If you started JAG from the very beginning, you may have been excited about the show. NBC debuted this show which appeared to be a cross of "Top Gun" and "A Few Good Men." Lt. Harmon Rabb, Jr. played by David James Elliot was the main character with a catchy name at that!But what we saw were very wooden performances by the players. David James Elliot and crew are good actors, but they didn't seem convincing in their roles. The stories were worthy for a military show, but left little to be desired in the final product. While recycling footage from other movies is nothing new, the first season of JAG relied too much on many footage from "Top Gun" and "Clear and Present Danger" plus other military themed movies. For people who had seen those movies prior to JAG, it may have detracted a bit from the stories they were trying to present. T.V. Guide even "jeered" one of JAG's use of recycled scenes as one of their episodes had a scene which was taken directly from "Clear and Present Danger" and in a fashion that was not only footage borrowing, but literal scene stealing as T.V. Guide described it. Not cool.The first season didn't make many waves both in the network and with viewers and was subsequently cancelled. It looked like the show plus David James Elliot and company were going to be forgotten.Enter Season 2. . .The 1996 - 97 TV season was well underway when JAG returned in January 1997, but this time on CBS. David James Elliot was returning to his (soon-to-be) iconic role; with him, newcomer, Catherine Bell was tapped to play USMC Major Sarah MacKenzie. John M. Jackson (Adm A.J. Chegwiggin) and Patrick Labyorteux (Lt. Bud Roberts) who were previously recurring/guest characters returned as regulars on the show.Along with new faces to the regular cast, came new and improved writing that appealed to viewers. I don't know if hit TV creator Don Bellesario went to CBS or CBS went to him, but they took a chance: they succeeded. JAG became the hit DB wanted it to be and it aired for eight more years!The second season still used footage from "Top Gun" and other military movies in its opening sequence, plus episodes. However, it appeared that they toned the recycled scenes a bit which is a good thing (as again, they seemed to detract from the show itself in the first season).Eventually, most or all recycled movie scenes were gone. They shot their own military scenes, and unlike in the first season, the Departments of Defense and Navy cooperated in the shooting of JAG. When available, scenes were shot aboard real U.S. Navy ships, plus Marine Corps and Navy shore bases.The characters really took off and developed from season two on. The stories were something people cared about and loved to see. A few more characters joined the cast as the show continued on.Like most military movies and TV shows, there were artistic liberties taken in how they were portrayed (like a former F-14 pilot turned military lawyer still being able to get flight time!). But how the actors carried themselves were very convincing; they had the military bearing and command presence down pat! The wooden performances from season one all became but a forgotten memory.Many (cancelled) shows that get a second chance rarely make something at that shot. JAG went above and beyond when Don Bellesario, the writers and the actors regrouped and made an excellent comeback which remained at the top of its game until the very end!

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.

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 a comfort-food style series. You know before it starts that the good guys will be good and the bad guys, bad. There's no ambiguity and no thinking is needed - as there are never any mis-carriages of justice, nor any loopholes to get guilty people off. The main guy always wins his cases, no matter what's involved. All the military characters are completely predictable and stay well within their rather limited roles. In general they are all portrayed as focused, compulsive and driven: going to any extreme to uncover justice. The shows are based around "our military heroes" who seem to have the ability to execute US military law wherever they happen to be in the world.