Sometimes I wonder what it would be like if they'd chosen a female lead for the reboot. I mean, the back story could still be that the original MacGyver is her parent or grandparent, hence the surname.

It could work, but you need the confidence, innocence, vulnerability, charisma, sex appeal, personality combo that was part and parcel of the original. What kind of an audience/ratings would it attract? Would girls/women want to be like her .... would men want to sleep with her? I mean, I think that's a big part as to why the original had such success, isn't it? Boys/men wanted to channel him, and girls/women wanted to be with him. Would that bit work as well in a gender makeover? Dunno .....

Speaking of a female lead; do we think this is the same project they were doing the writing competition for a couple years ago? They were asking for a Mac inspired, female lead, STEM heavy series. If it is, the producers obviously went in a VERY different direction than originally planned. Anyone know for sure?

The new Magnum PI series is a sequel to the original one, this one following Thomas Magnum's daughter as she returns to Hawaii to continue the family business as private investigator.


I don't mind a female lead as long as it's done well.

I feel just the same about male leads!

Interesting thought, I suppose it may work. However, it will greatly depend on the fans response towards a female ''MacGyver."

An excellent question. Speaking as a straight female who didn't really pay much attention to when it was on the first time round, (it was first broadcast during my teens/20s), I think the appeal to me is a mixture. I mean, yeah, obviously sex appeal.

And the "oh, no, he's injured, if only he had me to nurse him back to health" thing. I can't believe that I only just found out that "hurt/comfort" was a well-known sub-genre of fan fiction. It's so obvious when you think about it.

But also I want to channel him. I mean, who wouldn't want to be adventurous, ingenious and idealistic? I'm not saying that I'd actually want to jump out of a plane in real life, or get captured for that matter, but I'd like to be braver and more resourceful.

Doesn't really fly. It's more like the next logical step. Daughter in father's footsteps.

A total reboot and switching genders is something I'm not comfortable with yet. Ghostbusters tried it and as far as I know it bombed. That was like to show that women can do the same thing as men. I know they can, don't care if they can but I expect a little more originality, come up at least with your own character and concept. There is Xena and Gabrielle, Ellen Ripley, Letty in Fast and Furious. When it comes to genders, I think you should decide before the shooting starts.

I don't mind strong female leads at all either but create your own character and concept. I don't want the next Tomb Raider to be a man, that's why we have Indiana Jones and/or Nathan Drake and I don't want them turned into women. Imagine if Ellen Ripley becomes a man like Eli Ripley, there will be a lot of complaints, I'm sure. However she was meant to be a male character I read once but it was decided to change it. If that happens before the shooting fine. But if you want to revive it and change that...

With Ghostbusters I had that idea that they just wanted a piece of the pie the originals laid out. It's the same thing but with women... I think there are better ways to create counterparts than to simply change them to women.

Doesn't really fly. It's more like the next logical step. Daughter in father's footsteps.

A total reboot and switching genders is something I'm not comfortable with yet. Ghostbusters tried it and as far as I know it bombed. That was like to show that women can do the same thing as men. I know they can, don't care if they can but I expect a little more originality, come up at least with your own character and concept. There is Xena and Gabrielle, Ellen Ripley, Letty in Fast and Furious. When it comes to genders, I think you should decide before the shooting starts.

I don't mind strong female leads at all either but create your own character and concept. I don't want the next Tomb Raider to be a man, that's why we have Indiana Jones and/or Nathan Drake and I don't want them turned into women. Imagine if Ellen Ripley becomes a man like Eli Ripley, there will be a lot of complaints, I'm sure. However she was meant to be a male character I read once but it was decided to change it. If that happens before the shooting fine. But if you want to revive it and change that...

With Ghostbusters I had that idea that they just wanted a piece of the pie the originals laid out. It's the same thing but with women... I think there are better ways to create counterparts than to simply change them to women.

Obviously, if a series were to feature the daughter or grand-daughter of the original MacGyver, she would be a person in her own right. Just as none of us is a clone of our parents or grandparents.

I suppose some people just don't like re-makes, and that's fine.

I think they could have had real fun with a female lead, it might have been a really good thing for women in STEM, something for teenage girls to aspire to. My daughter really liked Sam in SG because she is brave resourceful female lead character and these days there are precious few of those shown in STEM focussed roles on TV

Doesn't really fly. It's more like the next logical step. Daughter in father's footsteps.

A total reboot and switching genders is something I'm not comfortable with yet. Ghostbusters tried it and as far as I know it bombed. That was like to show that women can do the same thing as men. I know they can, don't care if they can but I expect a little more originality, come up at least with your own character and concept. There is Xena and Gabrielle, Ellen Ripley, Letty in Fast and Furious. When it comes to genders, I think you should decide before the shooting starts.

I don't mind strong female leads at all either but create your own character and concept. I don't want the next Tomb Raider to be a man, that's why we have Indiana Jones and/or Nathan Drake and I don't want them turned into women. Imagine if Ellen Ripley becomes a man like Eli Ripley, there will be a lot of complaints, I'm sure. However she was meant to be a male character I read once but it was decided to change it. If that happens before the shooting fine. But if you want to revive it and change that...

With Ghostbusters I had that idea that they just wanted a piece of the pie the originals laid out. It's the same thing but with women... I think there are better ways to create counterparts than to simply change them to women.

I honestly believe the Ghostbusters situation was thrown out of proportion. IMO it had nothing to do with the female cast. It had to do with Ackroyd attempting to make Ghostbusters 3 for over 20 years and Bill Murray messing them around by continuously saying yes to the script, followed by a no.

Dan Ackroyd was really close to releasing a Ghostbusters movie with 2 female leads when Murray went on a talk show and suggested the idea of an all female cast and using McCarthy & Wiig and even hiring Feig. Yes. that was Bill Murray's doing. Suddenly Ackroyds script and ideas were thrown out the window and what Murray said was gospel.

That i why a lot of fans are upset. But the whole thing was thrown out by assuming it had to do with the change of sex and the sexist remarks. This was deemed to be a slap in the face for all Ghostbusters fans.

The Ghostbusters reboot didn't "bomb". It had mixed reviews, which ranged from very positive to very negative. It more than recouped the production cost although apparently that wasn't good enough because of the advertising budget had been large. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters_(2016_film), but I could check out the links if people don't like wikipedia being cited.

[Updated post]

They sort of had to do some kind of reboot, though, since they couldn't get RDA back as a full-time MacGyver.

Thus, they had 4 choices.

1 Decide there would be no new episodes (which would have pleased some fans but left others yearning) and moved on to another project.

2 A series with lots of new episodes, but with a different actor playing Angus MacGyver, with a similar but updated backstory (eg bomb disposal, but not in Vietnam).

3 Make the lead a descendant of MacGyver.

4 Just name a random character MacGyver.

To be honest, I think Options 2 or 4 would upset me a lot more than Option 3.

I haven't seen the new Ghostbusters movie. However, many of my colleagues have said that it was very humorous and overall enjoyed the movie, despite all the negative criticism the film received on social media.