msmemory and I have been fans of JAG pretty much from the beginning. It was fairly tough at first -- the first season was dreadful -- but she was a longtime fan of Don Belisario, the producer, due to Quantum Leap (which was his previous series). Even from the beginning, we could find a spark of the same deep-down sense of decency that made QL both fun and moving. And after that (and after switching networks), the show really took off: it replaced the bimboesque leading lady with one capable of standing toe to toe with the leading man, got some decent writing, and generally became one of our favorites for many years now.Sadly, though, I think it's jumped the shark. This season has seen a serious shift in several respects. On the one hand, the writing has become a lot more hackneyed. Same general concepts and plots, but presented poorly -- which in a show that has always skirted close to cliche is very dangerous. Somehow, the sincerity just doesn't feel like it's there any more.
Perhaps even worse, the politics of the show have taken a decided rightward shift without warning. Granted, a show that is centered on the military was always going to have a somewhat overblown sense of the patriotic. Previously, though, I always felt that it managed to balance that with a reasonably good understanding of how the US really works. But somewhere a few months ago, it took a turn for the jingoistic. I began to blow my stack with the episode "Posse Comitatus", which was basically a ringing endorsement of the idea of US Military personnel acting on US soil (if it seems like a good idea at the time). And it's just continued since then: episode after episode advocating ideas that range from the illegal to the unconstitutional.
On the one hand, I'm rather deeply invested in this story and these characters. But I'm beginning to think that, if the series survives this season, I may have to drop it. I'm just too disgusted by the blatant political agenda. I just wish I knew whether it's the creator or the network that's at fault...
