#18: Deadly Dreams

Season: 4

Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:

As MacGyver and the Phoenix Foundation begin a partnership with the local police force, a serial killer escapes from a mental hospital jail. MacGyver does some detective work in the now abandoned cell and discovers that the mastermind behind the escape was Dr. Zito, a brilliant geneticist in the cell across the aisle. MacGyver races to discover the answer to Dr. Zito's riddle before midnight when the escapee plans to sacrifice himself along with Dr. Zito's chosen victim. 

Memorable Quote:

Murphy's gonna be fine, Dr. Zito.  ~Lt. Murphy

Conversation:
This episode was the first MacGyver episode written by Executive Producer Stephen Downing, who recently answered some questions for this blog.  I reached out to him again to see what he remembered about this episode, and his response blew me away to say the least.

Two elements went into the decision to write the episode.  Kim Zimmer was a good friend of Rick’s from his soap opera days.  As you know, Kim was a major soap star. He was dying to work with her so we looked for opportunities to cast her as a guest star.  She had the unique quality of being a strong woman and vulnerable at the same time.  

I had seen Morgan Sheppard’s work several times and thought him the consummate actor with a very, very wide range. So, when I developed the Dr. Zito character I had him in mind during the writing process.  Thus, I started the script with both guest stars in my head already.

The idea of the episode comes from several fronts.  I always say that a story starts with the seed of an idea and as we nurture the seed and it begins to grow, it ultimately take on a life (and direction) of its own.  This episode is a good example of that process.

When I was a police commander and assigned to take over the bureau of special investigations, one of the divisions under my command was the Administrative Vice Division.  One of the functions of that division (in those days) was pornography investigations.  When those kinds of investigations were made, in order to provide a return on search warrants, the investigators had to view the films seized and then write detailed reports on each film for the court.  

Not being familiar with the process I performed an audit by sitting in with two of our investigators during the review process.  It was eight straight hours of watching the most disgusting aberrations of human behavior I had ever witnessed, including grotesque S and M, beastiality and other forms of horribly perverted sexuality.  

When the process was over, I walked away with a very dark cloud that weighed on my mind for several days.  It was haunting. I just could not get the filth and degradation out of my mind. It bordered on being debilitative.  A week later when I got beyond it, it came to me that if it had that kind of effect upon me in an eight hour session, what must it be doing to the investigators who deal with it daily.  So, I looked into that and as a result of the inquiry I changed the focus and duration of pornography assignments, as it did have much the same effect on our investigators, most all dealing with it differently and with some suffering what we call today Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Bottom line: Policy changes were made for duration and mix of that assignment.

Another element that went into that episode involved the infamous case of the Hillside Strangler that occurred in Los Angeles during my time with the LAPD.  It was a major case and homicide assignments were handed to different detectives for each victim.  Although the investigation was a task force approach, there were still what we call the "PRIMARY" or lead detective for each victim, whose job it was to know every detail.  

When the case was finally solved and Buono and Bianchi were found guilty - - all of the Primary detectives, each who had specialized in one victim, had lunch together.  By this time the victims were deeply personalized in the mind of each detective.  They spoke of them as "my girl," and used their first names in the discussion, as if they were their daughters or at least members of their own families.  They had become so attached to them that when they finally succeeded in getting a conviction after many years and finding justice for "their girls" it was clear to me that there was for each of them a need coupled to their sense of great compassion for justice and closure just as strongly as it must have been for the families of the victims.  The convictions brought that kind of closure to the detectives as strongly as it did for the families.  I never forgot that. 

The third life experience that I brought to the script involved an interview I conducted of an ex-convict who we turned into an informant.  He was part of the Aryan Brotherhood, a white racist prison gang.  When the interview was over, I asked him why the Aryan Brotherhood hated African Americans so much.  His answer floored me.  He said, "I don’t hate em, its just that we’re better than them."  I asked, "What makes you better?"  He said, "Well, ya see, way back at the time of Eric the Red, it was us white people that looked out at the ocean and said there was more out there. So, we built boats and went forth - - while all those other lazy motherF****** laid up on the beach." Then he went on and fantasized all the Valhalla crap and wrapped up the session with the statement "That’s all why I named my son, Eric."

So the Haunting of PTSD was given to Kim Zimmer’s character who had experienced Zito’s crimes, the controlling nature of Zito's character was seeded by of the influences that I saw Buono exercised over Bianco and the Valhallah fantasies were seeded by my exposure to the twisted mind of a member of the Aryan Brotherhood.

Kim’s character was give the "Haunting," having seen Zito’s crimes as well as the "Closure" of being able to look Zito in the eye and not go crazy.  

The rest of it came together though the Function of the Phoenix Foundation as the vehicle to put Mac into a police environment and be the observer of the psychological motivations I observed in real life and subsequently used as seed for a good story.

As to the MacGyverisms in the story, the "Door Opener" was based upon my need to set the story up and it harked back to my days in the LAPD when I wished we had better breach techniques than battering rams - - or tanks.  It also served well as a bookend for the story.

The uses of phosphate and water for the timing devices harked back to my college days when the destructive (and foolish) prank was to take potassium phosphate from the chemistry lab, flush it down the toilet and see how far it would be before it blew the plumbing.  Arrrrrrgh.  I just admitted to being an idiot.

Behind the scenes Morgan Sheppard was the consummate gentleman.  He was a professional in every sense of the word and a pleasure to deal with in all respects.

Garry Chalk's character had to be along at the end because police officers would never go alone on a call like that. Then the story required that Garry be taken out of the picture so we could get a singular focus on Kim’s jeopardy and an axe was used to do it because it worked with the Viking theme.  

I do not recall any discussion of "going dark" on the episode.  MacGyver was a unique series in that the story telling was so varied because of the Foundation franchise that the tone of the show was not fully consistent.

I also thought the young actor we cast as Zito’s tool was tone perfect for the part.  

Hope this answers your questions.

Final Analysis:
Normally in an episode recap post I include a list of my own trivial thoughts and observations, but I have nothing to say that would follow that.  MacGyver Nation and I can't thank Mr. Downing enough for the powerful information he shared with us. While there may be a few MacGyver episodes higher on my favorites list for my own irrational and emotional reasons, it's hard to think of too many hours of television in any series that are better than this one. W. Morgan Sheppard steals the show by giving perhaps the series' best performance, and Kim Zimmer is amazing as are the rest of the actors. The Norse mythology angle is extremely compelling as is everything else about this episode.  A tour de force, and a legendary effort from Mr. Downing and the cast and crew.