Lisa Woodman The daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Lisa came to MacGyver's aid after he was framed for the attempted assassination of a nation's president. She was kidnapped by one of her father's ex-employees and later developed a drinking problem, for which she has sought counseling.

Lisa Woodman is someone who I don't really have an opinion about so I can't really vote. I like the fact she came to Mac's rescue in Cease Fire and how he helped her in Hearts of Steel. But in Twenty Questions... Twenty Questions is a good episode to show in what world a teenager lives in. Was she worth a comeback after Twenty Questions? I don't know, maybe more matured near the end of the sixth season or so.

I liked Lisa Woodman just fine. She did come to MacGyver's aid in "Cease Fire" and struck up a friendship from that point, as MacGyver also helped her with her family situation and encouraged not to give up on her parents or their marriage. And then he came to her rescue in "Hearts of Steel" and we see that Mr. Woodman learned a lesson of his own about what's most important. And in "Twenty Questions", the show explored the problems of drinking and MacGyver was able to keep Lisa from falling in with a bad crowd.
It was nice for Mac to have a teenage companion on the show for a few episodes. Perhaps the writers thought kids would appreciate seeing someone their age working with MacGyver and learning from him. In any case, it's nice to have a character portrayed by the same actress and appear in 3 episodes. This pus Lisa into an upper tier of recurring characters, along the lines of Mike Kiley and Mama Lorraine (who all had three appearances portrayed by the same person.)
And hey, I liked Mayim Bialik on Blossom and she was great on MacGyver too.

Also, I just thought of something. Lisa's parents would also qualify as recurring characters. Joseph Lambie portrays Eric Woodman in "Hearts of Steel" and "Twenty Questions". (At least that's all he's listed for on IMDB.) But I'm pretty positive both Mr. and Mrs. Woodman showed up briefly at the end of "Cease Fire", though they may have been played by a different actor and actress.
Patrie Allen is listed as portraying Catherine Woodman in "Twenty Questions" - and in fact, she also showed up as Marie Morrison in "Renegade"! More recycling!

I guess I don't mind Lisa in Cease Fire, but she does come across to me as a bit of a whiny brat in Hearts of Steel, which I find rather irritating and can't help thinking she needs a good slap at times.

But I guess that means Mayim Bialik did her job in acting the role, and in fact it would be fair to say that she did a better job of playing the part than many of the early season bimbos and the nature of the story lines she appeared in meant we got some depth to the character, unfortunately that depth showed us a spilt little brat with parents who obviously consider children as an accessory rather than a responsibility. I hate parents like that.

So all in all the character has some depth, but unfortunately the depth is very annoying to me, so only gets an OK vote from me.

I voted good. Not because I like her that much, but because she is a "new" recurring character. Other than Jack or Murdoc.

I love Cease Fire, I like Hearts of Steel and I dislike 20 Questions.

But just because she's someone new I rated her good.

Did you find her obnoxiously annoying in 20 questions?

It's impressive on how she grew on like one year time. In Cease Fire she still had a child like face and in Twenty Questions she sure aged a little. She said she was ninth grader so that must have made her like 14 or 15 in Twenty Questions. So that must make her 12 or 13 in Cease Fire.

But what I truly like about the MacGyver-Lisa relationship is and again he proved this in Cease Fire and Hearts of Steel. MacGyver at least listens to Lisa and he can always talk things over.

In Twenty Questions it seemed he couldn't do that anymore. Than again we've all been in that age Lisa was in. Kiley summed up all the attitudes Lisa had. Mood changes, bad grades, slurred speech after drinking. This was that kind of episode where in something bad had to happen before they realized how big the problem was. To think of it all started with a drinking Lisa and a dead landlady and it ended with Lisa caught in a jeep that was ready to fall in the ocean.
I also liked how they showed the warning signs and the symptoms. Coming home late and what I think that was the most important sign. In both scenes where MacGyver is with the Woodmans each time Catherine takes a glass of whiskey. So Twenty Questions ain't so bad after all but I can understand why some people think Lisa is just a annoying spoiled little brat. And in some way she is but I'm sure even after that whole ordeal she can still count on MacGyver.

I vote good. Lisa was a good tool for the show. Her character developed as she grew up from a lonely schoolgirl to a spoilt brat and then to a troubled teenager. The background to Lisa’s character made all this seem realistic to me. At each step she had different issues that MacGyver attempted to help her or her family with. You would have thought her family would have learnt something in their first 2 encounters with MacGyver but it seemed not. I wonder if they ever got their act together after 20 questions.

I agree. In 20 questions Lisa was an obnoxious brat but I quite liked the way that she turned against MacGyver and thought he was acting like he was so perfect. It showed that MacGyver isn’t infallible and can find himself in situations where he means well but can’t always make things work by saying or doing the right thing. If Lisa hadn’t been nearly killed she would have continued to drink with those older kids. Nothing MacGyver said to her or her parents during the episode seemed to make the situation better.

Lisa Woodman is a good character. She showed up in three episodes that each had a different lesson for her and for the people around her.

In Cease Fire, she is a lonely pre-teen trapped in her pain over her parents pending divorce and her isolation at the boarding school. She internalizes these feelings by declaring that the divorce is "her fault". Lisa'a insecurities are really evident when MacGyver asks her for help and she tells him that she can't because she is no good at doing anything. Mac gives her a little encouragement, she tries and succeeds and in doing so builds her confidence to the point where she can speak up and confront her parents. Girls in this stage of their life are often very vulnerable when they find themselves confronting the twin demons of biology and social constraints. The writers captured this vulnerability and Mayim Bialik did a good job of portraying it.

In Hearts of Steel, Lisa is a little older and a little more confident. In this episode, we get a better feel for her parents, especially her father. Lisa'a attitudes and obnoxiuosness come from her parents, with the stronger influence from her father. He has a level of arrogance that definetely rubs off on Lisa.

In Twenty Questions, Lisa is navigating that new hideous social experiment we call high school. She doesn't see drinking as a problem, since she is blinded by the "coolness factor" of hanging around with seniors. When I was in high school, freshmen served one purpose, to be tormented by seniors for the amusement of other seniors. Lisa uses alcohol to "fit it" and to solve problems. This is not uncommon, especially since we see Lisa's mother with a glass in hand whenever she is stressed or trying to deal with bad news.

This episode was written during the time of increased awareness of teen drinking in the United States and is characteristic of the "issue of the week" flavor of the later episodes of MacGyver. Lisa's interaction with Mac changed in this episode. She no longer sees him as the good guy influence in her life, but rather as an anchor holding her back from having fun with her new friends.It is here too, that we learn why MacGyver doesn't drink. lisa doesn't see anyhting wrong with her drinking, until her actions cost someone their life. True, Lisa is not the one that pushed the maid down the steps, but she was there and gace the other people access to the house. It was not until she jeopardized her own life and MacGyver's that she woke up to reality that she is out of control. It was at this time that her parents also opened their eyes.

This episode felt a lot like one of those public service announcements, but it also makes a nice morality play about doing what is right vs what is easy or popular. The pressures that Lisa faced haven't changed much in the last 20 years. Kids today feel just as much pressure to conform to society's standards as Lisa did. And they use the same crutches, drugs and alcohol, to make it easier. Again, Miyam did a good job with a tough topic. She gave a credible, believable performance as a teen in trouble.

Although I didn't care for her much in Blossom, I thought she was a decent actress and she did a good job on her appearances in MacGyver.

She's good. It was funny when she was dancing in that store in "Hearts of Steel."

Lisa is one of my favorite reoccurring characters. She's very thoughtful in my opinion, for being a spoiled rich kid (she didn't seem to inherit her dad's selfishness or love of money). And I really like seeing MacGyver interact with kids. I hadn't realized she was in only 3 episodes. I know her character didn't appear until season 5 but wish they would've put her in another episode or two.

OK. Lisa...

On the one hand, she's incredibly annoying to watch because she behaves like such a monster for so much of the time. So much so, in fact, that her behaviour can sometimes distract from the story. I know she has to deal with quite a difficult home life, and clearly picks up a lot of behaviour traits from her parents, but she really has it very easy compared to, say, some of the Challengers Club kids. I don't have a lot of time for poor-little-rich-kids on the whole and Lisa is therefore not a favourite character.

But on the other hand, I'm sure everyone's known teenagers like that even if they never behaved like that themselves. I think she's very well acted by Mayim Bialik, who keeps the character just balanced between insufferable and self-aware. You can see that there's the potential for a decent person to emerge once the attitude disperses a bit!

But how would she know about the challengers kids? She's never had anything to do with them or any other underprivileged people?

Hi KiwiTek,
Chances are she wouldn't know about them.

But behaviour is a choice - here's Lisa, with a lot of her basic needs met, being foul to people like Mac who are trying to help her. Plenty of kids don't have that, and still choose to be nice to people.

I think some time spent at the Challenger's Club might do Lisa some good

Let's not forget Mac took Lisa to the Challengers Club for the twenty questions test. Alright maybe that was just quick in and out of there as he said he just took her there for the test and than would take her home.

Maybe there was one time I didn't like Lisa too much either. I never liked the 'teen' episodes so much. But with Lisa you kinda see a development. She meets Mac in Switzerland as a 14 year old kid or something, who can see the big picture maybe even better than her parents but she is not listened too. That's why it's so interesting she can relate to MacGyver. A trend that continues in Hearts of Steel. I really like that bit where she says that MacGyver can always talk her over.

But than in Twenty Questions it goes wrong. I'm not so sure that her behaviour in Twenty Questions was a choice but more a part of her development in life. She got to puberty and it expressed itself. Staying out late, experimenting with alcohol, wrong friends... And than through the whole jeep experience, she realizes what she has done and what could've happened if it wasn't for Mac. That's what I like about that final scene. She admits it and it hurts but that's the first step.

And I think if we are annoyed by characters in some cases like Lisa, it means she pulled of a great acting job.

I really took a liking to Lisa. She seemed like a very believable character, a girl just starting to navigate that dreaded time known as adolescence.

We see her start off as a insecure, shy kid who's hurting over her parents' impending divorce. She does indeed seem to see the big picture better than her parents do, but they no doubt tell her she's too young to get it. Later she seems to try on the arrogance that her parents have, but finds it isn't a good fit. But she also has a sense of fairness, and turns out to be the voice of reason in Hearts of Steel. I actually saw a bit of myself in Lisa: I was somewhat older than my years, for other reasons, but (I hope!) not the brat that she could be.

By the time of Twenty Questions, she's suffering the full-blown effects of adolescence and her dysfunctional family. Not a good combination in any case, and it very nearly costs Lisa her life. But in the end, she's willing to admit that she doesn't know everything, and that she needs help. By the end of that episode, we start to see hints of the person she could become: assertive without the arrogance, intelligent, and more compassionate.

I thought she was great!

I just saw in the local paper where she was in my area yesterday at Marshall University in Huntington WV. I would have loved to have met her!

I liked Lisa...she was a good foil for Mac, and she brought out his fatherly side. Mayim Bialik was only a teenager when she took the role, and she deserves credit for doing such a fine job of acting alongside the adults...and for growing up not only sane, but brilliant. After all, that's Dr. Bialik, neuroscientist, to you.

Now here is one girl who grew in popularity, then vanished off the Earth only to reappear on Big Bang Theory!

I remember Mayim Bialik in Blossom too. Always liked the character of Lisa Woodman and thought she was a nice addition to the show. She only appears in 3 episodes but they were good. At first I did not even recognise her in BBT but my wife pointed her out to me & I was pleasantly surprised.

She also plays in a couple of episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm and she's Jewish by the way.

Why is that worth mentioning?

I don't think there is any cultural or religious aspect in mentioning someone's faith. But it is interesting to know none the less.

Why is that worth mentioning?

Like Denizen says. It's interesting to know. Not that it matters though. I don't know if you have ever seen Curb Your Enthusiasm, but almost the entire main cast is Jewish and some/most of the guest stars are. And they never mind saying so during the run of the show.

Is it? ok.

I actually hate this character and tend to avoid the episodes which have her in them. She's a whiny spoilt brat who needs to be taught that the world doesn't revolve around her.

I know it's all about how she was raised and her parents made her turn out like that, blah blah blah but she just grates me completely the wrong way.

At the end of 20 Questions when she's trapped in the truck going over the cliff I always yell at MacGyver to "Push it over!!" But he never does. Stupid man!

Making fun or insulting another person's religion or belief is wrong. We all know that. There is nothing wrong with wanting to know or hearing what religion another person is.

If above all, it helps to associate the person in the world better. I for one am Greek Orthodox. Now that might not mean much to some of you, but to others helps identify myself from Greek decent & follow the ancient Christian calendar. It does not make me any different to any of you but if You work with someone who happens to take off a few days and you wonder why till someone tells you they are celebrating a Buddhist Religious holiday, then you know them better! See?

As far as creation and how we got to where we are etc. ...... I believe only in the Big Bang Theory.

That's great, Joe. I think you & about a few million other people too.

Even the fantastic discoveries made each and every day in the world of science are fascinating. One story that has been keeping my attention is the new theories being presented on dark matter.

I don't think this has much to do with Lisa Woodman though, so maybe we should continue this discussion in another thread.

It might have something to do with Mayim's character in BBT though!

I like her dancing, especially when she was drunk