JAG’ ending tour of duty

The military drama series has had a 10-year runUpdated: 6:59 p.m. ET April 4, 2005LOS ANGELES - The drama series “JAG,” which mixed real war and conflict with fiction, is ending after a 10-year run.



The final episode will air 9 p.m. April 29, CBS announced Monday.

Canceled after a single season on NBC, the show was picked up by CBS and became a reliable ratings performer and part of the network’s turnaround, said CBS Chairman Leslie Moonves.

But the series’ popularity had begun to ebb. It was averaging 9.8 million weekly viewers for the season to date, compared to 14.8 million viewers in the 2001-02 season.

“We’ve had an amazing run, particularly for a series that was once canceled,” show creator Donald P. Bellisario said. “Over the last 10 years we have had an opportunity to shine a spotlight on our armed forces and call attention to issues of significant importance to our country as well as the men and women who serve it.”

In one episode, a member of the JAG team was severely wounded by an Afghan mine while on assignment abroad.

Last February, series star David James Elliott, who plays Cmdr. Harmon “Harm” Rabb Jr., announced plans to leave when the 10th season ended. He has a series development deal with ABC and Touchstone Television.

The series co-stars Catherine Bell, Patrick Labyorteaux, Scott Lawrence and Zoe McLellan.

Bellisario, a former Marine, gained permission to film at locations including the Camp Pendleton and North Island Naval Air Station military bases in California and on aircraft carriers at sea.

THANK YOU.

JAG has jumped the shark with more vigor and speed than any show I can think of right now. This season has been dreadful. The series is no longer the show I started watching more than half a decade ago. I am actually glad to see it end.

I just hope we get a final episode worthy of JAG.

It should have ended 2 years ago, it has been dreadful since the Friday Night move.

This season has been awful and with DJE leaving next year would have been worst. I hope it has a great final.

The final episode airs tonight. I certainly hope it proves a worthy ending to such a fantastic series.

So, JAG ended tonight after 10 years with hardly any hype at all. Jimmy Kimmel made fun of it during his monologue earlier, doubt JAG will be missed.

Does anyone know what CBS is going to show on Fridays this summer???

Hi new to this section. :wave:

Just finally watched the last episode and wanted to say something to someone since my husband doesn't watch it. It was disapointing. I was a die hard shipper but I can't believe they actually decided to wrap up the entire thing in 10 mins.It was so rushed I didn't even think it was going to happen desipte the promos. I will miss it though. I've been watching it so long I can't believe its over.

I'll miss the show too... believe it or not, I had absolutely NO idea that last Friday's show was the series finale... I thought that this was the last year for the show, but I somehow missed the announcements that this was the final episode.

When Harm and Mac got engaged, I was thinking that perhaps one of them was dreaming, but then when the gang got together at the bar, I realized that it probably wasn't a dream... but there was only about 5 minutes left in the episode...

When they tossed the coin and ended the show with the coin in the air, I thought to myself, "uh oh, they're gonna make us wait until sometime in May to see what happens".

I had no idea that this was the end. JAG is the only CBS show I watch, so I never saw any promos for the finale. And I turned it on a couple of minutes into the show, so if it was announced as the show went on, I missed that as well.

I'll miss the show. That Catherine Bell.... oooo la la! :happyface
what a babe!

They didn't know that was the finale when they filmed it. Overall I thought it was pretty good but I didn't like how it ended in a clifthanger.

They didn't know that was the finale when they filmed it. Overall I thought it was pretty good but I didn't like how it ended in a clifthanger.

Interesting...I did not know that (that they didn't know it was the finale when they filmed it)...

Maybe the producers thought that with such a cliff hanger ending, CBS might be pressured into one more season...with or without Harm. There have been a number of shows that were cancelled and then brought back after public pressure... (Father Knows Best, Star Trek TOS, Dick Van Dyke Show)

They did know it was the finale. It was originally written as a series finale but CBS announced the show was cancelled early enough to allow for some hasty rewriting of portions of the script to wrap up the Harm and Mac storyline. Therefore, the ending is not really a cliffhanger, just ambigious. We know Harm and Mac got together, which is the important part. We just are not sure which one of them gives up their promotion.

Why Was ‘JAG’ Cancelled? (https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/why-was-jag-cancelled.html/)

During interviews with the Seattle Times and Chicago Tribune, JAG (https://web.archive.org/web/20061031133331/http://www.jumptheshark.com/j/jag.htm) creator Donald P. Bellisario says the viewers were simply too old. According to him, the older demographic is what caused the show to fizzle out. “The reason JAG (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/JAG) is not coming back is purely demographic. Nothing more,” said (https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/silent-running-jag-cashiered-out-by-cbs/) Bellisario in a 2005 interview with the Seattle Times. “Our 18- to 34-year-old audience is almost nonexistent. Almost all of our viewers are over 50. Why don’t advertisers go for that group? My God, we have a lot more money than any of these kids,” Bellisario added.

In his interview with the Chicago Tribune, Bellisario echoed what he told the Seattle Times. Although he says JAG (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAG_(TV_series)) was a great show, he was happy to be working on NCIS because the show appealed to a younger audience. “While JAG (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112022/) was terrific and had a lot of fans, they were older fans, and that’s one reason it was canceled,” Bellisario told (https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2005-07-17-0507170501-story.html) the Chicago Tribune in 2005. “With NCIS, I wanted a younger audience. I write this differently, and it’s shot and edited differently.”

Did David James Elliott’s departure play a role in ‘JAG’ ending?

Although some fans think Elliott’s departure is another reason JAG (https://web.archive.org/web/20140330100109/http://forums.televisionwithoutpity.com/topic/1767788-jag/?view=getnewpost) ended, TV Guide reports (https://www.tvguide.com/news/jag-david-elliott-star-38930/) this is not true. According to the publication, Elliott’s contract was not renewed, so he had no choice but to leave the show. Bellisario told TV Guide he was looking to hire someone younger and reduce costs. At the time, the show’s fate was unclear, so the TV executive was focused on building a younger cast. Here’s what Bellisario said about Elliott leaving JAG:

David left, and we wish him well. His contract was up, and we never expected it to go on. We had to cut costs. We started doing episodes with less of David, and it became obvious to him that we were not going to renegotiate [his contract]. We want a younger, hipper JAG. It was always intended that Catherine would be [on] the show next season but [Elliott] would not.