Season 5 premiered in Germany last week. Meanwhile, CBS has set premiere dates for the upcoming Fall Season.
(For daily news and to join the discussion, you can find me on Twitter and on the MacGyverOnline Forums.)
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What’s going to happen now?
Last week, pieces of the MacGyver wardrobe have been put on sale at the Atlanta Dream Center Church. All proceeds went to local non-profit. Sadly, there was no list and no official photos of the items on sale.
While this hurts the fans, it makes sense from a financial standpoint: It would be too expensive to store and/or move all props and clothes to another location. Even if the show is renewed or gets a follow-up movie, it could be months or years until they go into production; maybe using a different location. It’s still possible that they will be re-using some of the props and clothing for Dynasty, the other CBS show currently in production in Atlanta.
I’ve seen photos of Mailing Avenue Stageworks being used for another production, but I wasn’t able to find out yet which studio is using it.
Last Friday, CBS started airing reality shows Secret Celebrity Renovation (8pm) and Love Island (9pm). This week, CBS revealed their upcoming premiere dates for Fall Season. Interestingly, SWAT will only air 3 episodes on Fridays 8pm before being put on a 6-week-hiatus until December 3rd. Meanwhile, CBS will air reality show The Activist.
While this will probably hurt the ratings for the entire Friday crime/drama line-up, it’s not the worst news for us. After all, the more the Friday schedule flops, the more CBS will miss MacGyver – and maybe reconsider not bringing it back?
What are Cast and Crew up to?
ICYMI: Justin Hires has been doing several great podcast episodes; e.g. with Meredith Eaton (uploaded on April 27), Henry Winkler (June 10), Tristin Mays (June 23), Wendy Raquel Robinson (Bozer’s mom, June 25) and Lucas Till (June 30). They’re all available on his Patreon account.
Here’s a few highlights from the episodes I’ve seen so far:
- Meredith Eaton has been trying to get her own TV show made for about a year now. She wants to write a book and act in more movies.
- Tristin Mays has been taking ballet lessons again (for a potential Flashdance series) and is currently writing a cookbook. She wants to direct, to create her own production company and to create a band (playing electric guitar).
- Justin Hires has been getting offers for auditions, but mostly for the “black best friend” and for reboots – which he doesn’t feel the need to audition for.
- Lucas Till stated that he wants to do more producing (and finally directing) and that he really wants to play a bad guy.
We also got a few new photos of Lucas; e.g. while being on set of the pilot episode for The Spook Who Sat By the Door (posted by Script Supervisor Liliana Molina).
Levy Tran has been working on her martial arts skills and went back to the shooting range. In a recent Instagram post, she revealed that she has been suffering from depression for about half a year. In posts meeting up with her sister and more family and friends, she looks happy. ICYMI: While the project has been listed on IMDb since 2018, it’s been officially announced that she will be the lead actress in “The Silk Road”; a film slated to be filmed next year.
Henry Ian Cusick has some convention appearances scheduled for this and next year.
MacGyver in Germany
On July 8, Season 5 premiered on German Channel Sat.1. They aired two episodes, followed by two episodes of FBI: Most Wanted. Sadly, the ratings were lower than expected.
To Recap: On average, every episode of Season 4 had about 1.3 million viewers last year. That was less than for the other seasons, but not too bad considering the lack of promo and the episodes being available to watch online for free for a week beforehand and a month after airing. Also, MacGyver was followed by a low-rated show (Reef Break) – which was pulled after half of the episodes; replaced by other shows (e.g. Hawaii Five-0).
Episode 5×01 (Resort + Desi + Riley + Window Cleaner + Witness) had 850’000 live-viewers with a market-share of 3.1%, followed by Episode 5×02 (Thief + Painting + Auction + Viro-486 + Justice) with 890’000 live-viewers and a market-share of 3.4%.
The upcoming German Episode Titles:
- 5×03: General Ma (Eclipse + Usmc-1856707 + Step Potential + Chain Lock + Ma)
- 5×04: Gefährliche Erinnerungen (literal translation: Dangerous Memories; Banh Bao + Sterno + Drill + Burner + Mason)
- 5×05: Die Wildnis der Spiegel (The Wilderness of the Mirrors; Jack + Kinematics + Safe Cracker + MgKNO3 + GTO)
- 5×06: Quarantäne (Quarantine; Quarantine + N95 + Landline + Telescope + Social Distance)
- 5×07: Das Gift der Schlange (The venom of the Snake; Golden Lancehead + Venom + Pole Vault + Blood + Baggage)
- 5×08: Operation Harpyie (Operation Harpy; SOS + Hazmat + Ultrasound + Frequency + Malihini)
- 5×09: tba
The #SaveMacGyver Movement
ICYMI: The second edition of digital billboards is up; this time with a Phoenix design with billboards in LA, Baltimore, Phoenix and St. Louis. Also, MacGyver-creator Lee David Zlotoff joined the #SaveMacGyver movement.
As mentioned before: The official website gets updated regularly; so check here to keep up with news.
Other MacGyver-related News
Here’s a short overview of MacGyver-related news in recent weeks you might have missed:
- Ex-Showrunner Peter Lenkov recently did a podcast interview for Dom’s Den; hosted by his friend Domenick Lombardozzi.
- Tristin Mays’ short movie Breathe (2019) has been uploaded onto YouTube by the director.
- Lucas Till’s movie Son of the South will premiere on August 5 in Germany. The DVD/BluRay-Release is set for September 24.
- Swiss TV channel 3+ will start airing Season 5 on August 20 (Friday, 8.15pm), followed by an episode of Season 4.
The Season 4 DVD was released in Australia and New Zealand on July 7. Here’s the DVD release dates for MacGyver Season 4 outside the US:
- August 4 (Japan)
- August 19 (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
Dashboard On Fire 