Lucas Till finished promoting the release of Son of the South in Europe. Meanwhile, Levy Tran has arrived in Europe to start filming an action movie.
(For daily news and to join the discussion, you can find me on Twitter and on the MacGyverOnline Forums.)
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What are Cast and Crew up to?
Lucas Till had been on promo tour in Europe for his movie Son of the South, but some interviews are just being released now. Watch a 20-minute-interview done in Berlin here.
After his return to the US, Lucas sort of disappeared again. We did get a new sighting in Atlanta on September 25, thanks to Stefano Smith (who had been a set medic on MacGyver for several seasons). On Wednesday, he visited a football game (of the team that is coached by his cousin Bryan).
Levy Tran has been cast in Expendables 4. We don’t know yet how big her part will be, but the Expendables franchise is a big international success and might get her cast in other action-heavy movie roles. She already arrived in London; posting several photos of visiting the British Museum and doing some sightseeing.
ICYMI: Tristin Mays has been filming a production with pirates, dancing and singing. The production is called “Master of the House”, but there’s not much information about it.
Otherwise, there’s no casting news to write about. Justin Hires keeps doing stand-up-comedy-shows; e.g. in Hollywood. Henry Ian Cusick will visit Comic Con Liverpool next month.
The #SaveMacGyver Movement
For MacGyver Con, a total of 5500 USD was raised for charity. Well done, everyone!
On September 23, fans celebrated the 5-year-anniversary of the premiere of the MacGyver Reboot; posting old BtS material and remembering how they met new friends online due to the show.
The official SaveMacGyver website gets updated regularly; so check here to keep up with news.
CBS Fall TV Season Ratings
Fall Season on CBS started on September 20. So far, 15 shows have premiered. Since last Friday, MacGyver‘s previous time slot is occupied by SWAT.
Lets take a look at the average ratings of the Friday Line-Up. Why is this of interest for us? Simply put: A network cares about money. The better MacGyver looks in comparison to the current schedule, in streaming numbers and in syndication, the more appealing the show looks to CBS; even in hindsight. They might try to squeeze out a few more bucks by selling the rights.
Of course, they only aired one episode each so far, but the Friday schedule on CBS has a tendency to achieve stable ratings over the season so there won’t be many ups and downs over the next few months.
- SWAT (Friday, 8pm) has moved from Wednesdays 10pm to make room for the revival of CSI: Vegas. The show premiered with a demo of 0.42 in the important demo group of 18 to 49 year olds and 4.859 million live-viewers.
Verdict: Last year, SWAT premiered in November with a demo of 0.44 and only 2.75 million live-viewers. Its fate will depend on the co-producing network. But considering it had an average of 3 million live-viewers per episode last season and therefore a whopping gain of 53% in audience with the premiere this season, it might end up being the winner of the Friday line-up if the show manages to keep these numbers steady.
- Magnum PI (Friday, 9pm) premiered with a series low; reaching a demo of 0.39 (-25% compared to last year) and a live-audience of 5.226 million live-viewers.
Verdict: While the demo in premiere week was the lowest of all CBS shows, it still managed a rather good audience number.
Since it’s a co-production, it might depend on how long NBCU is willing to pay for it. Even if renewed, it could lose its time slot next season.
- Veteran show Blue Bloods (Friday, 10pm) premiered with a demo of 0.45 (-15%) and a live-audience of 6.297 million viewers. Like lasth year, it does meh for demo, but good in audience numbers.
Verdict: The live-audience loss compared to last season is marginal. Blue Bloods is old and expensive, but it has international and syndication deals in place.
The live-viewers numbers probably aren’t as important anymore since it’s still bringing in a lot of money.
Other MacGyver-related News
The Reboot is in syndication now; airing double reruns on CW26 (Chicago area) on Saturdays (5-7pm local time) or on CBS (WGCL) Atlanta (12-2am).
Son of the South won an audience award (Prix du public long métrage) at the “Festival International du Film de Fiction Historique” in Toulouse, France. The DVD was released last month in German-speaking regions. Contrary to the US version, the DVD contains about 45 minutes of bonus material; including an interview with Lucas done remotely a few months ago.
ICYMI: Ex-Showrunner Peter Lenkov participated in Episode 14 of the Podcast The Working Writer. About 38 minutes in, he talks about the MacGyver Reboot; mainly about the Unaired Pilot.
The Houston premiere for the second production of the MacGyver The Musical has been set for February 2022. You can check the dates and book tickets here.
Other MacGyver-related news in recent weeks you might have missed:
- CBS will release a BluRay boxset of OG MacGyver on November 2. The TV movies will be included, but there will be no extras. You can read up on all information here.
- It looks like the cinematic release of Son of the South in France has been pushed to March 16 next year.
- Another production of the MacGyver The Musical is planned for May 2022. The location isn’t known yet.
Dashboard On Fire 