For ‘JAG’ Producers, New Relevance Doesn’t Alter Mission

Donald Bellisario, whose producing experience includes creating the critically acclaimed sci-fi series “Quantum Leap,” has come to accept that his current show, “JAG,” will never be a media darling.

The CBS series stars David James Elliott and Catherine Bell as members of the Navy’s Judge Advocate General office, lawyers who investigate military personnel accused of crimes. It’s what networks generally refer to as a fly-over show--a program that plays well in the country’s heartland but doesn’t possess much cachet in New York and Los Angeles, home to major media outlets and entertainment industry power brokers.

An act of terrorism on U.S. soil, however, not only propelled the country toward war but also made “JAG” conspicuous as prime time’s lone military-themed drama, inspiring an interview with Bellisario and members of the show’s creative team--including co-executive producers Stephen Zito and Chas. Floyd Johnson--that probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

“JAG” had already begun production on its seventh season when the terrorist attacks occurred. “JAG” premiered to an audience of its second-highest rating ever, with the show averaging 17 million viewers this season.

Bellisario, meanwhile, is donning a second hat as executive producer of “First Monday”--an upcoming CBS series about the U.S. Supreme Court, starring Joe Mantegna as a new justice joining a court split evenly among its eight existing members.

Brian Lowry: What did it feel like to come to work, knowing the show you’re doing, after Sept. 11?

Donald Bellisario: We worked that day. We let people go at around noon as reports were coming in, and we shut the production down.

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Lowry: At what point did the discussion turn to “We’re doing a military show, what does this mean, what does it do to our storytelling?”

Bellisario: I honestly don’t think that entered our minds until a few days later. We were really absorbed in what was going on. I don’t know anybody who left their TV set for 48 hours.

Being a military show, you have to be aware of what is going on, [but] we already had four shows in the can, and to just do lip service to what was happening didn’t make sense to me. So what we decided to do was to date our shows as they go on, to make it very clear that the first four shows are events taking place before Sept. 11.... As of [this week’s] show, we will begin to work the information in as it is deemed necessary.

It’s awfully hard, the way events are moving, when you have to produce a show a month in advance of when it’s going to run. It’s very difficult to do anything except generalities. We’re going to think about doing something more than that in an episode or two, but we’re not even to the real planning stages yet. We’re letting everything shake out first. We’re not in the same position “The West Wing” was in.

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Lowry: What was your reaction to that [topical “West Wing”] episode? Even if you had been able to do something that quickly, would you have wanted to?

Bellisario: No, I wouldn’t think it was appropriate to do it.... We’re going to just kind of massage it into our shows as we can. We’re certainly going to talk about it at times, but it’ll be talked about the same way anybody would talk about it. We’ll have reservists showing up to fill some slots; there will be heightened security. We have always taken from the headlines, but this is one headline we don’t want to be taking from.

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Lowry: From a writing standpoint, obviously, you deal with a fictional world, but does it make you more cautious, more sensitive? Is it in the back of your minds?

Stephen Zito: There’s a certain degree of anger that’s going to be expressed. But we don’t know where this is going, we don’t know what’s happening. We need to be respectful of the truth and not chase after something silly.

Bellisario: I’m old enough to recall Pearl Harbor. I was a 5-year-old kid.... I can see my father coming up the steps. I had never seen my dad frightened, and he was scared. He said to my mother, “What are we going to do?” and my mom said, “We’re going to the movies.” And I thought, “If we’re going to the movies, it can’t be that bad.”

I feel the same way about us and what we do in television--that it’s our job to get back to work, to do what we do, even though when this first happened, for a moment you say, “Is it really worth it to get back into this?” I believe people need entertainment, they need a diversion to get their mind away from it, and we all have an important job to do.

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Lowry: Most of the talk shows seemed to spend the first few days grappling with their own irrelevance. When you make your living dreaming up ideas, were you plagued by any of those kind of thoughts?

Chas. Floyd Johnson: I think for everybody there was a moment when you think in the scheme of things what is important, but that’s very ephemeral. Once you get over the shock and the numbness is gone, everybody realizes you have to get on with your lives.... Entertainment has always been a form that people use and need, and we provide a very useful service.

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Lowry: Nobody knows why anything is a hit, and this show is a perfect example. But there’s been a lot of talk about whether this is going to change what people want to watch, whether it’s going to have any sort of lingering impact on the national psyche.

Bellisario: It just depends what happens down the line with this war that we’re going to be involved in. If it’s in some ways like World War II, some of the greatest musicals came out of [those years]. People were looking for a diversion--they wanted to get away from headlines, so they turned to lighter entertainment. I don’t know if that’s going to happen now. It depends on how bad this becomes in the foreseeable future.

Zito: As a viewer, you just go back to what you know. It was nice to see “Friends” back or “ER.” It’s comfortable, and there’s a continuity there. It’s very much harder for new shows.

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Lowry: Of course, the other analogy that’s been used is the Cold War, when you had things like the James Bond films and “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”

Bellisario: I don’t think you’re going to be seeing movies about terrorists. I think that would be a big mistake right now.

Zito: I’m glad I’m not doing a show about the CIA.

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Lowry: This is a show that flies under the radar, pardon the expression, most of the time. Was there a moment after this when a lightbulb went off and you realized you’re the only military show on television?

Bellisario: Before this happened, I fully expected this season that we were going to do very well. We were doing well before [“Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”] hit, and now that the “Millionaire” is gone [from “JAG’s” time slot], we’re right back where we were. Now, has this caused people to tune in? I’m sure for some it has, but I don’t think that’s the reason “JAG” is doing well this season.... The media has suddenly woken up to us. But I’m not sure how long that’s going to last. That’s short term.

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“JAG” airs Tuesday nights at 8 on CBS.