Sarah "Mac" MacKenzie is a fictional character and lead role in the American television series JAG, played by Catherine Bell.

The character was created by Donald P. Bellisario, as a work for hire for Paramount Television, in the script for the first episode of the second season, which was filmed and then aired by CBS on January 3, 1997.

After a nine season long will-they-won't-they relationship, Mac and the other main character, Harmon "Harm" Rabb (David James Elliott), become engaged during the show's final episode, flipping a coin to see who will resign their commission, but the outcome is not revealed at the end of the series.

A military brat born in the late 1960s, Sarah MacKenzie had a troubled childhood; her mother abandoned her and her alcoholic father on the night of Mac's 15th birthday.

[5] As a partial result of this, Mac became an alcoholic in her mid-to-late teens and had no contact with her mother Deanne (Conchata Ferrell) until she reappeared at her father's deathbed.

[4] She also learns at this time that her large white mutt, named Ruggles, was abandoned at a boarding house during her mother's travels after fleeing from her abusive father.

Mac later repaid the debt owed to him by making sure he did not get killed during an incident where he and a group of rogue Marines hijacked a van transporting the Declaration of Independence.

[9] She was stationed in Bosnia and Herzegovina a year before the events in at the start of the second season,[1] at some point with 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines ("Two Nine") for unknown duration,[10] and given the time-line, was likely part of or associated with the Implementation Force (IFOR), following the 1995 Dayton Agreement.

As a major, she was subsequently assigned to JAG headquarters in Falls Church, Virginia when she was pulled off a double homicide investigation to work on a case involving her uncle Colonel Matthew O'Hara (Carmen Argenziano) who had the stolen Declaration of Independence.

[12] When Christopher Ragle (Joe Lando) caught up to Mac at JAG headquarters in 1998, he attempted to use the information regarding her earlier affair with her former superior officer John Farrow (Ben Murphy) to blackmail her for money.

[3] Upon her return she was temporarily assigned many menial tasks as in the administrative law department, and was informed by Admiral Chegwidden that he had withdrawn his recommendation for an accelerated promotion.

It was during that same episode that Mac kept Harm from throwing his career away, by inadvertently appearing as the long deceased Diane Schonke, showing up on the pier wearing one of Harriet's spare uniforms.

[48][51][52] Entertainment Weekly elaborated further on it: in each case it is a "hunky loner", partnered with "attractive women with whom they have a charged yet ultimately platonic relationship", each working for the U.S. Government and based in the DC metropolitan area, with seemingly "unlimited travel budgets": with the key thematic difference being that in JAG with its "red-white-and-blue patriotism" the "U.S. military is seen as a force fighting for good around the world" while in the other series displays "antiauthoritarian cynicism" towards ditto.

[53] Time in 2001 described the character of Mac as a "legal babe who didn't wear micro-minis or have sex with random men in car washes a la Ally McBeal".

The character is cute and scrupulous, a recovering alcoholic; for a short time, she had a Southern accent" and as to the will-thy-won't-they aspect it was asserted that episodes "pass with little in the script or the performances to suggest that Harm and Mac are flirting; then, all of a sudden, they're kissing, then promptly forgetting about it".

Sarah MacKenzie from JAG got the highest grade for "respect for the system and all in it, strictly adhering to military court rules" and that "she proves herself to be a civil and professional lawyer with a strong work ethic".