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Critic Reviews
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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.
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Comfort food television is a necessary and worthwhile product, but MacGyver is so bland it’s not even fun for a Friday night in.
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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.
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A few of the critical “makeshift” moments defy logic, if not ridicule.
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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.
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Till’s delivery is wooden and clunky. The writing doesn’t help--the pilot script is full of silly plot short-cuts and painfully cheesy lines.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 47 out of 146
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Mixed: 19 out of 146
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Negative: 80 out of 146
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Oct 1, 2016
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Nov 7, 2016
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Oct 3, 2016This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.