In that way, it’s not a show about tragedy so much as it is about the ways people cope with and soldier on in the face of it.
#War of beach charectors series#
In the commentary to one of the episodes, series co-creator and executive producer John Sacret Young, who would go on to serve as a writer and supervising producer on “The West Wing,” describes “China Beach” as the story of the human cost of war, especially the emotional damage it does to the characters, and the efforts the characters make to deflect or bury that damage to make witnessing the horrors of war at least survivable. What took “China Beach” from being a good to a great show was that it was willing to let its main characters grow and change - noteworthy at a time when many other shows were defined by a status quo to which they stuck. The comfort it invites with its cast of characters becomes wrenching in the fourth and final season, when the emotional fallout of the war takes center stage. Even Stephen Baldwin has an episode, as a white GI convinced he’s Chuck Barry.īecause it’s so frequently funny, and because its characters are so nicely fleshed out by the writers and actors, “China Beach” can sometimes feel like a workplace comedy where characters just happen to get covered in the blood of enlisted teenagers - and in this way it recalls “M*A*S*H” while also presenting a uniquely female-centric perspective on war. Ricki Lake, just before her talk show days, does an entire season as a Red Cross volunteer - the only character whose death you might root for.
Particularly memorable is Nancy Giles, a tall African-American actress with a distinctive voice who plays a Jill-of-all-trades GI, Frankie Bunsen, and who joins the show in the second season.Īnd because “China Beach” was a strong show that needed a lot of actors to fill up its war, there are also a number of now familiar faces in guest star and walk-on spots - there’s Don Cheadle in a small part in a marine unit that Bunsen is mistakenly promoted to lead and Adan Arkin showing up in the final season as a McMurphy love interest. Lila Garreau, the anal-retentive base chief, Jeff Kober as Dodger, a taciturn Rambo-type with a 1,000-yard stare and Brian Wimmer as the base’s fun-times guy and scrounge, Boonie Leneer. There are a half-dozen others in the main cast who were unknowns before “China Beach,” like Concetta Tomei as Maj. Dick Richards, a country club gynecologist drafted in to the war, Michael Boatman (“Spin City”) as Pvt. The lead cast also includes Robert Picardo (who may be best known as the holographic doctor in “Star Trek: Voyager”) as Dr. emerges as McMurphy’s foil by the second season, the sinner to McMurphy’s saint, and Helgenberger also won an Emmy for the part. Kolowski, a gorgeous but cynical entrepreneur whose main business is as a prostitute for military brass. Marg Helgenberger, who went on to 12 seasons of “CSI,” plays K.C. It’s easy to gush about Delany in her career-making performance, but every cast member of the show is strong, and “China Beach” was the first step in a number of long careers.
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