![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
100 days of enemy recs: 7. MacGyver
MacGyver was a 1980s TV show in which a young Richard Dean Anderson was very competent and solved problems. I think he was sort of a consulting secret agent, the way Holmes was a consulting detective? He worked for a place called the Phoenix Foundation and was sent around the world to, like, help people who were being menaced. But don't worry even on his days off he still ended up in situation where he had to be very competent and solve problems.
I actually did watch a considerable amount of this show in reruns in the late aughties! I never did get more than a very vague idea of the setup or, indeed, anything except a very young RDA being ludicrously competent at everything and making the world better. It was one of those shows from back when every episode had to stand alone and they didn't have to make everything part of a giant mytharc where you have to have just binged the previous six seasons to know what's going on - instead, nobody expected you to ever know what was going on, and that was fine, just watch RDA be competent and pretty. (Am I the only one who misses those days?) You had to catch certain very specific episodes if you wanted any kind of backstory or character arc, and I think I missed most of them. The theme music was very good, it was my ringtone for awhile, and RDA was very competent and determined and ethical and pretty.
(There was also a reboot? That ran six seasons and only just ended? I know zilch about it. It does not seem to have made much of a splash.)
There isn't a ton of fanfic for it and I have read even less, but a lot of what exists is MacGyver/Murdoc. Don't ask me to remember anything about Murdoc either - he's some kind of recurring antagonist? An assassin? Works for the bad guys?
Anyway there is one M/M fic that's on my "never lose track of" list. I don't know that it's "good" by today's standards but sometimes you just want a really good oldfashioned h/c amnesiafic enemyslash extreme whump wallow, right? And this one is the best at being what it is. So only one link today. It's on insanejournal!
...hey, the first fandom on this list where I didn't have a tag!
I actually did watch a considerable amount of this show in reruns in the late aughties! I never did get more than a very vague idea of the setup or, indeed, anything except a very young RDA being ludicrously competent at everything and making the world better. It was one of those shows from back when every episode had to stand alone and they didn't have to make everything part of a giant mytharc where you have to have just binged the previous six seasons to know what's going on - instead, nobody expected you to ever know what was going on, and that was fine, just watch RDA be competent and pretty. (Am I the only one who misses those days?) You had to catch certain very specific episodes if you wanted any kind of backstory or character arc, and I think I missed most of them. The theme music was very good, it was my ringtone for awhile, and RDA was very competent and determined and ethical and pretty.
(There was also a reboot? That ran six seasons and only just ended? I know zilch about it. It does not seem to have made much of a splash.)
There isn't a ton of fanfic for it and I have read even less, but a lot of what exists is MacGyver/Murdoc. Don't ask me to remember anything about Murdoc either - he's some kind of recurring antagonist? An assassin? Works for the bad guys?
Anyway there is one M/M fic that's on my "never lose track of" list. I don't know that it's "good" by today's standards but sometimes you just want a really good oldfashioned h/c amnesiafic enemyslash extreme whump wallow, right? And this one is the best at being what it is. So only one link today. It's on insanejournal!
- Oh My Enemy by
![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
janecarnall
21 chapters, MacGyver/Murdoc, explicit, needs Archive warnings for probably violence and torture and dubcon? Suicidal ideation. etc.
Murdoc is released from the hospital, still partially disabled by his injuries, with no memory at all and his only link to his past and his identity the person who paid his hospitals bills: one Angus MacGyver, who must care a lot about him to do that for him. But when Murdoc shows up on MacGyver's doorstop, almost out of money and barely able to walk, MacGyver isn't acting like somebody who cares about him...
(Note: if you follow the links on the chapters, they sometimes go back to a deleted LJ; keep clicking back to the memories linked in the rec and you can read it all.)
...hey, the first fandom on this list where I didn't have a tag!
no subject
no subject
no subject
I watched Macgyver faithfully week in and week out, as much as I could (part of the time we were in Europe and only got the syndicated episodes on Armed Forces Network, so I think I missed like one season? when we moved back stateside.) I always had the feeling that the Phoenix Foundation was an environmental foundation of some kind, at least to start off with. And, yes, Murdoc was definitely a villain. Also, Mac was very against guns. He never used them, even when he came across them or took them from bad-guys, mostly he just emptied the bullets out and threw them in the nearest body of water (or similar). We didn't find out Mac's first name until the very last episode and it was A Thing. Teri Hatcher reoccurred as Penny Parker, so it was fun watching her career grow. Also, in the first(?) episode of Stargate SG1 Sam makes a joke about MacGyvering something.
no subject
Murdoc was definitely a villain but I have no memory of how or why he was a villain or who or what he was working for.
One thing I really liked about Mac is that it was central to his character that he was principled. And the show wasn't all that interested in testing his principles or making him wrestle with them (unlike, say, a show about a certain other Mac) - 90% of the time, he made sticking to his principles look as easy as defeating the bad guys with nothing but a paperclip and a stick of gum.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
first meeting flashbacks:
Mac is driving Jack's cab, filling in for whatever boneheaded reason Jack gave him. i think Pete hops into the cab and has Mac chase 'that woman' (Murdoc in disguise). Or whatever - something happens and they end up following Murdoc together and Mac foils Murdoc's plans.
episode main plot:
each of the 3 guys gets an invitation to meet at the junkyard and bring specific items with them. Peter and Mac think Jack set it up until they start going through the stuff in Jack's old cab that is still sitting in the junkyard (apparently 7 yrs later). Jack is late showing, but apparently Murdoc doesn't care - b/c he hauls the cab w/ Mac and Pete inside off to the middle of nowhere where he plans to blow them up.
obviously Murdoc's had a brainfart and has forgotten that MacGyver could get out of being sealed in concrete with a piece of fishing line and a bottle of bubbles, b/c Mac gets them out and then Murdoc blows his own self up when he drops his bundle o' dynamite.
then Jack bebops in all late with some flowers like 'hey guys!' and Mac and Pete make this face :/
no subject
Murdoc is an assassin working for an organization known as H.I.T. - Homicide International Trust. his bosses get a little grumpy that he can't seem to complete his 'contract' to take out MacGyver - no idea when this was initially put out, that's not mentioned.
whenever they wanted to 'test' Mac's principles, they would bonk him on the head and give him amnesia. as a result, his 'basic' instincts would always come up and make him just do v MacGyver-y things. the poor man, in the real world, would have some serious traumatic brain injury going on.
no subject
From what I remember, the fandom was mostly gen (with a little het), but what slash there was, was mostly Mac/Murdoc, with Mac/Jack very much a rare pairing. I like buddy slash more than enemy slash, and remember looking for Mac/Jack but only finding slash with Murdoc. I also remember a couple of Mac/Murdoc zines being advertised but none for Mac/Jack.
no subject
also - i think this is the only Mac/Murdoc fic i've ever read... and it exists on my kindle b/c i dl'd it - i think to finish reading it while traveling.
there was a reboot - it was not good. =( the actor they picked for Mac was fine and could've done really well if the writing/concept/whatever hadn't been.... just.... bad. i only managed like 3 episodes before i had to give up. also - RDA *loathed* the reboot and refused to go anywhere near it from my understanding.
no subject
no subject
The problem wasn't the gadgets, the problem on the reboot was that it was CBS's stock "More explosions, sexiness, and dubious ethics". It lost all of the soul of the original.
no subject
there WAS a follow-on several years ago called 'Young MacGyver' w/ Jared Padelecki as the new MacGyver. it.... was not good. JP was fine - the writing was traaaaaaaash. but it was at least trying to keep the 'faith' of the show.
no subject
All of CBS's reboots have been...hit or miss. Magnum PI actually did some decent things, and the original flavor FBI is decent as CBS cop shows go, and I've heard good things about SWAT if you can deal with the genre. And well, H50, for the first few seasons before the shark got jumped. But some of the reboots have been bad. Very. Very. Bad.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Yeah Murdoc was a recurring villain who did some truly reprehensible things to Macgyver and his family, which makes the enemy slash a very hard sell. But this story did sell it.
no subject
If I watched any of the Murdoc episodes they weren't the ones where truly reprehensible things happened. But I almost think this fic works better if you go in not knowing any more than Murdoc, (as long as you're willing to trust the genre to get where it's going!) Mac comes off really badly in the first few chapters if you don't know the backstory, and then you slowly figure out what's going on and start to actually like him alongside the POV.
(It's interesting to compare this pairing to Mulder/Krycek, where he also did many truly reprehensible things to Mulder's friends and family but it was all very much more complicated and gray.)
no subject
no subject
no subject