CBS' MACGYVER Reboot Looks Craptacular — SDCC Panel Reaction
When you think of the name MacGyver, the image that comes to mind is the beautiful feathered mullet of one Richard Dean Anderson making amazing things out of next to nothing. That was the beauty of the show: regardless of what peril RDA was facing, you always believed that he was MacGyver and he would get out of the situation because he was MacGyver. Now we have a new MacGyver, played by the one and only Lucas Till (who played Havok in the most recent X-Men films). Let me tell you, it looks horrible.
Let me start out saying that the MacGyver reboot will be on CBS, so maybe I am not old enough to truly enjoy the slower action sequences and soft hitting humor that the octogenarians that actually watch this channel love and deserve. I fully understand that I sound bitter and I admit I am. I spent all day in Ballroom 20 listening to the drivel that CBS was spewing and I can’t get that time back. ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS WATCH THE LUKE CAGE PANEL! However, after watching the MacGyver panel I feel the need to warn those out there that despite all the hype that they are going to throw at us soon, it won’t be worth it. Please don’t be fooled that they got James Wan to direct the SECOND pilot for this series. If you saw a preview for this show a few months ago, you can forget about that because that has been scrapped and a new pilot has been filmed. If you were wondering if it is THAT James Wan, you would be correct. The guy who brought us Saw, Furious 7, and The Conjuring is now trying to bring us a new version of MacGyver. The panel consisted of Wan, George Eads, Lucas Till, and Peter Lenkov.
So this is what I have gathered so far from this show. The two lead actors, Till and George Eads, seem to genuinely get along and enjoy working with each other. However, that is where my good feelings for the show end. They showed us a clip from the reboot pilot, and it was on the level of a first-year film student. It shows MacGyver running to catch up with an airplane as it was taking off — yup, that happened. Once he has caught up with the plane as it taken off, we get a lovely narration of how he was a kid and climbed a tree and now he is scared of heights. BLAH! Once the monologue was over and the plane had been in the air with Mac in the wheel well for like three minutes, he finally pulls out his trusty pocket knife and proceeds to cut a wire that looks like every other wire but that specific one makes it so the plane must land. When the plane has touched down and is to an almost complete stop, Mac jumps from the wheel well and does one of the worst rolls ever caught on film. Luckily for us, that is all they showed. I don’t think I could handle any more excitement.
All in all, I can safely say that MacGyver is going to be CBS’s newest hit and the old people of the world will rejoice. I, however, will never put myself through that pain again. At least until I am 80 and CBS will be all that I know.