I rewatched a few bits of the beginning of season 3 MacGyver yesterday, and was reminded of some terrible crimes against television. Not that I don't love the series – I get a kick out of its adorable terribleness. But sometimes it leaves me gob-smacked.

 

(I'm sure this has been discussed before, elsewhere – but I haven't, so nyer.) 

Firstly, there was the season opening two-parter. Mac's former girlfriend turns up (this happens a lot: apparently Mac's love-life reflects RDA's). He'd thought she was dead, turns out she's actually alive and well, OMG it was all a plot, she was a Russian agent ordered to attract him, angst, drama, motorbike chases, she reveals she does love him after all... All that's fine (if hugely silly), UNTIL: at the end, she gets shot in the back, dies in his arms, and – very next scene, same shirt, same day, patently a very short time later – he's chuckling and joking for the traditional upbeat ending. 

What? What? His girlfriend - the woman he's angsted about for two episodes, the woman he once asked to marry him (seen in flashback, and my god that was a horrible vest) - has just died in his arms. And he's joking around about the price of priceless jade dragon artifacts. When his pal remarks that they nearly got killed for said artifact, Mac tells him to relax. WTF? 

Perhaps he's in denial. Or shock. Or someone hit him on the head and he's got amnesia.

 

And then, to add insult to injury, the same actress turns up, three episodes later, as Nicky Carpenter – a new main character. Apparently someone thought we wouldn't notice that it's the same damn woman, with a different accent and a haircut.

 

All that was nuts. But by far the worst crime is this:

 

 

Quite possibly the most heinous outfit ever worn by RDA  on television  by a human being.