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 53 - Hell Week

MacGyver is set to judge a physics competition for his old mentor. But the professor’s son becomes despondent when he fails to win the contest and barricades himself into the lab with a bomb.

votes from March 2006

Poor [ 0 ] [0.00%]
Average [ 0 ] [0.00%]
OK [ 1 ] [7.69%]
Good [ 7 ] [53.85%]
Excellent [ 5 ] [38.46%]
Total Votes: 13

Archived Posts

Professor Ryman was the Russian they saved in Prisoner of Conscience.

Well the http://www.macgyveronline.com/pages/timeline.html says he graduated with a degree in science.

BUT in the episode of Flames End he talks to Amy about a physics degree. (I think?)

So I guess its either a general science or a specific physics... my guess would be a general science degree.

does anyone else think David looks like Helen Hunt?

Attached Image

Rock, you are cruel!

Interesting to note that one of the writers of this episode, Leonard Mlodinow, has a PhD in Physics.

He's just recently written a book about randomness called THE DRUNKARD'S WALK

I agree with everything. However, I just watched this one, while waiting for my laundry to dry and I can't help wishing they had done more with Professor Ryman and his son, like a follow up episode, also with the friends of Mac's in Blood Brothers. Delving into Mac's past is fun.

yea it would be nice to see what happens to david, janice and his father after the incident. Possibly david gets kicked out of school but gets into another where he majors in chemistry? His father changes his actions towards david. Does his girlfriend stick with him? Would make a nice fan fiction.

Yeah, it's very possible, almost certain, that David would be kicked out of school. He could always apply to another. However getting free of the drug and seeking family counseling for him and his dad would take priority to going back to school. I am uncertain about Janet. She seemed like she was serious enough about David and he about her, but outside of college in real life, who knows.

Excellent episode.

Things that I didn't like:

Actually I have no complaints.

Things I liked:

Great plot, Great characters (especially Professor Ryman and Jeffrey Kramer), one of the best bomb defusing scenes and hottest woman we have ever seen on this show; Janet.

i would of loved to seen a follow up ep.

Anyone know where Mac's college is located? Not where they filmed it. Did he go iaway to school or did he stay in his home state.

OK I have been wonder where Macs college is located in the show. I know it was Western Tech. But was that location ever given in the epo. of Hell Week. I know the real location was in Canada.

Just watched this one for the first time in a looooong time....playing hookey from work and just had to watch an episode.

I vote excellent on this one. I enjoyed it when I first watched it in my youth and now really appreciate it even more as a parent. Defintely has a lesson worth repeating - "Spend time with your children and you never will regret it later in life."

I loved the premise behind hell week. I went to an engineering college (aka geek school) and we didn't have anything like this on campus, but man it would have been a lot of fun....Love the fact we get a bit more background on Mac from this episode and we get to see more of his righteous compassion. I love how he talks to Professer Rymand , confronting him about he doesn't see what's happening to David.

A great episode that I won't mind sharing with my yound kids.

And this episode is my favourite of the third season!

Do you think that this picture was taken from the times RDA was in Legend ?

No. because legend was made after MacGyver.

This is one of my favorite episodes in season 3 as well.I like the challenge that students are supposed to create original ideas and to learn more about Mac's background (Did he ever fail about sth in his life?=))

MacGyver was before Legend.

I think he looks way better without facial hair.

Oh, you're right, MacGyver was before Legend, I didn't know... Anyway, I agree with you about the moustache, I would even say that it's a bit "ridiculous"...

Superb eppy. I love it when David asks Mac to bring a six pack when he suggests they talk about things. I guess it's just the way he says it. I laugh every time.

No I don't believe it ever was. Although it might marry up with the information given in Flames End.

This episode is my favourite. I vote it as being excellent. It's the one episode I can clearly remember watching when I was a little kid. I used to refer to it as the 'Mercury Episode' - on account of them defusing a bomb containing mercury.

I love it.

This is an "Excellent" episode from my point of view. It has a little bit of everything; suspense, drama and a thought provoking story.

Science contests can be great fun, and watching these creative kids setting up their experiments was a delight.

However, this episode also brings up the downside of competition--this price awarded professor pushing his kid way too hard. It's obvious he hasn't even been present enough to even remember his son's birthday. Even from the beginning, you can see what's most important for MacGyver--he asks the professor about how David *feels*, and corrects him when he starts talking about how he's performing in school... But the professor can't answer the real question!

I think that having parents also acting as teachers for their own children--especially on this level--is always posing a great risk. I'm not a parent, but I can't even imagine how difficult it would be to rate your own kid's performance against the other students! I think it's easy to project your own shortcomings onto your kid--creating a hard to break circle of guilt. You think you've failed as a parent, taking out your anger on your kid, making the kid feeling useless since he or she thinks he/she has failed everyone. And if even those closest to you are disappointed with you, what's the point with life?

It's obvious that David is stuck in that circle, and he's doing everything to make his father love him. When he loses the competition, his entire world is shattered. His drug addiction is probably the straw that breaks the camel's back (I'd say combined with the alcohol, but I seriously doubt he'd be able to put together that bomb under the influence of that much alcohol!)

There are some things that *have* to be overlooked while watching this episode, but it isn't really a problem with me. But, to mention some of them--I really doubt any college/university would have that much equipment in store, furthermore to be used by any student as a common practice (without being a part of a research project).

You can tell that this episode was written by someone who has some knowledge of physics, but in all honesty, not all of the barricade inventions were based on physics only (well, in a way, everything in this world is, but not that kind of physics that might have been intended for this experiment). David's solution was ingenious--but he also took great risks. OK, considering that the periscope image surely was far from perfect, but it's often rather easy to tell the difference from a model shot and the real thing. Today, it might have been different since he could have made up an accurate computer animated image with the opener moving in real time.

However--even if the garage opener was visually pushing against the door--what were the guarantees that anyone wouldn't have tried to open the door regardless? It might have been a fake blocker, and really, it's a very unscientific reaction to try the door--yet, it is rather human. Humans are soo illogical... ooops, wrong series, sorry.

But anyway--I think that had it not been for the fact that Geoffrey mentioned that he knew it was an optical illusion *before* he tried opening the door, they wouldn't have had any reason to accuse him of cheating, since they couldn't prove anything. He would easily have been able to shrug it off as a case of human intuition.

However, they need to be able to tell the story in just 47-48 minutes...

I also found it interesting that they kept dangerous amounts of Plutonium in what seemed to be low-security facilities at the school... that seemed a bit improbable to me. Well, I'll try to ignore that.

Anyway--the point is, MacGyver is a show that evolves much around science--but the moral of this episode, and what's clearly always the most important thing to MacGyver, despite his high degree of education--is that relationships and family always should come first. Some of you who posted in this thread have speculated about David's future. Well, I think it's rather safe to assume that he might have been forced to change schools after going through some kind of rehab, but to be honest, I think his potential of succeeding in life (whatever path he'd choose to take) will become much greater after going through all this--and sorting things out with his dad, once and for all... Sometimes, those things *will* require drastic changes.

What equipment are you referring to?

Well we don't actually know what security there was on the labs where it was held. But then I'm not sure why your saying about security on a physics lab?

I think the lab equipment in general; tools, machinery, materials etc. Of course, some of it is necessary for their classes, but considering that even scientists working with government funded projects sometimes have a hard time financing their equipment, I just got the impression that this school was a little on the generous side.

I should have included "safety" in that sentence too. I just found it a bit odd that they didn't keep the Plutonium in the basement instead of the top of the building, or at least high up. Come to think of it, it was a bit odd that they didn't evacuate the building as soon as they heard about the bomb threat...

I didn't. We played with stuff like that in high school. It wasn't out in the class all the time but when we needed it for specific lessons it was brought out of storage. So I have no problem believing that a university would have properly equipped science labs.

Remember also that being a university, the students would be going for higher level and specialized doctorates and diplomas which would increase my expectation of seeing well equipped science labs even more.

Yeah true. It does seem more like a plot device than a reality doesn't itl... I often think to my self when watching this episode "who would want to be in the lab under (or above) the nuclear research lab... that stuff's radioactive ya know! They must have lead lining in the floors and walls surely?"

I mostly like this episode, especially for the glee of all the Bright Young Students competing at cleverness.

But the plutonium and the "threat of radioactive contamination" -- NO. Just, no. Blatant use of gratuitous handwavium to crank up the stakes to a ridiculous level. The part just makes me cringe.

As far as the Very Well-Endowed Lab goes: I get the impression that the university itself is roughly based on or inspired by MIT, as far as the emphasis on having the Best of the Best, in terms of students, faculty, and physical plant. In a top-flight US university, you can get an amazing feedback loop going: the Very Good Students become Highly Successful Scientists, the institution gets handsome donations and bequests, it buys better equipment and hires better teachers, beefs up its research facilities, lures in Famous Scientists, lands Massive Grants, buys better equipment, draws better students, graduates another round of future Nobel winners . . . and the beat goes on.

My own father did his doctorate at Cornell back in the 1950's, and had Freeman Dyson on his graduate advisory committee. Dyson was a baby physicist at the time: in one of his letters to my mother, Dad referred to him as a 'wunderkind'.

This is the first episode I remember watching when I was a kid. I'm watching through the entire series right now and none of the other episodes before this one ring a bell. I remember seeing David and thinking "Hey! He's from the Edison Twins!", which was another show I watched a lot back then.

Mac's skill in bomb disposal were viewed and the human story of son resenting father because of his devotion to his career made for a good story.

I like how fast Mac flinches back in the lift when he thinks the bomb is going to go off. Reasonable response and all that, I just love how fast he moves!