“JAG” gears up for change in time slot, plus a new spin-off
By Mike Hughes (Lansing State Journal)
Posted to the JAG list by Nancy
TV Week
Lansing [MI] State Journal
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Front Cover: (Picture of PL [serious scowl on face] in uniform in front of a Navy jet)
NAVY Man Patrick Labyorteaux stars in “JAG.” The popular CBS show is changing time slots. (Page 2)
Inside Cover: (Screen capture of DJE and CB from Critical Condition)
On the shaky landscape of network TV, “JAG” seems unique. Though it’s often overlooked by the media, the show keeps prospering. Now it has a fresh time slot, at 9 p.m. Fridays on Channel 6 (CBS); it is also
preparing for its ninth season and for a spin-off. That success may baffle Hollywood, but it seems logical to the people involved.
“The good guys win in ‘JAG,’” said actress Karri Turner. “There’s not a jerk in the bunch.”
Her character, Harriet Simms, may be typical. “She’s a do-the-right-thing person,” Turner said.
That’s also true of “Harm” Rabb (David James Elliott), “Mac” MacKenzie (Catherine Bell) and Bud Roberts (Patrick Labyorteaux). All are in the Judge Advocate General Corps. Which means they can be defense lawyers or prosecutors. All fit the unwavering view of producer Donald Bellisario.
“He’s a rare breed in this town,” said Mark Harmon, who will star in the spin-off (“Navy CIS”) this fall.
Bellisario, 68, does have some things in common with many Hollywood people: he’s been married often (he won’t say how often). He currently has nine children and stepchildren and admits to a lecherous side. “The older you get, sex is an affirmation of life.” Beyond that, however, he might not fit the lifestyle on either coast.
“I’m out of Middle America,” Bellisario said. “I write for Middle America. I don’t write New York angst.”
His roots are in Pennsylvania. He was born in North Charleroi (population 1,409), grew up in Cokeburg (population 705), got a journalism degree at Penn State and wrote for a small advertising agency in Lancaster, PA. He spent eight years with a Dallas ad agency, where he became creative director. Then Bellisario, an ex-Marine, wrote for NBC’s “Baa Baa Black Sheep,” a military show. That put him far from the Hollywood mainstream. “This town isn’t exactly a pro-military, right-wing town,” Bellisario said.
His big hit was “Magnum,P.I.” in 1980. That was followed by “Tales of the Gold Monkey,” “Airwolf” and “Quantum Leap.” There was a pattern of strong, silent heroes, played by Tom Selleck, Stephen Collins, Jan-Michael Vincent and Scott Bakula. Elliott wasn’t quite such a perfect fit for “JAG,” Bellisario said. “I looked at David four times.”
Clearly, Elliott is tall (6 feet, 4 inches) and handsome, in the Selleck style. The trick was finding the rest. “He has a sense of humor that you can get to under all that Canadian reserve,” Bellisario said.
Finding female leads hasn’t been easy either. In the early years of “JAG,” he went from Andrea Parker to Tracey Needham to Bell. Things were trickiest when filming the current season, because Bell was pregnant. At various points, Mac was kidnapped, was undercover as a pregnant person or was standing behind furniture.
That brought more work for Turner. Many seasons, she’s done 10 episodes; this season was 20. “When I started, I thought it was a one-time, one-episode job,” she said.
Now she’s preparing for her seventh season. She was once in the Groundlings comedy troupe with Labyorteaux. Later, when the “JAG” job came up, she phoned him. “I said, ‘I have to audition as a love interest for some guy named Bud.’ He said, ‘That’s me.’”
[Contact Mike Hughes at [email protected].]