Tuesday, February 25, 2014

#121: Eye of Osiris

Season: 6

Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:
MacGyver is in Turkey to lend Phoenix Foundation support to an archaeologist father/daughter team that is searching for the tomb of Alexander the Great which contains the valuable Eye of Osiris.  Beth, the daughter, secretly helps a corrupt treasure hunter in exchange for money, to her and her rude father’s later regret.  The treasure hunter and the Eye of Osiris end up sealed in the tomb (which MacGyver found), and there is a reconciliation of father and daughter.  

Memorable Quote:
"Feel Lucky?"  ~A little person who pulls a knife on MacGyver in the opening scene.  MacGyver fends him off with a scarf and then takes the little person and hangs him on a light fixture. 

Highlight:
See Memorable Quote.

Lowlight:

See Memorable Quote. 

Best MacGyverism:
Not much to choose from here.  At one point, he takes a sugar-water mixture and sprays it on the sandy artifact remains to harden it up.  Let's go with that.

Other thoughts, observations, and questions I didn’t ask when I was in fourth grade:
  • Watching this episode with Mom!  "When are we going to get to the good ones?" she asks.  "At this rate, in about 5 years," I answer.  I kid, I kid. 
  • The episode opens with MacGyver entering a Mongolian looking tavern (though it’s supposed to be Turkey).  A woman is playing dice with a villager, reminiscent of Marion’s drinking game in Raiders of the Lost Ark.  This is the first of many Indiana Jones parallels from this episode, including:
    • When the artifact falls into the sand and is preserved in reverse, similar to the bad guy in Raiders who grabs the burning medallion and has it preserved on his palm
    • The father who spends a lifetime possessed by finding the treasure (Prof. Jones and the Holy Grail)
    • The scene where the walls close in from both sides (ok, that’s Star Wars)
    • Ancient room with ingenious booby traps that still work perfectly
    • Big piece of stone that chases them through a tunnel (similar to giant bowling ball)
  • Who knew Turkey had pine trees just like western Canada?  Sorry, I had to. 
  • I generally don't like to critique actors (don't want to hurt anyone's feelings), but Beth struggles a bit. 
  • Our first Kai Wulff sighting!  He ends up appearing in 4 different episodes as 4 different characters.  Always does a great job as the bad European guy.  In this episode, he’s one of the Von Leer brothers, the first of which perished in "Legend of the Holy Rose."
  • "What do I want with that [the artifacts] when I can't even read hieroglyphics or ancient Greek?" ~Von Leer.  Good to see he's thought this thing through. 
  • I’m a big snowcat fan.  Would be great to traverse the Wisconsin winters.  Probably a little out of my price range though.
  • "If it [the tomb] is letting light in, how come from the outside no one has ever seen this great big round window?"  ~ Mom
  • I like how MacGyver sees the shining blue light and yells "There’s our way out," which he somehow immediately knows.  And then Von Leer comes back with an even more over-the-top "A hah ha ha, the eye is mine!"
  • I normally don’t think of myself as a claustrophobic person, but the scene toward the end where MacGyver, Beth, and the Professor are lying on their backs with a wall no more than three inches above their head makes me feel claustrophobic.  I don’t even like thinking about it—let’s move on. 

Final Analysis:

Not as slapstick as my least favorite episodes but there are some bad moments.  Generally I enjoy treasure hunting/archaeology type stuff, though this episode doesn’t do much for me.  Next up, we’re staying in season 6 for some more borderline slapstick! 

12 comments:

  1. Totally agree with you on the claustrophobia attack with them trapped under the big rock! Glad they fell to freedom before they (or I) had a chance to panic about it.

    I also agree about Beth. Plus, for most of this ep, her voice sounds almost dubbed in. It's just... a bit odd. (Although she's not the only character on the series to sound that way. It seems to happen with the kids in other countries, too.)

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    1. Glad I'm not the only one who felt claustrophobic there - makes me feel more normal!

      Interesting idea about dubbing, I hadn't thought of that. That might explain why her speech sounds kind of wooden.

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    2. It gets worse when you realize that the stone is slowly sinking into the hole they were in. Had Angus not figured out the deal with the switches in the glyphs on their tomb's walls, the stone would have eventually slid over them, burying them alive painstakingly slowly.

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  2. Okay, we're way off on this one, an adventure episode that represented this show at its most ambitious for episodic network television before the era of widespread CGI. And I found nothing about the episode remotely slapstick. The exposition at the beginning was dry at times, but the layering of the story and the ultimate significance of the "blue eye" and the four elements working together to open the lock mechanism was MacGyver at its most brilliant. This episode was a treasure....and I ranked it #22.

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    1. Yeah, I'm with you. Seeing this one again after so many years honestly blew me away. The only thing that threw me off was the instachange from snowy region to dry area. I wasn't sure where they were anymore. But the episode was great!

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  3. Deborah Foreman is as American as apple pie. Maybe she got her acting skills 'honed' in on TJ Hooker! lol

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  4. This felt like a season 1 episode with the treasure hunt plot, generic Asian/Turkish/Egyptian militia, over-the-top villain and ambitious but ultimately creaky looking set. Perhaps trying to mix Turkey and Egypt in Canada with Alexander The Great and a hammy Von Leer brother was a little bit much! I did really like the statue of Ra that was dug up and the statue of Anubis in the temple, they were almost Stargate prop prototypes, and it was nicely familiar to hear Richard saying "Anubis" a few times too in preparation for his battle against the so named baddest of baddies in SG-1! The tree of life opening mechanism was also a very ingenious idea, although like all the episodes where MacGyver figures out cryptic archaeology instead of the experts it did rather devalue the professor. I'm glad someone else noticed Beth's voice sounded strange, it reminded me of those moments in season 1 when MacGyver's mouth didn't say the words he spoke!

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  5. "Watching this episode with Mom! "When are we going to get to the good ones?" she asks. "At this rate, in about 5 years," I answer. I kid, I kid."

    ROFL! Hey hey! Don't get smart with your mother! :)

    "I normally don’t think of myself as a claustrophobic person, but the scene toward the end where MacGyver, Beth, and the Professor are lying on their backs with a wall no more than three inches above their head makes me feel claustrophobic. I don’t even like thinking about it—let’s move on."

    I know!!!! ACK! Yes let's move on!

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  6. I know I am a few years late to this, but was watching the episode and realized that Von Leer's partner might be Hakim from Passages. Macgyver states that he knows him and says his name in the tomb, and Hakim immediately recognises him at the start. If I'm right, it adds more depth to the villain side of the episode due to the conversation between Macgyver and Hakim in Passages about Osiris.

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    1. Wow, great comment! I just went back and rewatched the beginning and end of this episode, and you're absolutely right, and I never noticed this before. Awesome!

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  7. Another treasure hunt! Yes, the plot is not very original and the sets are somewhat creaky but it never bothered me and it doesn't bother me still. The puzzles are fun, the mechanisms are clever (although a bit unrealistic) and especially the tree of life mechanism is really good (although using the staff of Ra to push on the plate or pretty much any stick should do the trick instead of going into the trouble of boiling the water and waiting for it to condense).
    The professor was a little off for me, he changed way too quickly (as is always the case when you only have a space of 45 minutes) but otherwise, no complaints from me.
    And yes, I also like the snow cat but the engine sound like it was taken from a tiny scooter.

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  8. I just realized I can never order these. I love them all!

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