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 092 - The Ten Percent Solution

After a Holocaust survivor disrupts an art auction, MacGyver investigates his claims and uncovers a massive neo-Nazi movement within the American political system .

Watched this last time. Gave me the creeps. Again.

This one definitely gives me the creeps, too, even more so because I know just how extensive the hate movement is in America... and the anti-immigrant branch of it is going mainstream. Racist immigrant haters will frequently show up on mainstream news programs... there's one reporter on CNN who's particularly notorious for presenting anti-immigrant groups as regular, patriotic folks who are just concerned about our border security, AND he'll repeat their conspiracy theories, etc, as if they were proven fact. Sorry for the rant...

Frau Brandenburg goes on my list of favorite villains. She was so nasty!

I really liked the stunt Mac pulled with the gas and the hollow door. Now that's clever.

The only thing I don't like about this eppy is that we never find out whether Sam got his family's painting back. It feels sort of unfinished.

I found this to be quite a good episode.

The villains had a particularly nasty feel to them. Maybe becasue they where based on the horrible reality of the Nazi movement.

I do find myself chuckling every time I see the bad guy marching Mac and co into the mine. He's dressed in the classic stereo-type skin-head outfit (jeans rolled up to the tops of his army boots, black jacket etc). It just looks ridiculously cliché (which was perhaps the idea). Very Romper Stomper.

I wonder, was there somethign going on at the time this episode came out regarding Nazi movements or the Holocaust or anything like that? I ask because there are moments where this episode feels like a PSA.

I am in agreement with Rock on this one. I actually like this episode. Partly, I like the actor who played Sam, his name is Nehemiah Parsoff, and he is in tons of things, including a movie with Marilyn Monroe called Some Like It Hot. I also like that character of Sam and his passion and believeability. The pain in his face during the art auction, and again in the mines, when the gas is turned on. I deeply sympathized with him. I liked Laura, don't know too much about her, the writers don't tell you too much, because that would detract from Sam's story, and that would be an insult to the victims of the Holocaust.
Partly, I like anything that has to do with certain historical aspects. I was a history major in college, and I took a class on the history of Germany, taught by a a native German, who was a young kid in World War II. Of course we studied the holocaust, and as a result I watched Schindler's List. I also remembered this episode from my childhood. Since I have watched Anne Frank, with Ben Kingsley.
Those images: very haunting, chilling reminders of a dark period, and a reminder that no matter how different another person is from me or you, no one's life is more important. There is no excuse for hatred and the taking of human life, and that's one of the profound lessons that the show of MacGyver taught me at an early age.

i felt so sorry for the Holocaust survivor, he lost everything and after he finds that painting he's trailed off to jail and then is almost killed again, that part where MacGyver is laying in the floor after getting hit on the head I was saying each time that woman said "MacGyver get up." i was saying give him some time, he got hit over the head can't you see hes in pain.

MacGyver does look pretty slick in that tux at the start of the show and I love the expressions of disbelief on his face while Pete's bidding.

Did you know that this show was never shown in Germany? So I saw it the first time, when I bought the whole Mac series on ebay lately (in English only though - I'm German). I could not believe that. I though with a topic like that it HAD to be shown in Germany of all places! Same here with Casablance in the 1950s in West German cinemas: the whole Nazi topic was edited out (in dubbing) and only the love story left in so the whole film was crippled.

Katja

Whoa! Casablanca without the Nazis? That's just crazy -- it sounds like some of the stranger attempts at bowdlerisation that the fundamentalists here in the US sometimes try.

This wasn't originally one of my top favourite episodes, but it really caught my imagination -- obviously; I wrote "Aftershocks" because the situation at the end of the episode, had it occurred in real life, would have been a staggering mess that would take years to fully resolve, if it ever did.

And the quintessential creepiness of having actual Nazi escapees intersect with neo-Nazis is the stuff of nightmares. When I started researching the story, the nightmares got worse -- the staggering ugliness of the hate movements in the US was bad enough two years ago, when I was writing the novel. It's even worse now, but at least there's a bit of awareness that some of the terrorists are native-born white Christians, and that they're just as crazy and dangerous if not more so.

From what I recall, Rocky, there wasn't a specific event at the time of production, but there was a very high level of anxiety. The Aryan Nations had settled in Idaho with the express purpose of establishing a five-state area as the new Aryan homeland, which is the origin of the 'ten percent solution' idea (5 states out of 50). California was never one of the states they wanted -- it was too heavily populated and already had (in the eyes of the racists) too many minority residents. But since MacGyver is set in California, they had to show that as part of the target area.

They planned to have all the white supremacists in the US move to the area -- Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and (I think) Wyoming -- take over, and secede from the US. The 'Master Plan' never grew past the single Aryan Nations compound in Idaho, largely because the white supremacists aren't a unified group -- they're a huge number of individual groups acknowledging no central leader. When the call went out, the racists in other parts of the country basically said, "Why should we listen to you and move out there? You move here."

And in the end, the Aryan Nations went too far and lost everything except their hatred. The Idahoans (with some exceptions) were very happy to see them broken.

Not that many years ago, I recall the Libertarians tried the same thing with Vermont, and failed in much the same way.

One on my favourites, but not for the macgyverisms ...
I like this episode for the story, the theme of Nazis and the Holocaust!
At the time I was a little bit shocked!

A great episode!!!

Saw this for the first time today. What a creepy episode, that old woman was such a bitch! I don't know how people could be so horrid. It did make me wonder if such a thing isn't already happening and we just don't know it.

That's an interesting question. Was this episode written for a specific reason? was there something happening at the time in the US concerning Nazis or the holocaust?

Would be interesting to know what prompted this story.

That's an interesting question. Was this episode written for a specific reason? was there something happening at the time in the US concerning Nazis or the holocaust?

Would be interesting to know what prompted this story.

It's still giving me the creeps just thinking about it. The idea would be to infiltrate so slowly you don't even realise it until its too late. Just think - the doctor you see, the policeman on the street, the teacher at your childs school...this is probably the one episode that has really made me think, as well as scaring the crap out of me.

You know, I'd initially filed this episode under the category of 'no chance, that would never happen again'. Then I read the previous comments, all of which have a genuinely worried feel to them and now I'm not so sure...
We do have the BNP here, who sometimes have a stall and hand out leaflets in town, though I've never seen anyone take one and the whole outfit seems to get largely ignored by the general public. I guess they must get enough support to keep going though...

That said, this was a good and enjoyable episode to watch.
Mac does look good (if uncomfortable!) in a tux, it contrasts nicely with the wildness of the hair!
The villain is deliciously nasty, Sam is a sympathetic character of just the right type to get Mac on board and the escape from the mine is well done.

Mac does get a bit beaten up in this one, doesn't he? Two bangs on the head (no wonder he was groggy after the second one!), two sets of bruised knuckles from matching knockout-drop punches and gassed in a mine

I've not noticed it before, but Mac squints when he's thinking... Or it could be the cumulative headache from the twin smacks on the head. Has anyone noticed if he does it in other episodes too?
Or is it just that RDA isn't wearing contact lenses...

I've seen him squint in other episodes when he's concentrating on doing something. I think it's one of those "acting with your face" things he does.

I've seen this episode a couple of months back on DVD and I was wondering if it was ever officially shown here in Germany. I don't remember having seen it on television, just like the episode with the Nazi-gold from Hardcastle & McCormick.

This is a creepy episode indeed and I was thinking too, if something like that is happening. Looking at the NSU-murders here in Germany (google it, an amazing case of police and secret service failure), the idea wouldn't be too far fetched.

I have a vague recollection of something being mentioned (maybe somewhere earlier in this thread) about this episode not being shown in Germany due to sensitivity over the content.

I think most 80's shows has an episode around Nazis and the holocaust. And maybe that's not so strange. World War II only occured forty years earlier. Even now it is an interesting subject. I'm always in for a World War II-movie and I like to read about it too. That's also why I wrote When The World Changes. After all they were the last ones who tried to conquer the world in the old fashion way. I think they were also the most destructive ones.

This is definitely one of the harder episodes and one with the rare suspenseful endings. Maybe it could've been a great two-parter. Though Gray and Hoggart were knocked out and Madame Brandenburg was arrested.

I really like this episode. Last time I saw it, I remembered how gripping this episode is. When Mac is brought to the mine, I really had this chilly feeling. The scene is supported by a great thriller-ish track. I think this episode comes close to the thriller-genre.

'Take them to mine.'

Last spring, I was in DC and went to the Holocust Museum there. The current special exhibit was on the Naxi Propoganda.

The Naxis took decades to slowly change the thinking of the German people to get there support. They started with messages of German pride and rebuilding of the country after WW1 then very slowly added in these people are holding us back and the cause of our troubles. After they got a certain amount of following, they made it mandatory for school children to attend the Aryan after school club. They knew that indoctrinating the young is what would give them their future army. It really did start with what sounded like positive messages.

A horrible blight on the human race. too bad the human race has not learned and we still kill based on a difference.

And thinking of hate in America, current president and his opposition has brought light that.

Watching MacGyver as a teen really opened my eyes to the world.

The episode explores Nazism and a holocaust survivor. In the 1980's World War Two was fought only four decades before and my grandparents remember the War and the sacrifices made to win. My grandfather referred to Nazism as a dark cloud that spread across Europe and nearly destroyed a continent. Frau Brandenburg was a cold hearted villain from the Third Reich who still believed in the Nazi Ideology. Many former Nazis escaped justice at the end of the war by leaving Germany to hide from the Allies. Sam was a Holocaust survivor who wished to have a painting stolen by the Nazis from his family returned. The more Mac looked into it he discovered that Frau Brandenburg was behind a plot to create a Fourth Reich in America. She was one of the darkest adversaries Mac has come across. Mac was speechless when he heard Sam's story about the loss of his family in the camps, there is nothing you could say. The story was one to educate the younger viewers about racial hatred and what it can lead to.

Mac had good idea to use hand signs, because he couldn't talk, when the guy asked ''Well...?''

I like how this episode tells what the Jews went through. Its hard to believe that people would really do things like that to another human being.

I think this episode makes me distinctly uncomfortable due to its plausibility. It doesn't have to just be the Nazis either. Any faction could play a similar long term game to take over another organisation. It is a meme that plays out in several TV series too. TNG tried it, DS9, and several COP shows have shown an upper echelon staffed by people in league with other 'baddies. The concept is just as relevant and scarey today, particularly as there are now thousands of unchecked people that stream access country borders!

About the whole "Nazis secretly infiltrating the government" thing:

There was a gimmick in the current run of Captain America comics a few months ago where Steve Rogers turns out to have been a sleeper agent, recruited by the Nazis/Hydra all the way back in the 1930s. This caused a bit of a stir, with a lot of fans understandably pissed off, but others (and I think some people at Marvel) arguing that that the whole thing could be a metaphor for the rise of racist/white nationalist/far right movements inside the West in the present day.

That, in turn, provoked a response from a blogger/reviewer I like to read - full text here http://abigailnussbaum.tumblr.com/post/145...hy-the-argument. The paragraph that's relevant to this episode is this:

if you want to make a meaningful point about fascist movements and their popular appeal, you can’t do so with a story about a secret infiltrator. The thing about fascist movements is that they are loud (it’s where the “populist” part comes in, after all), and that through their loudness, they slowly shift the parameters of public debate until blatantly racist rhetoric becomes the norm, or at least something that people have to argue against. A Steve Rogers who is a member of Hydra wouldn’t be a sleeper agent. He’d be your increasingly embarrassing racist uncle.

I still like this episode, and I realize that there are limits to how much social commentary you can do in a 45-minute episode of television. But it's definitely a weakness in any story that revolves around uncovering secret Nazi conspiracies to take power - it leaves out what's arguably the scariest and most dangerous thing about the phenomenon. Nazis don't take power through conspiracy and infiltration, they do it in broad daylight, because enough people are basically okay with it.

I can understand that. This is also one of those episodes I thought would make a great two-parter. But I think the whole secrecy thing made it easier to make an episode about instead of full rise and/or fall of a Nazi power. Could've also been a nice dream episode. MacGyver in the 1940s. Or in some way maybe set the episode in Washington D.C. in which the Nazi group has taken over the White House or something. But writing something massive like a full blown take over by Nazis in 45 minutes is not really do-able. I wouldn't say not possible. But I think if you say World War II, I think you have to see it big. There's a world war going on to use as a background so you want to use that feel in the story but maybe they should've set it in the 1940's instead of the modern times.

When I come to think of it, Frau Brandenburg seemed to disagree with Hitler though. However her plan is quite evil as well and indeed is a way to conquer the world. Spread out your pawns through the states or countries you wish to take over in infiltration. And when the time is right, you strike from within for domination. The Enemy Within. I think this story was just made up for the episode. I'm very into World War II stuff, I wouldn't be surprised if this could've been one of their evil plans all along. There is almost nothing the Nazis weren't doing. So I'm sure there's plenty of secret operations still to be uncovered. It just depends if it was real or not. The theories go far on that like Nazi-ufo's.

Considering the content and the kind of villains for this episode I think it was also a matter of budget. Or it should've been a two-parter. Just like Kill Zone would've been if that organism fell on a city.

Sometimes you gotta make choices and see what you can reach with the stuff you have. Here it was chosen, that MacGyver would save the day before any real damage was done.

I was relieved they didn't feel the need to over-explain. Mac knew that Pete would know what tattooed numbers on the wrist meant and the writers thankfully didn't want to spell it out to anyone too young to know.

Forgive me for focusing on a whole different aspect of the show, but the opening scene with the girl jogging on the trail, getting attacked, etc. was never really carried through except to get Brand on TV denouncing them. Not sure why they even bothered with this part, unless it was to show the lengths he was willing to go to in order to get elected.

If anyone cares, I just finished reading a book that came out last year called "Hitler In Los Angeles" by Stephen J. Ross, which people who enjoyed this episode might be interested in.

It covers the activities of Nazi and Nazi-affiliated groups in 1930s Los Angeles (groups like this existed in a lot of places, but it turns out LA was an unusually strong center of activity for them), and efforts to investigate them. Depressingly, "efforts to investigate them" mostly doesn't mean the police. The book is about the work is done by a Jewish lawyer named Leon Lewis and a number of his friends and associates, many of them veterans and many of them Jewish, who tried to infiltrate and either disrupt or raise awareness of the activities of these groups. For 90% of the book, the LAPD and LA Sheriff's Department are completely useless, largely because they're chock-full of people who sympathize with the Nazis and/or who don't view them as a real threat and/or don't care what they're doing because they figure they're only doing it to Jews and blacks and commies and other people who deserve it anyway. The FBI is barely better; they, too, don't really care about Nazi movements, they're obsessed with Communists instead, and remain that way pretty much all the way until the outbreak of the war. As for getting the public to pay attention, that too is a heavy lift. People in general aren't fans of Hitler, but plenty of them are still antisemites and/or suspicious of Jewish activists that they think are just trying to get the entire country to care about problems that're specific to them.

When the war starts, LA's fascist groups are finally cracked down on hard, but it's noted that 90% of the intelligence the local FBI office relies on for that is simply stuff that Leon Lewis and his associates fed them - they themselves didn't do a hell of a lot.

In other words, it's the kind of book that "The Ten Percent Solution" might've been based on, if it had been released a few decades earlier. Not just for its coverage of American Nazis, but its coverage of American Nazis with sympathizers in all kinds of highly placed spots.

Today, July 21st, I happened to be watching a documentary about a guy he turned witness against the Aryan brotherhood. In the documentary it refers to the Aryan brotherhood as "The Brand." Interesting that villain wasFrau Brandenburg and that her nephew's last name was Brand.

I read somewhere Anderson is farsighted. He would have to squint to see things close up.