JAG (U.S. military acronym for Judge Advocate GeneralSometimes stylized either as J*A*G or as J.A.G. in promotional materials, including the DVD releases) is an American legal drama television series with a U.S. Navy theme, created by Donald P. Bellisario and produced by Belisarius Productions in association with Paramount Network Television (now CBS Studios).. From the Paramount website, through archive.org. Retrieved on 2015-03-22.It was one of the last Paramount-produced TV series to end under that name, prior to the firm becoming CBS Paramount Network Television. The series originally aired on NBC for one season from September 23, 1995, to May 22, 1996, and then on CBS for an additional nine seasons from January 3, 1997, to April 29, 2005. The first season was co-produced with NBC Productions (now Universal Television) and was originally perceived as a Top Gun meets A Few Good Men hybrid series.Karlen, Neal. "COVER STORY;From the Man Behind 'Magnum, P.I.,' 'Top Gun' Meets 'A Few Good Men' ", The New York Times (November 5, 1995)
In the spring of 1996, NBC cancelled the series after it finished 79th in the ratings, leaving one episode unaired. In December 1996, rival network CBS picked up the series as a midseason replacement and aired 15 new episodes as its second season. For several seasons, JAG climbed in the ratings and ultimately ran for nine additional seasons. JAG furthermore spawned the hit series NCIS, which in turn led to spin-offs NCIS: Los Angeles, NCIS: New Orleans, NCIS: Hawaiʻi, NCIS: Sydney, NCIS: Origins, NCIS: Tony & Ziva and NCIS: New York.
In total, 227 episodes were produced over 10 seasons. At the time of the original airing of its fifth season in the United States, JAG was seen in over 90 countries worldwide. Official Paramount site from January 2000, retrieved through archive.org. Retrieved on 2013-10-09.
Premise The series follows the exploits of the "judge advocates" (i.e. uniformed lawyers) in the Department of the Navy's Office of the Judge Advocate General, based in the Washington metropolitan area. In the line of duty, judge advocates can prosecute and defend criminal cases under the jurisdiction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (arising from the global presence of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps,) conduct informal and formal investigations, and advise on military operational law.About Navy JAG , Office of the Judge Advocate General, U.S. Department of the Navy. Retrieved on 2013-09-17.
In the first season, the in-universe JAG headquarters was set in Washington, D.C., while in later seasons, it is located in Falls Church, Virginia. The exterior shot for the latter was of the Cravens Estate in Pasadena, which at the time was owned by the American Red Cross. The real-life Office of the Judge Advocate General (OJAG) was and is based at the Washington Navy Yard.
Akin to Law & Order, the plots from many episodes were often "ripped from the headlines" with portions of the plot either resembling or referencing recognizable aspects of actual cases or incidents, such as the USS Cole bombing ("Act of Terror" and "Valor"), the rescue of downed pilot Scott O'Grady ("Defensive Action"), the Cavalese cable car disaster ("Clipped Wings"), the USS Iowa turret explosion ("Into the Breech"), and the Kelly Flinn incident ("The Court-Martial of Sandra Gilbert").
While not part of the mission of its real-world counterpart, some of the main characters are at times also involved, directly and indirectly, in various CIA intelligence operations, often revolving around the recurring character CIA officer Clayton Webb (played by Steven Culp).
Episodes
Cast and characters
Main David James Elliott as Harmon "Harm" Rabb, Jr., USN, Lieutenant/Lieutenant Commander/Commander/Captain, JAG Corps; Acting Judge Advocate General; Captain; Executive Officer of USS Allegiance (NCIS: Los Angeles). (While promoted to Captain in the last episode, Rabb is never seen in that role in the series, only in a subsequent episode of NCIS: Los Angeles) Tracey Needham as Meg Austin, USN (season 1), Lieutenant JG Catherine Bell as Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie, USMC (seasons 2–10), Major/Lieutenant Colonel, JAG Corps; OJAG Chief of Staff; Acting Judge Advocate General; Head of Joint Legal Services Southwest (San Diego); Marine Liaison to the U.S. Secretary of State (NCIS: Los Angeles). (It is unclear if Mac ever took the Head of Joint Legal Services Southwest [San Diego] as the series ends with a coin toss in which either she or Rabb will resign their commission so they can be together.) Patrick Labyorteaux as Budrick "Bud" Roberts, Jr., USN (main: seasons 2–10; recurring: season 1); Ensign; Lieutenant JG/Lieutenant/Lieutenant Commander, JAG Corps; JAG Captain (NCIS). John M. Jackson as Albert Jethro "A.J." Chegwidden, USN (main: seasons 2–9; recurring: season 1), Rear Admiral, JAG Corps; Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy; SEAL; lawyer (NCIS), later retired (NCIS: Los Angeles). Scott Lawrence as Sturgis Turner, USN (main: season 10; recurring: seasons 7–9), Commander, JAG Corps; Acting Judge Advocate General; submariner. Zoe McLellan as Petty Officer Jennifer Coates (main: season 10; recurring: seasons 7–9), USN. Legalman, personal aide to the Judge Advocate General.
Recurring
Production
Background and development The creator of JAG, Donald P. Bellisario, served for four years in the U.S. Marine Corps, and after having worked his way up through advertising jobs, he landed his first network television job as a story editor for the World War II–era series Baa Baa Black Sheep, where he got a habit of promoting a consistent promilitary stance in a business where he got the perception that "antiwar" and "antisoldier" mentality were the commonplace.Erickson: p. 127. The stereotype in the post–Vietnam War era of "crazed Vietnam veterans" was notably subverted, by not just one, but three of the main characters, in Magnum P.I., of which Bellisario was the co-creator. Following the cancellation of his series Quantum Leap, Bellisario moved his production deal from Universal to Paramount (headed by former Universal executive Kerry McCluggage), and began working on a one-shot screenplay of a murder mystery aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, where the victim was a woman and naval aviator, inspired by the then-current introduction of female fighter pilots onboard aircraft carriers and in the wake of fallout of the Tailhook scandal.
While doing research on which organizational entities would partake in investigative efforts of crimes committed aboard Naval vessels, Bellisario learned that the special agents of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service filled the police role, and the uniformed lawyers, in the Navy's Judge Advocate General's Corps, could alternate between the role of defense attorney, prosecutor, and field investigator. Bellisario chose to go ahead with the lawyers and remarked the unique advantages it brought from a story-telling point of view: "Unlike most law shows, I've got a detective, a prosecutor, and a defender."
Production With the cancellation on NBC and the immediate pick-up by CBS, showrunner Donald P. Bellisario was allowed greater creative freedom in terms in story and casting. While over on NBC, its West Coast president Don Ohlmeyer wanted more action rather than legal drama and imposed a new female lead, Tracey Needham, rather than continuing with Andrea Parker as in the pilot movie. The move over to CBS, with its older skewing audience and its president Les Moonves giving freer reins, allowed Bellisario to retool JAG from an emphasis on action stories to character driven stories and building an ensemble cast.
At the start of the third season, JAG moved its production base from the Paramount lot at Melrose Avenue in Hollywood out to Valencia Studios in Santa Clarita in order to save costs and putting more of the budget on screen rather than spending on soundstage rentals. The spin-off series NCIS has remained on the same studio facility for its entire duration and was filmed side-by-side with JAG for the ninth and tenth season of the latter and the first and second season of the former.
While the scope of the in-universe settings of JAG were global, the show was, with only a few exceptions, entirely filmed on location in Southern California and mostly within Greater Los Angeles and the studio zone in which unionized film crews can commute without receiving additional remuneration. JAG had around the dawn of millennium two location managers for this task alternating between episodes, Paul F. Brinkman, Jr and Marvin Bernstein. A few examples of buildings acting as stand-in on location shooting are: Park Plaza Hotel, the Gothic revival style building with Art Deco elements (Moscow hotel), Angeles National Forest (Siberian taiga), Shrine Auditorium, the masonic temple and large-event venue (Bahrain and various settings in the Middle East), Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary building in the Los Feliz district (American Embassy in Rome and various other places in Italy), Old Town shopping district in Pasadena (East Coast small towns.) The advance of computer-generated imagery (CGI) made the process of removing palm trees and California license plates simpler still. As to how effectively the deception worked according to the showrunner when JAG started to air overseas, "we started to get letters from England, from Germany, from the Middle Eastern companies. A lot of these viewers wanted to know: When were we going to shoot in their city?"
It was reported by Variety in February 2002 that the average production cost per episode of JAG at that time was around $2.6 million.
Collaboration with the military
Initially, the producers of JAG did not receive any co-operation from the U.S. Department of Defense entertainment media liaison offices, due to sensitivity in light of all the accumulative negative publicity that had been generated from the Tailhook scandal and its aftermath.Erickson: p. 129. However, the lack of co-operation from the military was not a show-stopper, as the JAG production team, by virtue of being a Paramount Pictures production, had access to the abundant stock footage from the studio's motion pictures, which included many films with military content, such as Top Gun, The Final Countdown, and The Hunt for Red October (and the two other Tom Clancy movie adaptations).Erickson: p. 128.
In 1997, though, the naval services had begun to change their minds, and began to render support to the production team on a script-by-script basis with the United States Marine Corps more eager than the United States Navy to render production assistance. A primetime network series about Navy lawyers bringing out controversial subjects in a very public arena was during the third season apparently no longer an issue in itself, but as noted by Commander Bob Anderson of the Navy Office of Information West in Los Angeles in a TV Guide interview: "We're fine with that as long as the bad guys are caught and punished, and the institution of the Navy is not the bad guy". The Headquarters Marine Corps Entertainment Liaison Office lists JAG on their website in its portfolio of collaborations.
The production filmed on a regular basis at nearby installations, primarily at Naval Base Ventura County and its two component parts: Naval Air Station Point Mugu and Naval Construction Battalion Center Port Hueneme. Between 12–14 July 1999, three of the lead actors (Elliott, Bell, and Labyorteaux) and crew filmed aboard the nuclear-powered Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) off the coast of Southern California for scenes for the first 3 episodes of the 5th season.
Series end