5 Badass Female TV Characters In STEM (And An Instance They Have MacGyvered)

Lee Zlotoff’s “The Next MacGyver” Competition

launched in February with the goal to create an environment for young women to

thrive as hopeful engineers. Zlotoff’s aim to use the MacGyver legacy to inspire

a generation by providing female engineers to look up to in

the media is as commendable as it is exciting, especially given the idea that “MacGyver”

has become synonymous with

ingenuity and imagination. With this competition, we’ll hopefully see more women in television associated with it.

READ MORE: ‘MacGyver’ Creator Lee Zlotoff On Women In Engineering And Finding a New Female Hero

Though the contest doesn’t guarantee that any of the five

winning ideas will see a green light, the fact that they’ll have the help of

distinguished engineers and practiced Hollywood producers favorably tips the

odds. The finalists’ ideas aren’t too shabby, either.

Before we see any of those come to life, however, here’s a

toast to some of my favorite ladies of science, technology, engineering and mathematics

who’ve already graced television and, an added bonus, an instance in which they have

“MacGyvered.”

With a revival just around the very large corner, it’s only

fitting to start with Dr. Dana Scully. Scully’s right on up there with MacGyver

in that she, too, has turned into a character archetype, marked by a dogged

persistence toward interpreting events with logic and rationale.

Nothing says hard science more than a physics degree and a

senior thesis on Einstein’s Twin Paradox. Leave it to Scully to use her

background to present scientific explanations for their consistently paranormal

cases, long after personally witnessing things like pyrokinesis, time loops and her father’s ghost.

MacGyvered: In

the fifth season episode, “Detour,” Scully tries to open a bullet with the intention of using its

gunpowder to start a fire. She successfully pries it open with her bare hands

(what a badass!), but the gunpowder explodes too soon and the wood doesn’t

catch. She gets an A for effort, though.



Winifred “Fred” Burkle (Amy Acker, “Angel”)

Fred enters the fold at the close of “Angel’s”

second season, a physics student turned slave following an unfortunate

encounter with a portal to one of the show’s many hell dimensions. Angel and his

crew help her escape and, after having just spent five years hiding out in caves and cow

barns, Fred decides to stay with the gang in Los Angeles. It takes a short

while for Fred to readjust to a life of friendly human interaction and in no time, we

see the rise of a brilliant, inventive omni-scientist.

By the show’s final season, Fred ends up filling the roles

of team physicist, pathologist, chemist and occasionally, mortician. She also

happens to be extremely good with numbers (which once nearly results in her

brain getting stolen) and in the episode detailed below, inadvertently scares

away a homeless man while while reciting pi – to calm herself down.

MacGyvered: In

the Season 3 episode “Fredless,” Fred saves the team from a hoard of

demons with a device that was earlier presumed to either decapitate enemies or

toast bread. It did the former, and would present Fred with the

realization that she had a wanted, welcome place with the group. The very next

episode, “Billy” sees her readily saving herself from a brainwashed

Wesley by knocking him out with a fire extinguisher rigged up to a piece of

rope.

The resident science nerd of Sarah’s crew, Cosima is a PhD

microbiology student who ends up demonstrating handiness with forensic science,

physics and medicine. She’s also got a rad nautilus tattoo and demolishes her fantasy

tabletop game opponents when she isn’t trying to solve Clone Club mysteries or making

heart-eyes at Delphine.

Cosima plays a major role in uncovering the conspiracy

against her sisters and presents audiences with yet another lovely example of

how science can kick ass without literally kicking ass. This, she leaves to Sarah.

And Helena. And Alison.

MacGyvered: In

the Season 2 finale, Cosima teams with Scott and little Kira to build a weapon

out of a fire extinguisher and a pencil. The device later helps Sarah out of a

very nasty situation, and puts Rachel into one.

Root (Amy Acker, “Person of Interest”)

An incredibly brilliant hacker and ex-contract killer, Root (a

name she picked up as a child, corresponding to the highest level of access on Unix systems) and her computer skills are second only to the show’s

protagonist, Harold Finch. Root is a walking legend, recognizable through her notorious

hacks or elegant code. After her heel face turn, she uses her technological

genius to become a protector and leader of Team Machine.

Aside from the fact that most

of Root’s aliases derive from famous engineers – with a special shout out

to computer pioneer Ada Loveless – the idea that Root’s technical mastery eventually

becomes the team’s saving grace leaves a lot to be admired, and feared.

MacGyvered: In

the Season 3 episode, “Mors Praematura,” Root fashions a blow torch

out of an oxygen tank, aluminum foil and a pack of raw spaghetti to tear into

an underground grate. The makeshift door would serve as an escape route at the

end of the episode. Later that season in “Beta,” Root uses a coil of

copper wire, needle nose pliers, duct tape and an extension cord to short circuit

the 8th precinct’s telecom box, providing the team with some much needed surveillance

cover from the mercenaries trying to kill them. She could probably defuse a

nuclear missile with a paperclip if she really needed to.

Raven Reyes (Lindsey Morgan, “The 100”)

Raven is the only engineer on the list and technically more

of a mechanic for the apocalypse survivors on the CW series. Still, her expertise in machinery, building things

and blowing them up proves both life-saving and deadly on the ground. She’s not

even out of her teens, and the adults on the Ark consider her one of the brightest

minds they’ve ever had.

The ace is able to build an escape pod out of spare Ark

parts in days, catapulting her into space and onto Earth, where her inventions

end up keeping the kids on the ground alive. She fixes a radio so Clarke can

communicate with her mother – in space

– to talk her through treating her dying friend. What a treasure.

MacGyvered: Given

that the 100 land on a post-apocalyptic, technology-free Earth, anything Raven

does to save her friends can technically be considered MacGyvering. You can

trust Raven to make anything from radios to makeshift bombs and, in the first

season episode “I Am Become Death,” she actually does the latter to

destroy a seemingly indestructible bridge connecting the 100 and the enemy

forces across the river. Raven Reyes, at 19 years old, figures out how to build

a potent bomb out of gunpowder and the hydrazine from a crashed dropship and, as

a result, singlehandedly prevents a massacre. Give her a problem and Raven will

solve it.



Bellamy: That bridge has survived a nuclear war and 97 years of

weather.

Raven: It won’t survive me.



(It

doesn’t.)

READ MORE: 5 TV Characters Who Defy Their Own Stereotypes

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