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 108 - Twenty Questions

MacGyver suspects his young friend, Lisa Woodman, has a drinking problem, when she is found passed out at the scene of a home burglary.

I'm assuming this episode was left out for a reason.

Def not one of my favs. It really is that bad.

From the start, the episode was a Giant PSA about teen drinking, it really steered away from a typical Mac episode. Focusing too much on the point they were trying to make.

I know there were a few other PSA eps.... "Runners" seems to come to mind...

What were some others?

There were other PSA in a lot of Macgyver epo. There was the whole black rino thing in africa.That is were he went to find one of the colton bro.The whole Lisa Woodman thing I liked. From time to time you have to show Macgyver's compassion.He just can't globe trot in every epo. Mac cared for Lisa. I'm she saved his life. He heard she was is trouble and he came runing. He wanted to help. But tv in the 1990's had a lot of PSA. Macgyver was a big show then. Kids needed a role model.I agree that to much PSA can ruin a goog tv show.I think in season 5 there were a bunch of PSA in Macgyver.I think.

I liked the episode ok, but the thing that really bugged me was Lisa's parents.
Every time I see the episode, I want to jump in with Mac telling them that Lisa has a problem and they're not listening to him at all. They don't want to admit that she has a problem with alcohol, but they are quick to criticize her spending, (buying "food" with the credit card which they were dumb enough to give her. She has the credit card in Hearts of Steel when she and Ingrid are in the mall.) her grades, her friends, her hair. Maybe if they had focused more on Lisa and less on themselves, their daughter wouldn't have a reason to drink. And the mother drinks. I always wondered how to further develop that. Lisa in therapy?

I suppose this is a common phenomenon and really has to be taken care of if the producer dedicated a special episode to talk about. Drinking and drug problems still exist in today's teenagers, topped with drink driving. Obviously Lisa took up this habit from her parents, as I can see alcohols are everywhere in the house and so handy. This episode also gave us another teenage nightmare of Mac -- his friend was killed in a drink-driving car crash. Poor Mac! He's lost so many friends when he was still young!

I find this episode quite hard to stomach, because I have zero tolerance for parents like that, and I find myself wanting to smack their heads together and telling to to wake the up and take care of your damn daughter instead of your own egos!!!

Well, Lisa's parents--the thing that gets me, is in Cease Fire Lisa is living in a boarding school. In Hearts of Steel we don't see the mom at all. When we do see her finally the reasons for the marital problems become a little clearer. It isn't just in 20 Questions. These parents and Lisa too need help. and when Mac tries to help them, they villify him and throw him out of their house.

I'm guessing Lisa's drinking problem came from her mother because everytime we see her parent's her mother is pouring herself a drink.

yeah I thought that also.

It was pretty obvious. << drunk laughter

Guess I never commented on this one. Funny, I thought I did...

I never saw this one until I got the DVD's, and I'd heard nothing but negative comments, so I was prepared not to like it, but I did. I thought Lisa's insecurity was very believable, and her wanting to be accepted by an older crowd of kids that she obviously looked up to. Her choice of "friends" (and I use that term loosely!) was poor, but it happens to a lot of kids who are lonely.

It was obvious that the whole family needed professional help, and were deeply in denial that anything was wrong. I wonder if Eric was somehow prominent in the community, and so felt pressured to keep up appearances? And the way Lisa's mom kept reaching for a drink every time she was stressed... well, is it any wonder Lisa turned to alcohol to relieve HER stress?? Some people just shouldn't be trusted with children, and Lisa's parents were perfect examples!!

I also thought it was a very realistic and compassionate portrayal of alcoholism. Mac never judged Lisa for her problem, or told her to just stop drinking. Addiction really is a disease, and some people are more prone to it than others.

Yeah I once heard someone say telling an alcoholic to stop drinking is the same as telling a cancer sufferer to stop being sick.

I, too, find this episode quite hard to stomach, but for an entirely different reason-- because it should never have been made. This does not feel like MacGyver anymore, this feels like an after-school special. We go from watching MacGyver fight off evil dictators in season 1, to watching him fight off a couple of highschool bullies in Season 6? Seriously? Lame.

On DVD, I don't mind so much when I see an episode like this because I can just watch another one. But when the show originally aired, and I would wait a full week to watch an episode, I was seriously let down when they aired epsiodes like this-- a week of anticipation, only to be let down by getting a silly PSA instead of an actual MacGyver episode.

It was an okay episode, although Lisa has always bugged me. I don't really care much what happens to her because I wish they'd just get rid of her. She's a pain in the butt.

I liked Mac's story about his experimenting with alcohol when he was a kid and decided it wasn't for him. I feel the exact same way which is why I don't drink. Mac's smart like that, he seems to know what's good for us!

I hope this is the last episode Lisa appears in. I don't think I could stand anymore. The scene of her 'dancing' on the beach was just so ridiculous I wanted to push her over. Although she was drunk, it reminds me of the silly dance she did in the music shop with her friend Ingrid in Hearts of Steel.

I can understand their reaction. No-one likes an outsider/busy-body sticking their nose in and telling them whats wrong with their life and what they should do to fix it.

In the Woodman's case MacGyver's assessment was correct, but I would expect things like pride and arrogance would have been big factors in the response. The reaction would have been something like "how dare this "working class" person come into my house and tell me, (the upper class businessman) that my daughter has a drinking problem!"

Drinking problems are often perceived as things to be hidden away and ashamed of too which would only have added to the above mentioned reaction.

Having a hard time to know where to put this post because it's not a nitpick but it's about the episode.

In the beginning Lisa lies about the fact that she hasn't been drinking. Instead she claims she had ate whole bunch of chocolates with the real liquor in the middle. Well, last week I saw this show about two brothers doing all kind of bodily experiments and discuss their experiences in front of an audience.

One of the experiments they did live in the studio was to find out if you get drunk from eating liquor pralines. So one of them had to start eating them while hosting the show and perform an alcohol test. By the end of the show one of them ate thirteen liquor pralines and the final test turned out to be positive. Which is interesting because the first test turned out negative and he ate nine of them. So you need to eat more than ten liquor pralines to get drunk.

Though Lisa lied about it, it was a good one, yet transparent. I think you have to at least double the amount to get the wanted effect. To feel tired, wanting to sleep and be unable to remember what happened before. And I think that's what Kyle was talking about that you need to eat a whole bunch of those until that happens.

Yes, yes she is.

I'm not denying that her parents aren't doing as good a job as they might, but Lisa is extremely rude and unpleasant to everyone who crosses her path. Even before the alcohol problem, she's rotten to people at her boarding school and rotten to the shop assistant when she and Ingrid are trying on the jackets in previous episodes.

I suppose she makes a different sidekick for Mac and we get to see him being a 'big brother' to her, but I just can't warm to her. The 'poor little rich girl' thing sets my teeth on edge every time.

Don't really agree. She wasn't rude at her boarding school at all. She stops her headmaster speaking because she's well aware of what the situation with her parents is and in Hearts of Steel she was just pretending arrogance by saying: 'Cheap.' I think it's more odd the shop assistent didn't offer help but rather give this annoyed cough. Aren't 14 year olds not allowed inside a shop to try something on in a mall? They weren't doing anything wrong.

Twenty Questions is another matter. I do agree on that one though. But in all episodes she's in she's pretty good at acting her age. However in Cease Fire she seems much smarter than she appears. She's a kid with an opinion about a situation she seems to know more about than an adult. Than she meets Mac who's ready to listen.

The point is that Lisa is rude and unpleasant because her parents aren't really looking after her like they should. They're important peoples making big money by closing big deals. And she's not getting the attention she needs. Does it suprise you than that she's like that? She's being ignored by her parents. And unfortunately, I know how that feels.

I think Lisa is someone you need to get to know a little before you can really like her and why it is important Mac's around.

Heh heh. Room for everyone

I do agree that Mayim Bialik is very good at acting the character. Unfortunately, the character she's been given to act is a brat...

Fourteen year olds are absolutely allowed to try on things in shops. What annoys is the arrogance. Whether real or faked, she was still rude to the assistant. She does seem pretty smart and with a good grasp of the information in Cease Fire, but again it's not what she says, it's the way she goes about saying it. She's even rude to Mac in this episode when he's clearly trying to help her! Her default state seems to be to assume that everyone around her is stupid and that it's therefore OK to be stroppy with them.

Is her rudeness and arrogance down to lack of attention and guidance from her parents? Yes, quite likely.
If her parents were doing a better job, would she be more polite and likable? Also quite likely, although fourteen year olds do seem to specialise in arrogant even when well treated.

I'm not denying for a moment that she's a product of her environment, but I still don't enjoy watching her!
I'm glad you like her though

Liking her is a big word. But I've come to understand her a bit more while getting older myself.

Her being rude to Mac in this episode adds more to the drama. After all she called for him at the station and than scoffs him off because of his reaction to her drinking. I think I can deal with her rudeness, I think it's worse she lied to him.

I just think: 'Puberty.'

Anyway, can't expect that everyone likes every character either.

The parade of neurotic female characters appearing in this series is a lengthy one.

At least she has some depth.

Ah, the olden days, when Lisa could describe Mac as "her best friend" without anyone suspecting any ulterior motives on his part. Not, of course, that he had any ulterior motives. But these days, someone would at least wonder out loud about it.

Am I right in thinking that he failed to grasp the significance of Lisa being the only 9th grader that Holly would talk to? Maybe the high school he attended was lacking in social hierarchies - which would make it the only fictional high school in the whole US of A where all the pupils respected all the other pupils and nobody tried to be top dog.

I suppose it's quite a stark contrast - Mac doesn't drink alcohol at all and Lisa has a real drinking problem. But I suppose the purpose of the 20 questions was to show that some people do drink socially and that Lisa doesn't fit that category.

(Not that anyone should be drinking socially at the age of 14. Okay, a couple of sips, under parental supervision, wouldn't shock or alarm me.)

Have anyone else seen this message? This was cut out from DVD version, but I watched this episode from online and this message appeared end of that episode with RDA voiceover.



Attached Image

I remember seeing that one time. Also at the end of Runners that happens but just a voice over on the freezed final shot and that one is on the dvd.

Frankly not bad as an episode, it's true that it's not the best of the season, but it's honest, it has no downtime, even if Lisa has less energy than these other performances, she does not care. comes out anyway.

When I saw this episode a few months ago, I had a bad opinion on it, but I like to watch it before giving a review why? already because I love the series Then it allows me to have a more objective opinion, and I was right, because watching the episode again I quickly changed my mind, for the top but it is honest as a whole, I got well entertained in front of my tv screen

I really like the character of Lisa and she forms a good duet with Mac, on the other hand her parents no I can't stand them ... In France, Lisa has the same voice actor for her 3 participations, that's already it, and the episode is titled "the questionnaire"

Mac has a very nice sweater.

Attached Image

I'm glad Inspector Kiley is participating too.

Attached Image

it's a long sleeve t-shirt.