Television series

MacGyver

Name: MacGyver
Genre: Action, Adventure
Released: 1985
Cast: Richard Dean Anderson, Dana Elcar

MacGyver is the patron saint of duct tape and pocket knives: a laid-back operative who defuses bombs with paperclips and gum instead of guns. Each episode is a puzzle box dressed as action-adventure — big grins, bigger explosions, and a hero whose real superpower is refusing to give up. Pure Saturday-afternoon comfort telly, best watched with your brain half off and your sense of wonder fully on.

TVMaze rating

8.1

If you liked this

Burn Notice2007

Michael Westen is MacGyver's cynical, wisecracking cousin — a burned spy solving problems with chemistry-set improvisation and voiceover explaining exactly how the trick works. Same DIY-genius thrill, sharper jokes, Miami sunshine instead of LA backlots.

But The narration-as-tutorial gimmick gets repetitive by season three, and Michael's smugness wears thinner than Mac's easy charm.

The A-Team1983

Four fugitives building bazookas out of oil drums is basically MacGyver's whole philosophy turned up to eleven, with more mullets and even fewer consequences from all those explosions.

But It's louder, dumber, and less interested in actual science than in watching things blow up real good.

Magnum, P.I.1980

Swap the Swiss Army knife for a red Ferrari and you get the same easy 80s charm: a good-natured hero solving other people's messes in paradise, one raised eyebrow at a time.

But It's a detective show first, an action show second — expect more talking and fewer contraptions built from string.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Connections1978

Burke traces the same delight MacGyver runs on — how ordinary objects and ideas chain together into breakthroughs — except here it's real history, real science, no fictional bomb to defuse by the ad break.

James Burke bounds across centuries showing how the plough leads to the printing press leads to the telephone, with the breathless enthusiasm of a man who just realised how everything connects. Genuinely thrilling nonfiction.

But It's 1978 BBC documentary pacing — talking heads and library footage, not a single explosion in sight.

Quantum Leap1989

Scott Bakula's Sam Beckett fixes a different stranger's life every week using brains, decency, and whatever's lying around a decade he's landed in — MacGyver's moral compass with a sci-fi twist.

But The time-travel logic gets increasingly wobbly, and the tone leans more melancholy than Mac's cheerful can-do energy.

Leverage2008

A crew of thieves using their skills to rescue the little guy from corporate villains — the same non-violent, brains-over-brawn glee, just funnelled into elaborate cons instead of bomb defusals.

But The heists get increasingly implausible, and if you want single-hero simplicity, an ensemble cast might feel diffuse.

Chuck2007

A nerdy Buy More employee gets a spy database downloaded into his brain and has to MacGyver his way through missions with pop-culture trivia instead of engineering degrees. Warm, goofy, genuinely sweet.

But The will-they-won't-they romance takes up more screen time than the spy plots, and the humour is broader than Mac's.

Mythbusters2003no page yet

Real explosions, real duct tape, real people testing whether you actually can escape handcuffs with a paperclip. It's MacGyver's toolkit put through the scientific method, and it's endlessly satisfying.

But No ongoing story, no hero to root for — just two guys and a rotating cast blowing things up for science.

Knight Rider1982no page yet

A talking supercar and a square-jawed hero solving crimes with gadgets and good hair — pure contemporaneous 80s cheese that scratches the same itch as Mac's paperclip fixes.

But KITT does most of the actual problem-solving, which rather undercuts the human-ingenuity thrill that makes MacGyver special.

Airwolf1984no page yet

A stealth helicopter, a mysterious pilot, and week-by-week missions with the same breezy 80s action rhythm — comfort food for anyone who wants more of that decade's confident, low-stakes heroism.

But The plots are thinner and the hero far less inventive; it's the same era's energy without Mac's actual cleverness.

The Great Escape1963

Decades before Mac's paperclips, POWs build tunnelling gear, forge documents, and rig escape tools from spoons and bedsheets — the same ingenuity-under-pressure thrill, but with real stakes and a war's weight behind it.

A true-story-inspired classic where cleverness and nerve matter more than firepower — every improvised tool feels like a small act of defiance against impossible odds. Steve McQueen on a motorcycle doesn't hurt either.

But It's a long, patient film with a somber ending; there's no cheerful theme tune waiting to reassure you everything's fine.

Breaking Bad2008

Same engine as MacGyver — brilliant improvisation, household chemistry, solving impossible problems with what's on hand — except Walter White uses it to build an empire instead of save the day. The gadget-hero, inverted and gone rotten.

Watch a chemistry teacher apply MacGyver-grade ingenuity to entirely the wrong side of the ledger. It's the darkest possible answer to 'what if this cleverness had no moral compass at all?'

But It's bleak, morally corrosive television with none of Mac's reassurance that things work out — if you want comfort viewing, this is the opposite.