'' was an
America n
Television drama series on
CBS which ran from September
1987 to April
1990 . The show follows an American
Infantry platoon on a
Tour Of Duty during the
Vietnam War . It was the first television series to regularly show Americans in combat in
Vietnam and was one of several similarly-themed series to be produced in the wake of the acclaimed
Oliver Stone film, ''
Platoon ''. The show was created by
Steve Duncan and
L. Travis Clark , and produced by
Zev Braun . It ran for three seasons as 58 one-hour episodes.
Not simply an action program, ''Tour of Duty'' was also groundbreaking as it addressed the issues of
Racism ,
Suicide ,
Fragging ,
Terrorism ,
Civilian Deaths ,
Drug Abuse , and the shattered lives and confused feelings of those troops who finally made it home alive. The story focuses mainly on Bravo company's third squad under the command of Lt. Myron Goldman (
Stephen Caffery ), and SSGT. Zeke Anderson (
Terence Knox ).
The first season opens in 1967 and follows a standard platoon operating in Vietnam. In the second season, the troops found themselves relocated to a base near Saigon while conducting the typical "
Search And Destroy " missions. In the third season, the platoon was transferred to a
SOG (Studies and Observation) unit under the command of Colonel Brewster, conducting covert operations in Vietnam and in
Cambodia , culminating in the fictional version of the raid on Son Tay Prison. Production staff interviewed in ''VIETNAM'' Magazine cited this change as a
Change In Premise that doomed the series, as female characters were also introduced (in hopes of gaining more female viewership) and the show ceased to be a realistic chronicle of life in the field for the average line infantryman in favor of being more romance- and action/adventure-oriented. The third season was the show's last.
The theme song in the first season consisted of an instrumental, synthesized tune with a distinctive Asian sound mixed in with acoustic guitar. That music was used as background music for most of the series. At the beginning of season two, the show's most familiar theme, a condensed version of
The Rolling Stones ' hit
Paint It Black , was introduced; this was used for the remainder of the run. On DVD most of the original music was replaced by instrumental bits to cover the blank spots of music. It is most likely that the original score was not available due to copyright issues. The show was known for its
Classic American Rock soundtrack including
Creedence Clearwater Revival ,
Jimi Hendrix , and
Jefferson Airplane . The series won an
Emmy Award in 1988 for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series, and it was nominated again in 1989 and 1990. For
Copyright reasons, the
VHS and
DVD soundtracks were replaced with more generic music by lesser-known bands -- a move which was widely protested by buyers, and resulted in a significantly lower sales volume for the third-season DVD set than for the first two.
- A---S---H" class="copylinks">M---A---S---H . Helicopter scenes with McKay were filmed on the ground with the rotors running.
In the
United Kingdom ''Tour of Duty'' was screened regionally among the 14 contractors of the
ITV Network. The show was typically shown with two commercial breaks inserted around 1.20am on a Sunday morning by
Central Television and at 11.35pm on Tuesday nights by
Yorkshire Television . The Yorkshire time was the most commonly adopted among other ITV regions. In 1998 the show was screened in the UK on television channel
Bravo .
- Emmy Award
- ---1988: Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series (for "Under Siege")
- Founders Award
- ---1989: Terence Knox
- Emmy Award
- --- 1989: Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series (for "I Wish it Could Rain")
- --- 1990: Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series (for "And Make Death Proud to Take Us")
- Eddie Award
- --- 1988: Best Edited Episode from a Television Series (for the pilot episode)
The television series soundtrack was released by CBS on Columbia Records as four different compilation albums during 1988 and 1989. The original albums are now out of print. Their track listings are as follows:
In 1992, Sony Music released a compilation CD titled "The Best of 'Tour of Duty'". It contains only twenty of the songs featured in the four original "Tour of Duty" Soundtrack albums.
