User reviews

JAG is very accurate in terms of the military point of view but also is very exciting and leaves you guessing to the very end. I see very few errors in the military sense, i almost never see any problems with uniforms and the such. Cmdr. Rabb and Lt. Col. MacKenzie make a great team and if they aren't on the same team it leaves things even more exciting! Great show, and well worth an hour each week.

Decent series created by Donald P. Bellisario, Dana Coen, Stephen Zito , it was produced by by NBC , but due to low ratings , it was left , then it was picked up by CBS , it became a success soon afterwards. Being on the air for ten seasons, and two hundred twenty-seven episodes . It deals with the cases of Harmon Rabb (David James Elliott) , former Navy fighter pilot, as he was originally an F-14 Tomcat pilot , and crashed during heavy seas, and after being diagnosed with night blindness, he joined JAG . He is accompanied by Lt. Sarah Mackenzie (Catherine Bell) and other fellow (Patrick Labyorteaux , his wife Karri Turner , Scott Lawrence , among others) lawyers and assistants of the U.S. Navy's Judge Advocate General's office , and in their twisted cases they intervine as defender lawyers or prosecutors . They work under direct orders of A.J. Chegwidden (John M. Jackson) and Major General Gordon Biff Cresswell (David Andrews) . In every episode Rabb and Lt. MacKenzie have new cases to resolve. As their defense never rests and occasionally, they engage into dangerous missions , and risked adventures especially in Iraq and Afganisthan . All of them investigate and litigate crimes and misdemeanours committed by Navy and Marine personnel .

Good but overlong series in which two officers carry on the trial cases , at the same time they become involved into adventurous activities in order to solve them . They form a charming and enticing hot team , both in and out of the courtroom. ¨JAG" stands for "Judge Advocate General". The office of JAG , is a part of the Navy, which according to their official website "provides legal and policy advice to the Secretary of the Navy in all legal matters concerning military justice, administrative law, environmental law, ethics, claims, admiralty, operational and international law, litigation and legal assistance . In many episodes, the screen types out the location and 'zulu' time. 'zulu' time is the same as Gmt and is five hours ahead of Falls Church, Virginia time .It stars Commander Harmon Rabb, Jr. : David James Elliot and Lieutenant Colonel Sarah Mackenzie : Catherine Bell , they are JAG lawyers, both of them deliver the necessary as well as enjoyable chemical and interweave good looks to get a nice show . David James Elliot (227 episodes, 1995-2005) plays Harmon Rabb, Jr. who at the beginning used to be a fighter pilot until he and his co-pilot were in an accident , from then, he became a Jag . As a Jag he was a hard-working Lieutenant , by the time the series ended, he was promoted to Captain, and was being transferred to London. David James Elliot gives an agreeable acting , he shows up in every chapter of Jag , he is the only regular cast member to appear in all episodes. His partenaire the attractive Catherine Bell (206 episodes, 1996-2005) who is very fine as Lieutenant Colonel Mackenzie , she investigates and defends complex criminal cases and she has to choose in love either the attractive wealthy Lt. Cmdr. Mic Brumby : Trevor Goddard and his faithful and good friend Harmon Rabb: David James Elliot . For the aerial scenes and others about airport bases and planes was used footage from known Paramount films as Top Gun , Hunt of Red October , Flight of the Intruder , Crimson tide , and Clear and present danger . And a lot of their submarine and underwater footage is from either or both the movies The Hunt for Red October (1990) and Crimson Tide (1995).

Here appears important secondaries as Patrick Labyorteaux as officer Bud Roberts, Jr who lost his right leg in a mine accident , his wife Lt. Harriet Sims performed by Karri Turner with whom has various children , Zoe McLellan playing Jennifer Coates , Chuck Carrington as Jason Tiner , Randy Vasquez as Gunnery Sgt. Victor ¨Gunny¨ Galindo . And other notable secondaries appearing here and there include the following ones : Sean Murray, Muse Watson, Terry O'Quinn, Steven Culp, Michael Bellisario, Joe Spano , Tracy Nedham , Anne-Marie Johnson , Isabella Hofmann , David Andrews , Mel Harris , among others . Rating . 6/10 . Acceptable and passable series but overlong . It had several Awards: it won 3 Primetime Emmys. Another 8 wins and 17 nominations.

I'd like to tell you I'm crazy about JAG, but it's not a show to be crazy about. A fairly cut-and-dried military legal drama, JAG follows the adventures of a pilot-turned-Naval lawyer and his fellow staffers. Catherine Bell, who joined the series in its second season if memory serves, has been a welcome addition as a JAG lieutenant colonel. She makes for great eye candy as opposed to the rather wooden and bland David Elliott as JAG Capt. Harmon Rabb. Elliott is one of those TV leading men who is likely to be on TV forever --- not that there's anything wrong with that. Elliott and Detective Stabler from LAW & ORDER: SVU could change places and no one would ever be the wiser. Anyhow, the show really picks up when it's not a straight courtroom story, such as a two-parter where Bell and Elliott go in search of his missing dad in Russia, and an episode that stuck them in the middle of a deadly situation aboard an aircraft carrier. The more interesting characters are actually played by two very good and versatile actors, Patrick Labyorteaux as a slightly timid JAG lieutenant who frequently serves as comic relief, and John ("Glitter Man") Jackson as the flinty-eyed but ultimately softhearted admiral in charge of the department. It is a bit hard to believe the show has been on the air for 10 years, I must say. I'd rather have seen FIREFLY or THE PRETENDER go for 10.

I love "JAG." That's just about all there is to say. I got hooked on it one night after seeing the episode of "Maggie Winters" on which David James Elliott guest-starred. The show has given me a new appreciation for the military, and I really like the diversity of the characters and storylines. (Of course, being a "shipper," I love the UST between the two main characters, but that's not the only reason I watch the show.)

As I once said to a friend to whom I was recommending the show: "It will give you a new perspective on the military side of our socio-political system; it will open your eyes to the travesty around you, with storylines weekly pulled from the headlines; it will offer you several pieces of eye candy, varying in gender, age, and race; and it will broaden your horizons when it comes to what types of quality programming you permit yourself to watch. . . . With creative episodal writing, there are references to many past episodes, keeping the regular viewer constantly on his or her toes."

Really, though, "JAG" is a very enjoyable show, something that I can sit and watch with my parents and still talk about with my friends. It's really just a great show, and I'd recommend it to anyone.

I'd classify this show as a bit like 'the FBI' - solid, unchallenging entertainment for the most part, that falls just short of propaganda for the armed forces; but which I'm quite sure has (or had) its wholehearted support.

But to simply label it as "forces-friendly" is to do it a disservice. The cast is very good and, from time to time, the show served up an *excellent* episode - usually based around a single person - that deals with important issues. One such is "King of the Fleas" (season 3, episode 5).

The rest of the "Top Gun" stuff I can take or leave, and I suspect was more directed to it's "family" target demographic than a hoary old sceptic like me; but I guess it takes all sorts.

And for the pleasure of watching Catherine Bell in uniform, I can take a bit of propaganda.

JAG started out as a total shoot-'em-up, dynamic show on NBC. It lasted almost a season, and was cancelled; CBS took it, and cleaned it up. Now, what you see is a relatively accurate view of life as a staff corps officer in the US Navy and US Marine Corps. Of course, it's still a little TOO action-packed for the real JAG Corps, in that most service lawyers will never take leave to travel into a foreign country to face insurgents or rescue POW's. However, the issues JAG raises can surprise you - Cuban immigrants, political power struggles in Congress and the Fleet, criminals in uniform (just your average old murderers, thieves, secessionists and militias), racism, sexism, tradition versus progress, and the like. People are always drawn to military dramas, to action, and to law-inspired entertainment; JAG wraps them all into one. The idea of having a gorgeous co-star, who is arguably tougher than the lead, and does NOT expect her looks to get her her way, is groundbreaking, which is unfortunate to happen this late. As far as work goes, it's good to be attractive, but better to be good. JAG illustrates this well. Or, alternately, it's better to be right than popular, or, sometimes, the good guys win!

Very nice series that links the world of lawyers to the military one. The plot is interesting and the two main protagonists are well characterized and with an excellent supporting cast.

JAG started out as above average entertainment. However, it began to decline when the writers started running out of inspiration, and the series evolved into a soap opera with plots around who Mac was sleeping with; wondering if Harm was going to quit JAG again but still get his old job back (even if he resigned his commission); and the whole ridiculous thread about Harm and his Russian half brother. The "Jump The Shark" moment was Episode 24 in Season 8, but instead of shutting down the series at the end of that season, it continued through Season 10, the worst season of all. The Vukovic character, a replacement for David James Elliott (Harm) who was leaving the series, was obnoxious and irritating. By Season 10, Mac had even run out of new guys to sleep with.

When 'JAG' first aired on British television back in early 1996, I was hooked. As a huge fan of shows such as 'Law and Order', it was a dream come true finding a series that had all the action of a military programme and the intelligence of a courtroom drama rolled into one. The characters were also likable and well-portrayed with David James Elliott's Harmon Rabb being stubborn yet just and dedicated to Navy and his country and Tracey Needham's character Meg Austin being his talented, determined partner who, after the first season, was replaced by Sarah Mackenzie-- a tough, aggressive Marine-- played by Catherine Bell. It was always thrilling and engaging to watch Rabb and co investigating various crimes involving the Navy and Marine, often cases that bore resemblance to military news happening in reality, then having to argue their case in court.

However, this once great show went downhill by season five when the military-based story lines quickly gave way to plots that would have been more suited to a daytime TV soap. Instead of seeing Rabb and Mac striving to see justice done, we had excessive time wasted on which man Mac liked and, worse, whether she wanted to have babies. There were times I honestly felt I was not watching 'JAG' and had accidentally switched over to 'Neighbours' or 'Sunset Beach'. As the show lost sight of its original genre and became less of a military series and more of a soap, it lost its appeal with me although I still enjoy watching the earlier seasons when it was at its best. I only hope 'JAG''s producer Donald P. Bellisario doesn't make the same mistake with his other series 'NCIS'.

I started watching JAG in 1997 and it immediately became my favorite TV show. Vietnam era vet in the USAF too bad they didn't have more interaction with the Air Force. Anyways, a GREAT show. But then, because of circumstances I missed seasons 8, 9 and 10. Just recently I've been watching them on-line, and sadly, I have to say this great show got bad by season 9 and season 10 was almost unpalatable to watch. Why and how could this have happened. 1) Too soap opera, where there was more emphasis on the character interaction than the court cases, but the worst reason was 2) the characters became hokey and silly. Unreal. Like "check me out, aren't I neat?!" The only ones who had any sense of original propriety were Harm and MAC. The worst one was this Vic. It's OK to have some "Hollywood license" but what makes a character great is when they display INTEREST, in their lives, their work, with others. But when they become INTERESTING with their silly overdone personalities and quirks, they become a distraction and annoying and that's EXACTLY what happened. (this by the way, was WAY worse with NCIS - I couldn't get thru one episode the characters were so overdone and "interesting" instead of being interested. Only Mark Harmon was good) If they had just kept the brashness of Vic and used JUST that with his interactions that would have been good. But he became so overbearing. The new Marine JAG also didn't have to be so serious. In it's favor, the character development of Bud from bumbling geek (too overdone) to competent lawyer was good Also, so many handsome men and gorgeous women. Yes, to be expected from Hollywood but too unreal for the military. MAC is a little chest-heavy but has the face of an angel, she is so beautiful, although the short-crop hair of season 10 was a detraction. In any case, the 2 very best plot developments was the interaction between Harm and Mac AND the intricacies of the court cases. By the 10th season that got lost with the silliness of other characters and sub-plots. Season 3 through 6 were the best. All in all though, a TREMENDOUS show. Thank you Mr. Bellesario for your creation. Now if you can make a series of my book Point Of Return about the attempted assassination of President Reagan, THAT would be great!

I just started watching this show on Amazon Prime Video and am still in the first season. Overall, it's a good show - well-written, intriguing plots, a sense of naval authenticity. But one thing bugs the heck out of me.

The Uniform Code of Military Justice restricts sexual relationships between service members, even consensual relations. The JAGs even bring this up in The their investigations when it seems relevant to the case. But the JAG investigators themselves, so far a male and female, engage in a level of flirting that could endanger their careers, such as longing gazes, banter filled with sexual innuendo, double entendres, and such. For Navy lawyers, they seem pretty reckless and fate-tempting. I know this is a TV show, and sexual tension halos ratings, but for me it hurts the show's authenticity.

I've seen jag before and it was funny, unreal and very proamerican. But the last episode I saw, at least half of it (couldn't watch anymore) was as disappointing as well as stupid, inaccurate and totally offensive. The story of this episode (I can't remember the title/number) was about a pilot, that shot an armored car, because he thought that the Serbs were in it. It had a flag on it and wasn't shooting at anyone ;>

Well let me tell you why is this very wrong: Even though I'm not a Serb (I'm Slovenian) and I know very well about mass murders or genocide that happened in the 90-is, it is very clear that: 1. Russian and Yugoslavian flag do have the same colours but NOT the same flag. Comm'on, don't you remember the red star? in the MIDDLE of the flag?? 2. Killing someone just because he's of a certain nationality is wrong, even if, at the time, he's involved in a large scale war. Yeah, than the character stated that he had to kill them, because they were probably headed to make another mass burial site. Aham... like only the Serbs did that. Wake up! There was no good/evil here! Just too much propaganda, just like in USA and Cuba nowadays...

I don't get it - I know that "history is written by winners" but here was nothing to win. The real truth about the wars aggressors will show: a) when enough time passes, so most people involved in it will be dead and b) that "evildoers" weren't only the Serbs but all nations that were part of that big old Yugoslavia.

JAG (Judge Advocate General) is one of my favorite shows. Week after week we see our invincilble-gungho hero and somewhat aloof romatic Harmon Rabb Jr (David James Elliot), pursue terrorists, prosecute, convict, defend and acquit: not-always-innocent scumbags, incompetent sailors and marines, and even his best friend. Its hard to believe Elliot is Candadian born, playing a top American Hero.

I first saw JAG (although I did not really care about it) way back in 1995 when it first aired on NBC, but after 21 episodes (out of 22) and less than spectacular ratings, NBC canned it in the Spring of 1996. NBC refused to air the (still somewhat unresolved to this very day) season 1 cliffhanger finale, although it did air in other parts of the world (More on this shortly). I was a late comer, only captivated by summertime boredom and thus watching reruns on USA network, I realized I loved the show's premise, Law and Order meets Top Gun. Harmon Rabb Jr (Elliot) is Mavrick (Tom Cruise), almost to the letter. He's a tomcat pilot, he's a gorgeous hunk to the ladies, and he's arrogant and reckless. But at the sametime he couldn't be more different from Mavrick: he's a topnotch investigator and litigator, he's determined, he's sophisticated, and he's calm, calculating and sometimes vengefull.

Ironically, JAG's creator, Donald P. Bellisario, himself an former US. Marine, had previous successes on NBC with the Miami Vice predecessor Magnum P.I., and the scifi adventure series Quantum Leap. CBS saw potential in Bellisario's dream, even if NBC did not, and picked it up for a 2nd season, which began airing in 1997, realizing that JAG had a large (and potentially lucrative) following. For years, CBS had been trying to pull itself out of the ratings shawdows cast down on it from NBC and ABC as well as staying ahead of the upstarts FOX, UPN and WB. Today, JAG is among the Top 15 highest rated shows on TV. NBC execs shot themsselves in the foot with JAG's cancellation and are still shaking the heads over.

The show contains stories of American hero's in the Navy, taking real events and writing them into interesting epiodes with war stories and POW tales from Bosnia, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and the Cold War with the extinct USSR. It also writes in media feeding frenzies such as Elian Gonzalez, protests involving live fire exercises in Puerto Rico, and last year's Spy plane incident with China. With the tragic events of Sept 11, and subsequent military involvement in Afganistan, JAG's latest season (season 7) now focuses almost exclusively on the continueing military effort to weed out world terrorists writing it into an intricate tale that could be very real in spirit.

The show contains plenty of fascinating film sequences which are often pulled out of cinematic features, to give the stories colorful and exciting action sequences, transitional scenery, and location. The show's producers also insert actual footage recored by the US Military from training exercises, sometimes sending their own photographers to on-duty warships.

Throughout, the show's first season, most episodes were straitforward and hostile. Rabb just did his job, with fire, on the run, never having any remembrance of the previous week's adventure, and a blond female partner, Meg Austin (Tracey something). The season ended with a cliffhanger that never aired in the US, as NBC cancelled JAG. But by the 2nd season, we never knew what really happened in the show's S1 finale (it was later explained, albiet badly in a "flashback" episode in S3). That explanation is: a female officer and lover of Rabb's is murdered, presumably by a stalker. What diehard fans know is that the woman who was murdered happens to be a "twin" of Rabb's new partner, except that they have no familial relations whatsoever to one another...that we know of at any rate. This twin is Rabb's counterpart and princpal character: Sarah "Mac" McKenezie (Cathryn Bell). At first, Rabb had trouble accepting Mac, but gradually a best friend relationship grew between them, for the uncanny resemeblance Rabb sees in Mac to that of his deceased love, but now its created a hell of a sexual tension between the two. Mac herself show's remarkable vulnerability and defiance to Rabb. She's tagged along on his personel "Mulder-like" mission to Russia to learn the truth about Rabb's father who dissappeared during the Vietnam War. In almost every way possible she has kept him inline whenever he screws up, yet when she screws up, she wants nothing to do with Rabb. An interesting tale of melodrama.

Great show, check it out!

When JAG first came on the air, I didn't watch it at all. My politics are a little left of center and I was not impressed by the first Bush administration sending our people to secure the Kuwaiti oil fields. I felt American lives were worth more than that. When a show came on a couple of years later that was advertised by seemingly endless shots of people in uniform saluting planes that were taking off, I just wasn't in the mood for what I took to be a John Wayne vision of the military as a bunch of patriotic action figures with no real depth as human beings.

A couple of years later I was visiting my parents and they had begun watching JAG, scheduling their Tuesday evening plans around it. This was not surprising for my Dad, an ex-marine and a solid Republican. It was surprising for my Mom, a Democrat with the same opinion of military adventures that I had. The first episode I watched was the last episode of the third season, "To Russia With Love". It seemed reasonably entertaining and certainly wasn't' "jingoistic". The characters were multi-dimensional, (I certainly noticed that Catherine Bell was!). Since it was a cliff-hanger I naturally had to watch the first show in the fall and slowly became hooked, making the show part of my own regular viewing schedule.

I found it a solid, if flawed, drama focusing primarily on the effort, through law, to keep the military on it's moral compass. I'd always liked "The Caine Mutiny" and also liked "A Few Good Men", which seems to have inspired the series. The concept of judging a severely hierarchical organization using a set of standards that ultimately supersedes the hierarchy while continuing to respect it is dramatically interesting and the show drove home the point that military power itself is not enough: it has to have a moral reason for its existence and use.

When I used to watch "Star Trek", I presumed that a civilization that could travel across the distances of space would probably be militarily superior to anyone they encountered and that their dilemmas would tend to be moral, (how to use their power wisely), more often than physical, (how to get more power to defeat a threat), and I preferred the "moral dilemma" episodes, even though they were in the minority. In JAG, those episodes seemed to be the norm and the "action" episodes the exception.

There were two things I didn't like about the show. One was it's non-linear format, jumping from the main story to a romantic or comical sub-plot or into a continuing background story. I prefer shows that stick to their subject. JAG seemed to be a half-hour drama padded into an hour format by all the "other stuff". I came to resent the "action" shows. They seemed to be a rather silly divergence from what the show was really about, certainly from what a JAG lawyer's job was all about. I remembered watching "Homicide", which was supposed to be an examination of the day-to-day lives of Baltimore homicide detectives but which occasionally was interrupted with episodes the network insisted they make about serial killers, drug kingpins and arsonists so they could advertise it with titles like "City on Fire", etc. It seemed to me that the "action" episodes of JAG, with their "Hunt for Red October" plots, CIA undercover work, continuing stories about Harm's father and brother and mysterious, recurring villains served the same purpose for the network and served little purpose on the show itself.

The show went off the air after a decade and I was recently walking through a record store and saw the DVD of the first season of JAG for sale. I bought it on a whim, just to see what the show was like at its beginning. It was a revelation. The shows take place almost entirely in the field and are about JAG investigations. Those investigations inevitably lead to action-packed sequences but at least they grow logically out of a JAG investigation. The show has a completely linear format and thus has a much faster pace but still has more time to tell it's story because it's not cross-cut with sub-plots or ongoing stories. I like Catherine Bell but I like Tracey Needham even a little better. She seems very soft and sexy, (especially with that watery voice), and yet can be tough when the occasion demands. "Tough" is a personality trait but not a type of person and those who have to be hard-boiled to be tough really aren't very good at it. Meg Austin demonstrates that very well.

The production values are amazing, especially since the show at that time had no Navy co-operation. Clips and even sets from several movies, (Top Gun, The Hunt for Red October, Crimson Tide and isn't the ambush in "War Cries" from "A Clear and Present Danger"?) are skillfully integrated with stock footage and scenes shot on an old carrier and in a studio give each episode the look of a movie.

It's one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen. Even if there are only two episodes with courtroom scenes, the "moral dilemmas" are still there: the show is all about right and wrong. Even though I liked the later JAG, I'd have to say the original concept of the show was much superior. Apparently the public, (the show was ranked 77th in the ratings that year) and the networks didn't agree. The show got canceled, picked up by CBS and changed considerably and wound up in the top ten, lasting a decade, something very few shows have ever done.

At least we've got the DVDs of the first season to see what it was originally supposed to be like.

So, we've got drama, romance, lawyers, planes, ships, action, detective work, some CSI and just a tad of comedy. It's like ten different shows packed in one! Sure, many shows feature some of this elements, but I can't remember any that has them all. So whatever your preferences are when it comes to TV shows, you will find something you'll like, and there's a good chance it's going to be better than a show that deals only with few of the above-mentioned things.

JAG doesn't hold you to the screen with short cuts, hyperactive camera or speedy dialogs, it doesn't rely on fancy photography or cool special effects, it doesn't try to make you watch just for attractive characters (altough it could :-p). What you get from JAG is content - characters, cases, long story arcs... Each episode offers an eclectic variety of topics to discuss by the water cooler :).

What more can you wish for?

I guess this sort of thing is bound to be heavy on the jingoism and right-wing cobblers .... you expect that, but it really goes beyond the pale.

Mostly it's just there for people who obviously get oddly excited by uniforms and people saluting, which is all good fun, I suppose. Sadly it's all done on a budget so the acting is wooden, the scripts shallow and unconvincing and most of the stuff gluing it together nicked from stock footage without even a crude attempt at CGI to make the continuity work (others have mentioned details like plane types and ship numbers, but even the basics ... a plane has a sodding great hole blasted in it and the next minute a mint example lands at Miramar, before, frames later, the bruised pilot is hauled out of the wreckage).

All very laughable, but does it matter? well yes it does, the political agenda strays into the story lines, and google about, people are taking this nonsense seriously.

A few episodes deal with sexual harassment, but in such a one dimensional unquestioning way, all trying to refight the tailhook controversy, but so transparently and obnoxiously they actually show whoever is behind this appalling stuff learned entirely the wrong lesson.

Just watched a ridiculous journey into Northern Irish terrorism. Belfast seems to be some sort of downtown New York with 50s London taxis and buses (hey, you can get a bus from the RUC HQ direct to Carnaby street!). RUC officers seem to have dodgy Cork accents, while the IRA spoke with voices I'd normally expect to hear from an apprenticeboy. Everyone had a nice tie and tweedy suit. Of course the English have to be baby-eating facists, and the visiting Americans can cut through decades of complex intrigue and hatred to solve the case in mere minutes, hampered only by this British obsession with not allowing them to carry guns.

I'd love to see the producers have the guts to try the same sort of insulting nonsense set in downtown Jerusalum.

The characters in this thing are so one-dimensional, the scripts predictable, and the whole thing so cheaply chucked together. I watch and love it, like a Jerry Springer show in which the participants haven't yet cottoned on ...

"JAG," in my opinion, is a pure CBS classic! I haven't seen every episode, but I still enjoyed it. However, I think it was always sad when someone was wrongly court-martialed. I always felt for the defendant. It's hard to say which episode was my favorite. It would probably have to be one of the Christmas episodes. Despite the fact that it was a long-running series, it would have been nice if everyone had stayed with the show throughout its entire run. It seems that no one stays with a show throughout its entire run. Everyone always gave a good performance, the production design was spectacular, the costumes were well-designed, and the writing was always very strong. In conclusion, I hope it lives on in syndication for a long time for fans of the show to see.

Is this an original show or the television equivalent of an army-navy recruiting poster? What made the movie "A Few Good Men" such outstanding cinema was its willingness to steer clear of obvious military cliché. Sure you can have the fanatical colonel who was a disciple at Patton's knee but there's also ingredients in his character that makes him different. Jessup certainly had the passion of a Patton but also the contempt for authority of a Nixon. But JAG offers the hot-headed and sweating military officer whose veins pop out of his neck ad infinitum that has been seen so many times that it's a textbook study of stereotypes to avoid. Budding screenwriters take note. (Take note of a similar character in the recent film "Avatar".) But in JAG few characters are anything more than these caricatures who are exactly as you would expect them.

The opening pilot episode wreaks with so much wall-to-wall story cliché, it seems a collage of scenes from other films and shows. From the strands of trumpet fanfares accompanied by snare drums at the opening (my kingdom for different music) to the flashback of the main character as a naval pilot, JAG never quite transcends to an original story. I couldn't help but think of the parody "Airplane!" with the flashback sequence. There's the tough butch woman out to prove she's as good as men, the hot-headed aircraft carrier captain, the obnoxious guy in the officer's lounge who knows the investigator, the sexual innuendos between the two investigators who just happen to be a male and a female, and the creme-de-la-creme: the main character's father was also a naval pilot who died on a mission. If I had $100 for every time someone referred to his father, I could probably buy a Carravagio. I guess you just had to have the obligatory "Your father would be very proud of you." Give me a break. Were the writers sick the day they taught how to avoid hackneyed dialog? This came off like a by-the-numbers approach to film-making that you could probably purchase at a game store for about $10. There's "Patton", "Top Gun", "Moonlighting", "A Few Good Men", almost any western of your choice where there's bar or saloon, and of course almost any over-the-top war movie of your choice, like "The Longest Day".

The plot of the first episode is somewhat interesting: a woman naval pilot on the verge of an outstanding career goes missing from aboard her aircraft carrier. The two JAG corps investigators, a boy-girl team in the style of "Hart to Hart" and "Moonlighting", board the carrier to reveal the truth. Of course the implied sexual play between the two leads is so over-the-top I expected them to be leaping into a bunk together by conclusion, which is against naval regulations. At first the female character states that this is strictly a business-investigative relationship. However, when the male lead is speaking to her in private, he gets closer to her than would be necessary to kiss. And she lets it happen as if she can't refuse him. So much for the rhetoric of the show. (One thing I liked about "A Few Good Men" is that the young leads, Tom Cruise and Demi Moore, never got together.) The only notable performance of the entire episode was by Terry O'Quinn, playing a military colleague of the lead investigator's late father. He's tough, smart and not entirely sold on the idea of women naval pilots. Simultaneously he doesn't come off cliché or stereotypical.

Unfortunately the pilot episode of JAG collapses under its own weight. By show's end I knew who did it. The acting is marginal, except for O'Quinn. There are too many badly scripted, acted and directed sexual innuendo scenes in the vein of Moonlighting but not nearly as good or believable. They just came off contrived as if the producers are showing us what we want to see. Also, too many cliché characters, too many other cliché scenes, like the chewing out of an inferior officer by a superior. And the hot-head in the lounge/bar. How many times have I seen this? And that's the problem with cliché. It starts seeming like a cartoon and not something real. And I begin to lose interest because I've seen it before. Good writing avoids cliché because we want to see something new, not just a jigsaw puzzle of worn-out scenes. Strangely enough, I think cliché is less believable.

This is one of the few shows I make an effort to watch every week. I like the interplay and chemistry between the characters, whether it is the leading two or the rest.The lesser known characters and guests stars play their roles well. Whethger it's Bud, Chedweggen, Singer or Gunny I like the roles and the characters. In fact the less popular characters are as neccessary to the show as the two leads. Who didn't feel sad for the pain of his character and his family when Bud lost his leg in Afghanistan? You get the chance to know and in some cases not just love, but strongly dislike the characters.While I am not big into lawyer shows, the military aspect and background makes it much better and different with political,military and possible combat situation. I was a fan of the show before Catherine Bell arrived and have remained so. The chemistry between Mac and Harm is great. I just hope they don't kill one of them off when the show has run its course. The show is a sterling example of our best and brightest doing their jobs day in and day out where the rules are different and its in a realm many Americans do not understand or know about. This has to rank as one of the best tv series' about the military.JAG is A1 in my book. I hope it goes on for a few more years!

That episode ("When the Bough Breaks" ep #167) was NOT the season 8 finale; it's only the 8th ep of the season. There is MUCH more coming in the rest of the season, including things about Loren Singer. The episode "Ice Queens" (ep. #178) deals with Singer getting hers. That ep and the next one, "Meltdown", serve as the pilot for a possible spin-off titled "NCIS", starring Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly (Logan Cale of "Dark Angel") and Robyn Lively (of "Chicago Hope").

I've been a fan of JAG since its debut and am *rarely* disappointed in an episode. It's one of the reasons I look forward to Tuesdays.

JAG was the best show on TV-- strong cast, strong story lines, not to mention the undeniable sexual tension b/w Harm and Mac... JAG had it all--action, drama, mystery, romance, humor... you really do not have shows like JAG nowadays... JAG represented the military in a positive light and you always knew the good guys would win! David James Elliott and Catherine Bell had the most amazing chemistry on screen-- you just could not get enough of Harm and Mac. Now that JAG has FINALLY been released on DVD, fans can revisit episodes and enjoy them over and over again. For those who have never seen JAG, you need to watch!!! Shows today really do not have values-- JAG did-- truth, justice, and the American way-- sounds cliché but it really had these qualities. JAG will live on forever-- HOOYAH and HOORAH!! :) GO JAG!!!!!

It's difficult to overlook this show's lack of originality and predilection for mishmash. Just a TV version of A Few Good Men with dragged out courtroom scenes and implausible action sequences for "variety". Super lawyers flying jets, parachuting into enemy territory, exchanging gunfire with opposing forces, and being fluent in ten languages? Good God! Far more ridiculous is that many of the episodes not only duplicate story lines of other films, but blatantly include their footage as well. One episode about the IRA ripped off numerous clips from In The Name of The Father. Another, where David Elliot is held prisoner in China, was taken smack out of Red Corner. I even recognized recycled segments from The Hunt for Red October and Crimson Tide during several submarine episodes. After these major flaws, it's barely worth mentioning the immature dialogue and amateurish special effects, but there you have it. One star out of four.

JAG is my favorite show. I wish I can say that I've watched JAG from the beginning but I can't. I started watching it when Montell Williams was on it as a Navy Seal receiving the Medal of Honor. I have started catching up on the first episodes on reruns however and I'm glad.