There was a new cowboy in Dallas, and he wasn’t throwing touchdown passes. But Walker was almost gone before he could really get started. After just four episodes, the show’s production company suffered financial collapse, and the show was rescued at the last minute by CBS Productions, who would continue to run the show for its nearly decade-long run. For nine years Norris brought us the ultimate Texas Ranger in a formula cops-and-robbers show. The show often became a parody of itself, but maintained a solid viewership throughout. Hell, Norris even sings the theme song. Truthfully, what started as a one-man show (it was originally called Chuck Norris Is Walker, Texas Ranger) had become a good working ensemble that probably kept the train going for so long. Walker (Norris) is a tough-guy Texas Ranger. He is partnered with Sydney Cooke (Peebles) and Jimmy Trivetti (Gilyard) who’s an ex-jock with a brain. Walker had a love interest and eventual wife in the local assistant district attorney Alex Cahill (later Walker) Together they fight the evils that come to the high plains of Texas armed with their fists, six-shooters, and Stetsons.

Fans of Norris were never disappointed in what they got here. The requisite martial arts and tough-guy talk are present pretty much in every episode. There’s a popular T-shirt design that lauds their hero in epic fashion. One of my favorites is : “McGyver can build a plane out of gum and paper clips, but Chuck Norris can kill him and take the plane.”  Another brags: “Some people wear Superman pajamas. Superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas”. And there’s the humorous: “Chuck Norris knows what Willis is talkin’ about”.

MacGyver (v) To act in an extremely resourceful manner. To utilize everyday items in unconventional ways to achieve a difficult task. I predict it will not be long before you can open your trusty copy of Webster’s and find this character has officially entered our lexicon. There is little doubt but that it is an unofficial part of it now. Crossing over from the realm of pop culture and into our language is a phenomenal achievement for a television show.

I came to the MacGyver party rather late. Like everyone else on the planet, I was certainly aware of the show and the clever abilities of the lead character. Still, with so many other shows to watch, I never saw a complete episode. Then came Stargate SG-1. This was another series I at first avoided. I thought the original film was OK, but nothing I’d care to see week in and week out. One day while my wife was taking our neighbor’s dog to the vet I was bored and sat down to an episode on Showtime. I was hooked, not only on the series, but the characters, along with their alter-ego actors. Richard Dean Anderson I found most compelling. I must admit to confusing him at first with the Richard Anderson of The Six Million Dollar Man fame (Oscar). Finally I sat down to some MacGyver on DVD.

This was a peculiar one, I tell you; if I had to compare it to other films, I would put it in league with Napoleon Dynamite or The Good Girl, in regard to the way the story was told. Neither films are ones that I hold in high esteem; however, despite the dreary way that the story dragged on, I still found myself mildly interested in the story progression. Towards the middle, that is, the beginning was a bit of a snore. The majority of the film plays out within a convenience store during the graveyard shift. The main character, Tania, is the only one usually on shift, and we get to see just how boring her shifts can be. Every now and then we are treated to other characters such as the store manager Rog, or Tania’s little brother Pi, or the regional manager Dean, who has come to the store to perform an evaluation of Rog. Tania’s ultimate goal is to save enough money for a trip to Surfer’s, an amusement park, for brother and herself. I credit the character’s dedication to that goal, as it appears to be the driving force behind the plot.

Intertwined between scenes of Tania’s sometimes tedious shifts is her brother’s descent as he falls in with the wrong crowd and starts using drugs. We do not see a great deal of this subplot, and truthfully I believe that to be a mistake. The fact is the brief time spent on this fact is just a sample, enough to pique interest, and I think that a few additional minutes of the runtime should have been devoted to this subplot. The scenes we see make the character unlikeable, because all we see him do is lie, steal, and abuse drugs. The character needed more depth if it was going to resonate with audience. I think a scene showing some inner turmoil, perhaps showing him considering the advice that his sister had given him, would have gone a long way in establishing this character’s likeability.

I feel obligated to say that I somewhat saw the ending for this one coming. Maybe not all the details, but there were some clear signs from the beginning that pointed me in the direction of how the film was going to conclude. However, as I’ve been told some many times in my not-so- long life, it is not about where you end up but how you get there. In the case of this film, the journey is quite the experience. The film opens with a bit of a flash-forward which comes off a bit disorienting at first, because we don’t really know the context for the type of incident which has occurred. Slowly I was able to sort of put the pieces together. A man walking around the apartment was a cop, and he was at the house of the victim familiarizing himself with the details of the crime. The flash-forward doesn’t drag on, which is a plus, given that in truth it wasn’t very interesting, and my interest was beginning to wane. From there we are introduced to our central character, Jacob, although he prefers to go by Nicks (his last name).

A couple things about Nicks become clear very early on: he was a soldier in the United States Army, he has returned home from service, and he is haunted by something that happened to him during his service overseas. Nicks leaves a relatively quiet life; he works the night shift at a theater as a projectionist; he is very enthusiastic about film, as he regularly has film developed at a local establishment, and he frequents a local dinner usually just for coffee. It becomes evident that Nicks doesn’t sleep. In fact throughout the film I don’t believe we ever see him sleep. The one thing Nicks tends to do that strays from the norm is to frequent the same prostitute regularly, it would seem. This appears to be the character’s only relationship of substance, as it is obvious that he desire more from the relationship than just sex.