It’s always a major bummer when a beloved TV show gets canceled, which was a reality lived by fans of CBS’s high-tech and brainy MacGyver reboot. The April 30 episode was not only the Season 5 finale, but the last episode of the entire series. The unexpected network cancellation forced the creative team to change things up late into the final season, which was like adding a "more work" insult to a cancellation injury. The current showrunner Monica Macer was able to pull off that last-minute series finale without any disasters, but it was clear the writing team had more story cooking for Mac and the others, and Macer revealed where Season 6 probably would have gone if it had not been canceled.
It sounds like fans would have seen some kind of conclusion for MacGyver's nanobot plot if the drama's future on CBS was intact. When it comes to those nanobots that Mac and Riley still had in their systems, showrunner Monica Macer told TV Line that the two characters would have gone through a procedure in Season 6 that would attempt to remove them. Here is what she said about the would-be nanobot storyline we'll never see:
We had always planned that [Mac and Riley] would go through this procedure that basically destroys the nanobots in their body, and next season we wanted to play a Manchurian Candidate storyline, potentially, where the research led by Marcato and the rogue scientists in the government was going to get activated by a villainous force. That’s one of the storylines that we were circling.
While it would have been cool to dig deeper into that storyline beyond what we got in Season 5, there was a lot more in the works than just nanobots. According to Monica Macer, we would have seen more action-packed subplots in Season 6, and even an episode meant to pay tribute to the book-turned-film Black Hawk Down. Here it is in her own words:
There were a couple of other episodes that we had already had sort of mapped out for next season. Like, we wanted to do a Black Hawk Down episode where we pick up the thread of Desi’s fiancé who had died — or so she thought, but we find out he’s a POW at the top of the episode and we go on a mission.
It already sounds like a sixth season of MacGyver would have totally been worth the renewal from a fan perspective, and that’s not all that was potentially in store for us if the show hadn’t been canceled. Because it can’t be action and thrilling drama all the time, there were also plans to bring a MacGyver baby into the story (although not actually Mac's kid). Rather, Monica Macer explained to TVLine that Russ and Sofia were set to have an unplanned child together:
[Russ and Sofia] were going to have a little tryst that was ultimately going to end up with Sofia getting pregnant and Russ becoming a father. That was sort of the long game that we were playing [with Sofia].
After hearing what was in store for the next season of the most recent MacGyver iteration - the show is literally in the middle of an "is it a sequel or a reboot?" lawsuit right now - I’ve got to say that I’m even more bummed about the cancellation. It’s clear that Monica Macer and the show's cast feel the same way and had plenty more to add to MacGyver’s story, so it’s a shame those ideas will most likely never see the light of day. Unless Paramount+'s streaming service revives it.
