#125: The Secret of Parker House

Season: 4  

Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:

MacGyver accompanies Penny Parker to an old mansion that she is inheriting from her Aunt Betty, who disappeared mysteriously 30 years ago.  As they explore the spooky and seemingly haunted house, they find an old skull in the front yard.  With the help of the skull and a diary, they piece things together and solve the mystery of Betty’s murder.

Memorable Quote:

"Penny, whatever’s going on around here has got nothing to do with ghosts or goblins or the supernatural.  There’s a purely logical explanation for everything."  ~MacGyver

"Really?  Well that would sound a lot more reassuring if you weren’t holding a human skull."  ~Penny

Highlight:

MacGyver reconstructs the discovered skull and makes it look like a real person (who resembles Penny) by gluing on erasers and other materials from a hardware store.  In MacGyver’s words, “These erasers will help judge the thickness of the skin and I build up from there.  It’s kind of like 3 dimensional connect the dots.”  This scene is completely ridiculous but also awesome at the same time. 

Lowlight:

Every part where Penny is in the house by herself and there is creepy background music (pretty much half the episode). 

Best MacGyverism:

See highlight.  

Other thoughts, observations, and questions I didn’t ask when I was in fourth grade:

• Did you know this episode aired on Halloween and was the Season 4 premiere?  Now you know.
• The first 15 seconds of the theme song is different – I think it may be unique to this episode.  Kind of a metallic, ethereal sound – I like it! 
• Our first Penny Parker episode!  I’m a Penny fan, and Teri Hatcher always does a great job with the character. Penny is dense, genuine and likable all at the same time, and yet she’s well-acted and never has a slapstick feel (which is hard to do as seen by some of the characters I’ve discussed in previous episodes).
• I told myself that I wouldn’t fast forward through any of these episodes, but between the spooky music box, constant thunder and lightning, slamming doors, frightening background music, people constantly popping out of nowhere, power going out, skulls, and mysterious figures in window, I have been sorely tempted to skip ahead.  OK, I actually did skip ahead, but only a little.  I’m sorry, but it’s creepy! 
• Conversation in the haunted mansion:
• MacGyver:  "I’ll need to pick some stuff up in town.  You wanna come along?"
• Penny:  "No that’s ok, you go ahead." 
• Needless to say, not one of Penny’s better decisions.
• You never see or hear about the house from Penny in later episodes.  Hopefully she bulldozed the godforsaken place. 

Final Analysis:

This episode is actually really good.  It’s a well-written, clever plot with good twists.  I feel kind of bad ranking it so low, but it’s low because it does too good of a job at being REALLY spooky from start to finish.  Some people would like that, but this is my list, and this episode is unfortunately not one I enjoy rewatching since it’s so creepy.