Same set, different season by Gord Lacey (All reviews)
8/31/2005
Get ready for good, old-fashioned adventure. Richard Dean Anderson stars as Angus MacGyver - the legendary secret agent whose wits are his most trustworthy weapon. MacGyver is a one-man unarmed force who can find his way out of any danger using only everyday items he's picked up along the way.
The third season of MacGyver finds him doing what he does best - confronting dangerous foes, overcoming unbelievable odds, and rescuing innocent victims. It's all in a day's adventure for MacGyver.
This 5 disc set comes in 2 double-slim cases, and one single case with a cardboard slipcase. The whole season takes up about an inch of shelf space.
Disc 1 (3:08:29)
Lost Love (Part 1) (47:20)
Lost Love (Part 2) (47:21)
Back From the Dead (47:11)
Ghost Ship (46:37)
Disc 2 (3:08:10)
Fire and Ice (47:23)
GX-1 (46:50)
Jack in the Box (46:57)
The Widowmaker (47:00)
Disc 3 (3:07:51)
Hell Week (46:51)
Blow Out (46:41)
Kill Zone (46:58)
Early Retirement (47:21)
Disc 4 (3:07:58)
Thin Ice (47:09)
The Odd Triple (47:15)
The Negotiator (46:24)
The Spoilers (47:10)
Disc 5 (3:07:09)
Mask of the Wolf (46:46)
Rock the Cradle (46:42)
The Endangered (47:09)
Murderer's Sky (46:32)
Video
The quality of season 3 is a bit better than season 2, so I bumped the mark up 1. There's still noise in the image, but it's not as bad as the previous sets. The picture is dark, especially in dimly lit scenes, so characters blend into the shadows. Chapters are placed after the opening of each episode, but the discs lack a "play all" feature.
Audio
The third season of MacGyver is the first to feature a stereo audio track (it's noted on the package as well). The audio track is decent, and there are a few directional effects. I had to laugh at some of the obvious looping bits; it's not a problem with the DVD set, but it's nice to see how far we've come with the audio recordings of current shows. There aren't any subtitles, but the episodes are captioned.
Trailers (6:33)
While not the most exciting extra, Paramount has included some trailers for other releases on the set.
Summary
I'm not sure what to add here; there are so few differences between the MacGyver sets. The episodes change, the number on the packaging changes, but the content is pretty much the same. It's hard to get excited over sets when this is the third season, and we have yet to see any extras. Paramount doesn't understand that fans buy the sets for the episodes, but it's the extras they talk about. Three months from now you won't find anything mentioned about this set, but sets with awesome extras (24 Season 2) are mentioned a few years after they've been released. And that's the thought I'll leave you with...
