MacGyver's Nephew

If it was his cousin's son - it would still be Mac's cousin. Nephews are sons of your brother or sister, or your spouse's brother or sister's sons.

Gotta love douche bags troll, I laughed at it.

The "Pilot" also had him using a gun (willingly and skillfully) and asking another to use one in his own support (for cover fire)... as well a few other things that (to a much lesser degree) go against what the character of MacGyver was established to be in the series.

This is a common effect of pilots (even to this day), but pilots are usually not seen. The point of a pilot is just to sell a show's premise, not actually be the show. Between the production of a pilot and the going into production on a series you often see all sorts of changes, from big things like new actors and characters to little things like small technical things about the existing characters (like family history or common ticks).

Look at the cool new show Heroes (which I am loving). The 90 minute pilot that was shown at Comicon had an entire terrorist sub-plot that included a "villain" with radioactive hands and tied all the heroes together into that. Luckily they did away with that whole plot by the time they re-edited the plot (with some new scenes shot) to become the first episode of the actual show. They even moved some character introductions out of the first show and saved them for later episodes.

MacGyver actually had far fewer changes than most shows seem to go through, but nothing seen in the pilot can truly be seen as "cannon" to the series. MacGyver is officially an only child, because it was said in the series proper. With the DVDs out now it should be relatively easy to find the episode we find this out in (but I am not going to go back through mine and watch them all again just to make this post).

Dragavan

I believe that was a reference to the "Big brother" program... y'know, where an older person mentors a younger, disadvantaged child? Mac did that kind of stuff all the time. It's not necessarily a biological little brother.

That kid he had date with on sunday was not his real brother, not in flesh and blood, he was just a afroamerican orphan (probably) who MacGyver took care of;) It is stated earlier in the Pilot, when the little kid says something about them not being able to be brothers and stuff.


You're not pleasant, when you're like this, Rodney.**I'm always like this.**My point exactly.