Donald P. Bellisario was the king of network TV action dramas in the '80s and '90s. He's the man who created Magnum, P.I., turning Tom Selleck (and his mustache) into one of the most famous people in the country. He also made Airwolf, which made helicopters the cool new TV vehicle, and Quantum Leap, a fun new take on the time travel genre. Then, in 1995, with Quantum Leap cancelled, Bellisario returned with JAG. It lasted for an impressive ten seasons, and led to the creation of NCIS, which has dominated CBS with all of its spin-offs. But did you know that NCIS also exists in the same world as the modern reboots of Magnum, P.I., MacGyver, and Hawaii Five-0? 30 years after JAG debuted, it's still influencing the television of today.
'JAG' Moved to CBS After One Season on NBC
JAG, short for Judge Advocate General, debuted on NBC in 1995. Starring David James Elliott as Harmon Rabb and Tracey Needham as Meg Austin, the two leads were Navy JAGs who investigated military crimes. Bellisario got the idea partially from the Tailhook Scandal of 1991, when dozens of military pilots were accused of sexually assaulting women at a party. The Navy wanted nothing to do with JAG, thinking the series was anti-military, but they later helped after watching the series and seeing that the JAG lawyers were the heroes.
Still, JAG was a ratings bomb on NBC, so the next year it moved to CBS and was retooled to be a more serious courtroom drama, with Tracey Needham now out and Catherine Bell in her place as a Marine JAG named Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie. The change was so sudden and unexpected that the first season finale of JAG couldn't air because Bell had initially played an entirely different character who ended up murdered, with Harm arrested for the crime. '90s TV was wild! JAG thrived on CBS, running for nine more years until 2005, but just because it finally wrapped up, that doesn't mean its world did.
'NCIS' Is a Spin-Off of 'JAG'
As JAG was nearing its end on CBS, along came another series with an acronym for the title: NCIS. Created again by Donald P. Bellisario, NCIS was and is a powerhouse, as it has been on CBS for a whopping 22 seasons and counting. It was also a spin-off of JAG, which is hinted at in the title, as NCIS is short for Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
In 2003, with JAG still running strong, Bellisario got to work on his NCIS spin-off, which started as a backdoor pilot in JAG's eighth season. In the episodes "Ice Queen" and "Meltdown," a recurring character, Lieutenant Loren Singer (Nanci Chambers), is murdered. NCIS is brought in to investigate, led by Special Agent Gibbs (Mark Harmon), and other names NCIS fans would soon come to love, such as Michael Weatherly, Pauley Perrette, and David McCallum. A twist sees Harmon Rabb arrested for Lt. Singer's death. In the end, however, the real culprit is found and Rabb is released. After that, NCIS was off and running.
The shared JAG and NCIS world came full circle when David James Elliott and Catherine Bell reprised their JAG characters in 2019 for the NCIS spin-off NCIS: Los Angeles. There have been five NCIS spinoffs over the years, with NCIS: Los Angeles the most successful. Starring big names like Chris O'Donnell and LL Cool J, the series ran for 14 seasons on CBS, premiering in 2009 and coming to an end in 2023. Harmon Rabb appeared in a multi-episode arc for a plot that had the NCIS team looking for ISIS sympathizers who want to attack United States aircraft carriers. This leads them to the USS Intrepid, which is captained by Rabb. For JAG fans, it only got even better when Catherine Bell showed up in the season finale as "Sam" MacKenzie is called in to help get access to a Russian diplomat.
'Hawaii Five-0' Has Crossed Over With 'Magnum, P.I.' and 'MacGyver'
The JAG multiverse continued in 2010 when a reboot of Hawaii Five-0 premiered on CBS. The series revolved around a major crimes task force called the Hawaii Department of Public Safety. At the center was a man named Steve Garrett (Alex O'Loughlin), who is a Lieutenant Commander in the reserves for… the Navy. Starring the likes of O'Loughlin, Scott Caan, and Daniel Dae Kim, it, too, was a big success, running for 10 seasons. This resulted in another CBS crossover in 2012, with characters from NCIS: Los Angeles showing up on Hawaii Five-0, then on the next night, the characters from Hawaii Five-0 appearing on NCIS: Los Angeles. The two episodes saw the NCIS agents from LA helping the Five-0 find a suspect, then two of the Five-0 characters going to Los Angeles with the agents to help stop a possible smallpox outbreak.
Hawaii Five-0 was created by Peter M. Lenkov. With one reboot of a popular series from the past doing well in the ratings, Lenkov created two more for CBS. First came MacGyver, based on the hit ABC show from the '80s and '90s starring Richard Dean Anderson as Angus MacGyver, a government agent with the Phoenix Foundation who was always able to create a bomb or escape from a trap with the simplest of household items. (The reboot premiered in 2016, now with Lucas Till in the titular role.) Worlds became crossed again in the first season episode of MacGyver, "Flashlight," where the Phoenix Foundation goes to Hawaii to help with an earthquake, allowing MacGyver to work with the team from Hawaii Five-0.
Two years after the MacGyver reboot, Magnum, P.I. was reborn, with Jay Hernandez having the impossible task of replacing Tom Selleck. It, too, got to piggyback off of Hawaii Five-0 in a two-parter in 2020, first with the cast of Magnum, P.I. showing up on Hawaii Five-0 as McGarrett and Magnum team up to find a stolen list of undercover CIA agents (before the latter returned the favor to the former as Magnum helps the Hawaii Five-0 characters in a search-and-rescue). In an era where TV is so splintered, and it's harder for a show to break out, building up something new by connecting it to an established IP certainly helps. Who would have ever thought that when JAG was struggling on NBC 30 years ago, its world would still be alive today? And you thought Marvel's multiverse was complicated!
