This was meant to bring down the curtain on NBC Season One and set up a cliff-hanger to retain interest into NBC Season Two in later 1996.
The episode was filmed as a complete episode, but it stands in the memory as being the first half of a planned two-parter which would span the summer of 1996, launching into Season Two around September of 1996. Except that THAT Season Two was never made; the NBC contract for the season was not renewed, so CBS picked up the Bellisarius product and dumped the "Skeleton Crew" cliff-hanger conclusion. Obviously the cast knew, by this point, that NBC had dropped the show - there is pathos when Meg Austin asks Harm (in the "shower scene") "what if you don't come back?"
Despite this, the cast deliver a creditable episode of murder investigation on an aircraft carrier.
Essentially, "part two" never happened (viewing this again in 2021, the episode is, accurately, entitled as simply "Skeleton Crew").
As a result, the "JAG" which we know and admire (seasons two through ten inclusive) was born. The short (13-episode) Season two began in the White House Rose Garden and the Harm-Mac working partnership was born, running Jan1997 to April2005.
The new (CBS) season two continued without characters such as Bud Roberts (he had picked up another contract), Andrea Parker (ditto - had secured a resounding role on "The Pretender" which ran for 86 episodes 1996-2000), Tracy Needham ("Meg Austin" - probably fed up with being the "damsel in distress", or the producers didn't like her character) and Andrea Thompson (who played "Alison Krennick" in the back half of Season One).
This material of this final Season One episode wasn't wasted however; apart from appearing on complete box sets, the episode was sampled in the S03EP19 story "Death Watch" - where Mac learns more about Lt (jg) Diane Schonke, who (in season 1) looked so much like her. She finally understands why Harm looked like he had "seen a ghost" in the Rose Garden scene which opened the CBS Season Two when the character of "Mac" was first introduced, thereby closing the Diane/Mac arc.
What is also noticeable, viewed from 22 years later (2018) is how far video recording and picture quality has advanced since this 1995-96 vintage episode was "filmed". The story-line remains crucial to the development of the "back-story" of the Harmon Rabb character.
The episode was filmed as a complete episode, but it stands in the memory as being the first half of a planned two-parter which would span the summer of 1996, launching into Season Two around September of 1996. Except that THAT Season Two was never made; the NBC contract for the season was not renewed, so CBS picked up the Bellisarius product and dumped the "Skeleton Crew" cliff-hanger conclusion. Obviously the cast knew, by this point, that NBC had dropped the show - there is pathos when Meg Austin asks Harm (in the "shower scene") "what if you don't come back?"
Despite this, the cast deliver a creditable episode of murder investigation on an aircraft carrier.
Essentially, "part two" never happened (viewing this again in 2021, the episode is, accurately, entitled as simply "Skeleton Crew").
As a result, the "JAG" which we know and admire (seasons two through ten inclusive) was born. The short (13-episode) Season two began in the White House Rose Garden and the Harm-Mac working partnership was born, running Jan1997 to April2005.
The new (CBS) season two continued without characters such as Bud Roberts (he had picked up another contract), Andrea Parker (ditto - had secured a resounding role on "The Pretender" which ran for 86 episodes 1996-2000), Tracy Needham ("Meg Austin" - probably fed up with being the "damsel in distress", or the producers didn't like her character) and Andrea Thompson (who played "Alison Krennick" in the back half of Season One).
This material of this final Season One episode wasn't wasted however; apart from appearing on complete box sets, the episode was sampled in the S03EP19 story "Death Watch" - where Mac learns more about Lt (jg) Diane Schonke, who (in season 1) looked so much like her. She finally understands why Harm looked like he had "seen a ghost" in the Rose Garden scene which opened the CBS Season Two when the character of "Mac" was first introduced, thereby closing the Diane/Mac arc.
What is also noticeable, viewed from 22 years later (2018) is how far video recording and picture quality has advanced since this 1995-96 vintage episode was "filmed". The story-line remains crucial to the development of the "back-story" of the Harmon Rabb character.