#11: Log Jam

Season: 5

Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:

MacGyver goes to Oregon to revive a timber summit that has stalled due to tensions between the loggers and the environmentalists.  He goes undercover as a logger to try and learn more about a suspected murder and stumbles onto a plot involving the illegal smuggling of logs to Japan.  

Memorable Quote:

Recycling happens to be one of your concepts I agree with.  ~Glass

Highlight:
You mean other than the entire episode?  If I have to pick one thing, I'll go with the Glass character. He's a great villain with his slicked back hair, black jacket, and ruthless demeanor, and his presence takes the episode to the next level.  Even his chopped off finger looks real.  I'm adding him to the #4 spot on the top villains list.

Lowlight:
Right from the opening second I can tell this is gonna be a great episode with the sight of the crystal clear lake, dark green pines, and the spotted owl. I'm not sure the stock footage shot of the deer was necessary, however. An extremely small detail, but there's no other lowlights to choose from in this hour of wonderment. 

Best MacGyverism:
None

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

• We first see MacGyver in a floatplane, and he's looking down at the clear cut forests while listening to the pilot explain the state of the timber industry.  I reached out to Roger Barnes, the actor who played the pilot, to ask if he had any memories from the episode and he was kind enough to respond.  And check out Roger's website here. 
• Richard was a true professional and a particularly nice guy with everyone.  It was quite cold when we shot so we had to chew ice cubes to help reduce breath vapour. He and I shared a few good laughs in the tiny cockpit and we got our shots quite quickly.  The Director, Bill Gereghty was also great to work with. I knew a number of the other actors on the show and enjoyed their work.  I was done after our shot.  Actually had to catch a plane to Toronto later that day for something else. Had to loop in some additional dialogue a couple weeks later for the aerial shots of the ground.  I had to match the way I sounded in the plane but was in a studio.  There were a number of loops to insert at various points.  Normally, you would do one at a time but I said to the engineer, why don’t we just wing it and try them all in one take.  He said sure and to all of our surprise, we nailed it in one. Sometimes you get lucky!
• John Considine makes his third and final MacGyver acting appearance (though we'll see him again as a writer) as Foxworth, the corrupt logging foreman.
• Lots of independent actors and a web of conflicts which makes this plot fun:
• Jack vs. Amy (husband and wife)
• Jack vs. MacGyver
• Jack vs. Foxworth
• MacGyver vs. Foxworth/Glass
• Foxworth vs. Glass
• Nice parking job, MacGyver.

• Of course MacGyver was a "rigging slinger" in college. Was that before or after he raced cars, defused bombs in Vietnam, traveled the world with Dalton and Mike, won the barricade competition, and had 12 different girlfriends?
• I like MacGyver's goofy smile when Jack tells him that his logging experience was a long time ago. And I'm a huge Jack fan - just a great guy, and it's awesome once he finally gets over his distrust of MacGyver and starts helping him.  
• I also like the "Betsy" appearing on the truck flap as a clue - very clever.
• Nice foreshadowing to see a shot of the log elevator during the beginning of the scene at the log mill.
• Great moment as MacGyver charges Glass and takes both of them off of the level they're on, and then another dive to add to MacGyver's impressive list.

• The entire fight scene is epic and very well filmed, especially the part as MacGyver and Glass ride up the log elevator together. 

Final Analysis:
Holy Lord in Heaven, what an episode.  My goodness.  Only the MacGyver series could take something like the logging industry and make an insightful, compelling, and educational hour of television that also happens to feature edge of your seat excitement.  The script is ingenious, the acting superb, the ending memorable, and the nature locale just perfect.  And the Big Timber/Yakuza alliance takes everything to a higher place. Hard to imagine that there are 10 episodes any better than that one.

And as we now move into the top 10, we officially put Season 5 to rest.  Let's say a quick reflection in memory of the dearly departed season.  Before going into this project, I always thought of Season 7 as the weakest season. That may still be true, but only 2 episodes for Season 5 in the top 44 (#11 and #27) doth not a strongest season make. On the other hand, this season did have 2 landmark episodes that I have likely underrated in Passages and The Madonna, so I can't be too hard on it. Coming up next, it's time to enter the top ten zone!