Original JAG star David James Elliott talks a potential return to his iconic role in NCIS.
Speaking to TV Insider, Elliott discussed a potential return to his role of Harmon Rabb Jr. on NCIS after having already returned to the part for a three-episode arc on NCIS: Los Angeles. “I did that because of R. Scott Gemmill,” Elliott explained, “who was a writer in the first two seasons of JAG on the show, and then he left and he ran ER, and he then of course ran NCIS: LA, and he’s still a friend of mine.”
“I pitched an idea to him, and he liked it,” Elliott recalled of his discussion with Gemmill. “We were talking about maybe taking the Harm character and doing something with him or similar to [it], and then he went, ‘Yeah, but why don’t we do this?’ And I went, ‘Oh, great.’ It was fun. It’s fun to work with him. I don’t really know any of the people on NCIS, but I guess if they came to me, I certainly would consider it. So who knows.”
Elliott portrays Harmon Rabb Jr. Throughout JAG’s 10-season, 227-episode run, beginning with its premiere episode back in 1995. The hit series began on NBC before moving to CBS after its first season, and followed the judge advocates (uniformed lawyers) of the Department of the Navy’s Office of the Judge Advocate General, who both prosecuted and defended various clients across a wide range of investigations. The series began its run set in Washington, D.C., before moving to Falls Church, Virginia, and featured many episodes that were “ripped from the headlines” in the same vein as other hit procedurals such as Law & Order.
JAG’s Decades-Long Television Legacy – Explained
It was during the eighth season of JAG when a trio of leading NCIS cast members made their debuts in their respective franchise roles. The episode introduced Mark Harmon’s Leroy Jethro Gibbs, Michael Weatherly’s Anthony DiNozzo, and Pauley Perrette’s Abby Sciuto, all of whom will go on to help cement NCIS’ place in pop culture. Since then, NCIS has gone on to amass its own 487-episode run (and counting), not to mention a total of six of its own spinoff series, including the upcoming NCIS: Tony & Ziva, which will bring back Weatherly’s DiNozzo and Cote de Pablo’s Ziva David.
