In all honesty, I have never liked The Wish Child episode of MacGyver. This second season entry just doesn’t appeal to me at all, even with a decent cast that includes Tia Carrere and George Takei. Carrere is actually only in the beginning and end, but she’s …

MacGyver: Twice Stung has some really fun moments in it. It’s also the first time the term ‘MacGyverisms’ is used. Who knew it would become a cultural norm?
This season two episode has Mac and Pete trying to get back $400,000 that was stolen from a friend and …

Joe Santos stars in this second episode of the second season of MacGyver, entitled The Eraser. Santos plays Jimmy Kendall, a just released felon who is forced by a mobster to make a hit. The object of the hit is Michael Simmons, played by Morgan Stevens. …

MacGyver: The Human Factor is one of my favorite episodes of the dramatic series, which stars Richard Dean Anderson as the inventive and creative agent. This is the first episode of the second season and added to the regular cast is Dana Elcar as Pete Thornton. Pete …

This is the final episode of the first season of MacGyver. By now, the producers had figured out that Dana Elcar was a plus to the show. He’s in it once again, and like the show before, he has more action. In many of his first …

Season one of MacGyver rolls on with A Prisoner of Conscience, another episode with some kind of Russian focus. I guess it was a sign of the 80’s — lots of Russian types of stories. Dana Elcar is again in the show as Pete Thornton, and …

The first thing I noticed about MacGyver: The Escape, which is the twentieth episode of the first season is that we’re heading towards the infamous mullet hairdo. Richard Dean Anderson’s hair is dramatically longer here than in the previous episode, so there clearly was no visit to the …

As the first episode of The Beast continues, FBI agents Charles Barker and Ellis Dove find their new partnership buckling from accusation and distrust. While on the surface, the two are carrying out their latest mission, the back story about whether or not Barker is a ‘dirty’ agent …

MacGyver: Slow Death is one of those average MacGyver episodes that is very pleasant to watch, though there isn’t really anything spectacular about it. Mainly, it’s an entertaining hour, and that’s really what television is supposed to be. The show has some great interaction with the characters …

MacGyver: The Ugly Duckling takes Mac back to visit an old professor, who is then killed. He ends up helping a teenage computer geek who has successfully hacked into government systems. She eventually is kidnapped by weapons dealers who want her to do some hacking for them, …

There’s some beautiful scenery in the To Be a Man episode of MacGyver from the first season. It actually reminds me a bit of a western. I can see John Wayne riding along the places where Mac is trying to escape from the bad guys.
In MacGyver: To …

Every Time She Smiles is the episode of MacGyver where we first meet the fast-talking Penny Parker, a character played by Teri Hatcher (now of Desperate Housewives fame) who would recur on multiple episodes of the series. Off the show, it’s said that she and star Richard Dean …

Tonight was the big elimination where another contestant’s dream of being the American Idol came to an end. Before that happened, all kinds of other stuff happened first. It was Country Week, which the singers all performing country songs, except for Adam Lambert, who did his own …

MacGyver: The Enemy Within makes me chuckle, not from the show, but how the same names are used for episodes. Richard Dean Anderson would be in another episode called The Enemy Within about ten years after this one, when he starred in Stargate SG-1.
In this episode of MacGyver, …

MacGyver: Countdown is the fourteenth episode of season one. It’s a very watchable show which has the action contained and rather subdued aboard a cruise ship. The sedentary action is watching Mac and his buddy try to disarm three bombs that have been set on the passenger …

Season one of MacGyver continues on with an episode called Flame’s End which featured Tannis Montgomery as Amy Austin. The actress had a short career and according to the IMDB, this was actually her last performance. Watching it again now, I kept wondering why she looked so …

The MacGyver: Deathlock brings back Pete Thornton for his second episode. Mac is working for him again, only things have run afoul from the start. Mac is scooped up in a public place by one of Pete’s agents, a gal named Karen Blake (Wendy Schaal). She’s …

MacGyver: Nightmares is another good episode that is a little more close to home than most of Mac’s missions. This time, the villains inject our hero with a hallucinogenic drug that will kill him within six hours unless he turns over crucial information to them, after which they’ll …

In this important episode of the MacGyver series, viewers meet Harry Jackson for the first time. Harry is MacGyver’s grandfather. Initially, the two are estranged, but after this, Harry shows up in many episodes over the series run. Harry is beautifully played by the talented John …

MacGyver: The Prodigal has never been a favorite of mine. It’s high on people interaction, which I prefer over the action stuff, but this story just doesn’t do anything for me. Whenever it comes on, I’m more apt to change the channel than I am with most …

MacGyver: Hellfire is another episode that I really enjoy. There are only four characters in it, five if you want to include the helicopter pilot who flies Mac to the remote location where his friends are. As a result, it ends up being a show that is …

In this first season episode of MacGyver, Mac is headed out on vacation. He wants to go fishing at a spot where his father used to take him to. Incredibly, he always manages to get lost when he goes, and that’s what happens here again. Mac …

Steve-O dropped by to explain his back injury that kept him from dancing the night before. He’s fine and wants to stick around. He also reminded everyone that Lacey Schwimmer, the pro, advised him not to do the flip that caused his injury. Lacey is known …

Another week of musical performances, and I’m going to start with Adam Lambert. Now, the guy can sing, but it’s Country Week. I don’t really care that he wanted to be true to himself and who he is. It’s Country week, so sing country. It …

This episode opens up with a shirtless Richard Dean Anderson. Woman everywhere swooned. He immediately gets a hug from the woman he’s rescuing. That’s standard fare for this TV series.
The opening gambit was fun, with MacGyver and the woman geologist shooting the rapids, but it was …

Season one of MacGyver continues with an episode called The Heist. Interestingly, like the pilot, it was directed by the infamous Alan Smithee. In Hollywood, Smithee is a fictional name applied to a project when the actual director doesn’t want his name attached to the project in …

MacGyver: The Gauntlet is another episode with lots of action in it. MacGyver is once again sent overseas, to South America, to rescue a photographer, played by Robin Curtis. She’s got the goods on a couple of bad guys, and they know it. Hence, the big …

MacGyver: Thief of Budapest has that incredible opening gambit where MacGyver is rescuing a horse and ends up buckling the horse to a hook and the two go flying away beneath a helicopter. It’s a little on the unreal side and I worry about that horse. I’m …

Mac heads for Burma and becomes involved in helping some of the locals to get free of the opium dealers who want them to harvest their crops. It’s essentially slavery, and Mac can’t help himself after he meets one of the young boys. He’s saddened by what …

I have always loved Richard Dean Anderson so couldn’t wait to watch his new series, MacGyver, when it debuted in 1985. It was the beginning of real success for Anderson and the start of a new culture, one filled with MacGyverism and TV parodies like MacGruber on Saturday …

Legend: Skeletons in the Closet is a sort of odd ending to the entire Legend series, which only survived for these twelve episodes. In my opinion, the show never really found itself. Some shows focused so much on Nicodemus Legend persona being an unwilling hero, but heroic …

This eleventh episode of Legend takes Ernest Pratt and Janus Bartok to San Francisco, which just happens to be where Pratt’s mother resides. I’m not sure, but this may be one of the few shows where a character played by Richard Dean Anderson actually has a living mother. …

The Capone episode of The Beast stands out because it featured Lou Diamond Phillips as an agent who is deep under cover. The problem is that the man has been in his role for four very long years, during which his wife divorced him. In essence, as …

The second episode of Dancing with the Stars continued the injury bus. I don’t know what it is about this show, but the stars are dropping like flies. First, before the show even hit the air last week, Nancy O’Dell and Jewel both had injuries that took …

Celebrity Apprentice - Season 2, Episode 2 brings up one very important question — why is Dennis Rodman participating in this process? He has shown no real desire to be there, even though he talks like he wants to be. It makes no sense. In this …

In this tenth offering of the unique western, Legend, Ernest Pratt gets caught with his pants down and an angry father after him. Oops! Things go from bad to worse when in the getaway, one of Bartok’s fancy weapons is shot off the contraption that Pratt is …

Like the prior episode, the ninth episode of this offbeat western begins with Ernest Pratt (Richard Dean Anderson) trying to come up with a good story for his latest dime novel that features his now alter ego, Nicodemus Legend. It’s all about elk, which he describes as cute.
The …

The eighth episode of Richard Dean Anderson’s Legend TV series is called Bone of Contention, and apparently Pratt (Anderson) does sometimes get the girl, since that’s how the show opens. Actually, it’s a nice bit where Pratt is visualizing the climax of one of his novels. This …

The Gospel According to Legend is the seventh episode of this Richard Dean Anderson futuristic western. I like this one quite a bit. A man Ernest Pratt (Anderson) knew before as a low life called Weasel Willy comes to town as Mordechai and claiming to be reformed …

The first thing I noticed about the sixth episode or Richard Dean Anderson’s Legend series, entitled Knee-High Noon, is that Anderson’s character, Ernest Pratt aka Nicodemus Legend finally gets to drive the locomotive invention created on the show by his partner, Janos Bartok (John DeLancie). I’m sure that …

The fifth episode of Legend is called The Life, Death, and Life of Wild Bill Hickock and features William Russ as Wild Bill Hickock. In this episode, Hickock enlists Pratt’s assistance in bringing in the Jack McCall gang.
There’s an interesting gunfight early on, with Hickock taking on …

Custer’s Next to Last Stand is the fourth episode of this Richard Dean Anderson futuristic western from May 1995. As many of the shows do, this one combines some realism with their fiction. As you can tell from the title, it’s George Custer who gets the honor …

The opening of this third episode is a hoot. Pratt is on a book tour in the south, a bad mistake since his dime novels are all about Yankees. Just as some unhappy southerners are about to do harm to him and in fact have him hanging …

One of the things that worked against Legend is that it was on the new UPN network. They didn’t have the stamina to let the series grow and really find its strength. Still, what we do have are a collection of tales in which actors Richard Dean …

Legend only ran for one season, but it was certainly a different season. This show stars Richard Dean Anderson as Ernest Pratt, a writer with a writing block. Now Anderson here is a far cry from MacGyver, whom he’d just left behind him. He has a …

I decided to take a leap of faith tonight and watch Ghost Whisperer: Leap of Faith. Up until earlier this year, I was a big fan of the show. I wasn’t always happy with the direction it took (I hated it when Melinda’s best friend was killed …

Today, there are a plethora of television court shows, all because of the tremendous popularity of Court TV (now Tru TV) during the infamous O.J. Simpson trial. Of course, there had been both Divorce Court and The People’s Court that had great runs, but it’s been in the …

I’m not a fan of ER. I’ve watched a certain number of episodes over the years, but never an entire season; more likely, a handful of shows a season, if that. I’m more attached to the early and middle years as I watched more then and knew …

The American Idol - Week 1 Results Show had some nice moments in it, along with a few things that just aren’t my style. On the latter side was a performance by Kanye West. I just don’t like the guy. He has a prima dona attitude …

Stargate SG-1: Collateral Damage is another of the season nine shows that I tolerate Ben Browder’s Cameron Mitchell character a bid more than in other shows. It’s probably for the same reason as the last time — he’s somewhat away from the team and able to be himself …