The United States doesn't need fancy military parades to show off its military muscle. Apart from the live action on the news, it has television series like J.A.G (Star World, 8pm). J.A.G has a cult following among military enthusiasts in the US and is in its fifth season. We get the first season from tonight, which begins with gleaming US fighter jets soaring over Europe battling the Serbs. Lieutenant 'Harm' Rabb Jnr (David James Elliott) is an unlikely hero for a military drama. He's not a fighter, but a lawyer. He is, though, linked to the military, as a legal troubleshooter for the Judge Advocate General Corps (J.A.G), which takes him round the world to investigate and prosecute crimes, accidents and espionage related to the Navy and Marine Corps. And as we see tonight, he used to be a pilot and has to fly himself out of trouble in the two-hour pilot episode called Pilot. This episode focuses on an interesting conflict within the services: should women be at the controls of fighter jets? The women on board the aircraft carrier Sea Hawk are far from welcome and put up with endless sexist jibes from the lads. Rabb's first mission is to investigate whether a pilot's first combat mission over Bosnia caused her to be murdered or commit suicide. We've known for some time that George Clooney decided to quit playing doctors and nurses in ER (Pearl, 9.30pm). Tonight sees the start of the two-part special to write Dr Doug Ross out of the series following his five-year stint in the emergency room. Ross' career is on the line over one of the most emotive issues in medicine: euthanasia. Adding to the controversy, the patient he helps die is a child. Celebrities come and go on ER. Marlee Matlin, the deaf actress who won an Oscar for her role in Children Of A Lesser God, makes a guest appearance, to tutor Benton in sign-language. Tonight RTHK launches the six-part series Hong Kong Families (Home, 7pm), focusing on 12 traditional family businesses that have grown with Hong Kong, making products such as shrimp paste, Chiu Chow biscuits and herbal medicines. The first episode tells of the Leung family who have run an apiary raising honey bees since the 1920s. Meanwhile, RTHK has produced English-language versions of some episodes of its current affairs series, Hong Kong Connection (Pearl, 6.50pm) shown earlier this year on the Chinese channels. This series, now more than 20 years old, keeps abreast of local social and political issues. But for the first episode of the new season it goes to Japan, to look at how The Land Of The Darkened Sun is weathering its economic down-turn. A new season starting on Jade this Sunday will look at various aspects of life in China, visiting agricultural communes and border towns on the Sino-Russian border.
