This is for any of you gals who had a fetish for whumped/injured Mac (we must all have a Florence Nightingale Syndrome or something ). Also, well, it can be open to anyone. What do you think is the best episode with the best Mac injury? I'm tied between Strictly Business and Passages as my favorites, with Faith, Hope & Charity as a close second. I might have left out a few, so choose your favorite. What do you think?

Oh! I forgot to add Nightmares! I was just posting in that thread...you'd think I would remember that! Well, okay, consider it an option as well!

You left out "Nightmares"??

I love "Faith, Hope & Charity" - mainly because of Mac's situation with the two slightly ditzy sisters. (I secretly think that my sister and myself are turning into Faith and Hope)...

We've seen Mac interact with sweet young things, and some not-so-sweet young things, but here, he's a captive audience to not one, but two older spinster women. The fact that he has to depend on them (in the beginning) shows that Mac isn't perfect and sometimes needs help - even from the most unlikely source. I love the photography work - opening the scene where Mac wakes up in the bed by zeroing in on his foot. Also the episode with the best Mac "Bed Head"! Lots of MacGyver-isms, nasty villans and a satisfactory conclusion (the wolf seemed to think so) to an environmentally themed episode. RDA's acting is SO good. Again, he exhibits that vulnerability being in that situation, and his choices perfectly balance his performance.

I added Nightmares to your poll.

Please don't let this thread deteriorate the way I think it might.

I don't think any injury is a good thing, therefore I don't see how MacGyver can have a "best" injury. Unless you mean in terms of something to brag about later- a cool scar or something- THAT I can understand, from a boy's perspective. But I don't think I understand why someone would revel in seeing their hero hurt. I suppose this is a thread best left to the ladies...

I chose Trail of Tears. Mac is badly injured and has only himself to rely on until he reaches the old mine. The spirit helps him, or guides him to help himself. I really liked this episode for the Native mythology and the environmental issues that are portrayed in the story.

I also really like Faith, Hope and Charity, because of the interaction with the Lacey sisters. They would drive anybody crazy and watching them try Mac's patience is always good for a laugh. My son really likes this episode as well and asks to watch the "old ladies".

As far as seeing our favorite hero injured, it adds to the drama and tension in the story. I find myself very frequently comparing MacGyver to some of the literary heros I read about in my college days. There is the concept of the tragic hero, someone who tries to do the right thing and help other people but at the same time has some flaw or damage that prevents him from achieving peace and happiness. This damage can be physical, mental or emotional and the entire MacGyver series reflects this in the various situations where Mac is injured physicall and/or emotionally.

I don't think the show would have had the successful run it had or the loyal folowing it now has had the writer's and producers never put hte hero in situations where he was vulnerable and over came some obstacle to achieve his goal. If he consistently beat he bad guys without ever taking a few licks himself, I don't htink hte show would have been as interesting or entertaining.

In other words which one is the coolest episode with MacGyver getting hurt.

They're all great: Nightmares, DOA MacGyver, Back from the Dead, The Negotiator, The Outsiders, Cease Fire, Passages, Humanity, Bitter Harvest, Blind Faith, Faith Hope and Charity, Stricktly Business, Trail of Tears, The Walking Dead and The Stringer.

I let out To be a man because it's one of my lesser favourites and Good Knight MacGyver is not really about getting hurt.

Think it's quite cool when things looks darker for the hero. That's why I appreciate it he gets hurt it the first act. That he's getting shot by the end of the second or third act is alright. But I think it's more important in the first act, so everything can become more difficult to survive. Than again you only got 45 minutes. But like in The Negotiator it's a understandable, since they have to meet first, gain trust and than break it by the end of the second act or something.

Same here. Than again almost all the heroes does have a vulnerable side, maybe not enough but I like it when they come out bloody from their fights.

Too bad it's not done so much anymore. I like big facial cuts and not for the sensation of seeing blood but more for the realism of it. Of course than you still have critics saying: Normal people would be dead by now. I don't care. If you'd seen John McClane in the first Die Hard and it's sequels. Most of his face, shoulders and chest covered in blood from the shooting and fighting, I'd say it gives realism.

I agree with you. Never got the fascination But, like MacGyverGod said, t does add realism. If he never got shot, then either Mac can dodge bullets, or the bad guys are lousy shots.

I've been watching a 1940's theater serial (One of those shows they used to play between movies) and these guys will get in five-minute fist fights and come out fine.

I voted Trail of Tears, not because of the best injury but because of the method of healing.
I love Standing Wolf and how Mac the following morning discovers that the man who helaled him, wasn't human.

It's one of my absolute fav episodes!

Trail of Tears got my vote.

When Mac's in pain, he shows it. None of this stoicism for him, unless he's being brave for a child, like for Mayim Balik's character in Cease Fire.

IIRC, Mac got shot in the same spot in Back from the Dead, Cease Fire and Trail of Tears.

I guess it's a female thing, this hurt/comfort stuff. Which one of we female fans wouldn't have treated Mac the same way as the sisters from F, H & C.?

And yes MacGyver is the tragic hero, especially with his family background. And I've always been a sucker for tragic heros.

But I think the main reason we 'enjoy' watching Mac get hurt, is because RDA suffers so well LOL.

banlu

Sung to the tune of "Try to Remember":

Call me a sadist, it seems that I'm gladdest
When I can watch the hero suffer;
When things look dimmest, I know by each grimace
What he survives will make him tougher --
The way things are going, I take heart in knowing
Though things may be bad, they will just . . . get rougher.
We will dismember each soul that you render, and wallow.

(Wallow, wallow, wallow . . . )

Any ep where mac is hurt is good. I've just recieved season 6, and that's like one enormous whump fest. I haven't seen Passages, though I'm really looking forward to eventually seeing it, but in Hindsight there are a few flashbacks to that ep, and it looks good, though they always get the medical stuff wrong which is a real pain!!

So, I can't say which is my fav, but I watched Nightmares, To be a Man and DOA MacGyver over and over cos they were the ones I had available. I LOVE F,H and C, MacGyver's reactions to those two ladies are just fab, and even Leo raies his eyes at one point.

I could go on and on, but Mac just does that whump sooo well.

I think being a trained nurse just makes the whump more exciting...I know I could make him feel better

MandyK

I can't say I'm a fan of Mac-whump. I don't mind injuries as part of the story and stuff, but it doesn't make the episode any more appealing to me.

I prefer a good adventure based episode over the injured episode.

So...from a male perspective- is this like being a lifeguard on Baywatch and hoping to rescue a pretty girl from drowning?

I mean- I like Wonder Woman, but I don't get any more excited over an episode where she's really beat up over others...

perhaps you're referring to suspense over whether or not MacGyver will make it and defeat the bad guys- that I can understand. Suspense is good. But I'm not excited about Mac getting hurt so I can pretend to rush to his aid. I think that's definitely a female need to nurture- which is good because I think mothers- and women in general are made with that sense of nurture.
And men, while we can be sympathetic, probably don't quite have that same sense of nurturing...
anyway- just my thoughts on it.

Maybe you'll understand it better if you imagine yourself being nursed back to health by Wonder Woman.

banlu

So...from a male perspective- is this like being a lifeguard on Baywatch and hoping to rescue a pretty girl from drowning?

I mean- I like Wonder Woman, but I don't get any more excited over an episode where she's really beat up over others...

perhaps you're referring to suspense over whether or not MacGyver will make it and defeat the bad guys- that I can understand. Suspense is good. But I'm not excited about Mac getting hurt so I can pretend to rush to his aid. I think that's definitely a female need to nurture- which is good because I think mothers- and women in general are made with that sense of nurture.
And men, while we can be sympathetic, probably don't quite have that same sense of nurturing...
anyway- just my thoughts on it.

Well, dito and hear, hear.

Injuries are for suspense, the nurturing is the little extra in the end.

Nikki Carpenter may always nurse me back to health.

Any whump is good whump. And I'm a funny whump fan. I feel no need to run in an comfort, but I like to see other characters do it. Physical whump is great, but emotional whump is better. (IE, The Widowmaker and Nikki coming to get Mac out of his funk.)

That said, whump for the sake of whump is just plain silly. I'm a big Daniel/Jack friendship fan in SG fandom, and I love JD H/C, but to just have whump without plot is just plain silly, and you get that a lot.

So...you have to be careful. I ammend my earlier statement.

Good whump good, bad whump very bad.

Well said! Even if you did sound like Frankenstein saying it.

After long and careful consideration of the examples listed, I have chosen 'Trail of Tears' for my favourite Whump!Mac episode.

I have to add, though, that my favourite scene of Mac getting whumped is a tie between the fight scene with Murdoc in 'Cleo Rocks' where he gets his hand slashed, and the fight with Piedra in the clockshop in 'The Assassin'.

Glad you liked it!

I have to confess I stole it from 'Good Ship Good, Bad Ship Very Bad' in Annerb's rant about 'The Ship-NoRomo Battle and Why It's Stupid'.

Great read, if you haven't!

http://www.annerb.com/noromo.html

In other words, after watching all of them all over again, with the best parts re-run in slow-motion? It does provide an excellent excuse, doesn't it?

Indeed.

Big fan of whumps, be them emotional or physical; I think it is also a helpful resource for intensifying "drama" in an episode and of strechting the acting skills of the actors. Doing pain well is not an easy thing, and there are plenty of examples of good actors doing pain very badly.

I also think this is mostly a female issue, and most of you, male folks, seem to ratify my gut feeling here.

I agree a whump for the simple sake of a whump is no good but none of the Mac whumps seem to be silly, although recoveries do seem magical sometimes, especially when you are shot three or four times in the same side of your stomach.

Among my favorites: Passages, Trail of Tears and To Be a Man.

And definitely, female friends, the dying scene in Good Knight!

Mac's left side doesn't seem to be his good side. Shot in Back From The Dead, Cease Fire and Trail of Tears in his side and left shoulder bullet in To be a man and Humanity, broke his left arm in The Stringer. His left side bloody in D.O.A. MacGyver The Outsiders, minor cut in Passages but look at the bandage, Stricktly Business and Good Knight MacGyver.

I have to blame most of these on the director, the blocking, and the fact that RDA is right-handed; that means they had to damage the left side so he could still do whatever activity the script called for with his right.

The big difference is the broken right hand in the first season: he showed up with the cast (hidden as well as they could) in a pickup scene from The Enemy Within, they wrote the broken hand into his backstory in Every Time She Smiles, and then shot him in the same hand in To Be a Man -- presumably since he wouldn't have been sent into Afghanistan on a hazardous mission if he still had a broken hand from a skiing accident. (For some reason, these last two are in reverse order in my DVD set, but the episode guide gives this as the air order.)

Check To Be a Man again (I know, it's hard work but somebody has to do it ) -- right hand in a cast, right arm in a sling (which mostly hides the cast), and they used a hand double (in black gloves, and none too convincing) for the close-ups of him fiddling with the gear on the mountain.

From then on, he’s using his left hand, which is a treat to watch – he’s got a pretty good left hook, but have you ever actually tried to tie knots one-handed? And with your non-dominant hand? Ashley's Book of Knots includes instructions on one-handed ties as a way of showing off, but it's really difficult. That was actually what originally helped me spot that they were filming around a real injury -- I couldn't see why they'd have disabled his dominant hand if they'd had a choice, which meant it wasn't script-driven originally.

You actually noticed in Squeeze Play he started to fight with his left hand? He has a good left hook but a great right uppercut.

It's funny how lefties does everything their own way. If you have seen Sawyer fight and shoot in Lost. He busted a guy's nose with his left hand. Josh Holloway, Bruce Willis and Christian Slater are all left handed. Bruce Willis in almost all his fights in Die Hard and The Last Boy Scout has a good left swing.

No, I haven't seen Squeeze Play at all (yet). I started noticing the use of the off hand in To Be a Man with the knot-tying, and worked backwards from there.

Bear in mind that a professional fight choreographer is going to take camera angles into effect as well as logistics when they work out which hand is going to be used and when.

How very odd.

My DVD set has them in the correct order, same as in the episode list.

Don'f forget Jack O'Neill's left eyebrow scar (obtained in Cor'Ai). Always the left, that RDA fellow! Also, I agree that no Mac eps are whump for the sake of whump. I was referring to the fanfiction affection for that particular problem.

p.s.-I voted for 'To Be A Man'. Yeah. I did. So sue me.

But 'Faith, Hope and Charity' is a grrrrrrrrreat episode!!!

I have to confess that GKM is the last ep I watched on TV when MacGyver was on. I remember that is was so bad that I couldn't stand it. I mean, it was SO BAD.

I did just watch it again (I recently completed my DVD set and have watched all the way through the series for the first time since I was a kid/teenager), and yeah...it's still just...um...I can't take it...just wow...wow...

But there is a nice whump there, huh? Might have to go back and rewatch that, if I can make it past Merlin in general. I was so distracted I missed it. Just...wow...and did I say wow yet?

Nutsy-I just noticed that GKM is your favorite episode. That's cool. I mean no offense. We are all different and that's what makes us great. I need to watch that ep more to get a good feel for it, I must confess. The second half is far better than the first...I just have a hard time with the dream episodes in general...don't know why...