Today Tonight Segment

Today Tonight, Channel Seven Australia.  January 2000

Reporter: It looks like Hollywood

Background Sound: And Action.

Reporter: It sounds like Hollywood, it even smells like Hollywood. But no it's just humble Sydney. The location of the 100^th episode of the US military action drama, JAG.

Background sound: Cut and print.

Donald P Bellisario: My wife an Aussie and so she kept talking about Australia. And I've never been here so I came down in August, and I fell in love with Sydney. I mean I just fell in love with it. And I thought what a great place to come too.

Reporter: Don Bellisario, the man behind such hits as Magnum P.I. and Quantum Leap, admits that foreign locations pose their own problems.

DPB: This is a difficult location shoot. There are problems, I wont say there's not. There are a lot of things done here that are done quite differently what we do in the States. And it makes it more difficult. But the people more than make up for it.

Reporter: The cast of course agrees.

David James Elliott: It's a visually stunning place. So it's going to be great for the camera. I don't have any free time to really go and enjoy it unlike some people who came with us, who's names wont be mention.

Reporter: David James Elliott plays brave outstanding Naval lawyer Lt Commander Harmon Rabb. Some rave that he is the new Tom Seleck of the Millennium. He kinda plays that down.

DJE: I tried not to think about it. I just show and do my best everyday. I can't do all the things I used to do. You know privacy is certainty not what I have a lot of any more. You know you take the good with the bad.

Reporter: David thanks his family for keeping him grounded.

DJE: I have my daughter here and she really helps, you know having a child helps you just drop the day and kinda focus on something really different.

Reporter: Catherine Bell, who plays Major Sarah 'Mac' Mackenzie, doesn't want to leave Australia.

Catherine Bell: So far I love it, I mean look at this it's sunny, its beach and everyone's nice.

Reporter: But it's more than the geography that has caught her eye down under.

CB: So far, they're gorgeous. I look around the beach and think is my husband really here. (laughing)

Reporter: Australian's own Trevor Goddard, often type cast as the bad guy in films, plays Lt Commander Mic Brumby.

Trevor Goddard: In this episode, I call the JAG team to help me because a US Naval Officer was found dead 28 years ago. But I kinda think I had another reason why I called them. So that Mac would come over. I get to ask her to marry me. She takes the ring and it's left open.

CB: I have so many love interests in the show. Its driving me nuts. Mac is very funny. I know the Brumby thing, it was going some place then it wasn't, now it is.

TG: It's incredible, it's like a dream come true. To come back here and have people feel proud of me. People thought that I was going to be nothing, I thought that I was going to be nothing.

DPB: Australia has been very welcoming. Very friendly. The people are great.

The end.

First Appeared 18th June, 2000