List of MacGyver characters


There were several recurring characters in the 1985 television series MacGyver and its 2016 reboot.
MacGyvers producers had a tendency to use an actor in multiple roles throughout the series. Several recurring characters were added throughout the series run, appearing as guest-stars in the opening credits.

Overview

Main characters

MacGyver

MacGyver is a troubleshooter who prefers non-violent conflict resolution wherever possible. He refuses to carry or use a gun due to a childhood accident with a revolver that resulted in the death of a friend. MacGyver is an outspoken advocate of gun control, as well as a supporter of environmental preservation, racial equality, and assisting the poor. Even in cases where his improvised devices are used to attack hostile opponents, he is always doing so in self-defense and, if possible, subduing or disabling rather than killing. He is often suspicious of militaristic attitudes within the government; he sees his Phoenix Foundation employer as an alternative to the more conventional means of law enforcement.
In the 2016 reboot, MacGyver is a U.S. operative who works for the Phoenix Foundation, a covert agency operating under the guise of a think tank. Trained as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician for the Army, he prefers to use non-lethal means to stop his enemies. Mac spends the majority of the first and second seasons searching for his father James, who abandoned him as a child shortly after losing his mother. He eventually finds him in the season 2 finale, where he learns James has been watching over him all his life, and is now his boss codenamed 'Oversight'. Unable to work for people he doesn't trust, Angus quits the Phoenix and refuses to rejoin as he cannot trust his father. Maddy convinces James to quit, which leads Angus to rejoin.

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Peter Thornton is MacGyver's boss and best friend. Pete is divorced from Connie Thornton. Pete is an operative at the Department of External Services which is where he is impressed by Mac's ingenuity while tracking down Murdoc, an international assassin. When Pete takes the position of Director of Operations at the Phoenix Foundation several years later, he brings MacGyver into the program. In addition to sending Mac out on various tasks for the Foundation, Pete is many times forced to bail MacGyver out of the trouble he gets into. Pete has a son, Michael, who has always been resentful that he was never around when he was growing up. In the sixth season Thorton begins going blind as a result of glaucoma.
In 2016 reboot, Patricia Thornton is an ex-field agent & director of operations for the Department of External Services and Phoenix Foundation. In the 12th episode, "Screwdriver", she is discovered to be a mole working for the Organization and arrested.

Jack Dalton

In the original series, Jack is an aviator and old friend of MacGyver's with a weakness for get-rich-quick schemes that invariably get both of them into trouble. He always wears a peaked cap and twitches his left eye when lying.
In the 2016 reboot, Jack Dalton is Mac's partner in the field and a former Delta Force soldier and CIA operative. Jack's history with Mac goes back to his days in the Army and unlike Mac, he is not afraid to use guns in the field. He also has history with Riley, because he was once in a relationship with her mother and had an altercation with her abusive father. While mostly easy-going and laid-back, Jack can get serious when the situation calls for it and often calls upon his special forces training to help the team get out of a tight spot.
In the original series, Wilt Bozer is in a handful of episodes: Serenity, The Lost Amadeus, Hearts of Steel, and MacGyver's Women.
In the 2016 reboot, Wilt Bozer is an aspiring filmmaker, prosthetic makeup artist, and MacGyver's best friend and roommate. At first, he doesn't know about MacGyver's real job. Bozer later joins the Phoenix Foundation after discovering MacGyver's secret, and uses his talents to create lifelike masks and facial prosthetics.

Riley Davis

A computer systems expert and skilled hacker recruited by Phoenix Foundation.

Matilda Webber

Matilda "Matty" Webber is the new Director of Operations at Phoenix Foundation and Jack's ex-boss at the CIA. She takes over after Patricia Thornton is outed and arrested.

Samantha Cage

Samantha Cage is a CIA officer and formerly SASR 4th Squadron. After she is discharged from the CIA for her unsanctioned actions to save a MIA SEAL, in the second season premiere, Matty recruits her into the Phoenix Foundation.

Desiree "Desi" Nguyen

Desi Nguyen is the Phoenix Foundation's newest agent, who uses her skills to protect MacGyver and his team on their global missions.

Russell "Russ" Taylor

Russ Taylor is an Ex-MI6 Agent-Turned-Private Military Contractor described as a master manipulator and salesman, Russ is skilled in propaganda and lie detection, and boasts an extremely high emotional intelligence. He is also very wealthy, and thus is used to both getting his way and enjoying the spoils of war.

Recurring characters in both series

Murdoc

Murdoc is MacGyver's most frequent opponent. He is a master assassin who never fails—except when MacGyver gets involved. Murdoc is a master of disguise, as well as highly skilled and creative in the use of booby traps. Murdoc's signature for each hit is to take photographs of his victims at the moment of their deaths. His first appearance in the series is presented as his second run-in with MacGyver. Murdoc returns for revenge for their first encounter—to the surprise of MacGyver, as Murdoc had apparently been killed. Murdoc's revenge scheme not only fails, but results in him apparently being killed again. This became a recurring theme: each of Murdoc's subsequent appearances ends in another apparently certain "death", which he incredibly survives, to return in a later episode.
In the 2016 reboot, Murdoc is a hired hitman known as Suspect 218 to the CIA whose targets are enemies and MacGyver. After being captured by the Phoenix Foundation in season 1, in season 2 he escapes and becomes obsessed in finding his lost son, Casian. Michael Des Barres, who played Murdoc in the original series, plays Murdoc's mentor, Nicholas Helman, in the reboot.

Nikki Carpenter

Nikki Carpenter joins the Phoenix Foundation in the third season. She often has differences of opinion with MacGyver, although the two eventually come to respect each other as professionals.
In the 2016 reboot, the character is a former agent for the DXS and MacGyver's former girlfriend who went rogue but later revealed to be an undercover agent for the CIA.

Harry Jackson

Harry Jackson is MacGyver's grandfather, who helped raise MacGyver after his grandmother and father were killed in a car accident when MacGyver was aged nine. Seven years later, Harry left MacGyver to work in Alaska, sending money to MacGyver and his mother. At this time, MacGyver and Harry lost contact, but beginning in season one, MacGyver and Harry meet again, after eighteen years without contact, in the episode "Target MacGyver", in which MacGyver and his grandfather work together to defeat an assassin named Axminster. Harry appears in the five episodes "Target MacGyver", "Phoenix Under Siege", "Friends" "Passages" and "Harry's Will". Harry dies of a heart attack in the fifth season finale episode "Passages".
In the 2016 reboot, the character first appears in a flashback in the fourth episode of season 2.

Coltons

The Coltons are a family of bounty hunters, introduced one at a time—the only episode in which more than one appears is their collective final appearance in the final season, on which occasion they took over the episode entirely, relegating MacGyver to a cameo appearance. This episode, called "The Coltons", was actually intended as a backdoor pilot for a spin-off starring the Coltons, but ABC network officials decided that series would not be picked up.
In the 2016 reboot, they are played by Sheryl Lee Ralph, Lance Gross, Javicia Leslie, & Jermaine Rivers and first appear in the first season episode 16, "Hook", when they get the upper hand on Mac and Jack several times, until a Foundation team retrieves the fugitive from them. Mac, Jack, Bozer & Riley end up saving the Coltons' lives from their criminal employers. They reappear in the second season episode "Riley + Airplane", after which Billy Colton becomes Riley's love interest.

Charlie Robinson

Charlie Robinson is MacGyver's Army Bomb disposal EOD Specialist with EOD Tech Specialist MacGyver sent by DXS to work with him. He appears in Episode: "Countdown"
In the 2016 reboot, he is portrayed by Emerson Brooks as an old friend of EOD Tech Specialist MacGyver; he's another EOD Specialist in Army Bomb disposal. He appears in Season 1: Episode: "Wrench", Season 2: Episode: "Mac & Jack" & Season 3: Episodes: "Revenge + Catacombs + Le Fantome" and "Mason + Cable + Choices".

Penny Parker

Penny Parker : Penny Parker and MacGyver meet in line at an airport in Bulgaria when she tries to smuggle some jewels out of the country in his pocket. With little talent, but big dreams, her pursuit of a show business career gets her into trouble more than once; she was once used by Murdoc as an unwitting pawn in an attempt to eliminate MacGyver. She was also the spitting image of her late aunt Betty Parker, who was murdered in 1958 by her boyfriend, and was suffering from lead poisoning., Like the somewhat impulsive identically-named female-sleuth character of author Mildred Benson, Penny isn't exactly stupid, but she tends to act without thinking things through, and has only a shaky grasp of how the world works. Thus, the long-suffering MacGyver often has to bail Penny out of trouble and otherwise assist her in handling life situations.
In the 2016 reboot, she's played by Bianca Malinowski.

Jimmy MacGyver

James "Jimmy" MacGyver is MacGyver's father. He is portrayed by Martin Milner in the original series.
In the 2016 reboot, where he is portrayed by Tate Donovan, he is Angus' long lost father. After losing his wife and Angus' mother, James abandoned his family not long after, leaving Angus in the care of his grandfather. It is revealed in the season 2 finale that the unseen and enigmatic head of the Phoenix Foundation codenamed 'Oversight' is in fact James: a fact Angus learns when Maddy forces a face-to-face meeting when Angus quits the Phoenix. James reveals that he left his family to protect Angus from the enemies he'd made around the world, many of whom wouldn't hesitate endangering a childs life, but also because the pain of losing his wife made James scared of what he might do around Angus.
Angus leaves the Phoenix in the Season 2 finale, telling his father that he cannot work for people he doesn't trust. James tracks him down in the Season 3 premiere to ask for his help rescuing Jack. After rescuing Jack, Maddy forces James to quit his role as Oversight so that Angus would be willing to rejoin the Phoenix.

Recurring characters only in original series