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ORIGINAL AIRDATE: April 30th, 1986 —
MacGyver learns the hard way that, in Soviet Russia, Cuckoo’s Nest flies over you
MISSION: Pete flies off to Russia to evacuate the daughter of a recently assassinated anti-government activist, only to learn her father is alive and captive in an asylum for political prisoners. Pete and Mac pose as doctor and patient to infiltrate the asylum and break the activist out.
This week’s highlights include:
Here’s a link to the Mythbusters filament lockpicking test.
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (History)
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian novelist, historian, and critic of Soviet totalitarianism. He helped to raise global awareness of the gulag and the Soviet Union’s forced labor camp system. While his writings were long suppressed in the USSR, he wrote many books, most notably The Gulag Archipelago, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, August 1914 and Cancer Ward. Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970, “for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature”. He was expelled from the Soviet Union in 1974 but returned to Russia in 1994 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Check out the article on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn
Watch S1E21: “A Prisoner of Conscience” on CBS’s website or check the alternative streamability of this episode here.
The boat chase scene was spectacular. On first watch I thought there was another trio pursuing in a third boat as they show people who don’t look like any of those who boarded, for example, there’s a guy in a chequered jacket but in a yellow and black and not MacGyver’s red and black one, and a bald guy but with a very obvious moustache instead of Pete’s hat.
Regarding to what Patrick said about his daughter feeling comfortable swaddled, I remember reading that this could be because something all the way around them reminds them of being inside. One of the benefits of babywearing too.
In the Mythbusters lightbulb-filaments lockpicking, preparations (44s) and the actual lock picking (8s) took both MacGyver and Adam 52 seconds, the 50 minutes of the Mythbusters’ time were taken up by failed picking attempts of which MacGyver had none!