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JAG (Judge Advocate General): The Fifth Season opens with Commander Harmon ("Harm") Rabb, Jr. (the always low-key David James Elliot) ensconced aboard a U.S. Navy carrier, as part of a flight team running peacekeeping missions over Kosovo. Trying hard to ignore his career as a military attorney and accrue pilot hours, Harm still draws legal cases that require his more seasoned skills as a litigator. The two-part season debut "King of the Greenie Board" and "Rules of Engagement" find Harm defending a young fellow flier who kills three Russian peacekeepers he mistakenly thought were Serbian troops attacking Bosnian civilians. Meanwhile, Harm’s replacement back at JAG headquarters is a tough-looking and ambitious Aussie named Brumby (Trevor Goddard), who has romantic feelings for Harm’s longtime colleague, Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie (Catherine Bell), the latter promoted to full colonel in season five. No sooner does that case wrap up then Harm finds himself dealing, in "True Callings," with another pilot who took deceptive measures to smuggle a pregnant Bosnian aboard the carrier for medical treatment. Befitting the title, Harm has to face the music about his work: he’s too old to ramp up his flying career. Returning to JAG central, he gets handed the usual mix of uncomfortable and mysterious cases. In "Front and Center," Harm and Bud (Patrick Labyorteaux) discover a crucial witness in an attempted rape case is actually not whom he says he is--in fact, he’s disappeared rather than have his identity found out. The unusual "Psychic Warrior" finds Harm, Mac, Bud, Brumby and Admiral Chegwidden (John M. Jackson) on both sides of a case involving the death of an officer who was both a "pharmacological nightmare" (taking a dangerous mix of anti-anxiety and anti-depression medications) and a volunteer in a strange, Navy program investigating the paranormal. "Contemptuous Words" is a different kind of JAG episode in which Harm is accused of writing a newspaper editorial heatedly critical of the U.S. president, a big no-no in the military. While the wrath of the government falls on him, Harm’s JAG friends work at figuring out who has such a grudge against him that they’d see him go to jail for years. "Ghosts of Christmas Past" is another offbeat tale, this one concerning Harm’s late father (also a navy pilot) and a 1969 visit to the latter’s carrier from a Bob Hope USO tour. While actors have been cast as such Vietnam-era celebrities as Phyllis Diller and Diana Ross, the cast of JAG play fictional characters from that earlier time. (It’s a gimmick, but it’s fun.) Finally, "The Witches of Gulfport" is a weird story concerning Mac’s undercover investigation of a Wiccan group made up of Navy personnel. (Who knew there are witches and warlocks in the Navy?) As always, the series’ production values are impressive, with lots of scenes set around the world, plenty of captivating stories, and enough relationship complications to keep things very interesting. --Tom Keogh
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