MacGyver's Alive?!

This week, I have mostly been watching:


MacGyver and the lost treasure of Atlantis.

This is the best film that has ever been made. It has many features which mark it out as a classic that should be enjoyed by all concerned, including:

1. MacGyver
2. Brian Blessed.
3. Many parts of it are set in England
4. Other parts of it are filmed in England but are claimed to be somewhere else.

Here is one of my favourite scenes:



The camera pans up on what is obviously Battersea power station [obsessive classic rock fans: cross ref to Pink Floyd's 'Animals']. But wait! It's actually playing a role in this film as...


An outpost in a non-specific Balkan war!

OK, onto the plot. Several years after his TV show finished, MacGyver is back again, this time to help Brian Blessed shout his way to the Lost Treasure of Atlantis. We discover that MacGyver is actually an ABD archaeology student, which allows the film to basically retread lots of familiar Indiana Jones ground (including several instances of the precious object which, when removed, causes a trap to be triggered). Instead of snakes, MacGyver appears to be frightened of spiders.

There is also the love interest, in the form of a lecturer at "London University":



Which, to those in the know, is really Royal Holloway with a sign stuck in front saying "London University". More on Royal Holloway when I get round to it in a later post, and also remind me to dig out my favourite episode of Alias which involves a trip to "Oxford University".

Referring to "London University" is almost accurate, since Royal Holloway is one of the constituent colleges of the somewhat notional University of London. However, it quickly becomes apparent that the scriptwriter isn't too bothered with notions of accuracy or research, since "Prof Carson" has recently received her "tenure" and is considering a career change. [Note to international readers: the UK doesn't have tenure. Or a London University, at least not in the sense that you would think we do. And we call university faculty "Lecturers", not "Professors".

The plot is the typical traps and treasure, trickery and double-cross that you'd expect from anything of this nature. At the risk of spoiling the ending, the best line of the whole movie has to be Blessed shouting (of course) "The Treasure of Atlantis is... Knowledge!". Although, it has to be pointed out that, as the lost temple of atlantis disappears back into the volcano five minutes from the end, that although MacGyver and crew do escape unblemished, the treasure does disappear again sinking into the heart of the volcano, perhaps lost forever this time. Also, isn't it a little concerning that MacGyver pushes the bad guy into a vat of boiling water to his certain death? Seems a little bit out of character.

Overall, this is a great film. I would give it five stars out of five.

This just fills me with curiousity for the almost certainly cancelled before it even got out the box effort of Young MacGuyver [looks like it has never been shown, but there must be some internet bootlegs of it out there somewhere?

I'm still also desperate to see any episodes of Days Like These, the word-for-word copy of That Seventies Show, set in England and described by its own fan page as possibly being "Britain's Worst Ever Sitcom".