MacGyver (2016)

It’s almost shameless how quickly Mac plows through the “classics,” including using soot and packing tape to lift a fingerprint, and I’m still unsure of what principle he uses exactly to outwit a biometric scanner. But these quick fixes remain a good part of the fun. ... It deviates from the comparatively “lone wolf” nature of the original, though that’s not necessarily to its detriment; it simply makes it more familiar, CBS procedural-y.

Some of us won’t be able to watch MacGyver without feeling like we’re getting a lobotomy with an unwound paper clip; others will be delighted by this energetic, easygoing update.

MacGyver isn't going to set prime time on fire. But it's watchable enough, and it seems like a good Friday night fit with CBS' "Hawaii Five-0" and "Blue Bloods."

The new MacGyver lacks [USA's "Burn Notice's"] creativity and wit. It’s clumsy and forgettable, and it’ll probably end up lasting seven seasons without anybody really noticing.

What you're getting here is a factory-made retread that is less MacGyver than MacGyver: Impossible, with the title character now just one member of an impossible mission team. ... The show does, however, have two saving graces beyond the easygoing charm of its stars. For one, the original was hardly holy writ, and tampering with it doesn't count as a sin. And for another, weightless may be just what you want on a Friday night.

Lucas Till, as the 2016 version of the title character, doesn’t make much of an impression in the premiere, which involves a bioweapon that has fallen into bad hands. It’s nice to see George Eads of “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” back on TV as Jack Dalton, one of MacGyver’s partners in disaster prevention, but the show is bogged down by its premise.

CBS must have reasoned that the new version would have to be bigger and flashier. This reboot accomplishes that, but in doing so, loses the whole point of MacGyver in the first place.

The slick action is soulless, the voice-over is awkward, and Till isn’t faceted enough to add a human dimension.

It’s fun but tedious.

Everything about MacGyver feels rote--from the constant bombardment of brotastic banter between Angus MacGyver (a bland Lucas Till, “X-Men: Apocalypse”) and ex-military sidekick Jack Dalton (George Eads, “CSI”) to the entirely predictable plot of the pilot that lays track for a seasonlong arc--and imbued with a CBS house style.

There’s something soothingly predictable about all this: We’ve seen it all before. Only here, there’s a strain of camp.

While lead actor Lucas Till is charismatic as Mac, his voiceover and the tone of several parts of the show would remind viewers of another, better recent CBS show that was cancelled: Limitless. The pilot, directed by James Wan, at least keeps things entertaining on the action side; however, even with a near-complete retooling, some characters feel like the ones you’ve seen before on other recent CBS shows like Scorpion.

The cues are clunky and don’t add much insight into the mind of our hero, and the sense of suspense the original was known for (typically involving an explosive of some sort) is all but missing here, mostly due to the fact that the show insists on maintaining a zippy pace at all times. This is a major issue, but the show’s woes don’t end there. The more critical question of cast chemistry is ultimately what sinks the ill-conceived reboot, with Till struggling to find an easy rapport with his onscreen partners.

Comfort food television is a necessary and worthwhile product, but MacGyver is so bland it’s not even fun for a Friday night in.

If you turn off your brain, this isn't the worst way you can spend an hour. But it's not a particularly good show.

The action is so predictable it feels, at times, like a joke. ... The reboot adds nothing to the archetype, which makes it less nostalgic than archaic.

CBS came through with something that feels enough like the '80s-era ABC original to be a museum piece (if ticking time bombs were allowed in museums).

The pilot travels the globe, but doesn't look like it moved too far off the backlot. There's no "wow" factor at all. And perhaps that boils down why MacGyver is just unnecessary, rather than being explicitly awful.

MacGyver (played by Lucas Till, X-Men: Apocalypse) is soooo much smarter than us, his producers have helpfully slapped big bold chyron labels on all the household goods with which he builds Klingon battlecruisers and time-traveling Waring blenders. So yes, that black ashy substance is indeed "SOOT." And that tangle of wires? You guessed it: "ELECTRONICS." Then there are the moments—a lot of them—when MacGyver is boinking one of his chick assistants while whipping up a laser death ray with his free hand. You'll know when the MacGyver audience has reach its target IQ when you see a chyron reading "ORIFICE."

It's less MacGyver with better production values than a bad 24 retread (with a hint of imitation Shondaland DNA) that occasionally pauses for duct tape.

It looks cheap (even though CBS decided to scrap the entire original pilot and make a new one), the action sequences are rote, the dialogue is mostly generic, and the characters are all one-dimensional.

The resultant explosions look cheap and the cliche-pocked script keeps self-destructing--“We’re running out of time, Mac”--before the bad guys are neutralized. MacGyver deploys a few household items to make all of this happen, but not all that inventively or interestingly. Till’s acting remains a work in progress, if that.

A few of the critical “makeshift” moments defy logic, if not ridicule.

The premiere episode is OK but not much more. There’s a lot of action, fleet camera work and an annoying, anachronistic voice-over narration by our pretty hero.