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Date Posted: 13:58:00 04/30/03 Wed
Author: Tracy
Subject: Re: My thoughts on the Meltdown of JAG....
In reply to: Tracy 's message, "My thoughts on the Meltdown of JAG...." on 13:55:46 04/30/03 Wed

I have to admit, I was not going into this episode with very high expectations – even after Kip said there was a twist that no one had thought of. No expectations, harder to be disappointed, right?

Well, I was still greatly disappointed in this episode. Some of the greatest stuff JAG has done has been written by Donald P. Bellisario – The Pilot, Skeleton Crew, We The People, Ghost Ship, Death Watch, To Russia With Love, Gypsy Eyes (no, I do not count Boomerang as a great achievement after the way Mac’s character was butchered in the space of two episodes). Despite Boomerang, you would think DPB’s track record would improve the odds that these shows would be something special ….

Everyone by now probably knows how I felt about last week’s episode, ‘Ice Queen’, so I won’t rehash that here. And I haven’t decided in my own mind whether ‘Meltdown’ turned out better or worse than it’s predecessor did. I will tell you that neither episode was anything to write home about. Okay, so why am I writing this? I don’t know – maybe just because it will look good on my website and I’m not about to censor my views. You all KNOW how I feel about that.

As I was watching the episode last night, I took notes, so this will be roughly in chronological order as events happened in the episode.

1. Amy was right (in the PTP for this episode) – one could have watched the ‘Previously on JAG’ portion before the credits and not have missed a thing from last week’s episode. One of my complaints way back when during Adrift II was they spent too much time recapping and delayed moving on into the action. Now, I know this wasn’t a cliffhanger (not really – how many people actually expected Harm to be convicted?), but I care about Harm. I want to know how he’s going to get off. More importantly in this case, I want to see if there is anything about this episode that I have not already predicted. Let’s get on with it, shall we?
2. I don’t like the way the JAG officers were dispatched with. *That’s* the explanation we’re being given for them not being involved? Sorry, that doesn’t cut it, and I’m not even going to get into CB’s blink-and-you’ll-miss-her appearance. Couldn’t they have at least had a short scene of her testifying, which is the only reason I could think of for her *not* to be involved in some way, and if she wasn’t testifying, there was no reason for her not to be sitting in the courtroom, supporting Harm. I know the real-life reason why CB wasn’t in the episode more, but Joe Schmoe viewer probably doesn’t know as much, so couldn’t they have thrown in a better explanation into the episode? Anyone remember ‘People v. Rabb’? Not only did Harm hide out at Mac’s, but Bud got involved in helping him hide out, bringing him supplies when he was on the ferry. One of my favorite Bud scenes ever in JAG is when he stands up to Harm in that episode when Harm tries to protect him from possible repercussions of helping him. Those are my JAG characters, not the people we’ve seen the last two weeks.
3. Could Faith Coleman (the female defense attorney for those who didn’t catch her name) be any more anal? Organization is nice, but she’s bordering on obsessive-compulsive. That’s not a character quirk; it’s simply annoying. And where was she trying to prove her client’s innocence? Maybe I’m just used to the lengths that Harm, Mac, Bud, et al, will go to for their clients. She just seemed to be sitting back and letting the case unfold without being much of an active participant. If she was any kind of an attorney (at least one good enough to represent our Harm), Harm should not have had to prompt her on some of the simplest questions. Anyone remember Mac’s defense from ‘People v. Rabb’? All Faith cared about was generating enough reasonable doubt and that’s it. She wasn’t pushing the extra mile for her client. For the sake of his future in the military, it’s not enough to just be found ‘not guilty’ – Harm needed to be proven innocent. There’s a legal difference which could affect how future COs and promotion boards view him. It’s a shame, because I really like the actress (not that I want to see her become a permanent fixture around JAG – we do not need any more characters). I just don’t feel this character is worthy of her talents.
4. I wasn’t impressed with the prosecutor either. Declaring anything a slam dunk before you’ve even stepped one foot inside the courtroom is bad, especially from a prosecutor. Expect the unexpected. He only set himself up for a fall with that attitude. Legal rules of evidence – while the prosecutor has to turn over their evidence to the defense, the defense is under no such obligation, so is he a mind reader that he knows the defense is not going to be able to poke all kinds of wholes in his case (especially given the weak evidence – see my remarks from last week)? That statement coming out of his mouth made a bad first impression. Beyond that, his character struck me as bland, vanilla, boring. I was not impressed with either the actor or the character.
5. I have a question about the timeline. Faith makes a comment in her first interview with Harm about him having thought Singer was killed 6 weeks ago, which would seem to put this episode 3 weeks after ‘Ice Queen’. However, later in the episode, it is stated that it’s been 4 weeks since Lindsey visited JAG (in ‘Fortunate Son’, when he took Harm’s cover), which was before Sergei was in town in ‘Second Acts’ and the time originally believed to have been when Singer died. Not the first time JAG has been unable to keep their timelines straight, so I suppose I should not be surprised (remember Adrift II when Mac’s wedding suddenly moved from 26 May to 19 May?). It would make more sense if it had been 6 weeks since Lindsey’s visit and only 4 since Sergei’s visit and the original estimate of Singer’s death.
6. In my comments last week, I said I did not like Abby, the lab technician. The comment was on her character, not her competence at her job. She actually come off as pretty competent – at least she seemed to know what she was doing. So why did they turn her into a complete nincompoop on the stand? As a lab technician for NCIS, I have a hard time believing this is the first time she’s ever testified in court, yet that’s what she acted like. And whoever made the comment about there being a dress code, even for civilians working for the military, is correct. I have never seen anyone in the building where I work (about 1500 people, only 70 of which are active duty military) walking around like punk rockers except on Halloween, and even then there are standards that have to be maintained.
7. Just like with Abby, I didn’t like Ducky’s character last week, although he seemed competent enough at his job. Yet he kept going off on tangents on the witness stand. Huh? Just the fact, please. Was it really important regarding the case to know 1) that Singer had a tattoo and 2) that he had seen one like it previously on someone in Buenos Aires. Okay, the tattoo was interesting from a character standpoint about Singer (a leopard stalking its prey – that’s fits with Singer), but completely unnecessary as a reveal in the middle of court when it had no bearing on the case whatsoever. He also acted like he’d never been on a witness stand before.
8. Gibbs was the most professional one on the stand, although if his gut said Harm was not guilty, why the rush to arrest him, especially when all the evidence was not in (more on that later)? He does seem to be someone who trusts his gut, which makes him a lot like Harm.
9. I didn’t realize that Bud being a lawyer exempted the prosecutor from adhering to regular court rules. Badgering is badgering, whether the witness is a lawyer or not. And can we stop with the bumbling Bud? That got old about three years ago. He’s matured a lot during the eight years he’s been on JAG, yet he’s managed to slide backwards into season one in just two episodes.
10. And on the subject of objections, maybe the judge needs to brush up on his rules of evidence. Faith’s objection regarding Jen’s testimony should have been sustained as well. I didn’t realize Jen was a mind reader and could tell what Harm was thinking when he grabbed Singer in Benzinger’s. Give me Morris, Sebring (where has he been this season? – I know, Corbin Bernsen was off doing ‘Celebrity Mole’ for part of the season) or Helfman any day. At least I’ve never wondered how they got to be a judge. This season, between this judge and Harm and Mac’s less-than-stellar performances on the bench, I wonder if the Navy has lowered its qualifications to be a judge. Maybe now you just have to be able to stay awake during the trial and speak at the appropriate times.
11. I KNEW they were going there with the cover. I just knew it. And this is a prime example of why NCIS rushed too quickly to arrest Harm. The case never would have made it as far as it did if they had waited until they had *all* the evidence before jumping to conclusions. The cover was the one piece of solid, physical evidence tying Harm directly to the crime scene, yet it was also the one piece of evidence that ended up exonerating Harm. If I recall correctly, wasn’t this originally just supposed to cover one episode, then the last four were supposed to be given over to Mac’s undercover story, with that being changed because CB wasn’t able to work as much as they had planned so they shortened her arc to three episodes and turned this into two episodes? That’s what happens when you try to stretch out one episode to fill two. They had to come up with some way to stretch the story, so they rush the case to court and worry about the evidence later.
12. Nice reasoning from Tony (so that’s his name!) on the cover. He actually improved from last week and sounds like the cop he used to be. I was a bit leery when Gibbs said Tony was now the lead investigator on Harm’s case, but he came through, pushing until he figured out exactly how the cover fit into the story. But one complaint – why did it take them that long to start looking into Singer’s past to see if there were any other logical suspects? I knew that one was going to come back and bite them in the six. I made the comment last week that they seemed more interested in researching Harm’s recent past than Singer’s. With someone that heartily disliked, surely it was obvious more than one person might have had a motive to do her in? Again, evidence that they rushed to judgment on Harm and he never should have been arrested.
13. Okay, the baby wasn’t Sergei’s or Teddy’s. So there was a third man involved. I agree with what someone else posted. Heaven forbid they should make Mac a single mother (even with Harm, whom we know she is in love with, as daddy), but it’s okay to make Singer a slut, get her pregnant and question who the father is. Huh? She obviously slept with three different men within a short period of time – Sergei because we know they had a one night stand around the time she got pregnant, Teddy because she apparently had him believing he was the father, and whoever the father really was. Singer never struck me as a loose woman. That one came very much out of left field. And why exactly was she blackmailing Teddy? Apparently, he believed he was the father, but why would she let him believe that if she knew there was a chance he wasn’t? What was the motive? So not only is Singer a slut, she was using her unborn daughter to make a quick buck. Singer was always someone I loved to hate and I thought Nanci did a great job portraying her, but they completely ruined her character in the space of a single episode. Singer always was a woman on a mission – to become the first female JAG. I’m not seeing how sleeping with at least three different men and blackmailing one of those men into believing he was the father of her child was going to accomplish that.
14. What an anti-climatic end to the case! Lindsey cops a plea for manslaughter – what about punishment for framing Harm. And we don’t get to see Harm released, or celebrate his freedom (there would have been a great opportunity for a scene with Mac) or anything. He didn’t even get very angry that Lindsey had framed him (nor was a big deal made of that when Lindsey was questioned by NCIS). Instead, we spend the last ten minutes of the episode on this terrorist case that I don’t care about because it will not affect the future of JAG. What happens to Harm does affect the future of JAG. We wuz robbed.
15. I still don’t like Viv. She managed to look even more incompetent in this episode than last episode and that’s saying a lot considering how bad she looked last week. When Gibbs asked her for information on Bin Atwa, shouldn’t she have figured that he was looking for something more than a timeline of his life? He would already have that. If she was any kind of investigator, she should have been able to anticipate what Gibbs was looking for. This woman cannot think outside the box and don’t tell me that FBI agents aren’t capable of it (and I’m not thinking about X-Files here). Read one of Mark Douglas’ books sometime (just bring a cast-iron stomach with you when you do). He’s a former FBI agent and perhaps one of the best profilers they ever had (rumor is, the character of Jack Crawford in ‘Silence Of The Lambs’ – the book, not the movie - was modeled after him). Viv doesn’t strike me as a competent FBI agent let alone NCIS agent. Then she almost blew the bust at the end by managing to tip off Bin Atwa with a look. Why did anyone let her accompany Tony to Tunisia?
16. If I cared about the terrorist case (which I don’t because it came off as more of an A storyline than Harm’s trial did), I would think that ended very anti-climatically as well. The terrorist blew himself up by dropping a grenade at his feet. Yeah. Whatever. Someone who supposedly masterminded an attack (and was attempting another) on a Navy ship would be smarter than that.
17. I have to ask again, as I did last week, WHAT WAS THE SURPRISE? Maybe it was how much they ruined Singer’s character? For what reason? I just don’t get it.
18. Oh, and whoever made the comment last week about the background music being too loud last week was right. I actually paid attention to that this week. If they knew last week that the music was too loud (and Kip said DPB was not happy with that), why couldn’t they have pulled this episode and corrected that sometime in the last seven days. After all, these are the same people who almost didn’t have ‘Second Acts’ ready to air because they wanted to go back and do some sound remixing when they thought the episode was going to be delayed.

The best thing about this episode was the previews for next week. Finally, we appear to be going back to the JAG we all know and love, and with a possible shipper moment to boot. Add to that Webb (who is guaranteed to bring trouble with him) and the reappearance of Gunny and I’m *cautiously* optimistic about next week. Very cautious.

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