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| MacGyver Online Forums > Episodes > 019 - Slow Death |
| Posted by: MacGyverOnline 2 November 2006 - 04:28 PM |
 019 - Slow Death Airdate: 02 April 1986 Writer: Stephen Kandel Director: Don Weis Guest Cast: Frances Bergen as Eleanor Kingman, Kenneth Danziger as Peter Kramer, Anthony DeFonte as Hassan, Alan Fudge as Paul Webster, Carrell Myers, Tracey Reed, Pamela Roylance as Diana Kingman, Warwick Sims as James Grant, Mark Tymchyshyn as Andy Ellis. MacGyver's train trip through India is derailed by hijackers seeking revenge on two unidentified Westerners who sold poisonous medicine to their village. |
| Posted by: MacNymph 8 November 2006 - 09:17 AM | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| How did you rate this episode? Poor [ 0 ] [0.00%] Average [ 0 ] [0.00%] OK [ 1 ] [7.69%] Good [ 4 ] [30.77%] Excellent [ 8 ] [61.54%] Total Votes: 13
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| Posted by: MacGyverOnline 18 November 2007 - 12:51 PM |
I love the line where MacGyver says "I know where you can find a dragon to slay" in reference to the grumpy old women.  Cracks me up every time. |
| Posted by: MacGyver 18 November 2007 - 02:05 PM |
| This is one of my favorite episodes! I loved it as a child and still love seeing it now. "Slow Death" is an iconic episode for me- especially with the scene with MacGyver jumping onto the train. That's classic! And it also delves strongly into MacGyver's character and personal values- mainly dealing with a sense of justice and choosing to not take revenge and learning to forgive your enemies instead. That's definitely a hard thing to do- but it's certainly the higher road. And as a Christian, that especially resonates with me as this is also what Jesus talked about doing in The Sermon on the Mount. Don't just love your friends- love your enemies too. Love everyone- because God loves them.  And I also really love the ending scene where MacGyver is with that little girl giving her a hug. That was just part of MacGyver's love and concern for others in action (i.e. with the sock puppet and all)- awesome! Great episode that certainly delivers on cool MacGyverisms and leaves you with something important to think about. I appreciate episodes like that that can really connect on more than one level.      |
| Posted by: Lothithil 19 November 2007 - 07:53 PM |
One of my very favourite episodes. I love every frame of this episode... especially the cheesy alarm-clock lie detector!  |
| Posted by: MacGyverGrrl 19 November 2007 - 08:30 PM |
| Rock, I agree. I love that line..........."if you're gonna slay a dragon, I know where you can find one." It gives a quick but accurate insight into Mac's somewhat irreverant sense of humor. I love that sly slightly sarcastic wit. I have a similar sense of humor (as if you hadn't figured that out after a year) so I can really relate. Mac acts as a calming influence for the rest of the passengers. His natural leadership skills come out nad the other passengers turn to him for assurance. The one thing I find a little off is when Andy tries to escape, Mac uses the whistle to scare Hussan's horse. The bandits are all running and shouting and waving guns around, but htey don't even take the whistle away from Mac. I'd think they would not have been real happy with him spooking horses since that could be used as a distraction to help someone else escape. Just a thought. |
| Posted by: MacGyverOnline 19 November 2007 - 09:31 PM |
| I would have actually thought all the yelling and running around would have spooked the horses more than a dog whistle would. Can horses even hear that range of sound? Anyway, yeah it is surprising they didn't take the whistle from him. |
| Posted by: Lothithil 20 November 2007 - 07:28 AM | ||
In 'Jenny's Chance' the horses react to an ultrasonic noise... so if it is an error, at least the writers are being consistent! |
| Posted by: MacGyverOnline 20 November 2007 - 12:57 PM |
| Oh yeah your right... and that actually just reminded me of something I heard once about someone using a high frequency sound device in the end of the riding crop to make his horse run faster or something.. So I guess they can hear high frequency sounds. |
| Posted by: Old Fan 20 November 2007 - 06:17 PM |
Did they even know he used the whistle? I didn't think they did...  |
| Posted by: MacGyverGrrl 21 November 2007 - 11:14 PM |
| They'd have to be blind to miss it. Mac's blowing the hell out of it right in front of Hussan's horse and looking right at Hussan. Maybe Hussan was so happy not to have been thrown from the horse, he overlooked the whistle. And horses can hear high pitched noises.........its the only thing I can think of that causes them to freak out for no good reason other than to see if you are paying attention while you are riding them. |
| Posted by: Amy 22 November 2007 - 05:56 AM |
| I said before that I really like this episode...It's one of my favorites as far as the main plot goes, but one of my least as far as supporting cast...most of the acting is terrible, and I thought the side plots were cheesy! I also love some of the lines Mac has...dragon one included! lol. Grrl, I'm with you on that sense of humor...I love it! I kind of thought with the whistle that maybe in all the confusion they just didn't see it...he does kind of have it cupped in his hands and hidden, though it's obvious to us what he's doing. Yeah, MacGyver, I got the "love your enemy" feel from it too, and I really liked the close look at Mac's sense of justice. "He's got a right, but he's wrong" just speaks volumes. |
| Posted by: Astra 2 January 2008 - 02:46 PM |
| Want to throw in a few cents as well, though everything already has been said. So just a few random thoughts: - Great opening with Mac jumping the train - Love the gentle theme-song when he was making the puppet - like that the bad guy wasn't so bad in the end (though I really wonder how "we don't want to hurt anybody" and blowing up a whole bridge with a train on it goes along - it could have happen the whole thing tumbled down and then good-bye, revenge!) - love Mac's line "I'm a sucker for mornings" - his smile was so genuine! - I think for a train in India there were quite a lot Westerners there all together! - very nice episode from the first season And I can't help it - I really like that Diana. She has a very warm attitude. And I'm glad she finally was able to speak up for herself, to not spend the rest of her life under impact of this awful mother. And this is the only issue I do have with this episode: That the "dragon" turned 180 degrees in the end and even offered money - I think that is just not likely. It might be a kind of a decision made in a hurry, to spend the rest of the life there, and maybe she should have overthought it a bit more yet, but no way I am believing that the mother will do anything to help with that. Not if she is just one bit like my own. She would just say "You're crazy" and leave. So I don't believe that - not when knowing what we saw before of her. Such people only do one thing: leave others looking small and unimportant, to feel themselves better. What I don't understand - why the heck didn't they know by which men they bought the medicine? Why didn't they just bring along the guys that did? Maybe I overheard it - was it the doctor - the son of Hassan, himself, who had died? Did he go all alone? And didn't they search for two men from the beginning? But only one "bad guy" was dead in the end. What happened to the other one? And how could they be so sure that they were in this train exactly, anyway? It must have been at least days, if not weeks after they bought the medicine and lost the children - they could have fled anywhere in that time! So, there are a few details I don't get, but this doesn't change the fact that this is indeed a great episode. |
| Posted by: MacGyverOnline 25 June 2008 - 11:48 PM |
| The women who played the "old dragon" in this episode was Candice Bergen's mother. |
| Posted by: MacsChick 26 June 2008 - 05:04 PM |
| I thought I saw a resemblance. |
| Posted by: MacGirl 7 November 2008 - 08:24 PM |
| Here's the only thing I don't like about this eppy: The lie detector drives me crazy! Here's why. Lie detectors (technically called "polygraphs") don't really detect lies or truth. They detect stress, which is why they use a blood pressure cuff. However, an innocent person who's nervous about being questioned will set it off, while someone who doesn't care about lying and will not show any physical reaction (in other words, a psychopath) will "pass". This is why polygraph results are not admissible as evidence in American courts. So I'm a little surprised that one was used in this eppy. Then again, they were on a train, and Mac didn't have many options or much time. |
| Posted by: Beachbead 25 April 2009 - 05:57 AM |
| I loved the part where hes running and just makes it, and then he goes and makes a doll for the little girl. The German episode title is "Halt auf freier Strecke", meaning "Stopped Between Stations". |
| Posted by: MacGyverOnline 29 April 2009 - 02:30 PM |
| Why do they make up their own names for the episodes instead of just using the real episode name? By which I mean translate the real name into the German equivalent so Slow Death would be (and please forgive my German here) Langsam Tod? |
| Posted by: SMeeceymouse 29 April 2009 - 02:50 PM |
I just loved this episode from beginning to end. It shows that good prevails (most of the time) over evil.  |
| Posted by: Dennman 12 March 2010 - 01:53 PM |
| Classic episode. One of my favorites with classic dialogue. Mac is the king of cool and calm in this one. |
| Posted by: NightTinkerer 13 August 2012 - 12:22 PM |
| I did enjoy this episode a lot. I doubt the MacGyver of the later seasons would have made such an entrance, but some of his best qualities does indeed show in "Slow Death." Needless to say, I love the sock puppet and the way he charms the little girl.  And as some of you have already pointed out, Mac has a calming influence on the other passengers, and even the attackers. I really enjoyed the subplot about the crippled doctor and Diana. They both regained a lot of self confidence and a sense of meaning in the end. I've never been to India, but from what I heard, trains in India are usually much more crowded... and very much dirtier too, I guess.  I noticed there's a http://www.macgyveronline.com/pages/article27.html in the media section from the shooting of this episode... I thought it was hysterical that RDA asked to try and drive the train, and just seconds later, the engine broke, delaying their shooting schedule.  Voting "excellent" on this one, though it's not one of my top ten favorites. |
| Posted by: Makedde 23 August 2012 - 06:52 PM | ||
The mother of Laura? She's a terrible actress, is all I can say. One of the worst I have seen. |
| Posted by: MacBeth 18 October 2012 - 10:20 AM |
| I just rewatched this for only the third time ever: I saw it when it first aired, and I watched it once five years ago, when I got back into the show and into its fandom. My memory of it had been that it was a lousy episode, with some of the worst acting ever. I only watched it again today because it was next in sequence in a new rewatch. And guess what? It's actually a pretty good episode -- or at least a reasonably good story. The good bits are overshadowed by the occasional clunker of a line, and the patches of truly vile acting (Frances Bergen (Laura's mother) didn't so much phone in her performance as scrawl it on a note and shove it under the door). But in between the rubbish there's some good stuff. I liked the quiet impact that Mac had on the other passengers. I liked the chemistry between him and Andrea Collins; I would have liked to see more of that. I really enjoyed the MacGyverisms, including the "lie detector" -- which I found myself regarding as a deliberate fake, adequately convincing for its audience, put together as a stunt to flush out a confession.  And, of course, I loved Mac and the little girl.  |
| Posted by: NightTinkerer 18 October 2012 - 11:10 AM | ||
Hehehe, Beth, those are hysterical! Thank you *so* much for posting them! Generally I think the acting is better in the later seasons, (with the exception of the seventh season), and the episodes age with more grace (in general). But watching this episode with my 80's glasses, it's a definite "Excellent." |
| Posted by: Joe SAKic 6 March 2013 - 08:55 AM |
| I was hoping this episode would be a really great one - being a long time Indiaphile. I would give it a marginal thumbs up at best though. Two things that jumped out at the start was the British Train attendant and the 'Bar' Car. These two scenarios would only be observed in the Raj or British India (Pre 1949) never in 1980s India. I can only think that writers only watched the film ' A Passage to India' set in the 1930s to bone up on their India train setting IQ. Small potatoes really but glaring to those of us who've traveled alot by train within the subcontinent. On the other hand the plot was a very appropriate one and slightly ahead of it's time, imo. Many headlines in the subsequent decades about multinationals 'poisoning' Indians in both packaged product and agriculture. The subplots were a bit lame here, I'm afraid, and that coupled with the limited set made it a bit of a yawner at times. Nevertheless - RDA's performance as usual - is the straw that stirs the drink and made it worth the price of admission. The little girl with the Mac-made-doll was endearing and the Indians looked and sounded authentic. 5.5/10 |
| Posted by: Scwilson 6 August 2013 - 09:16 PM |
 The Macgyverisms were cool and the moral issues made this episode stand out. |
| Posted by: KiwiTek 6 August 2013 - 10:03 PM | ||
Yeah it's one of the cornerstone moral issues that ran through the whole show really isn't it. Even right up to the last episode where MacGyver tells SAM that we should be telling ourselves that we can solve our problems without taking human life. This must be the first episode we see that issue raised? I can't recall any earlier episodes specifically addressing this. |
| Posted by: KiwiTek 6 August 2013 - 11:13 PM | ||
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| Posted by: Scwilson 7 August 2013 - 08:25 PM |
 Mac was reluctant to take human life, even if they were trying to kill him. I always wondered how Mac got along in Vietnam? The series never explored Mac's past in Vietnam. |
| Posted by: YopeGyver 8 August 2013 - 06:39 AM | ||
That would make for an intriguing fanfic. |
| Posted by: Rocket 22 March 2014 - 11:19 AM |
| I liked this one. The doctor is definitely channelling Tom Baker, the train makes a good setting for the episode, Mac is a pillar of strength in a crisis situation and the bad guy wasn't all bad. What's not to like? Also, I'd always guessed that Mac would be a morning person, so its nice to have it confirmed |
| Posted by: denizen 23 March 2014 - 12:10 AM |
| Couldn't have put it better! |
| Posted by: Walter 2 December 2014 - 01:29 AM |
| This one is better than I remembered to be honest. Love the line about knowing where to find a dragon.  I found the story about how the doctor lost his arm to be pretty weak and unbelievable, but still gets a good vote from me. |
| Posted by: MacGyverGod 10 October 2015 - 03:25 PM |
| Is it me or does Mac's voice sound lower than usual? He sounds like he had a big party the night before and had plenty of smokes and drinks or was he recovering from a sore throat or something? And it's as well with the voice overs, or did they just mess up in post-production? And why does Andy keep reminding me of Bill of Hellfire? Each time I think it's him. I think that's what you get if you hire an actor that has sort of a resemblance even if it's just in age. Early to mid thirties. |
| Posted by: RadiantRose 22 November 2016 - 02:18 PM | ||
It does seem more likely that he would have been in an operating theatre ... but I go by the rule "if it might have happened, let's accept it". It's only physically impossible things that make me roll my eyes. |
| Posted by: AmigaDeVenezuela 9 July 2018 - 05:34 PM | ||
The German episode title is "Halt auf freier Strecke", meaning "Stopped Between Stations". It's maybe because "Halt auf freier Strecke" would make more sense to a German audience that "Langsam Tod" or it's based on that they are stopped in the middle of nowhere. It may also depend on how all the dialogue translated from English to German. |
| Posted by: AmigaDeVenezuela 10 July 2018 - 04:04 PM | ||
https://www.macgyveronline.com/articles/locked-out-he-threw-a-bench-through-a-plate-glass-window/ This is the web address for the article about this episode. Read the last couple of paragraphs. Read the whole thing. Very interesting. It may answer your question. |
| Posted by: macgybl 18 October 2020 - 05:57 PM |
| That link didn’t work anymore |
| Posted by: MacGyverOnline 18 October 2020 - 07:46 PM | ||
link fixed. |
| Posted by: MacGyverOnline 21 October 2020 - 03:13 AM | ||
This guys looks like an authentic Indian to you??   |
| Posted by: sylvain1888 15 November 2020 - 03:31 PM |
| The scene where Mac makes a doll for the little girl remains one of the most beautiful moments of the series, that's Macgyver, creates something instantaneously, in thinking immediately and giving pleasure ... This kind of moment cannot be found elsewhere ... |
| Posted by: sylvain1888 15 November 2020 - 03:34 PM |
| Posted by: sylvain1888 15 November 2020 - 03:39 PM | ||||
It's always interesting to know the titles in other countries to know how it is renowned, in France it is entitled "Juste Vengeance", "Just revenge" |
| Posted by: Hannibal_Smith 19 April 2022 - 01:09 PM | ||
Came here to say that. I've had a job application sunk by a polygraph that, effectively, was lying about whether I was lying, which post-polygraph googling revealed was an insanely common event because those things are only slightly more scientific than reading animal entrails. (In a "falling from the twenty-first floor is slightly more deadly than falling from the twentieth floor" kind of way). It's made it impossible for me not to groan when I see polygraphs in pop culture, although I admit that the narrative convenience is so great it's hard to blame writers for using them. (The episode of "Community" where they all get hooked up to them still has me in stitches). At least MacGyver includes a nod to the iffy nature of the science when the guy triggers it through strong emotion because of his girlfriend and not because he's lying. I can also actually see the polygraph in this episode working out realistically in one way: even if MacGyver's polygraph didn't work, the simple fact that the bad guy thinks it works or is afraid that it might work is enough to drive his stress levels and blood pressure to where he triggers it. And then, of course, he just runs for it and admits guilt. Instead of simply sitting still and bluffing it out. I'm told that using a polygraph as a prop that way and playing on the suspect's beliefs is in fact a trick cops and investigators use in real life - though that comes with its own set of problems. |
| Posted by: Barry Rowland 20 April 2022 - 06:43 AM |
| Yes the polygraph can definitely be wrong. To be honest I get stressed out just by getting hooked up to one!! 😂 |
| Posted by: Hannibal_Smith 21 April 2022 - 05:06 PM | ||
On the other hand, funny anecdote I've read in a CIA guy's biography: The man was posted in Beirut during the eighties, and at one point the home office sent out a polygrapher to interview one of his Lebanese sources and verify the guy's reliability. A minute into the interview, a huge bomb blast goes off fairly close to the embassy. The Lebanese guy, desensitized by years of living in a war zone, doesn't even flinch. The polygrapher picks up his stuff and storms out, shouting that there's NO WAY he'll be able to get a proper reading on somebody like that. |
| Posted by: Barry Rowland 28 April 2022 - 07:45 AM |
| I believe it!! |
there is nearly nothing more to say about this awesome episode (I also love the scene where he makes this sock puppet for the little girls, you can really see how much he loves kids), except for