You poor, poor soul. You have not yet truly lived! Macguyver is the KING of 80s cheese, so much fun. The science was half junk. It was all theoretically possible/sound, but Mythbusters have done whole episodes showing that the science of Macguyver wouldn't really work in any sort of real world practical sense. It WAS sound enough to encourage kids to explore science more.
Fun fact, if you watch the first/pilot episode of Macguyver, you can see him run around an enemy base with an AK-47 shooting people. It's the last time you'll see him weild a gun in the entire show. There were notions initially of making him an action hero, before someone wise realized making him anti-gun and instead a man who relies on science and his brains to escape seemingly impossible situations was a much more interesting hook.
As to the Martian, I read it this fall and loved it. Great hard science fiction, and really made me regret bailing on engineering to study lit. Let's face it, if I'm ever stranded on Mars, (or anywhere more than a few hours walk from a grocery store really), I'm a dead man.
