This is a very good point. It's odd, too, because he had the type of job that could create practically limitless adventures, and yet as the series went on, the writers relied less and less on his job, and more frequently on his bad luck of being in the wrong place at the wrong time (or the ever predictabe "crazy friend who needs a favor.")

Gotta agree with this one, too. I was almost surprised when Mac actually mentioned Nikki's name in the season 4 episode "Unfinished Business." Of course, he had to, in order to set up the flashback, but when I heard it, my first reaction was, "Oh, so he DOES remember her!"
I still think it was stupid to write her out of the show just because they didn't want her to be a love interest. What's wrong with Mac just having a female friend/co-worker? It would have added an interesting dynamic to the series. I don't think she should have been there all the time, but even just a few times per season would have been nice. Oh well.

Totally forgot about that! Yeah, that was a perfect opportunity for a MacGyverism. It was just laziness not to show how he escaped. If they couldn't think of a way for him to get out, they shouldn't have done the scene at all.

"We were buried alive! That's minor?'

You know unless I miss my guess, when their heads pop up, there appears to be a grate or something in the ceiling were the rocks fell through. There seems to be sunlight coming through, so maybe they were near the surface and escaped that way.

What did I like the least? Probably the bad acting of some of the guest cast.

The one actor that sticks out is Teri Hatcher, in Every Time She Smiles. This was the first episode we met Penny, and watching her (Teri) I honestly cannot believe she has gone on to become one the highest paid TV actors. How? She was absolutely terrible, although she did get slightly better, but not by much.

I would have liked to have seen more female villians. Be nice to see Mac take on a woman once in awhile!

Thought of another thing that I never understood but many agree with. The fact that NO ONE from the series is in the TV movies let alone mentioned. He just found out he had a son for crying out loud! If ever there was a oppertunity/demand to continue from the series it was that fact. We could have had two great father/son adventures. It may have lead to the proper spin off and movie instead of the one that we may be dreading now.

Well, Sam could've fitted in Lost Treasure of Atlantis but I don't think he could've fitted in Trail To Doomsday.

I don't care about fitting him in to those 2 movies(though I think he could have). I mean they should have written 2 movies around the 2 of them. The last episode ended with them riding off looking for adventure together. The movie could have picked up from there. At the very least mention him in the two we got.

Yes, the acting was definitely cringe-worthy at times.
I didn't notice it as much when I was younger, because I guess kids don't pick up on these things, and our imaginations help us to accept whatever we see, but watching the series on DVD as an adult, I have to wonder what the casting director was thinking when they hired some of these people.
RDA himself started out quite bad at times, too, but fortunately he improved pretty quickly.

Yeah, I guess it would have made sense for his son to be in the movies, although, I suspect if they did include his son, we'd see a bunch of complaints on here saying, "Why did they have to include his stupid son?! MacGyver is best when he's working alone!"
What I think was missing most from the movies were MacGyverisms. The Atlantis movie was okay for that, but "Trail To Doomsday" really didn't have any that are worth mentioning. I know the series itself cut down on them a LOT in later years (which always bothered me), but for a TV movie, it seems a bit silly to omit the main element of the show that made the character unique. And I'm not just talking about using an object in a non-conventional way (tennis racket as a wrench), I'm talking about real science-based MacGyverisms, like he did in the early years of the show.

Yep, I would have liked to see more of that as well. Like I said, even if SAM wasn't in the movies they needed to mention him.