The Road Not Taken

Episode:  029 (S2.E07)

Production  No.: 40192-030

Airdate: 10 November 1986

Teleplay: Stephen Kronish

Story: Chuck Bowman

Director: Cliff Bole

Nielsen Ratings:  14.3 rating / 22 share / 3rd (47th for the week)

PLOT

MacGyver meets his former fiancée in Southeast Asia, where they’re pursued by the military after a plan to rescue a nun and orphans goes wrong.

CAST

MACGYVERISMS

• Cut Baseball apart to get the string wrapping on the inside of it.
• Used animal fat, kerosene and string to make fuses.
• Used bent tree branches and strips of cloth to make giant slingshots
• Used rosary beads to focus sunlight to burn the vines and fire the slingshots
• Used wire from broom handle as a saw
• Built a skyrocket out of fertilizer, matches, tin can and piece of rag

TRIVIA

• Actress Marilyn Jones, who plays Debra Easton, was born in Grosse Point, Michigan, which is a suburb of Detroit and may explain why she is wearing a Detroit Tigers t-shirt throughout.
• The orphanage is the same location used as Trumbo’s estate in ‘Trumbo’s World’
• It would be impossible to get a single strong beam to shine from a coiled Rosary necklace.

QUOTES

• Pete: Last time I saw Margaret she was being chased across the Sahara with fifteen children and a goat.
• MacGyver: Not rushing you, am I?
  Pete: Listen, I may get there slower, Mac, but I get there.
• Debra: Don’t worry. I was a sprinter in high school.
• MacGyver: Hey, um, listen, I’m sorry about that tackle out there.
  Debra: The second time I’ve fallen for you.
• Debra: There’s a secret entrance.
  MacGyver: Yeah, well, secrets have a funny way of gettin’ out.
• Margaret: What’s he doing?
  Pete: I haven’t got a clue. But I’m used to it.
• Debra: Still doin’ it, huh? Making things out of thin air.
• Debra: A fuse? We don’t have any explosive.
  MacGyver: The guys out there don’t know that. And what they don’t know can only help us.
• Debra: I’ve never been able to figure out how your mind works. How do you think of these things?
  MacGyver: Well, if it comes down to me against the situation, I don’t like the situation to win.
• Margaret: I’m good with broken down machinery; it’s the only kind I’ve ever had.
• “Hey, you spelled my name wrong.”  ~MacGyver, joking about the list of his crimes
• General Chanthara: Tomorrow at high noon the entire village can witness your final performance.
  MacGyver: “High noon”? This guy’s seen too many Westerns.
• Debra: We’re not gonna make it, are we.
  MacGyver: What happened to all that faith?
  Debra: I’m just a novice, remember?
• Debra: I keep thinking that… that maybe I want children of my own. They tend to frown on nuns doing that.
• Debra: I’ve changed.
  MacGyver: So would I – for you.
• Pete: I guess I’ll see you next time you’re in trouble.
  Margaret: I’ll be looking forward to it.
• MacGyver: I’ll never meet anyone like her.
  Pete: I know exactly how you feel.

NIT-PICKS

• When Pete, Sister Margret and the children are flying  to safety in the helicopter, they do a wide shot and show the helicopter is smoking, but there isn’t anybody in the back of the helicopter.
• At about 30 minutes in, when Mac and Debra are running “in the middle of nowhere”, a power line is visible in the air behind them.
• As Pete and MacGyver run from the Helicopter at the beginning of the episode Pete starts to trip and fall just as he leaves the shot.
• When MacGyver cuts the piece of bamboo we see it is a short piece, but when he hands it to Debra it has doubled in length.
• How did MacGyver get a new baseball and glove

FILMING LOCATIONS

Refugee camp  Indian Dunes Off Henry Mayo Drive, Castaic, CA