Synopsis in 3 sentences or less:
MacGyver teams up with Diana, an agent guided by money, to rescue a human rights advocate in Czechoslovakia. They break into a hospital and free the man, and they also rescue his wife. The GRU follows them to the US, where they have a showdown at the LA zoo.
Memorable Quote:
"Well, which you save rather save, MacGyver? Your pride, or a man’s life?" ~Pete
"Well, which you save rather save, MacGyver? Your pride, or a man’s life?" ~Pete
Highlight:
I enjoy the part (29:00 mark) where they get the jump on the two GRU agents in the countryside. First, MacGyver sneaks up behind one goon and wraps duct tape around his eyes. Then, after having captured the second one, MacGyver covers his mouth with duct tape while he is in mid-sentence.
Lowlight:
Weird scene at the 39:40 mark. While MacGyver and Diana are waiting for the @#$@ to hit the fan at the zoo, Diana brings up a guy who she met after their embassy mission 3 years ago. She fell for him, but "he wasn't my lover, he was KGB, trying to get those papers back. I found out and he tried to kill me. I was faster, and I killed him." Then she starts to cry and MacGyver hugs her, but then she pushes him away. It's a strange, out of place minute that has no real point or relevance to the rest of the episode.
Best MacGyverism:
Puts carbon black and helium inside a rubber glove. Then duct tapes the glove inside a tray of potatoes.
Other thoughts, observations, and questions I didn’t ask when I was in fourth grade:
- I love the Season 2 Phoenix Foundation where you see lots of people working outside Pete's office in the shadow of a big, orange map of the world. What a cool place to work!
- I'm not sure that "private investors" would really pay half a million dollars to bring a human rights leader to the US, but it's a nice thought.
-
I like Diana, despite her greedy nature. She’s cute, capable, a little spunky, and has a good heart. I'm not going to add her to the love interest list because there's no indication of any past or present romance between her and MacGyver, but I will add her to the wingman list, or in this case, wingwoman. It's too bad she's not in more episodes - she and MacGyver have some fun back and forth moments.
- A few times it is mentioned that MacGyver broke someone out of this particular hospital last year. I had remembered that and had thought that it was the same place from A Prisoner of Conscience, but it's clear to me now that that's not the case since that was Russia and this is Czechoslovakia.
- Runner-up for memorable quote:
- "I wanted something [car] that wouldn't attract attention. ~Diana
- "Even when they see us pushing it down a highway? ~MacGyver
- When I was 9 or 10, I was playing 2nd base in an evening baseball game when a ground ball took a bad hop and bopped me in the nose. I left the game to go home and remember that this episode was on as a re-run. Not sure why I remember that, but I do.
- Once they get Dubcek in the van, he says they need to go back or else his wife will be in trouble, yet for some reason he doesn't say a word up to that point.
- 33:20 mark - Nice move from MacGyver taking the explosive out of the grenade. As Dubcek says, you trick them instead of killing them.
- Is it really worth the GRU's time and effort to come to America to kidnap/kill a human rights leader? I guess it is. And couldn't Viera have just done it at any time without the two guys having to get involved? And why do they choose to meet at a zoo, the most public place imaginable?
- 33:20 - good use of the bullet proof vest. I was very intrigued by bullet proof vests as a kid and wondered why more people like MacGyver didn't wear them. In fact, I still wonder why MacGyver doesn't always wear one.
- 44:06 - quite simply, an incredible move by MacGyver as he swims through the air while free falling and then landing on the bad guys. If you only watch one 10 second segment of this episode, make it this one.
- Actually, the next 10 seconds are pretty good too as Diana lays out Viera in an open field tackle. I think the Eagles' defense could use her.
- OK, now the next 10 seconds are good too! A GRU agent on the overpass yells down at MacGyver.
- "Freeze!" ~GRU agent
- "Take 'em Pete." ~MacGyver
- "And I'm supposed to look, eh?" ~GRU agent
- MacGyver shrugs as Pete comes from behind and whacks him.
- Finally, this fun scene ends as MacGyver picks up a yellow plastic toy and battles the other agent who has a knife. Meanwhile Pete just calmly watches the whole thing from above.
- During the denouement, MacGyver mentions how the Phoenix Foundation takes care of all his expenses. How awesome would that be? I love the Phoenix Foundation.
Final Analysis:
Fun episode here. I didn't remember it too well, and in retrospect, I should have had it ranked higher. I like Diana, and there's some good dialogue and witty banter. Also it moves at a good pace and there's not a dull moment (except for the minute described in the lowlight). This was the finale of season 2, and as I mentioned in my Hind-Sight review, it is funny how much more pedestrian season finales were in the 80's. If this were today, there'd be some explosive, dramatic cliffhanger to try and keep people interested for 3 months.
Also I've started posting a "guess the quote" to the next episode in my countdown a day or two before my post over at this forum on Kate Ritter's RDA site. It's a fun forum with some very knowledgable MacGyver fans!
Also I've started posting a "guess the quote" to the next episode in my countdown a day or two before my post over at this forum on Kate Ritter's RDA site. It's a fun forum with some very knowledgable MacGyver fans!
I enjoyed this one too as it definitely fit the adventure show mold of the early seasons with a clever jail break and a race for the border. I definitely liked the Czechoslovakia portion of the episode more than the LA portion at the zoo but the story came together decently in the end anyway. I also really liked the epilogue. In general, I'm glad that the epilogue has been tossed in the ash heap of TV history in modern shows as most of them were goofy and syrupy but MacGyver's generous gift compelling Diana to part with a portion of her reward money was a great scene. I ranked this one #80.
ReplyDeleteD'oh! Screwed up again. This was my #79, not #80.
DeleteI enjoyed this one. A lot of twists and turns, and it did hearken back to season 1. I wasn't sure about Diana in the beginning but warmed to her a bit by the end.
ReplyDeleteMy top 5 episodes of season 2 (in DVD order):
The Human Factor
Three for the Road
Phoenix Under Siege
Family Matter
Out in the Cold
But there are many other great episodes in this season.
Congrats on making it to the end of Season 2, and thanks for reading and commenting!
DeleteSo I just viewed this episode and I thought I could contribute some interesting thoughts and observations.
ReplyDeleteI was born in socialist Czechoslovakia, in 1983, 6 years before Velvet revolution. As a kid I don't remember that much but enough that I can get around some of the locale related stuff.
The border crossing is way too loosely controlled. There would be no trees nor visible obstacles in a perimeter along the whole border and a heavy fence with barb wire, guard towers and the toll booth would be a steel and concrete structure full of border guards. Here's a link with some historic photos of Austria-Slovak border from that era:
https://www.upn.gov.sk/sk/pohranicna-straz-a-ochrana-statnych-hranic/
One of the most distracting thing are the vehicles. There is not a single Czechoslovak or Soviet vehicle in sight, instead we get a Citroen 2CV, there's a VW bus in the hospital, Mercedes Unimog as the ambulance. All of those are European but from the "rotten west" and would not be available in Czechoslovakia. If Krug really wanted Mac and Diana to have a unassuming vehicle he would have given them a Skoda 105, a ubiquitous sight on roads those days. The ambulances and supply vehicles would also be Skoda 1203s and the truck at the end would be a Tatra 138 or 148. Oh, and no one in their right mind would sell a car just like that, buing a car in Czechoslovakia meant waiting years (yes, that's not a typo) for one to become available and you couldn't even choose. The GRU vehicle is something I can't identify but agents would drive a Volga, which is not what we see. But I get why they couldn't just procure such vehicles in the US during the cold war, it's just that I grew up in the environment they're trying to emulate and it's really distracting.
Establishing shot seems to be Prague. I suppose the hospital is also supposed to be near Prague. It seems like a repurposed older building which is not implausible but knowing secret police it would probably be a purpose-built building somewhere in a city. Let's give this one a tight pass. Also the entrance booth would be concrete, not wooden. In Europe, we build with bricks, concrete and steel and this was especially true during socialist era.
DeleteThe scene just before the hospital where they make a picnic would not fly at all. First of all, making out in the public like that when police approached you was a sure way to not only bring attention but also to get a huge fine and maybe get yourself into more trouble. Socialist regime was keen on keeping high moral standards among youth to the extent of using police force in such occasions. Even MacGyver's haircut would be immediately suspicious as long haired men were supposed to be emulating the "rotten west" and needed to be "corrected". (If this seems outrageous, I'm not making this stuff up. It was extreme.) And lastly, if it was a place where they put political prisoners it would have a guarded perimeter. Picnic in such place would be an immediate no-go.
Now let's get to the language, first spoken. I found out on IMDb that some actors were at least of Czech origin and it showed. Especially one of the hospital guards was pretty immaculate, most of the spoken Czech was pretty bad though. But hey, they tried. Worst offender was Diana responding to the police officer, that was complete gibberish. MacGyver's call to nurse after his powder bomb exploded was also not very good. Rest of it was passable.
Both Dubceks accent was Russian whent hey spoke English. Czechs have a distinctive accent when they speak English and this was not it. Also both Dubceks' Czech was pretty bad, Viera was almost incomprehensible at times (especially in the opening segment when they captured Anton). What they nailed though was the look. Viera's hair length and perm was absolutely the rage in Czechoslovakia those days, my mom had exactly the same perm. Her clothes are also pretty good match. Anton's combed hair and mustache are also pretty much dead on (my dad had pretty much the same look) and his clothing reflected how people of his age dressed. If they had nailed the speech it would have been uncanny.
Now written Czech. The signs in hospital were pretty decent although there were two issues - some were direct translations of US object names which were not used as such in Czech and the room signs would be on the doors themselves instead of on bolt-on signs. But what surprised me was the sheer amount of signs and labels, they really tried to make it look real and this thing alone made the locale pretty convincing. And most of the writing was correct, some minor typos but I give it a pass.
Now, the roads. Socialist regime was keen on keeping progress (or what they called progress) and good road infrastructure was part of it. By the end of 80s pretty much every city, town or even the smallest village were connected by asphalt roads. Dirt roads such as the one the group is on when they're getting away in the truck would only connect the so called "collective farms" (state owned farms) or fields in general.
And one more observation on Krug, he's an interesting character. The actor had to speak English with Austrian accent, actual Austrian German (which he did a pretty good job at) and some Czech utterances that get a pass since he's supposed to be Austrian anyway. His surname sounds distantly German but it's not really German, it might pass as Austrian though (they have weird surnames). One notable issue is his car, for some reason he drives a very old Mercedes. If he was a smuggler he would probably be making pretty big money and could afford a much newer model.
DeleteSo all in all I enjoyed what they did. Of course I had to lower my expectations and give the producers a huge slack but it was a decent job. What I wanted to give perspective on is what would an actual locale from that time look like and some reasoning behind it (such as the police behavior and stuff like that). Hopefully this was at least mildly interesting.
Fascinating stuff -- thanks for sharing!
DeleteI highly doubt this was filmed in Czechoslovakia, or anywhere in Europe. MacGyver was a relatively low-budget series and it would have been prohibitively expensive to fly the cast and crew overseas to do a few shots. Plus, not sure it would have been easy or even possible to legally shoot in that country at the time. Would have been way easier to just create some sets with Czech words written here and there.
DeleteA few seasons later, they have another episode which "supposedly" takes place in Bucharest, Romania. Same deal with local sets. I've been to Bucharest countless times to know that wasn't shot in Romania lol.