What was NCIS forerunner JAG – and is it coming back?

As the current season of NCIS: Los Angeles draws to a close, there’s been a heavy presence of former cast members from JAG, the show that is probably best remembered as the source of the whole NCIS franchise.

Their increasing importance to the plot has made many wonder whether CBS is surreptitiously setting up a new version of the original show, with TVLine claiming they’ve been told that the network is testing the waters: when the series leads – David James Elliott’s Harmon Rabb Jr, and Catherine Bell’s Sarah 'Mac' MacKenzie – turn up in the two-part finale of NCIS: LA that starts this Sunday (May 5) in the US.

Chris O’Donnell and LL Cool J with David James Elliott on NCIS: LA

Like NCIS, JAG is an acronym – standing for 'Judge Advocate General' – and the 227 episodes across its ten seasons followed the cases of the navy’s legal department. If NCIS are the "police force" for the navy, JAG officers are the investigators, prosecutors or defenders – an ideal dramatic set-up that ensured that episodes never ran the risk of falling into too much of a rut, and allowed for dramatic tension as friends became opponents in the court room.

Created by Quantum Leap’s Donald P Bellisario, JAG started life on NBC but didn’t gain any traction there. NBC cancelled it after one season, CBS picked it up and ran it for nine further years gaining strong, if not stellar ratings.

"It doesn't have the Desperate Housewives kind of sexiness to it or anything," Bellisario explained at the time of the show’s final cancellation in 2005. "And that's fine. I set out to make what I like and I enjoy. We've been kind of under the radar for years. We just kept getting a great mass of Middle America, if you can use that term anymore.

"These are people who like the basic values of the military and former military people who have tuned in because we treat the military decently. It gave me a platform to talk about the Marine Corps and the Navy in a positive but not jingoistic way. The whole show is about crimes in the military, which is why the Navy initially didn't want to give me any cooperation."

A two-part story in 2003 introduced NCIS investigators Leroy Jethro Gibbs (and some of his early team), which spun off into the original NCIS. JAG ended in 2005 with Harm and Mac declaring their love for each other after they were posted to opposite sides of the globe, and tossing a coin to see which one would retire and join the other in their posting (we never saw the outcome).

There’s been occasional mention of some of the supporting JAG characters on the Washington-based show, with Patrick Labyorteaux’s Bud Roberts making multiple appearances and John M. Jackson’s now retired Rear Admiral AJ Chegwidden turning up on both NCIS and NCIS: LA.

However, neither Elliott nor Bell have ever been persuaded back into wearing the uniform for further appearances… until now.

NCIS: LA producer R. Scott Gemmill was one of the producers on JAG and is delighted to have reunited the pair. Although details of what’s happened to their characters in the intervening 14 years are still being kept under wraps, we know that Harm is now the XO (second in command) of a ship being targeted by terrorists and the NCIS: LA team are sent in to help.

So, could this be the start of a fresh jag for JAG? As with its successor shows, the series was built primarily around the cases being investigated, but audiences soon invested in the characters, and if there’s any possibility of a full revival, Elliott and Bell would both be needed to capitalise on the nostalgia effect.

Both could be available: Elliott wouldn’t have appeared in an 11th season of JAG anyway – according to Bellisario his pay requirements were too great – but he’s no longer commanding that sort of money, appearing as a recurring character most recently in the web series Impulse. Bell has made a name for herself in Hallmark TV movies, and is currently the lead in the Good Witch TV show whose fifth season is about to air Stateside, with no official word regarding further episodes.

But does CBS need the show back to retain audiences? Part of the fuel firing the reunion series rumours was the lack of news regarding the NCIS franchise for next season. It seemed as if both the Los Angeles and New Orleans spin-offs might be nearing the end of the road with many other CBS shows getting the nod weeks ago.

But on April 22, CBS renewed both – the delay possibly caused by the negotiations with NCIS star and executive producer Mark Harmon, which meant the parent show only got the green light 11 days earlier. Not only that, CBS actually has a show that serves the same purpose as JAG running already – The Code is in its first season, and is basically JAG with a Marine rather than Navy bias.

The NCIS family of shows is large – through crossovers, it includes Hawaii Five-0, Magnum PI, and even the late, lamented Scorpion – so there’s plenty of opportunity for JAG fans to get their fix of their favourites, even without a whole new show.

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