Hellfire (27 Nov. 1985)

MacGyver visits some friends who are are drilling for oil. Their oil well catches fire and burns out of control. MacGyver is the only one who can stop the fire and save his friends' oil strike.

Director:

Richard A. Colla

Writers:

Lee David Zlotoff (creator), Stephen Kandel (teleplay),

Stars:

Richard Dean Anderson, Cooper Huckabee, Nana Visitor

Cast

Episode cast overview:
Richard Dean Anderson	...	MacGyver
Cooper Huckabee	...	Bill Farren
Nana Visitor	...	Laura Farren
Rudy Ramos	...	Pete Torgut

Storyline

During a trip to visit some friends, an accident starts a fire in an oil-well owned by MacGyver's friends. MacGyver and his buddy then go to fetch dynamite in an abandoned mine at great peril to themselves after they decide the dynamite is the only feasible way the fire can be put out. However, when they use it, the fire only becomes more intense. Can MacGyver and his Hellfire friend survive the incredible heat to put out the fire and save the oil buried underneath the well...?

---

Genres:

Action | Adventure | Crime | Drama

---

Details

Release Date:

27 November 1985 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Did You Know?

Goofs

A highway or major road can be seen in the background of land that's supposed to be so isolated that Mac had to be flown in by helicopter.

---

Quotes

Bill Farren: You know, back in the 1920's, they used to truck nitro out to the fields.
MacGyver: Yeah?
Bill Farren: Yeah
MacGyver: They used to call that a suicide run, didn't they?

User Reviews

Wages of Fear rip-off

These early MacGyver stories are interesting in the sense that the show has yet to find its characteristic style. MacGyver does not work for the Phoenix Foundation - he's either a freelancer or part of some government agency. He acts like James Bond (in "The Heist" he even says, "Bond, James Bond.") - he's a ladies' man who flirts and scores with them ("The Gauntlet"). Of his classic characteristics only the unwillingness to take a life and the ability to improvise in tight spots are present. As a MacGyver episode, this is pretty good, because it's not formulaic, but then again, it is a rip-off of Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 IMDb Top 250 classic Le Salaire de la peur a.k.a. Wages of Fear, which is based on Georges Arnaud's novel. Well, they do say, "If you steal, steal from the best"... Even the dialogue hints vaguely at the movie and its 1977 William Friedkin remake Sorcerer. The problem is, only the middle part that recycles Clouzot's movie's plot is actually exciting - the finale just does not have the same sense of peril. The whole is an above-the-average episode that does have one remarkable treat: a pre-Star Trek: Deep Space Nine appearance by the smokingly hot Nana Visitor, and it's just the first of two: she would later play a different role in #2.21 "D.O.A.: MacGyver". So much for continuity...