JAG (TV series)

JAG was a show that ran on NBC for one season in 1995 then went over to CBS in 1997 and ran until 2005. Mostly only old people watched it, something that is a given, given that it aired on CBS, as well as servicemembers at Walter Reed too injured to be able to change the channel. It was created by Donald Bellisario, whose better shows include Quantum Leap and Magnum, P. I. Part of the problem with JAG was that after season 6, Bellisario decided to fire all the writers and use fanfiction as the basis for new episodes.
==Premise==
The show is a realistic depiction of what it's like to be a lawyer in the military. One minute you're filing a memo, the next you're strapped into a helo to go aboard an aircraft carrier, the next you're fighting hand to hand with Chechen terrorists. It's all in a day's work. The only show on TV with greater military authenticity was GI Joe.
JAG also correctly portrayed military defendants as brave, stoic men who always fell on their sword for someone else. This is exactly what happens in the military justice system in real life.
The show also made it clear that it's very difficult for a single man to balance his career his personal life. In almost every single episode, Harm's ticking biological clock was personified in the form of a CG dancing baby. Harm's therapist, Commander Tracy, counseled Harm to kick the baby in order to regain his sanity. In the tenth season, however, it was revealed that the dancing baby really represented Mattie, who was born after Harm donated sperm to a bank.
==Characters==
The protagonist was Harmon Rabb, Jr. (David James Elliott, who went on to play the Janitor on Scrubs), a former Navy pilot who became a lawyer and then figured out ways to fly a jet every time he went aboard a carrier. He was in love with a Marine lawyer named Sarah MacKenzie (Catherine Bell) but he was too chicken to tell her how he felt until the last season. Their boss was Admiral Chegwidden (John M. Jackson), a fruity old man who couldn't hold a candle to Jean-Luc Picard, but like Picard started french and became more and more British.
Harm's first partner was Lt. Pike (Andrea Parker), but NBC wanted a perky blonde so they twisted Bellisario's arm to fire Parker and get Tracey Needham (who played Lt. Meg Austin, niece of Oliver North.)
Bud Roberts (Patrick Labyorteaux) was a Public Affairs Officer aboard the USS Chicken of the Sea but then went to work at JAG as a lawyer. Since the actor lost his leg in real life, his character also lost his leg in the show when he stepped on a land mine in season 7. His ball and chain is Lieutenant Harriet Sims (Karri Turner), with whom he had seven children, all named after coworkers at JAG.
Harriet is easily the most annoying character on JAG. They should have killed her off. Instead they offed with the feisty Lt. Singer (Nanci Chambers). Lt. Singer was a total bitch, but at least she wasn't shrill and stupid like Harriet.
JAG didn't add a token black guy until season 7: Commander Sturgis Turner (Scott Lawrence). Even before that, the show was constantly showing black guys as officers, as if to atone for the times black guys were shown as murderers. It was like, "OK, in this episode this black guy strangles a little girl, but we make up for it in the next episode by having a black guy be the base commander."
JAG also didn't have an original or non generic character until the arrival of Lieutenant Commander Mic Brumby (Trevor Goddard); an Australian Navy officer with the horny hots for Mac. He was truly the only saving factor for the show for the next three seasons as his lovable horn-dog personality truly captivated audiences. His swaggering personality eventually got him engaged with Mac only to find she didn't have an attraction to closet perverts and craved boring white men instead. He simply dusts off the rejection and heads back to good Australia with his friends in the USA singing "Waltzing Matilda" as he departs. The show started sucking again 
Just in case you got bored with the main characters, JAG had a bunch of recurring characters. There's the Seahawk CAG, played by Terry O'Quinn (better known as the bald dude from LOST) who in season 7 became a dog robber Admiral, and Petty Officer Coates (Zoe McLellan), who was accused of stealing that bitch Singer's necklace, and Montel Williams as a tough-love Navy SEAL, etc.
The CIA agent Rex Van de Kamp (Steven Culp), who showed CIA agents are always trustworthy.
CIA agent Rex Van de Kamp was one of the men with whom MacKenzie took up time while waiting for Harm. There was also the Australian naval officer and home cleaning products salesman Mic Brumby, and in a special don't ask, don't tell episode, Ally McBeal. For his part, Harm whiled away the time he wasn't with Mac with Hollywood producer Renee and later with Congresswoman Bobbi Latham (Anne Marie Johnson). However, the relationship with Bobbi couldn't go very far because she's black and could thus only be paired with the token black guy, which the show didn't even have until season 7.
[[File:JAGOptometrist.png|thumb|right|At the end of a very special episode, David James Elliott delivers an important [[Public service announcement|PSA] to the show's core audience.]]
Each of the main characters have each been accused of murder three times, and have left the Navy ten times. Conveniently, when they come back, it turns out that Admiral Chegwidden conveniently forgot to process their letters of resignation.
==Production==
Even though the U. S. Navy was willing to help Bellisario since the show's second season, he was too lazy to take them up on their offer. So instead he just bootlegged other military movies like Top Gun and A Few Good Men, and spliced that footage into his show. Bellisario also plagiarized news footage. In the second episode, Bill Clinton is seen jogging and he waves to someone. Then we see Harm wave back. Then we see Bill Clinton re-run the same few yards he ran just a second ago. Bellisario also stole footage from World War II movies.
The costumes were all bought from the Army/Navy surplus store, so that's why Catherine Bell wanted the writers to give her every opportunity to ditch the uniform. Actually, half the fans of the show were just OK with that.
==Series arc==
The backstory for Harm is that his daddy, who looks just like him except with a fake mustache, was a naval aviator who went MIA in Vietnam, so Harm Jr. went there to look for him. In the first three seasons of the show he gets clues that daddy wound up in Siberia. He finds his corpse in season 4. Oh, and it turns out in the next season that he has a long-lost twin brother, Sergey Harmonov Rabbovsky, who also looks just like him except he's got a goatee and speaks Russian.
After 9/11, the mission of the show was to promote George W. Bush's idea that the Constitution should be chucked because it's just too inconvenient for fighting the War on Terror.
But they also had time to draw out the boring will-they-won't-they dance between Harm and Mac. The two shouldn't be together and it was obvious to everyone but them. In the series finale, Mac decides to give up her military career so she can bear Harm several sets of twins.
===Episode list===
====Season 1====
Number 	Title 	Air Date 	Locations 	Plot Outline
1.01 (1.01 and 1.02)	A New Life (Pilot)	September 23, 1995	The Adriatic Sea <BR> Washington D.C. <BR> Sarajevo, Yugoslavia <BR> Naples, Italy 	A butch lesbian beats a male sailor at weightlifting.
1.03 	Shadow 	September 30, 1995	Bermuda Triangle <BR> Washington D.C. <BR> Northeast of Cuba <BR> Off The Coast of Miami, Florida 	Harm and Meg confront a computer geek with a torpedo.
1.04 	Desert Son 	October 7, 1995 	Twenty Nine Palms Marine Base, California 	A spoiled Marine brat gets in trouble.
1.05 	Déjà Vu 	October 21, 1995 	Arlington National Cemetery <BR> McLean, Virginia <BR> Washington D.C. <BR> Bethesda, Maryland 	Harm sees ghosts at Arlington National Cemetery.
1.06 	Pilot Error 	October 28, 1995 	Miramar Naval Air Station, California 	A sleazy civilian contractor kills Navy pilots.
1.07 	War Cries 	November 4, 1995 	Lima, Peru <BR> Santa Rosa, Peru 	Harm and Mac have to rescue the Ambassador to Peru before he wets his pants.
1.08 	Brig Break 	December 2, 1995 	Seatac Island Naval Base, Washington 	Meg is taken hostage and Harm has to rescue her.
1.09 	Scimitar 	December 9, 1995 	Kuwait <BR> Washington D.C. <BR> Quantico, Virginia <BR> Basra, Iraq 	Marines try to get a headstart in the search for empty WMD shells.
1.10 	Boot 	January 6, 1996 	Parris Island, South Carolina <BR> Washington D.C. 	Meg goes undercover to boot camp and has to do push-ups.
1.11 	Sightings 	January 13, 1996 	Del Rio, Texas 	JAG meets The X-Files.
1.12 	The Brotherhood 	February 3, 1996 	Camp Pendleton, California <BR> Los Angeles, California 	Harm and Mac pretend to be rappers.
1.13 	Defensive Action 	March 13, 1996 	Bosnian "No-fly zone" <BR> Washington D.C. <BR> Neretva River, Bosnia <BR> The Adriatic Sea <BR> Naples, Italy 	Rabb defends the CAG who shot down a camel jockey from the sky.
1.14 	Smoked 	March 20, 1996 	Off The Coast Of Cuba <BR> Washington D.C. <BR> 20,000 Feet Over Florida 	Harm craves Cuban cigars so he finds an excuse to go to Cuba and get his fix.
1.15 	Hemlock 	March 27, 1996 	The Pentagon, Virginia <BR> Washington D.C. <BR> Bethesda, Maryland <BR> Leesburg, Virginia 	Something about a Russian assassin.
1.16 	High Ground 	April 3, 1996 	Quantico, Virginia 	Plot stolen from Full Metal Jacket Act 1.
1.17 	Black Ops 	April 10, 1996 	Washington D.C. <BR> Roosevelt Roads, Puerto Rico <BR> The Caribbean Sea 	Navy SEALs frag a Senator's son.
1.18 	Survivors 	April 17, 1996 	Vietnam (1972) <BR> Santa Ana, California <BR> Tustin, California <BR> Big Pine, California <BR> Bishop, California	JAG meets Crossing Over With John Edward.
1.19 	Recovery 	May 1, 1996 	Vandenberg AFB, California 	Harm and Meg try not to fall asleep while watching a NASA launch.
1.20 	The Prisoner 	May 8, 1996 	Nantou, China <BR> Hong Kong 	Harm checks into a Chinese prison cell.
1.21 	Ares 	May 22, 1996 	Okinawa, Japan <BR> Kyushu (Sasebo), Japan <BR> The Sea of Japan <BR> Off the North Korean Coast 	More computer trouble.
1.22 	Skeleton Crew 	1999 	Norfolk, Virginia 	Catherine Bell gets killed, but she's not really Catherine Bell, and she won't be until the next season.
====Season 2====
They thought the older viewers would get confused about Harm piloting planes one minute and arguing in court the next, so they added a prologue to explain it.
Number 	Title 	Air Date 	Locations 	Plot Outline
2.01 (23)	We the People 	January 3, 1997 	Washington, DC, Arizona 	Catherine Bell shows up at JAG but everyone forgets her character is supposed to be dead. Oh, and the U.S. Declaration of Independence gets stolen by militiamen.
2.02 (24)	Secrets 	January 10, 1997 	JAG Headquarters, Virginia 	They hadn't built the courtroom set yet, so they came up with an excuse to have a trial in Chegwidden's office.
2.03 (25) 	Jinx 	January 17, 1997 	Marine Corps Air Station MiramarUSS America (CV-66) 	Harm finds yet another excuse to fly a plane.
2.04 (26) 	Heroes 	January 24, 1997 	 	Harm punks Mac in the courtroom.
2.05 (27) 	Crossing the Line 	January 31, 1997 	USS Seahawk crossing the Equator 	The bald dude from LOST is accused of sexxual harassment.
2.06 (27) 	Trinity 	February 7, 1997 	Ireland 	Harm and Mac bring peace to Northern Ireland.
2.07 (28) 	Ghosts 	February 14, 1997	JAG HQ, civilian courthouse, Chegwidden's residence, hospital 	Chegwidden's old. Really old.
2.08 (29) 	Full Engagement 	February 21, 1997	Appalachian Mountains, JAG HQ 	Harm and Mac go camping.
2.09 (30) 	Washington Holiday	February 28, 1997	Willard Hotel and Romanian Embassy in Washington, D.C.; JAG HQ 	Harm macs on a Romanian princess.
2.10 (31) 	The Game of Go 	February 28, 1997	American Embassy in Colombia, drug plantation 	Harm is still fixing for Cuban cigars, but goes to Cuba for some reason.
2.11 (32) 	Force Recon 	March 7, 1997 	Recon training camp 	Harm gets yelled at by the Drill Instructor from Full Metal Jacket.
2.12 (33) 	The Guardian 	March 28, 1997 	Civilian courtroom, convenience store, church 	A Navy SEAL is homeless as draft dodgers occupy the White House for the whole time JAG was on the air.
2.13 (34) 	Code Blue 	April 4, 1997 	Mercy Hospital in Washington, D.C. 	Israelis and Palestinians in an American hospital. Nothing funny about that.
2.14 (35) 	Cowboys & Cossacks	April 11, 1997 	USS Arleigh Burke, Russian Destroyer Vasiliev, both ships "somewhere in the Black Sea"	Everyone's nostalgic for the Cold War.
2.15 (36) 	Rendezvous 	April 18, 1997 	Norfolk Naval Complex 	This episode was written by Jerry Springer, and it's about, what else? a love triangle.
== Season 3: 1997-1998 ==
The episodes of this season also have the voice-over prologue introduced in Season 2.
Number 	Title 	Air Date 	Locations 	Plot Outline
3.01 (38)	Ghost Ship 	September 23, 1997	The USS Hornet, docked at the Alameda Naval Air Station 	After a skeleton is discovered in the hull of a decommissioned Navy carrier, Harm becomes obsessed with discovering a link between the body and his missing father.
3.02 (39)	The Court-Martial of Sandra Gilbert	September 30, 1997	Marine Corps Air Station Camp Pendleton 	Congresswoman Bobbi Latham sticks her nose where it don't belong.
3.03 (40)	The Good of the Service 	October 7, 1997 	Palmi Christi, Haiti; JAG HQ Courtroom 	Harm and Mac must face the Admiral in court when he defends a Marine colonel who disobeyed orders in rescuing his team from a Haitian warlord.
3.04 (41)	Blind Side 	October 14, 1997 	Naval Air Station Fallon 	Sarah Silverman briefly joins the Navy.
3.05 (42)	King of the Fleas 	October 21, 1997 	M Street in Washington, D.C., JAG HG 	A paraplegic Vietnam vet comes to JAG HQ to beg for pocket change.
3.06 (43)	Vanished 	October 28, 1997 	USS Coral Sea on the Florida coast, Florida 	Harm and Mac play with toy F-14s, and one of them gets lost under the couch.
3.07 (44)	Against All Enemies 	November 4, 1997 	USS Reprisal on international waters close to Japan and Korea 	Kim Jong-Ill guest-stars in a very special episode.
3.08 (45)	Above and Beyond 	November 11, 1997 	Coronado 	Montel Williams inflates his service record, claiming to have been a SEAL.
3.09 (46)	Impact 	November 18, 1997 	Mojave Desert, 29 Palms, Bradenhurst 	Bud is hot on the trail of UFOs. Mac leaves JAG to go into Private Practice.
3.10 (47)	People v. Rabb 	November 25, 1997 	Washington, D.C., a Russian import warehouse, FBI HQ, JAG HQ 	Mac gets tired of the whiny doctors on Private Practice and returns to JAG. Predictably, the Admiral didn't send her letter of resignation.
3.11 (48)	Defenseless 	December 9, 1997 	Washington, D.C., Ensign Lang's apartment, Harm's apartment, JAG HQ 	A Navy Ensign kills a Turkish military officer after a misunderstanding at the bath house.
3.12 (49)	Someone to watch over Annie 	January 6, 1998 	Andrews Air Force Base, Baltimore, Pendry's residence, Harm's apartment, JAG HQ 	Harm auditions for a musical.
3.13 (50)	With Intent to Die 	January 13, 1998 	Pheasant hunting grounds, JAG HQ 	Admiral Chegwidden's goes hunting with Dick Cheney and refuses to explain the real reason he got shot.
3.14 (51)	Father's Day 	February 3, 1998 	Fayeteville, North Carolina; JAG HQ 	Captain Archer quantum leaps into Harm's body and gets it on with Mac.
3.15 (52)	Yesterday's Heroes 	February 24, 1998 	Miami Beach, Florida; Naples, Florida; JAG HQ 	A bunch of old dudes plot to carry out a final mission but fall asleep on their recliner chairs.
3.16 (53)	Chains of Command 	March 3, 1998 	USS Seahawk, JAG HQ 	A Chief aboard the USS Seahawk is accused of sexual harassment. He hires a civilian lawyer, Dalton Lowne (Mac's boyfriend) to defend him. The case becomes personal for Mac when Dalton shows up at her apartment to steal confidential information from her.
3.17 (54)	The Stalker 	March 17, 1998 	Washington, D.C. 	The Admiral's daughter visits from Italy and he realizes he can't make a good marinara.
3.18 (55)	Tiger, Tiger 	March 24, 1998 	The USS Stockdale (in real life the USS John A Moore) on the Gulf of Mexico 	Little American boys learn racial slurs for Cubans.
3.19 (56)	Death Watch* 	March 31, 1998 	Norfolk, Virginia 	Harm's mental state becomes questionable when he starts having flashbacks about Lt. Schonke, who was murdered and the case closed when the prime suspect committed suicide. Mac finally learns of the woman who looked just like her.
3.20 (57)	The Imposter 	April 21, 1998 	JAG HQ 	Bud gives Harriet a ring.
3.21 (58)	The Return of Jimmy Blackhorse 	April 28, 1998 	Blue Canyon, Arizona; MCAS Yuma; Wellington Bay, New Zealand 	Harm and Mac uncover broken treaties the USA made with the Navajo.
3.22 (59)	Clipped Wings 	May 5, 1998 	Dora Tea Valley in the Italian Alps; Naval Air Station, Genoa, Italy 	Harm helps ducks migrate.
3.23 (60)	Wedding Bell Blues 	May 12, 1998 	D.C. Jail; the Senator Hotel; JAG HQ 	Mac strips at Bud's bachelor party. Just kidding.
3.24 (61)	To Russia With Love (1/2) 	May 19, 1998 	Vorkuta, Siberia; Dulles International Airport; Shermyetevo Airport, Moscow; Posolskaya Hotel, Moscow; Lubyanka Prison, Moscow; Komsomolsky Prospekt, Moscow; United States Embassy, Moscow; Vnukova Military Air Field	Harm receives a picture which suggests that after Vietnam his father was sent to Siberia. Harm requests leave to California, which Chegwidden immediately suspects is really to go to Russia. Chegwidden reluctantly grants the leave and sends Mac along with Harm. After visiting his mother in California, Harm proceeds to Russia, where he is assisted by a taxi driver named Alexei who claims to be loyal only to the highest bidder. In Russia, Harm and Mac once again encounter "Falcon" (Sokol) and Colonel Parlovsky. The trail points to Lubyanka. Harm and Mac steal a MIG-29 to go to Lubyanka, but before they can go far, they are chased and fired upon, and the season closes with a cliffhanger.
(* NBC cancelled JAG before the first season episode "Skeleton Crew" Part 2 was written, and Part 1 was not broadcast until the first season went into syndication on the USA channel. The third season episode "Death Watch" used much of the footage from this episode but the story's plot was changed and told in flashbacks.)
==Spinoffs==
The eighth season launched NCIS, which in turn launched NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: Las Vegas, NCIS: New York, NCIS: Puerto Rico and NCIS: Guam. Starting with the original NCIS team investigating Harm for murder, each new spinoff's pilot has the new characters investigate the lead character of the old show for murder. 
Category:American television series