China Beach was one of the most powerful shows ever to hit television. Based on real vets and nurses (see the episode "Vets"), this show was the most realistic portrayal of the people who served in that horrible place and nothing else has come close. MASH was on for 11 seasons, but MASH wasn't exactly honest (after all, the movie was about Viet Nam, but to avoid reality and emotion they made the TV show about Korea).During the third season word got out that the show was to be cancelled. Letters poured into ABC to save the show. Thousands of fans wrote in (including me), but all it did was guarantee a final season. For reasons never disclosed or understood the show was cancelled. There has been a campaign to get the show onto DVD, but to no avail. China Beach was an incredible look at a horrendous place, at a horrendous time. It helped heal vets and helped families torn apart by an atrocity understand (a little) about what the bloody hell happened over there. No show has ever been that honest. It astonishes me that an idiotic show like "The Simpsons" manages to stay on TV forever (18 seasons - enough already!) and a powerfully moving show like China Beach is on for only 4 seasons.

This is one of the all-time best series of the past or present TV era. A lot has been said of Dana Delany so I shall not do it again yet must say it all is true! I would like to give a different approach. I am a Viet Nam veteran from the area this film was about and I have been to the China Beach in 1969 and again in 1994. I served as a young officer operating with the Vietnamese as an "advisor".This series was gut-wrenching at times, calming at others, as I had been wounded there and remember not my doctors but the nurses I dealt with. This is a great series that displays the crap that is war and the compassion displayed by many to the unlucky that have felt the full fury of conflict. If one gets a chance to watch this series, do so as it now is out on DVD. Reality TV is a farce!!! This series presents many of the "realities" of this unpopular conflict as well as the generosity of simple things. Bravo Dana, and all your fellow actresses and actors who gave so much to make the series what it was; believable!! Thank you.

China Beach was a great show and I can't believe that the series has not been put on DVD. We can get so many shows that are mediocre with no problem. I hope the executives realize what a gem they have and release it for everyone to see. I watched this show when I was in middle school and high school. I would love to be able to watch it again as an adult, and as a history teacher. I know that much of it is not realistic, but there is no denying the emotion. There were so many scenes that just pulled at your heart.I hope soon we will be able to enjoy the entire series on DVD.

I have been reliving "China Beach" the past year or so on cable TV, and I must say, the experience has been just as moving the second time around. I cannot speak of "China Beach" without using superlatives: 1) My all-time favorite TV show; 2) Easily the most underrated TV show ever; 3) The all-time best performance by an actress in TV history (Dana Delaney as Colleen); 4) The most nuanced, complex, intimate and believable development of a TV character in history (again, Dana as Colleen); 5) The three most loaded, gut-wrenching, revealing, and well-acted words ever uttered by a TV character {"Don't 'Colleen' me!" by you-know-who). Of course, there were many other great performances on the show, and the subject matter has never been so intimately portrayed. However, Dana's performance will haunt my soul forever.