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MacGyver Online Forums > Nit-picks > 001 PILOT


Posted by: MacGyverOnline 1 November 2006 - 04:37 PM
Mac rips up his green flannel shirt to use as a gas mask, but at the end of the episode he's wearing it again.

White long sleeve shirt changes appearence a little while after Mac rips up his green shirt.

Why didn't the laser burn through the mirror?

The opening gambit says "somewhere in central Asia, is there actually anywhere in Central Asia that looks like Utah?

That fire hose would not be able to lift the weight of the beam

Posted by: Murdoc 13 November 2006 - 08:29 PM
Maybe that was his back-up shirt just in case he ripped it a little bit too much.. LOL!!

Posted by: MacGyverOnline 27 April 2007 - 02:18 AM
In the opening gambit, the title says "somewhere in central Asia."

Is there actually anywhere in central Asia which actually looks like the Grand Canyon?

Posted by: MacGyversCrush 15 September 2007 - 08:56 AM
When the assistant gets shot near the end, the gun is clearly pointed away from her..


Editted.. Also how could a single hose full of water raise a ton or more of steal and rock? And Mac be strong enough on his own to push it out of the way.

After he falls through the hole a chunk of cement fell on his leg. You think he would of felt that and it would hurt. you can tell it was foam and it bounced off his leg.

When they entered the lab full of gas, they didn't even cough or choke over the fumes.

Aslo when he was redirecting the laser it was hitting the wall but it didn't leave any scorch (sp) marks at all.

Posted by: MacGyverOnline 15 September 2007 - 03:39 PM
QUOTE (MacGyversCrush @ 16 September 2007 - 05:31 AM)
Editted.. Also how could a single hose full of water raise a ton or more of steal and rock? And Mac be strong enough on his own to push it out of the way.

Basic Physics

If the pressure in that hose was the same as a fire hydrant, I have no problem believing it. also the water pressure in the hose only had to lift one end of the beam.. there for it wasn't lifting the whole weight.

Also once it had lifted the beam the hose then became a fulcrum for a lever. So I think this was one of the more believable MacGyverisms in my opinion.

QUOTE (MacGyversCrush @ 16 September 2007 - 05:31 AM)
When they entered the lab full of gas, they didn't even cough or choke over the fumes.

Not all gases make you cough.. I think it depends on the size of the particles and the kind of fumes.
If the fumes have some kind of burning effect in your throat or have larger particles (such as smoke) then it will cause the cough reflex to try and clear your lungs out... smaller particled fumes would just be a smell.


Posted by: MacGyversCrush 16 September 2007 - 07:40 AM
Well the room was full of smoke as well as gas.. biggrin.gif



Posted by: AustinHend1983 28 April 2008 - 09:03 AM
There is no way that fire hose would lift that beam. The fire hose used is called an "occupant use fire hose" and is intended for civilian occupants to fight very early stage fires. That type of hose is single jacket cotton hose that most likely has far less than 100 psi. Also I saw that MacGyver bumped the fire extinguisher (water pump can) as he was pulling the hose, and the extinguisher rocked back and forth and you can clearly tell that it is empty.

Posted by: MacGyverOnline 30 April 2008 - 01:14 PM
interesting. I guess it's another case of "in theory.. if you used a fire truck hose this would work"

Posted by: AustinHend1983 1 May 2008 - 04:01 AM
I don't even think hose off of a fire truck would lift that load. You can bet on at least 130 psi for most firefighting operations, and of course that pressure can be increased. With hose at 1 3/4 inch up to 3 inches in diameter you are only looking at a few hundred pounds of lift. It looked good though! I'm sure if I was stuck in a situation similiar to that I would try anything.

Posted by: MacGyverOnline 1 May 2008 - 01:07 PM
you have to remember he was only lifting one end of the beam though, so it wasn't lifting anything like the full weight.


Posted by: sapper 13 January 2009 - 09:41 AM
It's been awhile since i last looked this episode. If memory serves me correctly, (too often it don't) Mac had a black parachute harness when he is climping the cliff. When he escapes with the pilot, the parachute harness is gray.

Posted by: SMeeceymouse 29 April 2009 - 05:51 AM
QUOTE (Murdoc @ 14 November 2006 - 01:29 AM)
Maybe that was his back-up shirt just in case he ripped it a little bit too much.. LOL!!

Maybe he was wearing long johns? Being from Minnasota I would think that would be something he would were spring, fall, summer,and winter. But what do I know about Minnasota winters. I live in humid, Virginia.

Posted by: Pepino1309 6 August 2009 - 10:44 AM
I thought the same thing when I saw this. There was no way that hose was going to lift that debris. Chances are good that pressure would have built up in the hose and split it.

Posted by: Issus 22 November 2009 - 04:33 PM
Actually, I thing that those hoses can stand a lot more pressure than we think. Eventually it would have split, but it could have held long enough for MacGyver to push the beam.

Another thing, I found out that chocolate DOES actually neutrolize acid. It just depends on the amount of sugar the chocolate contains.

Posted by: Robert 10 December 2011 - 07:02 AM
QUOTE (SMeeceymouse @ 30 April 2009 - 01:54 AM)
QUOTE (Murdoc @ 14 November 2006 - 01:29 AM)
Maybe that was his back-up shirt just in case he ripped it a little bit too much.. LOL!!

Maybe he was wearing long johns? Being from Minnasota I would think that would be something he would were spring, fall, summer,and winter. But what do I know about Minnasota winters. I live in humid, Virginia.

Hot, humid and full of bugs.
Incidentally, was it the pilot or the first episode where he mentions being from Colorado instead of Minnesota?

Posted by: Dave66243 22 March 2012 - 11:02 AM
In the opening of the pilot episode you see Mac shooting a gun at the enemies but we later learn he hates using guns

Posted by: Makedde 22 March 2012 - 06:44 PM
QUOTE (Dave66243 @ 23 March 2012 - 07:05 AM)
In the opening of the pilot episode you see Mac shooting a gun at the enemies but we later learn he hates using guns

Yes, we were meant to see that. They were still figuring Mac out. He only fires a gun once, in that episode, and never again.

Posted by: MiracleMac 26 April 2012 - 04:21 AM
I heard that some suspected that the producers and writers didn't known yet, what kind of man MacGyver would be, but i have to say wacko.gif ....I don't know blush.gif ...maybe the producers just..?? hmm.bmp

Posted by: KiwiTek 30 May 2012 - 01:07 PM
Sulfuric acid is fatal if inhaled. Both MacGyver and Spencer get right up beside the stream of flowing acid with no breathing protection. They would both have died from inhaling the fumes.

Posted by: Traveller 31 May 2012 - 01:27 AM
Well, fortunately they didn't know that. So ignorance saved their lives.biggrin.gif

Posted by: KiwiTek 31 May 2012 - 03:20 AM
laugh.gif If only it really worked like that! laugh.gif


Posted by: MacGyverGod 22 January 2013 - 12:25 PM
At one point they say the missile will be launched in like 9 and half minutes. On the clock in the back it says it's 18:31 hours. When the launching was almost about to be commenced it was 18:49 hours. That's like double the time that passed.

Posted by: Traveller 23 January 2013 - 08:13 AM
Good one!

Posted by: denizen 16 April 2013 - 09:06 PM
All valid points. But this is a TV show. Not real life. Production was done as best as it could back in 1985 for a series. Were there mistakes / contradictions? Of course! Lee Zlotoff created the show. Not Sherlock Holmes. And for what it's worth, he did a sterling job.

I think MacGyver was supposed to be about expressing that a hero could do all these miracluous things without having to pick up a gun a shoot his enemies. I think that it also tries to show that in life, answers are always there. You just ned to know where to look.

It represented a positive look on any scenario and always left room for optimism. This is why a show like Mac was so cool. We watch it now and it is a little cheesy. But it also is an almost 30 year old show. Still there are some amazing episodes that i recall to this day. As for watching them, some still holp up!

Things to blame on Lee & Mac:

Thanks to them, I now always use a Swiss Army Knife for things i need to fix. sakopen.gif

Thanks to them, I try to live a alcohol free & smoke free life, just like Mac.

Thanks to them, I love jeeps!

And thanks to them, I love the great outdoors!

So I blame MacGyver! biggrin.gif

PS! I still love the pilot! My favorite episode, next to The Human Factor & The Wish Child.

Posted by: KiwiTek 17 April 2013 - 04:43 AM
You need to remember that this is the Nit Picks forum. This forum is here to discuss all the mistakes made during production of the episodes.

For general discussion on the episode itself jump over to the http://www.macgyveronline.com/forums/index.php?showforum=20 or the http://www.macgyveronline.com/forums/index.php?showforum=2 forum for general MacGyver discussions.

smile.gif

Posted by: Scwilson 30 July 2013 - 06:20 PM
MacG.gif my best guess to somewhere in Central Asia could be parts of China or former Soviet Republics?

Posted by: Macgyver man 2 January 2015 - 09:37 AM
I noticed a couple things.

1) The flannel shirt that Mac ripped up had a little bit of a different pattern and was older looking than the one he had on at the end. The ripped up one had more of a square pattern and the one at the end had a stripe pattern. My opinion is he either had a backup shirt or he went out and bought a new one, the one at the end looked new.

2) The gun was pointing away from Spencer at first but as it went off the gun was moving towards her body. It's too close for me to call for sure but if it was a real situation I believe that the bullet could have hit her.

Posted by: dash8brj 19 April 2015 - 09:36 PM
During the scene in the office/control room of the lab, Colson (Dana) describes the laser to Mac after Mac asks the question "infrared or gas discharge" as "Gas, CO2, 10,000 watts". Colson is referring to a carbon dioxide laser, which can indeed set fire to things or cause very serious burns. Mac takes Colsons packet of smokes with the intention (unknown to the viewer at this time) of exposing said laser using cigarette smoke particles. CO2 lasers are in fact, deep infrared. No amount of smoke would expose the location of an ir laser smile.gif

In the scene in the elevator shaft, Mac kicks the grate down the shaft into the deadly laser, producing a nice fireworks display. The resultant smoke from the grate exploding exposes the location of the laser, a pretty blue beam. Looks suspiciously like an argon gas laser. Its output power is probably a watt at most - just enough to light a cigarette (and then turned down to keep our Mac from being blinded by any reflections when he is "toying with it").

The laser would be visible almost as soon as Mac lights the first cigarette, yet he has to take 3 or 4 puffs on 4 cigarettes before the beams become visible. In fact I'd bet that elevator shaft isn't a clean room and the laser would be slightly visible all the time due to dust particles, not just when someone throws something into it, or fills the room with cigarette smoke.

A 10kW laser would burn through a cigarette in less than a second (and a small mirror like what Mac used later in the scene) in at most a few seconds. The strongest argon laser is a few 10's of watts. Even that power would do the same to the cigarette (but not the mirror). Macs vision would have been ruined when he lit the cigarette if it was a 10kW laser, and I hope the crew gave him laser glasses for that stunt, along with the initial catching of the beam with the binocular part, as any laser strong enough to light a cigarette is a serious eye hazard. In fact even a half watt laser can set fire to paper, light cigarettes, burn holes in clothes, burst balloons and make you blind in less than an instant. tongue.gif

You cannot disable a gas laser by sending the beam back to its source. In some cases it will make the laser even stronger if the mirror is perfectly aligned with the HR mirror at the other end of the laser tube.

I still love this episode, its the thing that got me into lasers in the first place. smile.gif






Posted by: Fellow Traveler 21 April 2015 - 04:24 AM
Thanks, that was an interesting read! Learned a lot from it, as I'm a science dud.

Posted by: Barry Rowland 9 January 2016 - 12:22 AM
it's amazing how mainstream they are and I still know very little about them. I have to say, Mac sure did cut up a lot of fire hoses over the course of the series!

Posted by: KiwiTek 31 March 2016 - 01:17 AM
Yeah very interesting dash8brj.

I guess back in those days lasers were still pretty sci-fi so we all just accepted what we saw. smile.gif


Posted by: Barry Rowland 31 March 2016 - 05:17 AM
It's funny this episode came up today. With all the news about the new series I sat down last night and decided I was in the mood for Pilot. Just my opinion, but everything about the show seems so fresh and almost naive, looking back at it from the perspective of 2016. It was a nice break and made my day!

Posted by: denizen 31 March 2016 - 08:31 PM
Unfortunately i fear the 2016 pilot will be nothing like this.

Posted by: Barry Rowland 1 April 2016 - 04:43 AM
:-( Me too.

Posted by: RadiantRose 13 November 2016 - 02:10 PM
Am I the first person to notice that Spencer, although terrific, didn't seem to keep track of what shoes she was wearing? In some places, they have low, fairly chunky heels. In others, they are the same colour (beige-ish) but quite high, spindly heels. I'm sure she would have worn something more practical to work had she known what sort of day it would be ...

Posted by: MiracleMac 14 December 2017 - 09:45 AM
That gas chamber window glass gets cracked, just 1 second before Mac hits it.
I never noticed this, but for some reason when I now watched this episode for long time it caught my eye that there was some delay in the hit...crack came first biggrin.gif

Posted by: Barry Rowland 14 December 2017 - 12:01 PM
You're right! I never caught that before either. They must have felt the need to amplify the noise?

Posted by: MacGyverOnline 20 December 2018 - 03:25 AM
It doesn't seem very realistic that someone who is scared (or hates) heights would be free-climbing a rock face.

Look how high he is! He would have frozen up or gotten vertigo ages ago. laugh.gif

Posted by: zoeryan 20 December 2018 - 11:07 AM
QUOTE (MacGyverOnline @ 20 December 2018 - 03:25 AM)
It doesn't seem very realistic that someone who is scared (or hates) heights would be free-climbing a rock face.

Look how high he is! He would have frozen up or gotten vertigo ages ago. laugh.gif

It's got to be a running show creator joke - he is CONSTANTLY climbing and jumping off things throughout the series (Widowmaker, Eagles are both extreme). You can argue that he is a bit of a fear junkie maybe - but then he doesn't love flying with Dalton laugh.gif

Like Mike, you're his best friend, he says he hates heights all the time, and you drag him up a mountain to tell him your feelings??

Posted by: Dragondog 20 December 2018 - 03:43 PM
QUOTE (zoeryan @ 20 December 2018 - 01:07 PM)
QUOTE (MacGyverOnline @ 20 December 2018 - 03:25 AM)
It doesn't seem very realistic that someone who is scared (or hates) heights would be free-climbing a rock face.

Look how high he is!  He would have frozen up or gotten vertigo ages ago. laugh.gif

It's got to be a running show creator joke - he is CONSTANTLY climbing and jumping off things throughout the series (Widowmaker, Eagles are both extreme). You can argue that he is a bit of a fear junkie maybe - but then he doesn't love flying with Dalton laugh.gif

Like Mike, you're his best friend, he says he hates heights all the time, and you drag him up a mountain to tell him your feelings??

So he couldn't run away laugh.gif

Posted by: zoeryan 21 December 2018 - 02:03 AM
QUOTE (dragondog)
QUOTE (zoeryan @ 20 December 2018 - 01:07 PM)
QUOTE (MacGyverOnline @ 20 December 2018 - 03:25 AM)
It doesn't seem very realistic that someone who is scared (or hates) heights would be free-climbing a rock face.

Look how high he is!  He would have frozen up or gotten vertigo ages ago. laugh.gif

It's got to be a running show creator joke - he is CONSTANTLY climbing and jumping off things throughout the series (Widowmaker, Eagles are both extreme). You can argue that he is a bit of a fear junkie maybe - but then he doesn't love flying with Dalton laugh.gif

Like Mike, you're his best friend, he says he hates heights all the time, and you drag him up a mountain to tell him your feelings??

So he couldn't run away laugh.gif


laugh.gif

Posted by: DashboardOnFire 21 December 2018 - 03:23 AM
QUOTE (Dragondog @ 21 December 2018 - 01:43 AM)
QUOTE
Like Mike, you're his best friend, he says he hates heights all the time, and you drag him up a mountain to tell him your feelings??

So he couldn't run away laugh.gif

could have told him on a rollercoaster then laugh.gif

Posted by: zoeryan 21 December 2018 - 09:07 AM
QUOTE (DashboardOnFire @ 21 December 2018 - 03:23 AM)
QUOTE (Dragondog @ 21 December 2018 - 01:43 AM)
QUOTE
Like Mike, you're his best friend, he says he hates heights all the time, and you drag him up a mountain to tell him your feelings??

So he couldn't run away laugh.gif

could have told him on a rollercoaster then laugh.gif

Well she did have him on an emotional one! happy.gif

Posted by: Jediferret 21 December 2018 - 12:15 PM
QUOTE (Dragondog @ 20 December 2018 - 06:43 PM)
QUOTE (zoeryan @ 20 December 2018 - 01:07 PM)
Like Mike, you're his best friend, he says he hates heights all the time, and you drag him up a mountain to tell him your feelings??

So he couldn't run away laugh.gif

Bwahahahaha!!!

Posted by: Dragondog 21 December 2018 - 06:55 PM
QUOTE (DashboardOnFire @ 21 December 2018 - 05:23 AM)
QUOTE (Dragondog @ 21 December 2018 - 01:43 AM)
QUOTE
Like Mike, you're his best friend, he says he hates heights all the time, and you drag him up a mountain to tell him your feelings??

So he couldn't run away laugh.gif

could have told him on a rollercoaster then laugh.gif

Mike: *talks about her feelings*
Roller coaster: *immediately speeds up*
Mac: *screams*

And to this day, no one knows whether he was screaming over the roller coaster or Mike tongue.gif

Posted by: Reptile 3 January 2019 - 06:14 AM
As MacGyver has began to air again on television here in Slovakia I was able to capture the complete pilot episode (with Czech dubbing). There are more things that are different from the release on DVD/Blu-ray than just the different opening theme and deleted pentagon scene.
Different background music at the beginning of the opening gambit. Notice the different order of scenes after the pentagon scene - first scene is the explosion in the lab and then comes the scene with Mac in the observatory and then the scene with helicopter.

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