I was going to mention these. I’m sorry but I don’t care how slick and flashy you make everything look, that is NOT MacGyver! It’s just not. Just put someone else’s name on it and make it a new show because that’s what it is, whether they’re willing to admit it or not. If you have to change everything about the show except for the names, then, it’s not the same show.
Also, in my opinion, there’s a huge mistake in remaking TV shows based around one main character. Richard Dean Anderson is MacGyver and that means the show is about him. Tom Selleck is Magnum and so putting someone else in that same role is just not right.
Yeah, to some extent, I tend to agree. Five-0 worked because it was an ensemble cast the first time (and I enjoyed the Jack Lord series too). MacGyver and Magnum were single character shows. Lenkov tried to turn them into ensembles and it backfired.
Magnum could almost be a good show if Lenkov would drop the damned forced sexual tension between Magnum and Higgins. As soon as I heard he had cast Perdita Weeks as the new Higgins, I knew the show was in trouble. What made the original relationship work was that Magnum and Higgins were both vets, separated by a generation, who fought in vastly different wars. That shared experience brought so much to the table that is lacking now.
MacGyver was a lost cause from the beginning. Lucas Till was waaaayyyyy too young to be taken seriously in the role. George Eads was good as a mentor-type, but the idea of Jack Dalton as a mentor was odd. Then he left and things just got worse. Justin Hines character was badly conceived from the off. He served no purpose, and trying to force the character into the plots was painful.
I only gave it a couple of tries before I bowed out, but yes, the idea that Jack Dalton is a mentor just solidifies that this is not MacGyver. Jack’s whole persona was that of a guy who was one step above a two-bit con artist who could never quite be trusted but was still a friend anyway.
The problem is that I loved MacGyver. It should not have been remade. It was a product of the Cold War and in order to “make it work” as a modern show, everything had to be changed about it. So what’s the point? If they’re banking on the nostalgia factor, I think they probably failed miserably.
I stuck with it until Eads left, hoping that things would improve (have I mentioned I love Five-0?) so Lenkov had a track record for making a good show.
There was a fun sort of campiness to the original that was missing from this version. It was like all of the humor had been sucked from the room. Part of that was certainly down to Rick. The man could charm Eskimos into buying ice cubes. None of the modern cast had that level of charisma.
Also “pointless to remake without the original actor” show was Kolchak: The Night Stalker. Darren McGavin was so central to the show’s feel and success, you were never going to replicate it with anyone else.
That was so stupid I still can’t believe they did it. Not a remake but a prequel, but I think the same about “Young Hyacinth”. Only Patricia Routledge could play Hyacinth Bucket (Bouquet).
Astronema was looking for new enemies to fight the Rangers and found out about the Turtles, and decided maybe the best way to kill heroes was with more heroes so she captured and brainwashed them to fight the Rangers. At first the Turtles didn’t believe the Rangers existed at all, despite the fact Earth had been attacked by countless aliens and monsters and the fact previous Rangers were on Network TV being interviewed!
I didn’t watch the remake of V, kind of assumed it sucked, but maybe it didn’t. After the all, the Battlestar remake was better than the original series (at least until the end).
And I’m probably in the minority, but I actually liked the Danger Mouse reboot. I can see where a lot of Brits would have hated it, though.
