I didn’t watch China Beach when it originally aired in 1988, but I certainly remember seeing all those ads with that catchy “Reflections” theme song. So I was excited to finally get a chance to see this series 25 years later—especially as many of the cast members have since gone on to do many other TV projects that I have enjoyed.

The series is set at an American military base at China Beach, Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and focuses on the everyday lives and drama of those who work there—though it primarily focuses on the women who volunteered to help in the war effort.

The pilot opens with Nurse Colleen McMurphy (Dana Delany) on the beach, enjoying some sun and reading a book, when reality sets in as a helicopter flies overhead. McMurphy quickly walks from the sandy beach to the hectic base hospital, swapping her red swimsuit for a pair of blue scrubs. The rest of the hospital staff include the chauvinistic Dr. Dick Richard (Robert Picardo)—who likes to pinch the women’s bottoms—and “coroner” Pvt. Samuel Beckett (Michael Boatman)—who seems more comfortable alone, talking to his dead bodies than having fun and socializing with others.

The base is like a family. Maj. Lila Garreau (Concetta Tomei) is the head of the Red Cross, and the person in charge of the local entertainment/bar for the soldiers. Assisting her is Cpl. Boonie Lanier (Brian Wimmer), a wounded solder turned lifeguard/bartender who knows what the men are going through and now tries to uplift their spirits. Capt. Natch Austen (Tim Ryan) is the pilot who flirts with McMurphy while “entrepreneur” K.C. Kolowski (Marg Helgenberger) flirts with all the men (for a price).

The first season sees some new support staff arrive at China Beach. There’s USO singer Laurette Barber (Chloe Webb) who came to the base to meet men and launch her career as a singer. While Cherry White (Nan Woods) came to the base in search of her missing soldier brother.

While I wasn’t blown away by the first season of China Beach, I did find it entertaining, and the characters and stories interesting. It was a good mix of drama and humor and a glimpse at another side of war. I went into watching this thinking it was going to concentrate more on the medical trauma coming through McMurphy’s hospital. However that is only a small portion of the series, and the quality of those aspects doesn’t come close to Delany’s current work in Body of Proof.

The series is more of a character drama, and focuses primarily on the women. We see McMurphy, who at first is counting down the minutes her final week of service until she realizes that the base is her family and decides to re-up her contract. Then there’s the wannabe star Laurette who starts off as a backup singer and, through her confidence in herself, pursues her dreams. The naive Cherry is looking for her brother, but in the process finds her eyes opened by the toll the war is having on the soldiers, and helps out with the Red Cross’ efforts. Meanwhile, she is getting some life lessons from K.C., who also sees her own growth over the course of the season.

The first season of China Beach is quite short, but ultimately plays out like one complete story, with character arcs that come full circle over the course of the season. Each episode gives some sort of case or plot of the week, but these also help to further develop the characters. However, some of the episodes seemed to end abruptly, without tying things up completely. While I don’t expect each episode to end neatly wrapped up with a bow, in some cases it felt like once they got a character to a certain point and the plot point wasn’t needed anymore, it was just dropped.

There is a lot of great period music in this series—whether it’s used in the background as a soundtrack or performed by the USO women, or sung by the soldiers. It is great that they were able to clear the rights to the original music and keep the series intact—this is likely why it took so long for the series to make it to DVD, and the premium price for the box set.

For a show that’s 25 years old, it looks quite remarkable on this DVD set. While there is some occasional film defects, picture isn’t grainy. However, many of the nighttime scenes appear a bit too dark or washed out, and characters blend into the background. That said, the show probably looks about as good as it ever will—the DVD starts off with a warning that the best source materials available were used. As for the audio, it is certainly sufficient, but nothing notable. While it is a stereo track, I didn’t notice any specific use of separate left and right channels—everything pretty much sounds like it’s coming from the center channel. This was not really an issue—all of the dialog, music and sound effects were very clear.

One thing I’d like to note is that China Beach was produced back when there were far fewer commercials during TV shows. Today, each episode of an hour-long TV show is actually only about 42 minutes, while each of these first season averages about 48 minutes!

While I will need to watch more to see if I am entirely sold on the series, long-time fans of the show should be impressed by this release, and it is an easy recommendation for them. For folks curious about the series, this first season is currently only available as part of a complete series box set, and the $200 price tag is quite an investment to make on a blind buy.

Update: As of September 2013, the first season of China Beach is now available separately in addition to being part of the China Beach: The Complete Series Box Set