I was super happy excited for this one. Trains! Train stories are the best. Here's a fun fact, this is like the first new Macgyver i can recall where it doesn't start off with a huge action scene of some other story finishing. Instead Mac and Jack are in a car staking out an apartment of his old love i think. And they have the same old lame talk about how Mac has to get over her , blah blah blah. Then they see her, break in and its some other blond who was told by the old girlfriend to be there at that time and deliver a key to Macgyver. Whats the key too? I thought it'd be something stupid like a music box or hope chest but its probably something killer. He doesn't find out this episode. Then his roommate has the same stupid conversation with the pretty Lisa Bonet looking computer tech trying to win her over with cheesy player talk etc etc. Blah blah blah. Then Mac gets a call and they have to rescue a woman named....i think it was Brigette? Well call her Sue, did i mention i like to drink while watching Macgyver? So Sue worked for this powerful bald Doushe in Germany and hes corrupt and she ratted him out and could ruin him if she testifies. So an Interpol agent gives her train tickets to go to Frankfurt to meet him. Bad news Thorton tells the boys, he did that 2 hours after he was murdered. Mac and Jac are then like "its a trap" and i was like "huh" and had to rewind and then i was like, "oh i get it". i drink beer when i watch Macgyver. So they get to the train and start walking around on it and the Lisa Bonet ladys like " there are 8 guys on the roof who just arrived". So they are able to trace the phones of those guys to keep tabs on them. Those guys split up, thus making it easier to kill them. THey got like an hour to find a woman on the train, stick together and take your time but what do i know. So they find Sue and she died her hair and they still recognized her and Mac promised to bring her home alive and then the bad guys came and some cool fights happened. My favorite is the one big ass bad dude that just pounded Mac but he got a hairspray can, punctured it and i think it was on fire when he sprayed it in the guys eyes. that just made him madder and he stomped on Mac til he got knocked out hte window by Mac and died. Then Mac started to fake makeout with Sue to avoid detection from a bad guy walking by and i was like "Oh no, hes falling in love with her" and then he gets cold cocked and the guy seems to struggle with the concept of quickly killing Sue and Mac takes off his belt, with nothing falling off like knives and stuff i'd carry with me, and hits the guy in the neck with the buckle and locks him out of a train car briefly with a fork jammed in the door (old prison trick but the prison version usually involves locking youself in a room with someone and is very gruesome.) So eventually the last three bad guys are roped off the train by helicopter. But not before making the train go full speed and ruining everything that could bypass that. So Everyone goes to the back car, and the plan is to burn the switch to make the car dislodge and roll to safety , which is what i would have done in the beginning. so they get pretty close to the steel being cut but run out of fuel . So then Mac goes to the other car to dislodge it, like use a lever that only will work on that side, and hes using two arms to do it and then Jack jumps over to help and they seem to each being using one arm to dislodge it and finally it goes and now they stuck on a runaway train. Good news, mac switches some battery cables and they stop just in time. Bad guy is caught and everyone is super happy. Except for the family of the murdered agent, the train conductor and various other people who must have died for hte bad guys to get clothes to look civilian im assuming, but its okay, we didn't know them. So overall i liked this a lot . good suspenseful episode with not a ton of stuff that make you shake your head which is pretty good when watching 4 people on a train trying to avoid 8 highly trained gunmen.
6 Reviews
A Nice Reflection
MovieTVRomanceFan4 March 2020
This was a great episode filled with a lot of excitement and anticipation, definitely one of MacGyver's best episodes. Although some would say this episode didn't have much focus on Mac's ex, Nikki, it actually does if you pay close attention to Mac's interaction with Caterina. I liked the chemistry between them. However, what I really liked is that they both share a lot in common since they would both fooled by people they cared about. It's nice that Mac's time with Caterina began to heal his wounds and helped him to forgive himself from being deceived by Nikki. Jack was right, Mac was finally beginning to make progress and move on from Nikki. I also liked the new mystery surrounding the key that Mac and although he's finally beginning to move, he remains more determined than ever to find and capture Nikki for good.
Overall, Great Episode that helps with the valuable lesson about learning to forgive yourself, realize it wasn't your fault and finally allow to move on with life.
Overall, Great Episode that helps with the valuable lesson about learning to forgive yourself, realize it wasn't your fault and finally allow to move on with life.
unwatchable (as a German)
imdb-244-36187722 October 2016
Warning: Spoilers
There were so many things wrong with this episode, I don't know where to start. Maybe the beginning. Short summary: The woman (a whistle blower) they need to protect has been given a train ticket to go from Berlin to Frankfurt with an overnight train. She thinks she's going to meet an ally there, but he's already been killed before the instructions to go to Frankfurt had been sent to her.
Factual problems
Bad acting problems:
logical problems:
Why is Katharina handed the microphone to tell everybody on the train about the situation? Because she can speak German? Then why does she speak English?
misogynistic problem:
Katharina is supposed to be a whistle blower, which requires a lot of courage. All of which she suddenly seems to have lost as soon as Macgyver is there to rescue her. She is talked to as if she was a frightened child, not a grown, daring woman - and suddenly behaves accordingly.
All in all the German term "fremdschämen" comes to mind - could be translated to "cringe" or "to be embarrassed for someone else's behavior" I will not watch another episode of this show.
Factual problems
- A direct flight from San Francisco to Berlin takes at least 13 hours, not counting getting to the airport. Somehow MacGyver and Jack still make it on the train. Maybe her ticket was for the next day (or better: night), so I'll let that slide.
- There is an overnight connection (they're canceling it for good in December 2016, because hardly anyone uses it), but contrary to what is said on the show the train stops five times on its way. There is the ICE Sprinter which doesn't stop between Berlin and Frankfurt, but it is not an overnight line and does not have sleeping cabins
- The bad guys enter from above the train - yeah, not possible in Germany. The whole route is electrified, they'd have been fried already.
- The train in the episode is powered by a diesel engine, but again, all the trains (at least on this route as well as on every other mayor route) run on electricity.
- The train looks nothing like a German train and is not modern whatsoever (MacGyver says: "modern trains like this [...]")
- The cabins on a German night train are automatically locked from the inside, you need a key card to get in
- You can't open any door (to the outside) on a German train without triggering the emergency break
- if the conductor doesn't hit a certain button every other minute, the train initiates full breaking automatically.
- over 100 miles per hour is not terribly fast for an IC City Nightline (the ICE goes up to 180 mph...)
- There is one City Nightline connection per night and it arrives in Frankfurt at 3:59 am in Frankfurt Main (Süd), not main station as depicted.
- Who in their right mind travels in a Daynighter seat (which in reality is a lot more comfortable and has a head rest) with a young child which for some reason is awake at 3:30 am?
- Very obviously NOT Frankfurt (Main) main station, even though it says so on the signs.
- You can't just carry a weapon in Germany (we have laws against that), and you would not get away with firing a weapon on a subject
Bad acting problems:
- Are there really no actual German actors around? The fake "German" Accent is really terrible
- Katharinas constantly raised eyebrow is way too overdone.
- there was zero chemistry between Macgyver and Katharina
logical problems:
Why is Katharina handed the microphone to tell everybody on the train about the situation? Because she can speak German? Then why does she speak English?
misogynistic problem:
Katharina is supposed to be a whistle blower, which requires a lot of courage. All of which she suddenly seems to have lost as soon as Macgyver is there to rescue her. She is talked to as if she was a frightened child, not a grown, daring woman - and suddenly behaves accordingly.
All in all the German term "fremdschämen" comes to mind - could be translated to "cringe" or "to be embarrassed for someone else's behavior" I will not watch another episode of this show.
Stop that train!
tenshi_ippikiookami11 April 2017
Episode 5 of "MacGyver" for the XXIst century is the weakest so far. It is ridiculous, the plot makes no sense, and the character's decisions are risible. On top of having basically zero 'MacGyver' moments.
One of the things the old "MacGyver" had is that our hero found himself in the middle of a situation without having expected to: he goes to visit some friends and their oil drilling venture becomes an inferno, he goes on a walk to Asia and gets entangled with some drug dealers, he is going fishing and ends up being kidnapped... This new MacGyver with his endless missions of extracting agents or similar has close to zero originality. And we are only 5 episodes in.
This time they have to protect a woman that has some information very very important. So important that the 'bad people' trying to get her will do anything to kill her, even jump on a train from a helicopter and go around the wagons with guns on their hands... which makes no passenger raise their eyebrows in surprise.
It is not only that the idea is once again the same. It is not that MacGyver doesn't really do anything, and that Jack with his gun is more of a problem than a plus. It is also that it seems Europeans (or Germans) are all OK with people running around trains shooting, with hands on their hands, punching, tasering... First, arms are not so common in Europe (I have only seen army people, policemen or similar carrying them in my times there). Second, it is an insult to the viewer expect them to believe that no one would raise the alarm or try to stop the train with all that is going on that train. Here, though, everyone keeps sleeping through the fights (well, a couple look a little bit surprised). It is too much of suspension of disbelief. And that is just a small example of too many that happen in this episode (as the incredible moment at the station).
Poorly conceived, poorly developed.
One of the things the old "MacGyver" had is that our hero found himself in the middle of a situation without having expected to: he goes to visit some friends and their oil drilling venture becomes an inferno, he goes on a walk to Asia and gets entangled with some drug dealers, he is going fishing and ends up being kidnapped... This new MacGyver with his endless missions of extracting agents or similar has close to zero originality. And we are only 5 episodes in.
This time they have to protect a woman that has some information very very important. So important that the 'bad people' trying to get her will do anything to kill her, even jump on a train from a helicopter and go around the wagons with guns on their hands... which makes no passenger raise their eyebrows in surprise.
It is not only that the idea is once again the same. It is not that MacGyver doesn't really do anything, and that Jack with his gun is more of a problem than a plus. It is also that it seems Europeans (or Germans) are all OK with people running around trains shooting, with hands on their hands, punching, tasering... First, arms are not so common in Europe (I have only seen army people, policemen or similar carrying them in my times there). Second, it is an insult to the viewer expect them to believe that no one would raise the alarm or try to stop the train with all that is going on that train. Here, though, everyone keeps sleeping through the fights (well, a couple look a little bit surprised). It is too much of suspension of disbelief. And that is just a small example of too many that happen in this episode (as the incredible moment at the station).
Poorly conceived, poorly developed.
So many wrong things in one episode
prefec12 November 2016
Warning: Spoilers
This was the worst episode of the new MG series so far. First, there are plot holes, like getting to Berlin in no time (it is a least an 14 hour flight). Trains look totally different in Germany than those portrait in the episode. This includes night trains (which are usually normal trains). In addition trains go at least 160 km/h (or faster trains 250 km/h) on the route from Berlin to Frankfurt. Also these trains are electric using overhead lines. You cannot land on the roof of such train with any kind of special forces. The train is too fast and the cables would kill you in seconds. It is also impossible to get inside while the train is running. The doors are locked.
Second, the train station "Frankfurt" looks like a smaller US station and not at all like any German or European train station. And nowadays they have police there, with guns. If you start shooting, they will stop you.
Third, there is no clackidy-clack from the wheels, no luggage car, no room with cleaning stuff.
Fourth, you cannot accelerate trains to let them crash. They would run over a red signal and be automatically stopped. Also you need at least one person holding down a safety pedal in the locomotive and release it every 30 sec. In addition there are special derailment elements to stop trains in case it becomes necessary.
Please writers/producers if you cannot afford to roll in Germany, use planes. You can fly from Berlin to Frankfurt.
Second, the train station "Frankfurt" looks like a smaller US station and not at all like any German or European train station. And nowadays they have police there, with guns. If you start shooting, they will stop you.
Third, there is no clackidy-clack from the wheels, no luggage car, no room with cleaning stuff.
Fourth, you cannot accelerate trains to let them crash. They would run over a red signal and be automatically stopped. Also you need at least one person holding down a safety pedal in the locomotive and release it every 30 sec. In addition there are special derailment elements to stop trains in case it becomes necessary.
Please writers/producers if you cannot afford to roll in Germany, use planes. You can fly from Berlin to Frankfurt.
The tech isn't getting better, neither is the acting or fight sequences
shamimislam-6699315 November 2016
Warning: Spoilers
I'm not going to list everything that went wrong this week.
I'm sad at the train wreck this show has become.
Even while on a train where you shouldn't be able to mess up, they have.
The ability to track the bad guys on the roof with cell phones? What cell phones? The fact that they heard them on the roof? How? The search pattern is wrong for a group of trained mercs.
The team gets away too easily.
And the storyline is too predictable.
And la piece de resistance: MacGyver survives by swapping high voltage cables on a speeding train and even if that worked, survives unsinged from the massive amounts of heat and sparks from the reversal of the wheels while breaking (which supposedly doesn't derail a speeding train, when the wheels are moving at full speed).
Ugh.
I'm sad at the train wreck this show has become.
Even while on a train where you shouldn't be able to mess up, they have.
The ability to track the bad guys on the roof with cell phones? What cell phones? The fact that they heard them on the roof? How? The search pattern is wrong for a group of trained mercs.
The team gets away too easily.
And the storyline is too predictable.
And la piece de resistance: MacGyver survives by swapping high voltage cables on a speeding train and even if that worked, survives unsinged from the massive amounts of heat and sparks from the reversal of the wheels while breaking (which supposedly doesn't derail a speeding train, when the wheels are moving at full speed).
Ugh.
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