#10: Phoenix Under Siege

Season: 2

Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:

Grandpa Harry is in town to visit MacGyver, and on their way to see an L.A. Kings game on a rainy Sunday night MacGyver realizes he left the tickets at the Phoenix Foundation.  Once they arrive at the office, MacGyver notices a few things out of the ordinary, and then they realize that the building is locked down.  A terrorist group kidnaps Harry and sets a bomb to go off in the building, and MacGyver must find the bomb and defuse it before it detonates. 

Memorable Quote:

My chances of finding Harry in this building were about as good as sneaking into Fort Knox through the back door.  ~MacGyver

Highlight:
The bomb defusal scene - my goodness, what a transcendent moment.  In fact, I'm putting as #1 on the best moments list for now.  MacGyver has a minute and a half to defuse the bomb, and his first idea of using tools doesn't work. By then he has only 20 seconds left, and he looks at the hockey tickets in Harry's pocket and drops one of them in the mechanism hoping that it will stop the metal plates from touching and setting off the bomb. The acting from both RDA and John Anderson is out of this world, and the camera work capturing the shots of their eyes is tremendous. Their celebration after the defusal is great to watch, and then it ends on a humorous note as Harry says that he can still make the hockey game with the ticket that's left, leaving MacGyver to look longingly at the other ticket still in the bomb. A perfect ending to a phenomenally climactic scene.

And you what else takes this moment to #1?  The magnificent march-style music which puts John Philip Souza to shame. Let me check who wrote the score for this episode.....yep, Randy Edelman. I'm running out of ways to describe this man's music.  

Lowlight:
The ending where Victoria does a flying kick at MacGyver and flies right out the window reminds me of Obsessed when Murdoc drives his jeep at MacGyver right off the cliff.  I just don't think anyone would be that dumb.  In both cases even if they hit MacGyver, they would still likely fly out the window/over the cliff.

Best MacGyverism:

See highlight.  It's not the flashiest MacGyverism ever, but it's clever and fun, and I'm adding it to the top MacGyverism list as an honorable mention.  

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

• The mood for this episode is set right from the jump as a thunderstorm is raging in the evening while MacGyver is performing an elaborate chemistry experiment with a dozen test tubes that have mist emanating out of them.  Grandpa Harry arrives wearing a trench coat and hat, soaked by the rain. Perfect way to start the episode and set the dark ambience. And a bit of comedy as we learn that all that elaborate chemistry was in pursuit of non-alcoholic egg nog.
• 5:10 mark - love the black Calgary Flames hat that MacGyver is sporting.
• Tricia O'Neil absolutely kills it in this role as Victoria James, the lead villain. She's smart, charming, condescending, deadly, and crazy all at the same time. And a revealing moment on how crazy she is when she picks up Murphy's flower to smell it after shooting her. 
• Speaking of Susan Murphy, she's played by Warner Loughlin who today runs her own acting studio in L.A.  You can visit her web site and see testimonials from A-List actors such as Amy Adams, Ryan Reynolds, and George Lopez among others.  I asked her if she had any memories from this episode and she was kind enough to share a few:

• All these years later, my best friend Diana Valentine (who is a television director) calls me up and says "Guess who's sitting in my kitchen?  Gil Shilton!"  Gil was the director of that episode. When we got together, I asked, "How in the world would you have remembered me Gil?"  He said," because you had to fall over and over and over again - not because anything was wrong with your performance but because of technical issues." I was stumped. And replied, "But that was just part of the job." "Yes," he said, "but you never uttered one complaint. And that stayed with me."  He's a lovely man and a talented director. I'm grateful that we still know each other after all these years. 
  
  
  Another rather odd thing from this episode... Apparently there is something called Cinemorgue - where there are on set photos of actresses whose characters have died. I only know this because the 1st AD on the set of Rush Hour (I was coaching Chris Tucker) blew up my photo, poster size and posted it on set.

• Another episode where a cell phone would have come in real handy. 
• 22:47 - "The Foundation just does research, Harry.  It's a think tank."  ~MacGyver. Really, MacGyver, just research?  What about the art recovery/endangered species/diplomat security programs, to name just a few?
• 27:15 - We hear the march music (referenced in the highlight) for the first time. I just looked up the 1987 Emmy results for Outstanding Achievement for Musical Composition: the winner was for a Knots Landing episode, and some of the other nominees were Dallas, Moonlighting, and Matlock. Excuse me while I go thrust a pen into my eardrum.  
• Lucky for MacGyver and Harry that the bad guy closed the door on them rather than the more likely scenario of shooting them.
• Brilliant idea by MacGyver to hide Harry in the women's bathroom - too bad Harry gives himself away by coughing.
• I always liked the 5 consecutive telephones taps on the intercom from Harry to let MacGyver know he's on the 5th floor - very clever. 

Final Analysis:
Hard to believe there are 9 episodes better than this masterpiece.  Amazing, amazing episode. The dark mood is conveyed perfectly with the nighttime thunderstorm, and Victoria is a memorable villain.  The concept of running around a deserted office building about to be blown up is as compelling as it gets, the Edelman music is sublime, and Grandpa Harry is wonderful as is his chemistry with MacGyver. And there's one additional piece that I haven't mentioned yet which takes this episode to a higher place - the brief flashbacks of young MacGyver on the night that his father and grandmother died which add tremendous poignancy to an already emotionally charged episode. Television doesn't get much better than this.