Okay, so in this poll I featured several episodes where we get to see a more emotional side to Mac (including introspective episodes like Humanity). What do you think is the best and would you add any others? The Widowmaker will always be high on that list for me. What do you think?

The Challenge... Always. The episode invokes such emotion, every time. I cry, every time. Mac's reaction when he finds Booker... SUCH good acting.

The Widowmaker would be my second choice. Macs's fear of heights (you have to conveniently forget the pilot episode) then fear of commitment, then frozen in fear when Mike falls...

Not entirely. Even in the pilot episode MacGyver said he hates heights. But then he went and did what had to be done anyway! That's pretty awesome!

And there's lots of great emotional MacGyver episodes- I would agree that "The Challenge" and "The Widowmaker" would be top ones. I think "Blood Brothers" would also be fairly high up the list, considering it's a defining moment in MacGyver's life that shapes who he becomes as an adult. And "The Madonna" is always one of my favorites for this category.

And I think I'd also have to mention "Humanity" and "Passages".

For me its The Widowmaker. Mac rides the emotional rollercoaster from fear, despair,grief, depression, anger, hostility, fear, elation and finally confidence. RDA portrays all these emotions vividly and believably, with no over acting on his part. Its as realistic as if he were truly going through these emotions in real life.

Anyone who has ever lost someone in a senseless accident can identify with these feelings. A single event can become a defining moment in someone's life, and the loss of a close friend definitely counts. I have always identified with this episode since I have experienced some of the same things myself.

Many years ago, a man I was dating was killed in a fall from a cliff. He wasn't climbing, he was just hanging out with his brother. They were sitting on some rocks near the ledge and some other people were distrubing them. They got up to move and he tripped over a stick and just fell. He was killed instantly. The irony of it all was that I had just talked to him 4 hours earlier. I was at a horse show when it happened, and I can still hear the ambulance screaming down the highway by the showgrounds. It was moving really fast, I could tell by the sound of the siren, and I remember thinking someone must be hurt really bad. Little did I know. A mutual friend called me the next day with the news.

It was months before I felt like life was worth anything and it was years before I could go back to the park where it happened. I never have gone back to the actual spot where he fell. But living 13 years in the mountains in Utah, I can finally look over the edge of a cliff without feeling sick to my stomach.

The other episodes all showcase RDA's emotional range as an actor, but Widowmaker will always stand out for me.

Why are Kill Zone and Early Retirement in it?

I'd say Passages because he didn't knew what was happening. Humanity not necessarily, he was more helping the soldier.

But RDA is good in showing emotions like in The Widowmaker and The Madonna for his mother's demise and in The Challenge too for Bookers death.

The Widowmaker! Hands down.

Not because of his fear of heights, but because his fear of commitment.
And most of all his fear of facing the reality after Mike has fallen to her death. Absolutely brilliant.

I, too, picked the Widowmaker.

Mac, the man who could save everybody, couldn't save his friend. Plus, he had hurt her, the man who tried never to hurt anyone. And for most of the ep, he truly believed she never would have fallen if he hadn't rejected her.

The self-recrimination that compounds his grief makes your heart ache for the man.

When heand Pete are sitting by the fire, Mac looks so haunted, so forlorn, you wonder if he'll ever recover from this.

banlu

I went with The Widowmaker...but The Challenge is right up there...

Madonna tries...it really does, but come on...ice cream? Too much for me. Ice cream and cheese don't go too well for me.

I'm going to have to go with 'The Widowmaker' too. Poor Mac!

So...to go in the opposite direction from emotional episodes, are there like, really good unemotional episodes of MacGyver? You know- the best stoic episode of MacGyver!

Um...no?

I can't think of any...

You know that was a joke, right?

(If there wasn't some degree of emotion in a story, you'd probably have a pretty boring story)

Man, this is tough....

I'm not sure if I'd go with Widomaker or The Challenge as my first choice. I think those are the most emotionally charged episodes of the whole series/

In Widowmaker, Mac is distraught to the point of hopelessness...something that's so out of character for him. Powerful episode for all the reasons already posted.

In Challenge, Mac is so emotionally charged by Booker's death, that he really comes to the edge of himself, and almost falls off that edge. On the one hand you want to cheer him on, and on the other you look on horrified.

In one the emotion shuts him down and in the other it's a catalyst. lol...I'm in "angst" here choosing.... I'll come back.

Ran across this great MacGyver music video online and thought it would be pretty fitting with the thread topic, since the video's all about MacGyver dealing with emotinal trauma. Set to Queen's "Under Pressure" (So Vanilla Ice samples from this song on his "Ice, Ice Baby" song- hmm, didn't realize that before)

http://www.macsyourman.com/videos/underpressure.WMV

Widowmaker and The Challenge. But also Obsessed, totally different kind of emotional state, stress- and anxiety-driven, but nice.

I haven't seen all those eps yet, but I'd have to say The Widowmaker for me. mac does it so well, the angst, the burden of grief, then putting it aside to help Nikki and himself. Bravo Murdoc for choosing just the right moment!

mandyK

Well, I admit that Kill Zone and Early Retirement aren't as high on the list for Mac emotion--they're a little bit more like Pete emotion--but I'm thinking mainly of how Mac watches Sandra slowly die from the virus in Kill Zone and how expressive he was. I could feel his helplessness and dismay in that situation. For Early Retirement, I just thought of how Mac tried to deal with the loss of his friend and colleague. Neither of those are as emotional, I admit, but they do have their subtle emotional moments that I liked, so I added them.

Mac demonstrates some heavy angst for me in 'Kill Zone' when he's waking through the forest finding the animals dead... I can hear in his voice a touch of despair that sets off my 'empathy bomb'...

So does 'Early Retirement' when Mac loses his temper with Pete about 'the bureacratic bible'...

I think we are all in agreement (almost) that Widowmaker and the Challenge would win for the best Mac angst episodes. Passages, Runners, Blind Faith, any time he finds that the woman he has feelings for is not who she seems (Lost Love, Negotiator, Unfinished Business, Jerico Games). I have to say Widowmaker, and the Challenge. The Challenge might win for its intensity. Mac is really intense in the last half of the episode.

The Challenge for me. The depth of emotion portayed, and how RDA played the scene always stands out in my mind. Even more than Widowmaker...

You know, I had to pick The Madonna, because while The Widowmaker and The Challenge certainly show a recent trauma, he's been dealing with the guilt over not being with his mother when she died for years. It finally came to a head and resolved in The Madonna, and he faced his blues over the holiday season.
My dad also lost his family very young and similarly had a very rough time with the holidays, so this episode really hit home for me. That and my dad and I used to watch Mac together.

I am watching Blind Faith now and the level of angst that Mac shows in the kitchen scene when Pete tells him about having glaucoma is touching and incredible.

Anyone notice that the bad guy is the bad guy from the Challenge (directed by Dana) and Eagles. Also, the guy playing Samantha's friend Richardson is played by one of the bad guys from Invisible Killer (also directed by Dana). I don't think that was accidental. Do you?

um.. sounds pretty coincidental to me.

When you direct more than one episode with what appears to be a limited pool of actors to use.. chances are your going to get the same ones more than once.

If the actor appeared exclusively in only episodes directed by one person, then you could draw conclusions.. but just because 2 of the 3 episodes an actor appears in happen to have had the same directer?... no

It's definitely the sign of a casting agent who keeps track of which actors work well with the standing cast. Especially under the pressure of a series with a notoriously tight shooting schedule.

There are enough actors in the worldwide pool that you can always go out and find someone you've never worked with, and find out if they're as good as the person you already know, and presumably liked and found good and reliable . . . but that's hardly the preferred approach.

Given the number of repeat performers, it makes it all the more annoying, for me, when they brought back a character and cast someone different in the part! Most of those were probably availability issues, though.

I don't know Rock, I wondered if since this was a special episode for Dana Elcar's character, if this wasn't on purpose.

well considering the time and budget restraints the episodes where filmed in, I'm not sure I can conclude that the actors for bit and/or secondary roles would be specifically requested by the director.

You might be letting the emotion of the episode blur into the reality of making a TV show.

It would be interesting to know if he actually choose that episode specifically, or if they had some kind of timetable or something.

Ok I'll bite. Maybe my emotions are letting me get away from me. MAYBE. But do you really think that Blind Faith was just another episode? I don't.

Think about Dana Elcar's state of mind--try to anyway--both he and his character were going blind. And he was telling the audience, very real. I don't think for a moment that they slapped that supporting cast together. One of the actors from the Challenge and one from the Invisible Killer are in it, and that's accidental? Maybe. I just see that as no way--instead I thought of the film the Shootist-John Wayne's last film and how many character actors and stars including Jimmy Stewart and Lauren Bacall asked to be a part of it. Just an idea.

Either way, it's an amazing episode and an amazing acting performance by Dana Elcar.

I guess we'll never know for sure. But after watching this interview with Dana about his blindness, he seemed to have really handled it well. He seemed to take it in his stride, which shows what a strong person he was.

Thats why I question if he would have put any special emphasis on that episode. He didn't seem like the kind of person who would dwell on such things, he was more of a "don't feel sorry for yourself, get on with it", kind of guy

That kind of attitude in the face of something as life altering as going blind certain deserves respect.

You were talking about Dana Elcar's strength.
I agree. I would add that he was courageous in the face of adversity. He also realized I think his responsibility to his audience, and thus we had the public service announcement from RDA at the end of Hind Sight.