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 119 - High Control

A former motorcycle gang member trying to go straight is blackmailed into pulling one last job with his old gang.

I enjoyed "High Control" a lot! I think it's a great episode- particularly like that it starts with MacGyver on a secret mission breaking in- it was fun seeing him with all the camoflauge on and all.
And Earl Dent returns! I don't know that he's necessarily my favorite supporting character- but I've liked Dick Butkus pretty well in other productions (like "My Two Dads" )- and I like him pretty well as Earl Dent. I think the main thing that made this episode for me was the bickering between him and Montana!

And once again, MacGyver somehow gets roped into letting someone stay at his place- but despite his initial misgivings- he's okay with it in the end.
You can always count on MacGyver for that!
And it was great to see Mac pull out his motorcycle and get the biker jacket going on. The MacGyverisms were pretty cool here too- broken glass to cut a rope, ether to knock someone out- and a nice big explosion at the end!
So I thought it was overall a pretty fun episode.

As usual a good if not excellent episode. The opening was great. On the moment he wants to go he gets busted and takes off. Also great when he climbs over the fence, dead end and then in the bar, a second later they bang out and starts fighting. Great episode with Earl Dent and Montana was very good for the comic relief. The way she acted was nearly of being a real ***.
By the way a bit of trivia: Jerry Kluge was actually Commander Hilliard in Renegade. Sometimes it's really unbelievable that actors can be changed so much. The guy who played Steve in Renegade was one of the cowboys, (I think Kid Curry) in MacGyver's Women. Lisa's mother in Twenty Questions was Marie in Renegade and Zamora in The Gun was actually the general in Kill Zone.
Anyway this was a funny episode. Dent preparing his question when MacGyver walks out. MacGyver realising that Montana actually wants him to take Dent in his house or either that he knows he's going to ask him to live with him even though he doesn't want to.
For the first time a MacGyverism that doesn't work? Anyway it ended up in a cool fight and of course the sacrifice of that trike.
'I love that trike.'
This episode also marks the return of Pete since MacGyver's Women, although we know why.
Great episode and great humor. Both genres mixed and that's the way I like it.
By the way Rock this episode is 119.

Good ep!

I would have given this one an 'Excellent' but for Montana. That woman grates my nerves in a way that I had once thought impossible. She is way too over-the-top dramatic. I know she's supposed to be hardened and bitter... but jeez! The woman belongs in a psych-ward, not a parole office!

Loved Dent and 'Mechanic' (MacCanuck) and everything else! Especially Mac's momentary pause while trying to chose which helmet to wear, then discarding both because "they'd never buy it".

She was just great. The way she snapped sometimes is hilarious.

'I am a parole agent not a nanny alright?'
'How can I call for back up if I don't even know where we are?

By the way, did we all recognised Tommy Giordano?

Yeah. His itchy eyes and need for a magnifying glass show them begin to bring Danas illness in to the show.

No! not until you mentioned it!

I am curious by the opening bio toxin story line and would have liked to know how the phoenix foundation were going to stop the bio weapon threat.

I didn't mind Montana really. She was pretty jaded by her job and what she’s seen and I don't think MacGyver was right saying she needed to take her job more personally. You'd get too involved if you did that and it would really get to you in a job like that. She maybe needed to act more professionally and give the parolee the time and effort she should but she shouldn't take it more personally.

it didn't work as a "small explosion" when the guy stepped on it but it worked great when attached to a gas cylinder and smashed in to the van. I guess the guy stepping in it wasn't heavy enough to set it off. It’s not Mac’s fault the guy was skinny!

She is also "jaded" by the fact that as she tells Mac (after Dent escapes the houseboat with a really funny fall from the roof) that her parents were junkies and that they talked about wanting to go straight but never did.

Mac in leather jacket and on bike were enough to justify my Excellent vote, topped with his expression when he agreed to go with Dent to the parole office and let him to stay at his houseboat, just like he talked to himself: I can't believe I said that!

The opening was great but the rest of it wasn't that good.

I love the look on MacGyver's face when Dent crashes through his porch roofing after having just told whats-her-face that Dent wasn't there.

The classic raised eye-brows "Well that was unexpected." look.

makes me laugh out loud every time.

hated klugs delivery of lines. always looked like he was in pain or retarded

Coming in a little late, but the backwards cap and blackened face was worth it too

She was just great. The way she snapped sometimes is hilarious.

'I am a parole agent not a nanny alright?'
'How can I call for back up if I don't even know where we are?

By the way, did we all recognised Tommy Giordano?

I didn't care for Montana at all. This show needed more likeable, competent women. I think Butkus did a fine job, and I enjoyed the episode as a whole and rated it "good." Mac looked good in the leather jacket and riding the motorcycle and I agree that it was funny when he decided to not wear either helmet, and he was right not to!

I didn't recognize the boy as Tommy, but I did recognize him as Georgie from the "It" miniseries from 1990. I love Stephen King's work!

That was Georgie? You recognise Jay Brazeau as the cab driver at the end? He played Mr. Zamora in The Gun and the General in Kill Zone.

You might be surprised how many Mac-actors show up in Kings adaptations.

I just watched this episode. It's a good episode to me, when I want to smile from the start to the end.

Dent and Montana are funny and I like RDA with leather jacket and motorcycle, which is his own, another one of the real things of MacGyver.

LOL! I remember when Mac rolled out in the leather jacket and motorcycle, I remember thinking to myself... I wonder just how much of a bad boy he was in his youth. Probably the safest bad boy you'll come across really. XD

Oh, but what a bad boy

I always liked this one- also with the legendary Don Stroud!!!

I love the face Mac pulls when he says that Dent can stay with him.
There's real pain there!

Just watched this and was going "damn, Kluge looks familiar... but from where?" Turns out, he was the jerk criminal-posing-as-sheriff in Django Unchained. Definitely not where I expected to find a MacGyver actor. It's nice that they're still finding work.

Favorite scene: MacGyver going "nah, they'd never go for it..." Cut to him riding out on a motorcycle in full Sons Of Anarchy regalia. Is there anything he CAN'T do?

I went with excellent, fun seeing Mac undercover, loved both his reluctance and his inability not to care. Montana was a bit annoying but not too over the top, compared to some other characters we've had.

It was great his paste didn't work - but it seemed there was still some danger of it drying enough to go off, so I felt Mac and the others should have been trying to avoid it in the doorway, but all of them went and stood right in it!!

Montana was a good audition to play a Klingon I guess

Also Don Stroud plays his villains markedly differently between characters and episodes, like Dale Wilson, and others.