Angus MacGyver works as a troubleshooter for the fictional Phoenix Foundation in Los Angeles and as an agent for a fictional United States government agency, the Department of External Services (DXS). Educated as a scientist, MacGyer served as a Bomb Team Technician/EOD in Vietnam ("Countdown"). Resourceful and possessed of an encyclopedic knowledge of the physical sciences, he solves complex problems with everyday materials he finds at hand, along with his ever-present duct tape and Swiss Army knife. He prefers non-violent resolutions and refuses to handle a gun.