1-1 The Rising

Airdate: 23 September 2016
Writer: Peter M. Lenkov
Director: James Wan
Guest Cast: Vinnie Jones (John Kendrick), Cory Scott Allen (Vincent the Director), India Batson (Tiffany),
Alessandro Folchitto (Doorman), Elizabeth Tavares (Lead Tech/Dying), Kenneth Israel (Pilot),
Michael E. Sanders (Co-Pilot), Craig Newman (Lead Tech DXS), Don Dipetta (Armed Guard).

MacGyver must recover a bioweapon that has the ability to destroy hundreds of thousands of people with a single drop.

What did everyone think?

I got thru about half of it and turned it off. It actually could have just been called Mission Impossible. There wasn't anything that remotely felt like MacGyver there. I think that character should have just been given a different name.

Watched it, really liked it, would watch it again! Really upset that they broke code and are seen having a cold beer together at the end of a very emotional & dangerous assignment. Just kidding Did anybody catch the name of that brew? .... River!?, I think. And Nikki's a ratfink .... or so it appears ... still a bit of wiggle room there, methinks! And Jack is not an ass this time .... thankgawd!!!!!! And Billy Colton is back as 'Wilt', Mac's roomie, or so it appears to these eyes ... I strained my eyes and could not see a strand of hockey equipment within Mac's closet(s). blasphemy!! The episode was well written, the score/soundtrack complimentary & solid. I'd give it an 8/10 or 4 stars. My worst fears came true though, the computer graphics made some of the effects look amateurish ... especially noticeable in the truck explosion/shrapnel near the end.

So far... not a fan. Don't like the backup team, don't like the SAK he carries.

There, my angsty commentary is over.

Bullet proof serving trays. What? Everyone doesn't have them?

MacGyver is a secret agent who is afraid of heights, refuses to fire a gun, and prefers to improvise with whatever is around him to solve problems. I think the show got it spot on. I only would have preferred more faithfulness to the supporting and recurring characters they brought back.

I'd say it's a good start, not perfect but there's always time to improve as the season goes on. I'll give it a 7/10. I can't wait to see how they handle Murdoc.

Ok, not too bad. But I've got issues.

I thought it was quite good. Better than I expected after reading all the negative reviews.

Some pros and cons:

PROS:

1. I accepted Lucas Till as MacGyver much more quickly than I thought I would. And he's not the annoyingly smug guy we saw in the trailers, thankfully!

2. Some genuinely fun action scenes.

3. Plenty of MacGyverisms.

4. I'm intrigued to see where the Nikki plot goes. I like the fact that there's a bigger story here, not just the case-of-the-week stories.

5. It wasn't preachy! This felt more like the fun version of MacGyver, not the PSA MacGyver.


CONS:

1. I could really do without the gimmicky visuals when he's doing MacGyverisms. We don't need "PAPERCLIP" written on the screen, for example.

2. I don't hate Jack Dalton, but he is very one-dimensional at the moment. Maybe he'll develop as the show goes on... I hope.

3. Opening credits are a bit weak (nitpicking, I know.)

That's about it really. Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised. This is off to a good start, for sure. Is it brilliant television? No, of course not. Neither was the original. But it's an entertaining way to pass an hour. I'm looking forward to next week, since we already saw quite a bit of this week's episode in the preview clips. Next week will really be a new episode.

For the most part I enjoyed it. My top 5 Pros and Cons list. (In no particular order.)
Pros:
1. It felt like a MacGyver story.
2. George Eads didn't annoy me like I thought he would.
3. They fixed the first part of the intro music.
4. I can see Lucas playing a good Mac in time.
5. The MacGyverisms were pretty good.

Cons:
1. Shaky cam, It really wasn't necessary and it was still shaky after the action.
2. I felt that the music was kind of out of place. Music sets the tone and it was just too much like Mission Impossible.
3. The written layovers. They don't really need to spell every item out for us.
4. Not enough time making the MacGyverisms.
5. Straying from some of the mannerisms that I always associated with Mac. Language, the beer celebration at the end.

As for 3 and 4, I felt as if the MacGyverisms were glossed over so quickly that it doesn't give an opportunity for us to enjoy the ingenuity. Instead of spelling out what he has to work with, I would much rather prefer having Mac explain what he is doing and show us taking 20-30 seconds. I think it dampens the affect if you just show a paperclip that has already been bent and is ready to go. Let me see him actually bending it to shape. The final MacGyverism was great and it told us what he was doing, but I wanted to see more of him actually making it.

I know the more adult stuff has been discussed in other threads, but some of the language and him having a beer party at the end just didn't feel like Mac to me.

I think the thing that irritated me the most was the background music. It's so essential for putting you in story and I felt that they really missed the mark on it. I would much rather have silence for part of the show than have constant mission impossible music.

oh, one last thing. I hope that Mac does not continue to be so serious all of the time. Levity should also come from him and not just from Jack Dalton.

I'm trying to like it...... was disappointed at the "beer" at the end, as the MacGyver we knew didn't drink.

But then again, in the original MacGyver, he shot a gun in the Pilot, then that got blown off, so to speak.

I thought it was cool how they named the ingredients in the MacGyvwerisms, which, to me, weren't that spectacular.

And him starting off with a girlfriend that turns into a ratfink.

And they actually described how they are going to get from DXS to Phenix. Which they didn't really do in the original, it was just switched with no story.

Speaking of Phoenix/Phenix....... I watched an original MacGyver, it was Gold Rush. They were using Snowcats with PHENIX spelled that way.

So, how is Phoenix/Phenix supposed to be spelled?

I'm trying to like it......

I always thought the proper spelling was "phoenix".

Both my husband Mike and I liked it.. will continue to watch the new MacGyver series It's modern, but keeps faithful to the original where it counts.

Good job CBS!!

Am I the only who really didn't care at all that Mac had a drink? It's not as if they portrayed him as alcoholic in this show, he just had a drink. I don't need him to be a perfectly squeaky-clean character.

It's Phoenix. They may have abbreviated it on the snowcat, but the word is definitely spelled Phoenix.

They weren't spectacular, but at least they were plentiful, so I give them points for that. There were probably more MacGyverisms in this one episode than there were in the entire Season 7 of the original series! (okay, I'm exaggerating, but the number of MacGyverisms did decrease drastically in the show's later years, so it was nice to see them used quite often here.)

I thought the camera work was fast and jumpy. The scenes moved around a lot. I felt that the characters spoke too quickly and often there was music in the background while they spoke.

I think the Asian villain at the end would have stopped the truck or at least been aware of what was happening.

Finally, I wish that Pat Thornton was a little friendlier and positive like Pete.

2/5

I'll keep watching in hopes that it returns to the MacGyver I know and love.

Other signage in the show has it spelt as "Phoenix" So that must have been a typo on the snow cat.

I went into more detail on my blog, but in short I thought it was a decent first effort. I thought Lucas was great and better than I was expecting. I liked all the characters except wasn't that big on Patricia (didn't add much to the story). Some other things I wasn't crazy about (the music, the joking references to tin foil/gum/paper clips), but I'll continue to watch.

Getting a lot of hate coming in through our facebook feedback.

Gonna take some time to process and adjust to this new version.

That is the correct spelling if you are referring to the bird..... but I "SWARE" in the episode "Gold Rush" it was spelled PHENIX on the Snowcats.

Let the haters hate. I read another one of RDoyle on one of the pages the other day. His disrespect towards RDA is outrageous.

Now I'm curious who this guest was?

Other than that, I think I'm going to stay away for a while until I've seen the new episodes. To avoid too many spoilers.

IT WAS I! (ok, that is correct grammar but it sounds weird...) Ok, I only posted as "guest" on the PHEONIX one. The other one who said something about "having to get used to this version" was NOT I!

I SWEAR I was logged in, and I posted and found out I wasn't....... SORRY! No way to edit a "guest" post to own up to it.

Oooooh, you have a secret identity! Are you an agent of Phoenix or what?

Yeppers! That's why I'm DXS!

Gah! The pilot has my feelings all over the place! I think I need to ponder over it for a while before writing some more and discussing it... there is stuff I didn't like at all, but overall I liked the episode.

It's not perfect, but it's MacGyver! And it got people talking about it! When was the last time MacGyver trended on Twitter? Probably... never, I guess. But it trended last night and that's amazing!

That's actually a really valid point. While I appreciate that they're doing more MacGyverisms than the original series did in its later years, this show races through them too quickly, and doesn't allow any tension to build. In the original, there was always that bit of tension as he looked around trying to see what he could use to get out of a jam, and you could almost hear the gears in his brain turning as he tried to piece it together. And then when he did come up with a solution, it was fun for the audience to see his plan gradually come together. In this version, he knows immediately what to do, and then cobbles it together so quickly, we don't have time to appreciate it (and, to be honest, sometimes it went so quickly, I didn't even quite catch WHAT he was doing.)

I think there's a feeling among modern tv writers that everything needs to be fast paced, especially with audiences being used to watching super short videos on YouTube, etc. But the better shows know that it's fine to let a show breathe a bit, and give the audience time to absorb the moments, without constantly needing to zip along to next exciting thing.

A 6-pack between 3 people? It was a joke, I think, implemented to weed out all the ultra purists. Busted! Besides, my grandpa always told me to never trust a man who doesn't take a social drink. In this case and after going through the snakes and ladders that Mac did with Nikki and with the time-ticking bomb thing .... a sip of self medication can't be a bad thing, can it?

Yeah, I really appreciated the number of MacGyverisms although the parachute one was a bit much(but maybe possible, I don't know the exact physics). It all felt like a season 1 plot, and I liked that MacGyver pistol whipped that one henchman instead of shooting him and Jack's "that's not what I had in mind when I tossed you the gun" to paraphrase.

Still, I was hoping he'd take the gun apart and use it to diffuse the bomb somehow. Or that he'd somehow use the bomb to destroy the virus rather than disperse it.

Yeah, I agree, but it didn't bother me because it fit right in with the ultralight (Holy Rose), the hose jetpack (The Stringer), the helicopter backpack thingie (from The Wasteland.) Actually, the parachute was probably slightly less silly than any of those.

SpoilerTV just posted the first early ratings: http://www.spoilertv.com/2016/09/ratings-n...ember-2016.html

I don't know ANYTHING about ratings, but MacGyver has the highest number... that's good, right?



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