JAG - General Discussion

[GHScorpiosRule]

I hear ya, @Raja! And while the first season’s finale was never aired in the original airing on NBC, but was in the summer hiatus? When they used most of the episode in the season three “Death Watch”  as flashbacks, I thought it was a cheap cop out NOT to have Harm tell Mac that he  had been arrested for Diane‘s murder. They could have thrown a line in there how they let him go for lack of evidence.

Krennick should have been draaaged for her sexual harassment of Harm. But I guess since None of the male officers had to pay, it was A-Okay for her to get away with it?😒😒 I’m glad she got drop kicked as well. 
 

And I also LOATHE Brumby. Yes, it’s sad the actor committed suicide shortly after he left the show, but Mic just had this layer of smarm every time he opened his mouth and spoke. Which is why I pretty much fast forward all his scenes. And how I am up to season five now!😂😂😂

On 7/5/2024 at 6:26 PM, Raja said:

Jeff McKay who was Magnum's Mac was also a Black Sheep veteran.

Oh I knew about Jeff-Bellisario made a point about how he loved having him as Bud’s dad.

Okay, so the closest we got to getting Scott Bakula was in season three’s “Father’s Day” where there was a Quantum Leap convention and there were blow ups of Sam and Sam and Al!😂😂😂 still wish we could have gotten the actor.

[GHScorpiosRule]

Forgot to add and I don’t think I mentioned it before, but I hate that Harm Senior was cheater! Cheater! Pumpkin eater! In “Ghosts of Christmas Past” in season five. They could have NOT have him macking with Jenny Lake.  But noooooo. Must have David and Catherine kiss and utilize their chemistry while refusing to have them actually get together as Mac and Harm.

Edited July 9, 2024 by GHScorpiosRule

[Raja]

1 hour ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

but no hate that Harm Senior was cheater! Cheater! Pumpkin eater! In “Ghosts of Christmas Past” in season five

I can't say that I know the episodes distinctly  but I did gloss over the hows of the storyline of Harm SR. Being a POW*MIA who was taken to the Soviet Union and held secretly so Harm JR, Gene Hackman, Chuck Norris nor Rambo could go Mission MIA and recue him. And then he fathers a child while a secret prisoner in the Soviet Union. Well I was in for mostly getting the military stuff correct.

[GHScorpiosRule]

13 minutes ago, Raja said:

I can't say that I know the episodes distinctly  but I did gloss over the hows of the storyline of Harm SR. 

We know from the letter tapes he missed his wife and son. We know he was shot down on Christmas Eve 1969; we were told by Boone in addition to the mission(s), Hammer was devoted to Trish. But then we get this USO episode where the night before he’s shot down, he’s struck by lightning when he sees Jenny Lake (Catherine Bell) and he’s making out with her. When a few hours before he’s assuring Boone that he’s happily married and only thinks of Jenny as a “sister”, which turns out to be a lie.

Since most is fresh as I’ve been watching all week, Hammer was a P.O.W. until…’72, when he was traded to the Russians, and then sent to that place in ‘80 that we were teased with in season 3 and shown in four. I can…forgive Hammer’s fathering another child and having a relationship with Serge’s mom because he was never going to be able to go home again. But Show didn’t have to…tarnish him with his making out with Jenny the night before he was shot down. And of course Harm has noooo problem learning that.😒😒😒

I admit, I really like the episodes that flashback to Vietnam even though it’s fiction, I’m learning new stuff, if that makes sense and the episodes with CAG Boone because I love Terry O’Quinn and he’s so very good in the role.

And oh joy! The show’s 100 episode with the two parter in Australia “Boomerang” with wishy washy Harm and Mac accepting the ring from Brumby because Harm won’t make a commitment or isn’t willing to take the next step.

[GHScorpiosRule]

OY! Show should have ended after the 8th season. Harm and Mac could have and should have gotten together at the end of 7 or any time in 8! 
I hatehatehatehate what the show did to Mac. Where was the strong, independent Mac we met in season 2 and part of 3? They turned her into a weak, needy, insecure stereotype who needed a man and fell for each new man because she didn’t want to be alone. While I hated him, Mic called that when he left to return to Australia.

Yeah, yeah, except for that half-assed vague admission that he loved her at the end of season five-the NIGHT BEFORE her rehearsal dinner/night of engagement party, Mac knew how Harm felt. Show was quick to wrap up the Renee plot with the most misogynistic sexist story ever. But I didn’t really care because I couldn’t stand her ass.

I don’t know why I’m still watching season 9 and I know 10 is the worst-Jackson/Chegwiddeb is gone. And Mac just decides because Webb has had acting for her for years, that she is attracted to him as well and agrees to “date” him in 9. Harm did the one thing she asked him two years before: he LEFT the Navy/resigned his commission to go after her in Paraguay. Like Mic resigned his commission for her.

I really wish they could have found a place for Andrea Walker/Kate.

Mattie was one of the WORST things to happen and I couldn’t stand her obnoxious ass, either.

I much prefer Tiner to Coates.

[Raja]

After a half lifetime of NCIS always having jurisdiction I got a kick out of a DC homicide detective kicking Harm and Meg off of an US Army installation, Arlington National Cemetery when another Naval Lieutenant was murdered there.

[Magnumfangirl]

On 7/14/2024 at 8:04 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

Show was quick to wrap up the Renee plot with the most misogynistic sexist story ever.

I hated Renee when the show was in first run, but now I think she's the best girlfriend Harm ever had and they should have ended up together!  I know that's blasphemy to most JAG fans, but the more I watch the show, the less I like Mac.  She was such a ridiculous character.

[Raja]

On 7/5/2024 at 6:35 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

They got in trouble for the footage from Clear and Present Danger according to Bellisario in one of the dvd interviews. It’s why they stopped using other Hollywood movies in the first season only.

They did do a good job of swapping the JAG cast in Peru for Jack Ryan being ambushed in Colombia.

[GHScorpiosRule]

On 7/28/2024 at 11:56 AM, Magnumfangirl said:

I hated Renee when the show was in first run, but now I think she's the best girlfriend Harm ever had and they should have ended up together!  I know that's blasphemy to most JAG fans, but the more I watch the show, the less I like Mac.  She was such a ridiculous character.

Nope. Will never like that obnoxious, needy twit. Harm had no business getting involved with her when he was in love with Mac, and kept day dreaming and fantasizing about her.

Mac was a strong character her first year. With Dalton, it all went downhill. FAST.

[Raja]

Ollie's and Admiral Chegwidden second appearances. I couldn't believe the plot that JAG had the only ID on a global assassin and he ordered Harm and Commander Krennick to keep the information themselves to get JAG the credit. Assuming they were successful in prevent the assassination of Russia's President Yeltsin that is.

The socially awkward hacker upon meeting an officer asking the Commander if those were breast implants was as shocking as the my agency uber alles in the episode. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

So I'm nearly finished with my annual rewatch of this show. I think I'll stop at the end of season 8, because the last two seasons are just infuriating.

I can't believe I forgot to mention this in my previous posts, but at the end of "Contemptuous Words" where Harm is accused and charged with writing that Op-Ed about Clinton? We see Palmer criminally dropping $80? or was it over $100K into Harm's bank account and sending it to the obnoxious editor of the faux Washington Globe, who peered into the screen. That went nowhere and was dropped, thankyouTVGODS.

But I sure wish I could remember what that press conference that the Show inserted to be Clinton answering questions about the episode's plot was!

@Linderhill, you still around? I've been re-reading all the original comments about this show and NCIS Mothership from TWoP and just gobbling up the wonderful discussions we all had. Of course, I think mine got gobbled up in the few site crashes where we lost a lot of threads!

And since this show's thread started in the middle of the 8th season or beginning of 9th, I don't know if anyone there liked Harm! The Hate was STRONG. But I love him. Could he be an ass? Yes, absolutely. I blame it on all the new writers that came in after DPB left to go and concentrate on NCIS, which premiered during this show's last two seasons, and based on comments from the old place, didn't expect JAG to be renewed after season 8!

I mean, that line to Sturgess in "Jagathon" that every man Mac had been involved with either died or left was BEYOND COLD, and not something Harm would ever say about her.

I've been paying attention to the writers and directors, and could tell they were all new! And OMGEE, I also recognized one of my favorite writers from L&O: Mothership show up in season 6: Ed Zuckerman!

I'm dreading the end of the season because I know what happens to Bud. Season 8 is when Harm and Mac should have gotten together finally. But nope, we couldn't have that.

[Linderhill]

On 12/27/2024 at 1:30 PM, GHScorpiosRule said:

@Linderhill, you still around? I've been re-reading all the original comments about this show and NCIS Mothership from TWoP and just gobbling up the wonderful discussions we all had. Of course, I think mine got gobbled up in the few site crashes where we lost a lot of threads!

yup, I'm still around, I just don't comment a lot.  Good to see you posting!

[GHScorpiosRule]

10 hours ago, Linderhill said:

yup, I'm still around, I just don't comment a lot.  Good to see you posting!

Good to know! I know I've seen you post sporadically in the NCIS: Origins, which has played fast and loose with its canon, but this isn't the place to vent about that.

So I stopped watching when I got to the end of season 8 when Mac tells Harm she's leaving for Paraguay. I'm not interested in seeing Mac get all googly-eyed over Webb because he confesses he's in wuv with her and has been for years. This asshat decided that only MAC could help on this mission because of his feelings for her. And Mac by this point, true to form, falls for him because, hey, dude says he's in wuv with her, so that makes her realize she's got feewings for him as well!

[Linderhill]

@GHScorpiosRule I slogged my way thru to the end of the series since I hadn't watched any of the episodes since they were originally broadcast.  I started out just wanting to watch the NCIS backdoor pilot episodes. 

I did come to the conclusion that Harm in those early years was unbearably annoying.  As the series went on I really rooted for Mac to trounce him in the courtroom.  I still liked Harm overall, I just got tired of his early smugness. 

I agree the whole Webb situation was beyond stupid as was the the whole insta-daddy set up with that obnoxious teenage girl.  I still can't stand that actress anytime I see her in anything.  I kind of wish I'd stopped watching at season 8 too.  

[GHScorpiosRule]

8 hours ago, Linderhill said:

I did come to the conclusion that Harm in those early years was unbearably annoying.  As the series went on I really rooted for Mac to trounce him in the courtroom.  I still liked Harm overall, I just got tired of his early smugness. 

I think that was to show how cocky he was. It played out in later seasons, like in "the Greenie Board" when Harm returned to the carrier deck as a pilot when his eyes were "fixed" and that annoying as Fuck Buxom (played by the even more annoying as FUCK Lochlan Munro with his capped chompers), told his arrogant ass that he, Harm used to be him. And then when Show tried to sell me that Nick Beetem's new and upcoming arrogant, scheming, lying liar of a lawyer was anything like what Harm used to be in the last season. 

Harm may have been arrogant and smug; but he was always about justice and finding the truth-and NOT HIRING ACTORS to play witnesses and commit perjury. Just as in the second season, in "Secrets" where Scott Flynn played the Seal that "killed" his best friend? Harm dropped the charges when he learned WHY his friend committed suicide by his best friend. My favorite scene is Harm throwing beer in the father's face. Played by David Groh, who only ever played a good guy as Rhoda's boyfriend/husband.

 

8 hours ago, Linderhill said:

I started out just wanting to watch the NCIS backdoor pilot episodes. 

Hee. I always just skip to the end of the season just to watch "Ice Queen" and "Meltdown" whenever I do a marathon rewatch!😁

I know it was a backdoor pilot, but maaaan, can you imagine what kind of show we would have had, had Bellisario LET Gibbs know how computers and palm pilots worked? And was able to use them? Like he knew how to open up the CD drive and put in the stupid ass bio information BlackAdder "compiled" and when he was questioning Harm at the end of "Ice Queen" how Gibbs knew how to use the palm pilot. Instead, with the official show, we got a Gibbs who was a total techno turd.

I mean, I loved the Gibbs we had in the first two seasons, before Bellisario and Chas decided to go down the dark and angsty road with Gibbs.

8 hours ago, Linderhill said:

I agree the whole Webb situation was beyond stupid as was the the whole insta-daddy set up with that obnoxious teenage girl.  I still can't stand that actress anytime I see her in anything.  I kind of wish I'd stopped watching at season 8 too.  

THANK YOU! When I go back and read the TWoP archives, sooooo many just Loooooved Webb and thought he was sooooo hawt. Blech. I like Culp, but his mouth is all weird looking, which prevents me from finding him at all attractive.

The only thing I ever liked Hallee Hirsch in was in the premiere of season 10 of Law & Order: Original Recipe, where she played a sociopathic serial killer of little boys. And her character was 10. Don't get me started on how ridonkously unrealistic her "running" the air strip was, or that whole "living arrangement" with Coates. Harm should have bought a house if he wanted to be Daddy.

And I never bought Coates' testimony that Harm was soooo angry when he was talking with Singer and telling her to tell Sergei that he was the father of her baby, or when he told her "this isn't over"  as she left. If that was rage, enough to hit someone? Then I don't know what real rage is. And it's not as if they were yelling, so how the hell could she hear what they were saying? Yeah, yeah plot point, plot's gotta plot.

But oh how I wish we had seen more of Alan Dale's Tom Morrow before the backdoor pilot! HummaHummanaHubbaHubba!

[Linderhill]

On 1/22/2025 at 9:19 AM, GHScorpiosRule said:

annoying as Fuck Buxom (played by the even more annoying as FUCK Lochlan Munro with his capped chompers), told his arrogant ass that he, Harm used to be him. And then when Show tried to sell me that Nick Beetem's new and upcoming arrogant, scheming, lying liar of a lawyer was anything like what Harm used to be in the last season. 

YES!!!!  that at least gave Harm an idea of how he looks to others, he did get more tolerable -- until the whole insta-daddy plotline.  My sister is a big Hallmark Channel fan and insists on re-watching Hallee Hirsch's movie regularly.  That whole plot point was so incredibly ridiculous I wonder what drugs Bellisario was on when he thought that plot up.  What judge would approve that situation with this miscellaneous (obnoxious) teenager living with at staff member of the guy that wants to be her guardian?  Yes, the fool should have bought a house and moved to the suburbs if he really was serious about parenting her.  

Agreed on Tom Morrow, I was so incensed when they killed him off later on.  Getting rid of him in favor of Lauren Holly as director was one of the more misguided plots. 

Agreed on the change in the Gibbs personality after two seasons.  Yes, the DRAMA is always going to be pushed but for once it would be nice if that drama wasn't linked to the agony of the tragic loss of a spouse.  Wasn't there enough to explore to see why Gibbs was a serial dater of red-heads?

I liked Coates character after her "redemption" arc, but she fell into that terrible predictable precocious character that we all NEED to love role.   

Overall I really enjoyed the rewatch and I'll probably do another rewatch in a year or two and my opinion on Harm will probably change again.  I always loved him during the original broadcast and even attempted to see his and Mac's episodes from the LA show (which is something since I can't stand that show, stopped watching it halfway thru the first season).

It is so amazing how our television culture has changed since this series was on.  I'm so happy that we have the option of actually watching it in its entirety again.

[GHScorpiosRule]

13 minutes ago, Linderhill said:

I always loved him during the original broadcast and even attempted to see his and Mac's episodes from the LA show (which is something since I can't stand that show, stopped watching it halfway thru the first season).

Oh I couldn’t make it through the first season in spite of my love for LL Cool J! And that reunion was nothing but a bait and switch and during my last rewatch of this show, I think one of the writers HERE-Rimmel? Grimmel? Wrote the “reunion” and it was a FUCKING INSULT. Pissed me off to no end. If you want to know why, let me know.

And agree with you as to what was Belisario smoking with replacing Morrow with “Madame” director who always seemed to wear clothes to play up her boobage and smuggery knowing Rice, and the whole Harm wants to adopt whatsherface.

[Linderhill]

56 minutes ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Oh I couldn’t make it through the first season in spite of my love for LL Cool J! And that reunion was nothing but a bait and switch and during my last rewatch of this show, I think one of the writers HERE-Rimmel? Grimmel? Wrote the “reunion” and it was a FUCKING INSULT. Pissed me off to no end. If you want to know why, let me know.

I remember seeing that supposed reunion description on line and knew immediately that it was just a tease to get JAG viewers to tune in.  I never even bothered to remember any of the writers names for the LA show.  And I hear you on LL Cool J.  (I used like Chris O'Donnell before realizing what an idiot he is). 

Bringing things back to JAG, has there ever been any serious talk about rebooting the show?  With everything seeming to be rebooted these days, it seems prime for it.  What is Don working on these days?

  

[GHScorpiosRule]

23 minutes ago, Linderhill said:

Bringing things back to JAG, has there ever been any serious talk about rebooting the show?  With everything seeming to be rebooted these days, it seems prime for it.  What is Don working on these days?

People were actually thinking to reboot this show after Harm and Mac appeared on the LA show. But it was such a bomb, I think it was just fans who wanted it, if only to see Harm come back.

Lord, Bellisario will be 90 this year! Don’t know if he’s retired or what. But this show was really good when he was writing it and you knew he was no longer interested by the time season 6 came around? And when NCIS got the green light, he was writing for that, and the last two seasons sucked and you could tell part of it was because he had a new toy that had his attention.