dragojustine (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragojustine) wrote2008-07-23 06:00 am
dragojustine) wrote2008-07-23 06:00 am
Entry tags:
Of MacGyver, emotional reactions, and plotbunnies
I ran out of Mythbusters, and I needed another light, fun, full-attention-not-required show, so I grabbed a season of MacGyver.
You know, I watched MacGyver pretty regularly when I was six and seven years old, with my dad, but I didn't particularly understand a lot of it at the time. It was something special I did with my daddy, but the show was over my head and I was mostly in it for the popcorn. I don't really have any clear memories of it at all, aside from the basic image of MacGyver and his hair and his jacket, you know, fiddling with wires and making things blow up. I didn't even remember the basic premise (I suppose it's reasonable to conclude that he must be some sort of secret agent, but I certainly didn't remember that for sure) and I doubt I was ever aware of the political agenda of the show. If you had asked me to hum the theme song, I would have told you that there was no way I remembered that.
And then I put on the first episode, and heard the first two bars of that theme song, and my heart EXPLODED WITH JOY. I was six years old again, watching TV and eating popcorn with my daddy, and I don't have a clue what's going on but I know it must be cool because he says so and *hands* I seriously cannot remember the last time I had such an unexpectedly emotional response to something. It reminds me of how people talk about the memory-recalling abilities of smell, you know? Sniff your grandma's homemade pies and break down with homesickness on the spot, except I don't really have much of a sense of smell and have always suspected that was poetic Proust-induced bullshit. But that theme song... I teared up. I would have called dad right that minute to tell him I loved him, except it was 1 in the morning.
The show itself: The stunts are entertaining, the acting is uneven, the look is dated, and it certainly doesn't hit the kind of extended-arc, character building, novelistic storytelling that I expect from really good TV this decade... but oh, Lord, is it fun. Also, Richard Dean Anderson is FINE. I mean, I knew what he looked like back then, but I didn't appreciate it properly at the age of seven so I had to actually see that body in action a little bit to realize just how fine he is. His acting style is a bit... shouty, (I also found him a bit shouty in Stargate: Continuum, and in fact almost commented on it. Heh. Personal actor quirks) but he really does have a good understated comic sensibility and really, Angus MacGyver is one of those all-time great characters.
You all did know that Jared Padalecki filmed a pilot for "Young MacGyver" back in 2003, right? And just HOW AWESOME would that have been? I mean, of course I'm glad that didn't get picked up, because then we wouldn't have Supernatural. But STILL.
So what I want is the RPS where Young MacGyver, with Jared in the lead, gets picked up. And Jensen gets cast as some kind of recurring character (I'm thinking antagonistic, but he could be a friend too). And then we get a long plotty fic where we see lots of bits and pecies of "young MacGyver" plotlines and episodes, and fun stunts, and lovely J2 romance. And then RDA gets some kind of small recurring role on the show as a wink-wink-nudge-nudge thing (you know, like Richard Hatch on the new BSG), with MASSIVE BONUS points for an appearance by Michael Shanks, with subext (I don't normally feel any urge toward SG1 RPS, because I'm so very attached to Jack and Daniel as specific characters, but this is too good to pass up).
I won't do it, of course, because it would require tons of research on MacGyver's backstory (and it's probably impossible to get my hands on that pilot) and stunts and special effects and actual action-adventure plot, which I am incapable of, but it sure is a happy-making idea, no?
This bunny was donated by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
miriad's husband, during a discussion of Heath Ledger. (Yes, it is weird and inappropriate and disrespectful feeling, but that's how it came up. I can't help that). You take an actor cast in the role of a villain in a superhero movie (a really good, creepy villain) who gets so deeply into his role, and is so fucked up by it, that he fakes his own death in order to actually become that villain. With a truly creepy unreliable-narrator descent into madness in one POV, plus maybe the public thinks that the beginning appearances of this villain are staged stunts to draw publicity to the movie and so he draws this huge crowd of obsessive fans who conspire to help and hide him, and the authorities can't get anyone to take appropriate precautions or assist in the investigation, and in the meantime the FBI bring in the writer of the movie as a psychological profiler to attempt to catch him...
I am convinced that this is a brilliant original fic bunny.
You know, I watched MacGyver pretty regularly when I was six and seven years old, with my dad, but I didn't particularly understand a lot of it at the time. It was something special I did with my daddy, but the show was over my head and I was mostly in it for the popcorn. I don't really have any clear memories of it at all, aside from the basic image of MacGyver and his hair and his jacket, you know, fiddling with wires and making things blow up. I didn't even remember the basic premise (I suppose it's reasonable to conclude that he must be some sort of secret agent, but I certainly didn't remember that for sure) and I doubt I was ever aware of the political agenda of the show. If you had asked me to hum the theme song, I would have told you that there was no way I remembered that.
And then I put on the first episode, and heard the first two bars of that theme song, and my heart EXPLODED WITH JOY. I was six years old again, watching TV and eating popcorn with my daddy, and I don't have a clue what's going on but I know it must be cool because he says so and *hands* I seriously cannot remember the last time I had such an unexpectedly emotional response to something. It reminds me of how people talk about the memory-recalling abilities of smell, you know? Sniff your grandma's homemade pies and break down with homesickness on the spot, except I don't really have much of a sense of smell and have always suspected that was poetic Proust-induced bullshit. But that theme song... I teared up. I would have called dad right that minute to tell him I loved him, except it was 1 in the morning.
The show itself: The stunts are entertaining, the acting is uneven, the look is dated, and it certainly doesn't hit the kind of extended-arc, character building, novelistic storytelling that I expect from really good TV this decade... but oh, Lord, is it fun. Also, Richard Dean Anderson is FINE. I mean, I knew what he looked like back then, but I didn't appreciate it properly at the age of seven so I had to actually see that body in action a little bit to realize just how fine he is. His acting style is a bit... shouty, (I also found him a bit shouty in Stargate: Continuum, and in fact almost commented on it. Heh. Personal actor quirks) but he really does have a good understated comic sensibility and really, Angus MacGyver is one of those all-time great characters.
You all did know that Jared Padalecki filmed a pilot for "Young MacGyver" back in 2003, right? And just HOW AWESOME would that have been? I mean, of course I'm glad that didn't get picked up, because then we wouldn't have Supernatural. But STILL.
So what I want is the RPS where Young MacGyver, with Jared in the lead, gets picked up. And Jensen gets cast as some kind of recurring character (I'm thinking antagonistic, but he could be a friend too). And then we get a long plotty fic where we see lots of bits and pecies of "young MacGyver" plotlines and episodes, and fun stunts, and lovely J2 romance. And then RDA gets some kind of small recurring role on the show as a wink-wink-nudge-nudge thing (you know, like Richard Hatch on the new BSG), with MASSIVE BONUS points for an appearance by Michael Shanks, with subext (I don't normally feel any urge toward SG1 RPS, because I'm so very attached to Jack and Daniel as specific characters, but this is too good to pass up).
I won't do it, of course, because it would require tons of research on MacGyver's backstory (and it's probably impossible to get my hands on that pilot) and stunts and special effects and actual action-adventure plot, which I am incapable of, but it sure is a happy-making idea, no?
This bunny was donated by
miriad's husband, during a discussion of Heath Ledger. (Yes, it is weird and inappropriate and disrespectful feeling, but that's how it came up. I can't help that). You take an actor cast in the role of a villain in a superhero movie (a really good, creepy villain) who gets so deeply into his role, and is so fucked up by it, that he fakes his own death in order to actually become that villain. With a truly creepy unreliable-narrator descent into madness in one POV, plus maybe the public thinks that the beginning appearances of this villain are staged stunts to draw publicity to the movie and so he draws this huge crowd of obsessive fans who conspire to help and hide him, and the authorities can't get anyone to take appropriate precautions or assist in the investigation, and in the meantime the FBI bring in the writer of the movie as a psychological profiler to attempt to catch him... I am convinced that this is a brilliant original fic bunny.