- ⧽ I'm starting to take a liking to MacGyver fandom . . . Never a dull moment. Lots of variety in missions.
- —Agent Allison Carter (DMS - Rare Fandoms), "Macthology"
"Well, when it comes down to me against a situation, I don't like the situation to win."
—MacGyver
MacGyver is a U.S. action/adventure TV series, starring Richard Dean Anderson in the lead role of Angus MacGyver, a secret agent excellent at whipping up inventions from things that are actually fairly useless.
It is generally covered by the Sub-Department of Rare Fandoms in those instances where the series and characters catch a Sue's eyes.
The Canon[]
MacGyver has two separate continua:
- The original 1985–1992 series, with two spin-off movies and a 2012–2013 comic series in the same continuity.
- A rebooted series, with a younger version of MacGyver, that began airing in 2016.
MacGyver serves as a secret agent for the Phoenix Foundation, a government think tank with a wide variety of environmental, military and social projects. MacGyver serves as an all-purpose field agent, thanks to his many practical talents and familiarity in various scientific skills. He is famous for escaping dire situations by using mundane objects—particularly Swiss Army knives and duct tape—to produce a physics- or chemistry-based solution under a short time limit. He finds guns distasteful, and prefers to find ways to incapacitate threats non-fatally, and only in self defense.
MacGyver's fan-favorite recurring villain is Murdoc, an assassin who enjoys disguises and booby traps. MacGyver is the only one ever able to thwart Murdoc's plans, leading to a dangerous rivalry.
As a Verb[]
He's disarming that bomb. With a paperclip. This was the first episode.
As a verb, "to MacGyver" means to create or do something by using fairly common materials in a creative way.
While in Headquarters, agents are generally encouraged to leave the creation of inventions to the Department of Sufficiently Advanced Technology and discouraged from MacGyvering, since they have a tendency of doing this to facilitate their own bad ideas. That, and things tend to explode when most agents try it, and it's a real headache for the Janitorial Division.
In the field, on the other hand, creativity is often the biggest asset the average agent has at her disposal, and MacGyvering up a way out of a tricky situation can mean the difference between a dead badfic and a dead pair of agents. Of course, agents are generally constrained to obey the local laws of physics, but if these are warped enough by badfic, well, anything can happen. Invisible yarn, anyone?
In Badfic[]
There are two agents active in this fandom, Steve Holmes and Allison Carter. There's not much for them to do, seeing as they've only been on five missions, only two of which contained an actual Sue. The mullet must be keeping the Sues at bay.
Missions in this Continuum[]
- Agents Allison Carter and Steve Holmes (DMS - Rare Fandoms)