- ABC show finally out on DVD
- Unique%2C creative approach worth revisiting
- Excellent writing%2C acting throughout series run
Whatever happened to China Beach?
The show, created by William Broyles Jr. and John Sacret Young, ran on ABC from 1988 to 1991. It told the story of the 510th Evacuation Hospital and the people who staffed it during the Vietnam War.
Critics lauded the show for its intense realism and creative storytelling. It racked up Emmy nominations and won a few, including two for Dana Delany for best actress in a drama and one for Marg Helgenberger for best supporting actress. Although it was never a ratings hit, the network kept it afloat for four seasons.
And then?
Most shows of note have been available on DVD for a long time. If you have a hankering for Seinfeld or All in the Family, buy the boxed set or stream it. And if you missed China Beach, well …
Until April, you couldn't find it. Music rights, as is often the case with a DVD delay, were the issue, and in this case, the music is crucial to the show. Motown and late '60s, early '70s rock helped paint the portrait of the experience of the men and women at war; when you need Aretha Franklin's version of Respect to punctuate a scene, nothing else will do.
But finally the rights were cleared and the series became available, in a massive, pricey boxed set. (The list price starts at just under $200.)
Full disclosure: I didn't own a television for most of the show's run. I never saw an episode. Too much like a M*A*S*H knockoff, I figured. But I'm a sucker for military shows and movies, and was urged to give it a try.
And boy, was I wrong.
China Beach isn't just a good show, it's a unique one, one that deserves a loftier place in the dramatic television pantheon. The writing and acting are outstanding (Delany in particular shines), and the producers came up with storytelling devices that would be used in such later series as The West Wing but were genuinely innovative at the time.
Plus, it often told its stories from the perspective of the women involved. The show was always respectful to the real people who had served; in Souvenirs, from the third season, interviews with real-life veterans work into the story.
Delany anchored the show, but like ER later (John Wells served as an executive producer for both), every character had his or her turn in the spotlight eventually.
Here's a quick rundown:
-- Delaney played Colleen McMurphy, a nurse. Her character is loosely based on Lynda Van Devanter, whose book Home Before Morning served as the inspiration for the show.
-- Helgenberger played K.C. Koloski, a sometime prostitute who's in Vietnam to strike it rich. Michael Boatman is Samuel Beckett, who runs the Graves Registration Unit at the base. Robert Picardo (with hair!) is Dick Richard, a womanizing surgeon. Concetta Tomei is Lila Garreau, who oversees entertainment that's crucial to rest and recreation. Jeff Kobler is Dodger Winslow, a scary, silent Marine. And Brian Wimmer is Boonie Lanier, an amiable Marine who serves as a lifeguard on the beach.
Other characters came and went, but most stories involved this core. Some are better fleshed out than others, but each is believably portrayed.
I am not going to claim to be an expert on the show. I'm new to it, and, frankly, it's 25 years old. A lot of what was new then doesn't seem so new now. And I think the show missed its moment by having to wait so long for the music rights. Wars have come and gone (and come back again) since China Beach aired, but with its gritty-but-compassionate look at soldiers and support staff, it would have been a welcome presence.
It's here now, and, at least for my money, here's an example that offers a glimpse into what makes the show worth watching and worth waiting for.
The first is the pilot. We're meeting the characters, getting to know them, but they're sketched clearly from the start. McMurphy is strong on the outside and crumbling within, wounded by what she has seen in war. Her drinking suggests her scars. She's the first character we see in the series and, when it ends, the last.
She says, twice, that she's "just one of the guys." And while her good looks may suggest otherwise, it's really true; she's levelheaded and reasonable, someone the staff clearly depends on.
Laurette Barber shows up. She is a USO singer there for one reason: to meet men. Laurette is played by Chloe Webb (an enigmatic actress who, among other roles, played Nancy Spungen in Sid and Nancy). Laurette's ambition could be off-putting, but Webb makes her charming in an offbeat way.
McMurphy is wary of Laurette, but warms to her. A series of events leads to the straight-laced McMurphy singing at a USO event, when an attack on the base interrupts. Laurette winds up in the hospital, comforting a dying soldier. It's played up as a big scene for Webb, and she's good.
But the best part of the scene is Delaney. Bathed in red light, McMurphy is frozen by duty but engrossed. She is watching Laurette lose a part of herself, a part of her innocence, maybe a part of her soul. It's as if she is watching someone being indoctrinated into a club no one wants to be a member of, and she's helpless to stop it. She's been there, and she knows that Laurette will never be the same.
It's a quick shot, but it's the best thing in the pilot, and the pilot is very good. What makes it even more notable is the commentary on the DVD, when the show's creators tell us that it wasn't just acting on Delaney's part. She was watching Webb's character, as the scene required, but she was also watching Van Devanter, who was playing the part of a nurse in the scene, and was moved at the thought of what she had been through.
Up to that point I wasn't completely sold. Sure, China Beach was good, but what was it teaching me that M*A*S*H hadn't already?
By the fourth season, the producers had begun to play with the timeline of the show. An episode might begin and end in the 1980s, framing the period action in Vietnam as memories, but also showing how the consequences play out in the characters' present-day lives. It's an intriguing conceit, and it does what I hadn't seen a show do before, other than in an occasional stand-alone episode: deal with the trauma of war in the moment and in the future.
That is ultimately what makes China Beach such a worthwhile drama. In most shows we see the action in front of the characters as it plays out. In this show we go back and forth, discovering motivations, learning of later damage.
This isn't always an essential element in a good show. Learning what Tony Soprano's life is like 25 years down the road (if he is still alive) doesn't necessarily strengthen our understanding of the character and, indeed, depending on the circumstances, could spoil it.
But a show like China Beach is different. This is about war. The Vietnam War. In dramatic depictions we too often get one or the other. One movie or show might capture the trauma of the experience itself. Another might portray the cost of going to battle, to kill, to see your friends killed.
But China Beach, by the end of its run, follows that journey repeatedly. And it's successful in doing so.
How successful?
The series ends with a reunion of the characters in 1988. Eventually they travel to Washington, D.C., to the Vietnam Memorial. This could have played like a stunt, a superficial play for an emotional response.
It's not. It generates a real emotional response. Because by that time, the show and its characters had earned it.
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Bill Goodykoontz of The Arizona Republic is the chief film critic for Gannett. Read his blog at goodyblog.azcentral.com. For movie stories, trailers and more go to movies.azcentral.com. Twitter: goodyk.
