MacGyver Observations

[petite_lambda]

Some observations while watching MacGyver:

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• If someone is shot and passes out in your arms after some talking, and there's sad, sentimental, slow music in the background, you can tell immediately he's dead. No need to resuscitate or anything, you can just close his eyes and start mourning right away. Now, if there's fast paced background music, that's another issue. Then you should try to resuscitate. But if the music is just getting faster and faster and has these desperate notes in it, you're not going to make it (but you should still try). That's how you know what to do - by the background music.
• Now, if he's trying to tell you something important - he's so dead, man. I mean, sometimes I just wanted to scream out "Don't do it, man! Just shut your mouth or you'll die! This is how it works!"
• Oh, and, I know that this one has been ridiculed a lot ever since, but still nice to remember - in the films of the 80's, an ambulance and a police vehicle usually arrive after about 15-20 seconds since someone gets shot (but if the background music is slow and sad, they're still too late).
• And another oldie: apparently, no bomb was functional those days without a digital clock monitor that showed exactly how much time is left until the explosion. Oh, and it had to beep, too. The beeping had to accelerate in the last minute or so. That's the rules!
• And of course, the bad guys just have to monologue and explain their evil plans, instead of shooting first and talking later… Or often, the villain will prefer to engage in a fist fight with the good guy, instead of just shooting him - you know, villains in old films are always guided by pride rather than reason.
• Speaking of shooting - ever notice how lousy they are at it? I know why, too: there are too many rules they have to follow while shooting. Like this one - if they see MacGyver, they can't shoot him in the back - they have to warn him first by shouting "MACGYVER!!!" - then they're clear to go (only he'll probably jump somewhere by then, but hey - rules are rules).
• And another rule is that the bad guys should never hunt for MacGyver in groups. No, no! They have to split up, and look for him. You know, to make it fair.
• Speaking of fairness, I admit that they did have a slight edge on him with the firearms. I mean, Mac must be, like, the only secret agent in history who principally refused to use firearms. Everyone and his own gimmick, I guess…
• Oh, and this is an oldie too and everyone laughs at this, but still: it's incredible how everything could explode massively those days! I mean, it could be, for example, a boat - you put something to clog the engine, and the whole thing explodes like there was a kilo of C4 or something, beautifully, with fire and all, and people flying away! Incredible…
• Get this: MacGyver and his friend are getting away in a car, and their brakes get shot, so they're out of brake fluid, their brakes fail, they're speeding downhill. And the friend goes like "Oh my God! We're gonna die! We're gonna die!" and believe it or not, MacGyver gets on the hood of the speeding car, and transfers some fluid from the steering hydraulics system into the brakes system!! I thought I'm going to laugh my ass off. I mean, HELLO! Never heard of braking with the engine, Einsteins? Just put the car into lower gear and it will slow down! Geez! I don't know what they were thinking - that people in the audience don't know how to drive? Oh wait, I think I have it - the show was designed for 12-year olds. Right… No, seriously, I think that explains it. After all, I did love it when I was 12.
• Chekhov once said that if there's a rifle on the wall in the first act of the show, then in the third act it will shoot. All right, I agree, some rules are rules, but why go to extremes? I mean, why have the people gather around the rifle in the first act and discuss how awful things would be if the rifle actually shot? "Subtlety is my middle name, dawg." Get this: MacGyver and a friend are in the nuclear waste disposal chamber of a nuclear plant to get a crucial piece of evidence on uranium theft (!). Now, they both know that someone from the plant is responsible and is trying to kill them both. So they both get into this nuclear waste disposal chamber (no, having one of them guard the door did not occur to them) and then start discussing what a terrible death would expect them had they been left inside the chamber during the nuclear waste disposal process. You imagine the HORRRIBLE SHOCK they must have been through when all of a sudden the door was shut from outside? Took them completely by surprise, I imagine!
• Ever notice how the evil terrorist always has to hit on the beautiful female hostage? Those guys are so sex crazed - in the middle of a super important operation, they think of one thing! I think it's because the director's trying to create a complete personal image of the villain - I mean, sure, stealing things and killing people and taking hostages and planning world domination and selling drugs and weapons of mass destruction is all wrong - but hitting on the pretty hostage, man, I mean - you have to draw the line somewhere! Someone has to stop them, before it's too late!
• And computer hacking - ever noticed how much simpler it was those days? They had a perfect command line interface, man! You just had to type in precisely what you want the computer to do, and it worked! Get into the secret missile project data, the building security system, shut down all elevators, turn off the lights - anything, you name it!
• And by the way - ever notice how self destruction modules were built into basically anything these days? No matter what it was - the elevator module or a nuclear plant - there had to be a sequence of buttons you could push that would completely screw it up. Actually, it was much easier with nuclear plants - apparently, if you just shot at any console in any control room, the reactor would have a meltdown (in a predefined number of minutes, with appropriate accelerating beeping sounds in the background, so that the hero would have just enough time to save the day).
• This one, I think, applies to current movies as well, because it's indeed hard to take care of: ever notice how people just speak English everywhere? Russians in Russia, for example - turns out that when they talk to each other, they all just speak English with a Russian accent! Same about Germans in Germany, etc. Everyone just understands English perfectly. In episode "Prisoner of Conscience", for instance, MacGyver pretends to be a mad man in order to get into a Soviet psychiatric hospital to release a political prisoner. I assume that throughout the entire episode, we have to kinda pretend that the language we are hearing on screen is actually Russian, not English - that Mac and Pete actually speak such perfect Russian that they could be easily passed off as Russians without anyone noticing. (Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? I mean, it's the stupid foreigners who cannot speak English without revealing a strong accent; the American professionals can speak a foreign language perfectly). [Anyway, that actually was the part that bothered me least in this episode - I mean, the whole episode was just such unbelievable, pathetic, laughable piece of bullshit that I still don't understand how I actually managed to see it through till the end. It must've been due to 3:00AM and alcohol. I mean, most of the episodes in season 1 of MacGyver are laughable, but this one was just sad!]
  The first exception comes in the end of season 5: "Treasure of Munco". There, the people in Peru actually speak Spanish! And in the last season (7-th), we for the first time see Chinese people speaking Chinese. I guess the directors learned something…
• What always annoys me, though, is when I see how people make gross mistakes in foreign languages in films. For example, if you're filming what's supposed to be Russia, and there's a sign on the door that's supposed to say something in Russian, how hard can it be to make sure it actually says what it's supposed to say without gross grammatical errors? I mean, you've got to understand that every Russian speaker in your audience is going to laugh at that. How hard can it be to consult one? I think that's something the film makers are more accurate about nowadays; when they need Russian, they make sure it's correct. They hire Russian speaking actors, if they need to. Saw them do it with Hebrew once, too (actually hired a real Israeli girl). Can't vouch for other languages…
• Anyway, after watching almost the entire first season of the show, I have to admit it is absolutely horrible, which is a big shame. MacGyver is such a wonderful character! I loved that show so much, but I never realized that 90% of it was because I was just a kid and I would buy absolutely anything back then. Nowadays, the show is really painful to watch. When it is laughing-out-loud-ridiculous, these are the good parts - mostly it's just oh-my-god-what-unbelievable-crap parts. Like the episode I'm watching now, "The Golden Triangle"? You should see the opium slaves that they have there! A poor pretty girl slave has to harvest opium in a field all day long for some cruel general - and she's got a very nice suit and perfect makeup on all the time! (And obviously she speaks English although it all happens in Burma, but I already mentioned that). And I've seen better acting in 2-th grade school plays - but here I can be fair to the pretty girl - this remark applies to most of the people in the show, excluding only Richard Dean Anderson [to some extent; He was terrible in the beginning of the show, but got better in later episodes]. I suspect that they hired some of the worst actors they could find on purpose so that Richard Dean Anderson would seem not so bad by comparison. And again, it really hurts me saying this - I mean, MacGyver is sooooooo cute! (even now!) That's what makes it worthwhile, actually - I'm watching this episode and trying to estimate if it is the worst yet or "Prisoner of Conscience" was worse, when Mac comes out all sweaty in this dirty wet tank top and I'm going "You know what? I think I was so wrong about this episode! Wow, check out those arms, man!! OK, this closeup just redeemed my last 40 minutes of suffering, thank you!"
• To do list: prepare a clip for YouTube titled "MacGyver, You Sexy Thing, You" with the appropriate cuts. I think such a clip would have even more hits than the Denzel Washington strip tease scene from "Ricochet" (which I definitely should post too, if no one else had already).
• And by the way, regarding these poor opium slaves - Danny remarks that the opium barons have had some revelations quite a while ago about how human productivity relates to salary and work conditions and they made some appropriate changes. The bottom line is, slave labor is plain ineffective (as we can see even in such a lousy film!). People work much better if you pay them good money; that also causes them to be loyal to you and want to hold on to their jobs, which can be pretty handy if you're running an illegal drug chain. So these peasants out there in Burma are doing not so bad for themselves nowadays, doing the same thing.
• Ever noticed how in the middle of a dangerous situation, like a car chase, or a terrorist holdout, our heroes kind of always get some sentimental revelations of a sort and start discussing them? And the background music changes from tense to sentimental while they have this important conversation, and it seems as the bad guys are taking a break or something, waiting for it to finish? And when all the right things are said and understood - things can go back to normal - the music becomes fast again, and that's how the bad guys know they can resume shooting or whatever malicious activity they were at…
• Speaking of bad guys, it's incredible how stereotypical the villains were in the 80's films. (This has actually improved now - directors' average sense of humor seems to have increased in the last 20 years). Back then, they were so… villainous: the devilish laughter, the mean look, all the works. You can spot a villain right away, just by looking at his face (but just in case you don't, usually the background music will give you a hint…) I guess people were less familiar with the "banality of evil" concept those days. And I can relate to that, because it's certainly easier that way - to think that villains are some different sort of people, or something. It's the realization that the most horrible things are done by ordinary people who believe they're doing the right thing that really hurts…
• Another thing I found really weird - notice how people speak much slower in old films? Not all people - MacGyver, for instance, speaks normally, and Pete too. But most of the one time guests - the ones playing the episodic roles, mainly - they speak REAL slow. I think it was an appreciated acting style back then - apparently some directors thought that slow = expressive.
• It seems that the common stereotype in movies is that archaeologist is a very dangerous profession. Seriously, every time there is an archaeologist in the film, you can bet that some bad guys will want him, because he's discovered (or about to discover) something very valuable. I think this is a kind of wishful thinking view, know what I mean? Come on - in real life, they're just a bunch of geeks that hardly anyone takes seriously… :-)
• Turtle effect: once knocked down, a character just lies there as if unable to get up. This is a common observation about older films; it's patently true in MacGyver series. This guy doesn't use guns, so he actually takes all the villains out with his fists. True, Mac uses some smart tricks for distraction, usually, but then in the end he simply punches the guys in the face. And guess what - it works! They just stay down! In real life, it's not at all easy to actually knock somebody out. But forget that - after all, I'm willing to believe that MacGyver might be trained well at this (he's a secret agent, after all, and we do see him practicing karate in one episode), so let's say he might be able to actually cause a knockout with a single straight right. What is more strange is that in some cases it is clearly NOT a knockout - the guy is lying there like a turtle on its back, mumbling, disoriented, for minutes (!) allowing MacGyver to do anything he wants to him (like putting him in a huge laundry bag, attach the bag to a crane, and use the crane to lift the bag to a great height!) Yeah, he actually managed all that while the villain was rubbing his jaw and mumbling "Aww, my head" after a single punch!
• The naïveté of people in MacGyver series doesn't cease to amaze me. Like, for example, their incredible ability to blame things on accident. I mean, a car with a girl in it blows up. Police arrives, declares: "Must be an accident!" Yeah, right. These cars, so unsafe... Sometimes, you know, you park, and these things just blow up on you! Just like that. Or, say, a security guard at some important event is found dead in an elevator shaft. What do you think - those trained security professionals consider it an accident! OK, sometimes these things are simply essential to the idiotic plot. Like, for example, when the evil guy, Murdoc, has dynamite in his truck, and barely manages to open the door and jump out. Pete, who watches the explosion from 100 yards or so, immediately concludes that the villain is certainly dead. MacGyver cautiously suggests that Murdoc might have survived. The funny thing is, it seemingly doesn't occur to either of them to simply go and check! I mean, IF the guy jumped off, it was just 100 yards away! There's two of you, he's alone - go get him! But of course, they have to let him go, they want to keep him for more episodes…
• The most annoying thing about watching MacGyver episodes is when you think that it cannot possibly get any sillier - it just does. I envy the times when I watched "The Golden Triangle" and thought this is the worst it will get. OK, new record: "Lost Love" is an episode of such an incredible, unbelievable crescendo of stupidity that it surely deserves some kind of an award, even in the B-film category. I honestly cannot remember anything I saw in the last 5 years that gets even close to being this ridiculous. And I did see some shitty films in the last 5 years! Like "300", for instance. All this just goes on to tell you what a powerful thing nostalgia is. Otherwise, why would I still be watching this crap?!
• And you know what - this show is really sexist, too. And I'm not the person to throw such an accusation lightly. It's not characters such as Penny Parker that bother me (actually, I love Penny Parker!) It's the women who are supposed to be professionals but turn out absolutely helpless and do the most idiotic stuff, things that even I wouldn't do? The role of "the girl" in MacGyver series is very simple: in the best case, to get in trouble and let MacGyver rescue her; in the worst case, to get everybody in trouble - and of course, MacGyver still does all the rescuing. This entire show - not only women get in the way of the man who's trying to do the job, they are also constantly whining and complaining and demand reassurance that they are helpful, as they do it! MacGyver needs not only all his "getting out of trouble" skills, he needs all his tact as well, in order not to hurt their overblown ego too much! Two words - incompetence and arrogance - suffice to describe half of the female characters in this show. The other half is described by just one word - helplessness. I actually remember just one exception so far - a woman being a rather normal sidekick - "The Gauntlet" episode.
• There are a number of misconceptions about nuclear weapons that I see a lot in films. The first: people seem to think that almost anything can trigger a nuclear explosion; that, say, nuclear missile warheads are as sensitive as nitroglycerin, anything can cause these things to explode. That's completely not true. In fact, nukes are just the opposite of nitro - you have to work very hard and to do everything just right in order to make them explode - you do one thing wrong and nothing happens. You can drop them, burn them, even blow them up with dynamite, in fact. That won't cause the nuke to go off (although nothing good will come out of it, either, with all the plutonium scattered around…). And deactivating and disarming these missiles isn't a bit like disarming a bomb that's set to explode (which is the impression one might get from some films, like "Early Retirement" episode of MacGyver). I mean, come on - according to this episode, defueling a missile is an extremely complicated and dangerous procedure, during which if not everything is just right, fuel will spontaneously begin splashing in all directions and the missile will catch fire… [OK, an update from Danny - that part actually has some truth in it, at least for the old Soviet missiles (not the US ones). But then again these missiles were routinely kept unfueled until just before launch.]
• Stupid thing to do #374: accuse someone in murder when you're alone with him. It's amazing how many people in old movies make this mistake. Suppose you've just figured out this guy's a murderer. So what do you do? Riiiiight - go straight to him and confront him with all the evidence! :-) Never fails to be lethal… Another typical variation is to confront a crook for whom you've been working with a change of heart: "It's over, Jack! I'm going to the police!" Well, guess what… you're going to get a Darwin Award, instead.
• A common mistake in films (not just the 80's, to be fair) is underestimation of damage from bullet wounds. In MacGyver series, it gets incredible. In "Cease Fire" episode, for instance, Mac gets shot. He is wounded in the stomach. Not only he stays alive and conscious for hours, he talks and runs! Actually, it was even more stupid: he gives this long, convincing pep talk to a little girl in order to convince her to bring him a first aid kit; then there's this really touching scene where she helps him to get up (so apparently, he couldn't get up himself). But once he's on his feet, he runs, like, a 100 yards to another hiding place! The only apparent effect of the wound is that Mac is pressing his hand against it at all times and has a strained expression on his face… It's more like in a computer game, really - he lost some hit-points, but it doesn't bother him to function (and apparently, a first aid kit can restore those hit points fully anyway; which is very handy, 'cause later Mac has a lot more of running/driving a motorcycle/climbing/jumping to do).
• Starting from season 5, we see Mac less dressed more often. I'm sure that was a conscious transition, incorporating the desires of the female viewers. Not that I have any problem with it, mind you :-)
• Let's count the episodes in which MacGyver has any kind of romance going on with a girl:
  Season 1: 9 out of 22 (and in a couple of more there isn't anything going on right now, but it's clear that she would love to).
  Season 2: 7 out of 22.
  Season 3: Only 3 out of 20.
  Season 4: Only 2 out of 19!
  So you see where I'm going with this: he had a lot more of it the beginning. Obviously, the reason is the same - female viewers objected (although I, personally, enjoyed watching him kiss other women, but I guess that's just me).
• In 80's films, if you have a powder which you suspect is an illegal drug, and you want to make sure - you lick it. Yeah, that's how it works. I think this common stereotype alone was responsible for more deaths than any other ridiculous movie practice.
• One thing that is a solid rule in MacGyver series: if a villain is killed, it is only by his own malice (lands on his own knife, falls to his death when trying to push someone else over, etc). No good character ever kills a villain, even in self defense; neither they die by accident. They always cause their own demise. (OK, season 5, "Log Jam" episode - first exception to the rule! Mac actually kills a villain in self defense! Well, at least he had a real sorry look on his face…)
• Information scarcity rule - if you have a piece of crucial information, never even think of making a copy. Naturally, such a simple and reasonable act would destroy all the tension, and do we need that?
• I only now realized that my rants about how stupid this show is totally fail to convey my true feelings about it. Yes, it has its bad moments. Actually, it's quite full of them. But doesn't it have good moments? Or even great moments? Not only it does - THEY'RE TOTALLY WORTH IT. I mean, with all this ranting going on, I BOUGHT the complete 7 seasons pack and watched every single episode! That tells you something… My complaining is in the same spirit as a vigorous critique of a football team by its devout fan - he means every word, but loves them anyway :-)
• The plot of "Hearts of Steel" episode (season 5) is partially plagiarized from Ed McBain's "King's Ransom"! Of course, with appropriate dumbing down, and all; after all, "King's Ransom" is a wonderful, interesting, deep book, and they had to squeeze it into 40 minutes. That's not enough time to deliver King's side properly. But they did much worse than simply not delivering King's side of the issue. They depicted him as a villain. They actually made a disgusting socialist propaganda out of this! OK, I'll explain: a steel worker whose factory was bought and shut down by a broker kidnaps the broker's daughter. 400 men lost their jobs, and this guy wanted revenge. So, in the end of the episode, MacGyver et al. want us to believe that it is very fair that the broker has to reopen the factory so that all these people can work again. You know, make us feel how evil it was of him to shut them down in the first place, thinking only about money… that ruthless businessman! Right? Well, wrong, MacGyver! A factory should run if it brings profits! Why does this guy have to pay the workers salary if he loses money on it? What, just to make them happy? Guess what - communism doesn't work, pal! Sheesh. First time I disagree with MacGyver so strongly… :-)
• But it was definitely not the last time. MacGyver, you know, got an award once for "the most liberally biased show ever". (No kidding…) Most of the time, the show presented its messages in a good manner. Or, you know what, I think I take that back. It didn't; it was openly biased and sometimes resorted to pretty low tricks to deliver its points (such as: undermining one side of the argument by having a creep represent it, or making an extreme case of a "straw man argument" out of it). But the thing is, MacGyver himself, as a person, has a way of handling these matters decently. He really tries to be impartial and to understand both sides of the argument as well as he can. And that's one of things I really like about the character…
  Anyway, get this: an episode begins with a sweet little old lady being evicted from her home of 20 years by another "ruthless businessman". MacGyver is out to restore justice. Oh, and why did the landlord throw her out? Well, she didn't pay her rent. But that's hardly a legitimate reason to throw someone out of their home, is it? I mean, she's a little old lady! Have some decency! Besides, the place is a wreck anyway! That alone means she doesn't even have to pay the rent in the first place! Or, anyway, that's what the show wants us to believe… Only thing I can say: nice try, folks. I think it's pretty sleazy that a person can just occupy your private property without your consent, without any payment, and keep sitting there robbing you out of any potential deals that you could be making off the property. And I think it is even sleazier that such a person can do it with a passive aggressive self-righteous attitude and have the nerve to call you a robber while she's at it! That, actually, really ticks me off!
• MacGyver himself is a skeptic, but the show isn't skeptical at all. There are psychics, ghosts, spirits, UFO's, afterlife, voodoo, you name it (in one episode, they even had zombies! Seriously!) Sometimes, they have this recurring plot theme with these things: Mac tries to find a scientific explanation and succeeds, exposing some con artists - but just before the episode is over, new evidence arises that suggests that things might not be so simple after all, leaving Mac quite perplexed…
  The very worst of this came in an episode called "Trail of Tears" (season 6): MacGyver works to stop the guys in an electric company from building high voltage lines, because he has a vision of an Indian spirit showing him that electricity is evil (you know, devilish red glow, and all). No, I'm not kidding. And then the spirit heals MacGyver's shotgun stomach wound by some chanting. Oh, yeah, and then he turns into a wolf. Now, normally, MacGyver is a show showing the benefits of rationality and the scientific method. This episode is an interesting exception, promoting superstition, proof by revelation and New Age pseudoscientific crap in general. Even worse - as a result, it acts as a straw man argument, actively harming the cause it is trying to protect… Probably the worst MacGyver episode ever, IMHO.
• MacGyver's D&D alignment: Neutral Good. Why? Well, obviously, he's Good. Almost off the scale, I should say. But is he Lawful? Tough call. I think: not really. As one deva from "Order of the Stick" (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html) has put it: "Using Chaotic means to fulfill Lawful obligations strikes me as fairly Neutral". MacGyver wants to be Lawful Good. He always says that it is the right way. However, he doesn't hesitate to break the law if he believes that by doing that, he might help to uphold the law in a more important matter. For example, the law against trespassing a private property? Against breaking and entering? MacGyver, I think, forgot that it even exists. If he thinks he might find valuable evidence wherever, he'll simply break into the place. But maybe I'm being too hard on him; after all, if Roy got classified as Lawful Good, maybe MacGyver should, too…
• What I hate are the flashback episodes. I mean, one is probably OK, but this show had FOUR of them! Entire episodes devoted 90% of the time to "recalling" material from previous episodes. OK, so you're out of script ideas, so you use this trick once - but four times?
• Did you notice how MacGyver gets tied up, like, in every other episode? Boy, this show was really into BDSM! :-) Every time the bad guys get MacGyver I go "Oh, yeah, baby, way to go, tie him up now, here it goes again, MacGyver in bondage, my favorite!" Pity they didn't also, you know, rip his shirt off while they were at it, that would make it really perfect… Think about it: the baddies almost never simply shoot the guy. They have to make elaborate reasons to tie him up in ropes and leave him like that for a while. (Or handcuffs. Or chains. You get the drift). You gotta start being suspicious, right? :-)
• And this immortal villain, Murdoc? A good series hero has to have an immortal villain archrival - even Sherlock Holmes had one. The problem is, such villains get too inventive. When simply killing the good guy fails, each next time they try to kill him in a more cruel and complicated way, to avenge for their previous failures. Problem is, "complicated" always means "more prone to error". So actually, they have even less chance to succeed each next time! And so it goes on. The madder they get, the more they refuse to think simply, the more chances MacGyver has to thwart their evil plans once again. This rule, I think, could well go into the "Arch-villain Manual 1.0": use the simplest solution for any problem. If some goodie is your problem, a bullet in the back of his head is a simple solution to your problem. Don't be tempted to "make it interesting"! MacGyver actually becomes aware of this trend at one point. In season 7, when he crosses paths with Murdoc for the n-th time, Murdoc is ordered to arrange a firing squad for MacGyver and the girl (there's always a girl. Don't ask). So MacGyver teases Murdoc along the lines of "Wow, you're such a joke. You've tried to kill me so many times and failed! Now you need a firing squad to do the job for you? That's weak!" And guess what, the villain totally falls for it! Instead of replying with "Well, I surely learned my lesson! This time I'll use something that works for a change!" he obliges and comes up with something inventive once again. No surprise it fails…

Some notes about MacGyver as a person:

• Sportive. Likes mountain climbing, skiing, hockey, car racing (has done that professionally), pool, soccer etc. Likes hiking and fishing. Loves nature in general.
• Always ready to personally get involved and try to make a difference in anything he cares about. That's probably his determining characteristic. Like with nature: he doesn't just love it, he's doing things to protect it. He gets involved.
• Ready to get into trouble for anyone who asks him for help (and for those who don't ask, too).
• Good sense of humor. Always ready to laugh about himself, too.
• Very kind and nice to people. Believes in people. Somewhat an idealist, in that aspect. That's why he's very easy to fool - MacGyver will believe anything that appeals to good motives. Most people won't buy a lie from somebody the second time. He will - the second, the third, anytime. MacGyver prefers trusting people and making mistakes once in a while over not trusting them and making mistakes. More precisely, it's not his preference - he cannot change it. That's just the way he is. Very naïve in some aspects, despite all the experience.
• Very intelligent. Scientific way of thinking. Trusts reason above emotion. Always appeals to reason when trying to convince someone. Honestly tries to understand other people's point of view.
• Great mechanic (well, that's what most people probably remember first about him). Loves making things work. Knows a great deal about it, too.
• Studied physics and chemistry and actually remembers what he learned, and knows how to apply it.
• Curious. Never stops learning. Reads a lot, and manages to participate in research related to his work.
• Plays the guitar a little; took some art classes.
• Speaks a few foreign languages, badly.
• His job: all kinds of things for an organization called the Phoenix foundation. Sometimes it's classical secret agent work (sneak somewhere, get something); sometimes it's R&D stuff. Anyway, he never works blindly - he must always be fully informed of the whole picture before he agrees to do anything. Actually, these principles wouldn't be tolerated elsewhere, but apparently his organization is very liberal… and also he's their most valuable man.
• Very imaginative and creative, especially in problem solving.
• Brave in the best sense of the word: always ready to confront his fears. For example, he's actually afraid of heights. But that doesn't stop him from climbing mountains.
• Can perform well under pressure.
• Doesn't like to plan things ahead - to an extent that to me seems totally unrealistic. Prefers to improvise.
• Never gives up. An optimist, in general. Will always look for a solution instead of panicking or whining.
• Very honest and natural. He actually is what he seems.
• Shy, especially with women. Doesn't like to talk about himself.
• Very humble and modest. I would even say, underestimates himself a little; at least in things concerning human relationships. For example, I think that MacGyver doesn't estimate correctly how he appears to other people; he would probably think he's boring. He surely never realized how attractive he is. Funny, because normally it doesn't take much time for girls to literally throw themselves on him.
• Loves children. Treats them as equals. Volunteers in a "Challengers" club, a youth recreation center.
• Peaceful. Pacifist, in fact. Always looking for common ground, understanding and peaceful resolution of conflicts; will go to great (sometimes unbelievable) lengths to avoid violence or at least minimize the damage (to everyone, including the attacker).
• Hates guns so much that he doesn't use them even for self defense in life threatening situations, which in his life arise often. He prefers to try and think of other ways - even when there's not much time for it.
• Served in Vietnam. I actually think this is a little off the character, but hey - he was young and brainwashed, probably. Anyway, he didn't shoot people - he was in the bomb disarming squad.
• Doesn't drink alcohol.
• Doesn't drink coffee.
• Prefers a healthy lifestyle. Takes this seriously. Cooks his own meals. Prefers fish and vegetables.
• His love life sucks. The reasons are pretty obvious - his job is very dangerous and very few women would be able to stand it. MacGyver himself has very high standards as to what a good family should be, and he probably thinks he cannot make it as he should. Well, that was the role-playing explanation; a more realistic one is that the female fans of the show wanted him to stay single (yeah, they actually sent letters!)
• A leftist. We never heard him talking politics, but it cannot be more obvious. Has actually donated millions to charity (the job of a secret agent turns unexpected profits sometimes). MacGyver doesn't care much for money (doesn't need much of it).
• Always feels guilty for everything that goes wrong. Has exaggerated sense of responsibility. Probably started with feeling guilty in the death of his father and grandmother (it was a car accident, but MacGyver felt that maybe if he was there, he could have done something). But I believe that it's the rest of his life that contributed enormously to this approach. MacGyver constantly gets other people out of trouble; with that kind of job it's no wonder he feels responsible for anything that happens. He got too used to being fully relied upon.
   

Verdict: You're a great guy, MacGyver. If you were real, it would have been an honor to be your friend. You're real in my heart… :-)