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

Maybe that was his back-up shirt just in case he ripped it a little bit too much.. LOL!!

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?

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.

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.

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.

Well the room was full of smoke as well as gas..

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.

interesting. I guess it's another case of "in theory.. if you used a fire truck hose this would work"

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.

you have to remember he was only lifting one end of the beam though, so it wasn't lifting anything like the full weight.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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 ....I don't know ...maybe the producers just..??

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.

Well, fortunately they didn't know that. So ignorance saved their lives.

If only it really worked like that!

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.

Good one!

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.

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!

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

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 Assignments or the Houseboat forum for general MacGyver discussions.

my best guess to somewhere in Central Asia could be parts of China or former Soviet Republics?

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.

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

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.

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.

Thanks, that was an interesting read! Learned a lot from it, as I'm a science dud.

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!