Improvising some sort of clever scraping implement to make sure it gets everything it can from the bottom of the barrel, CBS has announced that it’s put a reboot of ’80s action mainstay MacGyver into development. The new series comes courtesy of Furious 7 director James Wan, whose own Saw movies show a fascination with jury-rigged mechanical torture not unlike the experience of watching multiple episodes of MacGyver in a row.
Doubling down on its ironclad-grip on the zeitgeist—as any reboot of MacGyver so clearly must—the new show won’t merely be a reboot, but also a prequel, with the series following a twentysomething Angus MacGyver as he fights crimes and acquires his fast-thinking mechanical skills. (If Wan and his team can somehow stuff their ersatz Richard Dean Anderson into a mauve costume with a cape, they’ll be three-for-three on current TV trends.)
The original MacGyver, which starred Anderson as a gun-averse secret agent who solved problems with quick thinking, duct tape, and a fabulous mane of hair, ran for seven seasons and two TV movies on ABC. Happy Days and Arrested Development star Henry Winkler served as an executive producer on the original series; he’ll return in that capacity for the new CBS show.