT: https://twitter.com/BWWTVWorld/status/949046028551901184

Posted by: Dragondog 4 January 2018 - 03:13 PM

QUOTE (DashboardOnFire @ 4 January 2018 - 04:58 PM)

There will be a Rerun of this Episode on Friday, January 26 on the usual airtime of 8pm ET/PT: https://twitter.com/BWWTVWorld/status/949046028551901184

So no new MacGyver that day?

Oh well, at least we get a rerun. I thought that was when "Murdoc + Handcuffs" was airing, but I guess another time?

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 4 January 2018 - 03:24 PM

QUOTE (Dragondog @ 5 January 2018 - 01:13 AM)

So no new MacGyver that day?

Oh well, at least we get a rerun. I thought that was when "Murdoc + Handcuffs" was airing, but I guess another time?

Yes, looks like there's 3 episodes in a row before this rerun.

It will probably be a "Rerun Evening" because H50 will have a rerun, as well. I'm assuming they're "stretching" the Season as they did with S1 last year - there were only 2 episodes in January, March and April so it lasted longer.

Posted by: Dragondog 4 January 2018 - 03:34 PM

Well... at least we'll get Murdoc as soon as it comes back. Maybe they'll do a press release about MDB's rumored appearance after 2x14.

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 14 January 2018 - 09:14 AM

QUOTE (DashboardOnFire @ 5 January 2018 - 12:58 AM)

There will be a Rerun of this Episode on Friday, January 26 on the usual airtime of 8pm ET/PT: https://twitter.com/BWWTVWorld/status/949046028551901184

Looks like they dropped off the Rerun in favor of Bruno Mars live in concert; so no MacGyver at all on January 26.

So far, there's no new airdate yet. Someone really doesn't like this episode

Posted by: Dragondog 14 January 2018 - 10:26 AM

QUOTE (DashboardOnFire @ 14 January 2018 - 11:14 AM)

QUOTE (DashboardOnFire @ 5 January 2018 - 12:58 AM)

There will be a Rerun of this Episode on Friday, January 26 on the usual airtime of 8pm ET/PT: https://twitter.com/BWWTVWorld/status/949046028551901184

Looks like they dropped off the Rerun in favor of Bruno Mars live in concert; so no MacGyver at all on January 26.

So far, there's no new airdate yet. Someone really doesn't like this episode

Ugggh

Oh well. At least it's coming out on dvd soon.

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 17 January 2018 - 02:43 PM

The episode has been rescheduled for Saturday, February 10: https://twitter.com/TVnow_News/status/953757839507378176

Posted by: Dragondog 17 January 2018 - 03:30 PM

QUOTE (DashboardOnFire @ 17 January 2018 - 04:43 PM)

The episode has been rescheduled for Saturday, February 10: https://twitter.com/TVnow_News/status/953757839507378176

Let's see how long this one lasts.

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 11 February 2018 - 11:01 AM

Preliminary ratings for the repeat on Saturday, February 10: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/the-sked-saturday-network-scorecard-2-10-2018.html

As you can see, the Olympics dominated as predicted - although looking at the other reruns and their audience numbers, MacGyver didn't do that bad!

Posted by: Dragondog 11 February 2018 - 11:07 AM

QUOTE (DashboardOnFire @ 11 February 2018 - 01:01 PM)

Well, considering it's competition, I'd say it did quite well. I didn't watch it, because I forgot about it, and when I remembered I was like, "Ah, it's coming out on dvd soon, and I've got other things I gotta do right now."

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 14 February 2018 - 05:37 AM

Final ratings for the repeat on Saturday, February 10: http://www.showbuzzdaily.com/articles/showbuzzdailys-top-150-saturday-cable-originals-network-finals-2-10-2018.html

It gained a bit more in audience.

Interesting to note: The usual audience numbers for reruns on Fridays is about 4 million live viewers. But looking at the ratings of another rerun that was aired on a Saturday (1x11: Scissors in October 2017) - notably when there was no Olympics competing the timeslot, but College Football - it has more or less the same audience numbers.

Posted by: MacGyverGod 12 October 2018 - 03:26 AM

This was a good episode in general. The opening gambit didn't make sense, it made even less sense than Mac and Jack in the quicksand. Bozer is too much present. At least make the gambits part of an actual assignment or that whatever takes place in the gambit affects the rest of the episode like Amy Austin's phone call to Mac before the opening credits begin as in Flame's End.

Besides that and the fact they were dragging Bozer along, I really like this episode. For starters Bozer is not a field agent at all, he belongs in the lab. His first assignment and he barely could keep it together. Even Willis knew better then to panic when got sucked in that mudbath. This episode contains an element that I also like besides my usual dark atmosphere as we had in the episode with the Zodiac and that was like they were in the tightest spot so far. They're on the run, there's no help from back home, they're on their own and the noozes around their necks are getting tighter and tighter.

I am curious where they shot this because I had the real feeling they were actually in Amsterdam. The buildings and surroundings looked typical Dutch to me. Got any Dutch areas over there? It was also great to see how they actually spoke Dutch. Nice try of Matty to pronounce: Algemene Inlichtingen en Veiligheidsdienst. Not exactly the easiest words. Also the cop who tried to stop them after the bomb blew up was cool but he didn't sound Dutch all and his voice was too low when he said: 'Sta stil! Handen in de lucht.' Maybe 'Handen omhoog,' would've been easier. The Dutch intelligence boss did sound a little more Dutch when he mentioned the bomb explosion to his people.

If they only had a mission in Brussels since the NATO is stationed there. Who knows...

As I said a pretty good episode but Bozer was kind of a drag, even if he did save their butts.

Posted by: MacGyverOnline 12 October 2018 - 04:20 AM

QUOTE (MacGyverGod @ 13 October 2018 - 12:26 AM)

I am curious where they shot this because I had the real feeling they were actually in Amsterdam. The buildings and surroundings looked typical Dutch to me. Got any Dutch areas over there?

Same place they film every other episode.. Atlanta, Georgia.

They applied CGI effect to the buildings to make it look like Amsterdam. DashboardOnFire posted a video a while back from the CGI team that shows the changes.

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 12 October 2018 - 04:27 AM

QUOTE (MacGyverOnline @ 12 October 2018 - 02:20 PM)

They applied CGI effect to the buildings to make it look like Amsterdam. DashboardOnFire posted a video a while back from the CGI team that shows the changes.

I even have screenshots

Posted by: MacGyverGod 12 October 2018 - 04:37 AM

Neatly done.

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 12 October 2018 - 04:45 AM

QUOTE (MacGyverGod @ 12 October 2018 - 02:37 PM)

Neatly done.

They also put the canal in this scene.

Yes, it was well done. Though I'm assuming they might have had stock footage of Amsterdam to embed? I can't imagine they had the money and time to recreate it all new.

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 14 February 2019 - 01:43 PM

Here's the blog post about the MacHacks by Technical Consultant Rhett Allain: https://rhettallain.com/2019/02/14/macgyver-season-1-episode-17-science-notes-ruler/