JAG - Season 3 DVD Review
stev...@earthlink.net
DVD
Written By Evan "Mushy" Jacobs
The Good
This show lets us see a side of the Navy that we usually don't get to
see.
The Bad
A sticker on this release says that there are Special Features but I
wasn't able to find any.
The Flick
In JAG: The Complete Third Season we see Commander Rabb (David James
Elliot), Major MacKenzie (Catherine Bell), Bud (Patrick Labyorteaux),
Harriet (Karri Turner) and Admiral Chegwidden (John M. Jackson) do
their best to defend America from the people who wish to bring this
great nation down. Spread out over six discs this twenty four episode
set features fast paced action, well structured storylines, and even a
little hanky panky.
Some of the episodes in this set are "Blind Side" in which MacKenzie
finds herself investigating her former flying teacher after an
accident happens on the teacher's watch. "Chains of Command" sees Rabb
and MacKenzie going head to head in court with MacKenzie's boyfriend
who is defending a Chief being accused of sexual harassment onboard
his ship. "Against All Enemies" is a particularly well done and timely
episode in which a commercial airliner from North Korea is shot down.
As the members of JAG look into this it seems there might be more to
it than meets the eye.
With over 18 hours of entertainment value, JAG: The Complete Third
Season is a DVD release that gives consumers a lot of bang for their
buck.
The Features
No Extras came with this release even though a sticker on the
packaging said this set contained supplemental features. I searched
every disc and I found nothing.
The Look
Full Screen. These episodes looked really good. They are almost ten
years old, they don't have the sharpness of earlier one hour shows
that were shot on film, but all in all I thought these things held up.
Sadly, the effects employed in the mid-1990s just didn't look that
great. While JAG doesn't employ a ton of those, it employs enough so
that they almost seem distracting. This strength of this show was in
the acting and the story structure.
The Sound
Dolby Digital. The sound on these DVDs were all pretty good.
Unfortunately, nothing about the audio presentation really grabbed me
too much. The music has that triumphant, military feel but even that
is pretty much expected in a show like this. I was pleasantly
surprised that this wasn't like a lot of today's shows where the
characters speak in whispers. Also, the plots weren't convoluted like
some of today's show but it seems like viewers are finally starting to
help reign those kinds of shows in.
The Packaging
The front cover of this slipcase packaging features the cast of this
show all decked out in their military garb, and underneath them is an
image of the American Flag with a gavel on it. The back shows us
another shot of the team this time with light bursting all around
them. There is a small and uninformative description of what this show
is about, and some technical specs below that and on the underside of
the packaging. All six discs are neatly contained inside three slim
cases, and there are shots of the three main characters on each one.
The backs list out where the episodes are on each disc and there's no
mention of Bonus Features anywhere.
JAG was a show that I had always heard about but I had no idea that it
ran for 10 years! For some reason I always got it confused with that
Pamela Anderson show V.I.P., which if you think about it really isn't
that huge of a mistake. Granted, JAG takes a much more serious
approach, these shows have similar titles and with the TV market
pumping out more and more shows it makes sense that some confusion
could be had. What I am most baffled by is that here was a show that I
wasn't familiar with at all, and yet it ran longer than most TV that
got more headlines and made more press.
If you are fan this show, buying JAG: The Complete Third Season is a
no-brainer. If you have never seen an episode, you may want to check
out a few episodes via iTunes. Then, if your interest is piqued you
can then go about buying some full length seasons of this show.
http://www.movieweb.com/dvd/release/02/115902/review2267.php