JAG is the kind of show you need to take with a grain of salt. The emphasis is much more on entertainment then on accuracy or believability. They were throwing out some really wild stories. At its best it's good entertainment but it does resort to bad comedy or even soap opera style every now and then. My younger me liked the show a lot when it aired but having seen it now in its entirety I must say that espcially the later parts are not that good. I would say out of all episodes there were maybe five that were really gripping. One thing that is mind blowing is the staggering amount of continuity errors in the action footage. They just took whatever shot they needed or wanted and cobled them together not even caring that at times it wasn't even of the same modell of plane. But, like the producers, it doesn't seem to have bothered the audience. Still, I found it irritating.
David James Elliot was perfect for this role. He had something of a Tom Cruise / Maverick vibe yet a more adult version. When it comes to the female protagonist it went from great to worst. I loved Andrea Parker, still liked Meg Austin but never liked Catherine Bell. And that is true for the respective characters as well.
The longevity of the show has its pros and cons. They were able to build up good charcter arcs but the longer it went the more it felt they didn't know what to do with them any more. And that starts and stops with our main characters.
It was fairly obvious what would happen in the end and the fact they danced arround that part for basically nine seasons made it frustratingly tiresome. You can only do so much back and forth before it becomes a nuisance. Plus, they never really had great chemistry. It never felt natural. So by that account I wasn't really thrilled with the end or the final two seasons alltogether.
I wouldn't say the show as a whole is a waste of time but at a count of 227 episodes you need what the Germans call "Sitzfleisch". There is no translation for this but it means to have the stamina to see something through to the end.