Why is this an almost perfect MacGyver?
First, it still has an opening gambit. These didn't last long but they brightened early entries of the show. This one uses footage from the Michael Caine movie FUNERAL IN BERLIN. Well, MacGyver is nothing if not derivative.
Second, it has an arch-foe from his past who wants to play with him before executing him. Too bad Murdoc hadn't been invented. He'd have loved this. But the guy the hired is an acceptable proto-Murdoc.
Third, like a good novel by Alistair McLean, there's treachery within. But I won't expand on that. It keeps the prisoners of the electronics-wizard bad guy guessing. And us.
Fourth, Pete and MacGyver still work for "The Department." Frankly, though I always prefer private enterprise to a meddling government, I always felt the Phoenix Foundation was a bit too goody-goody and definitely too big for its boots.
And finally, this episode provides Angus MacGyver plenty of opportunities to show off his peculiar ingenuity.
I like the character of Angus. He's always polite, always says Sir and Ma'am, and only loses his temper at his friends. I'm the same way.
Oh, the plot. As hinted at above, Angus, Pete, a babe and a woman who's an expert at crytoanalysis are trapped in a "safe house" (actually a mansion with some fine woodwork) while this fellow hired to recover some microfilm MacGyver stole from East Berlin sets his sights on some long, slow revenge. You know, sharks with lasers on their forehead stuff. After all, if he just shot Angus and his pals while he had them under his thumb the episode wouldn't last long and stations across the country airing this would have to go to PSAs.
Oh, and this early on the series the USSR and its satellites, thug regimes who keep control of their people at gunpoint, ostensibly Communist but keeping the people poor and deliberately starving while the heads of state live in luxury, were enemies to be defeated by covert means, since no one really wanted World War III. Later in the show MacGyver and the Phoenix Foundation mollycoddled Soviet leaders under Smiling Jack Gorbachev (too many Americans would buy a used car from that man) and their military while finding enemies in the American military. Phooey.
So, overall, especially if you haven't seen FUNERAL IN BERLIN, this is an almost-perfect MacGyver.
BTW, a small point, but this episode gives an alternate-universe story of how Mac and Pete met. I suppose the true story is still classified by "the Department."
