Tour of Duty The Complete Second Season   Starring: Stephen Caffrey, Terence Knox, Kim Delaney, Tony Becker and Miguel A. Núñez Jr Fabulous Films / Fremantle Media Enterprises RRP: £49.99 FHED2877 Certificate: 15 Available 14 May 2012

Following the success of Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) it was inevitable that a slew of copycat projects would be created. The war in Vietnam would go through many phases in the American consciousness, from almost a national shame, especially in the sight of many young men being sent off for what many felt was a senseless slaughter, through revulsion, not helped by the nightly news coverage, to slow acceptance that in many cases the soldiers did their duty against a larger backdrop of civil unrest and change at home.

Tour of Duty: The Complete Second Season was part of a television show which ran for three seasons from 1987 to 1990. The show was created by Steve Duncan and L. Travis Clark for CBS and followed the exploits of Bravo Company’s second platoon. The central core of the cast included Terence Knox (Clayton Ezekiel "Zeke" Anderson), Stephen Caffrey (Myron Goldman), Tony Becker (Daniel "Danny" Percell) and Ramón Franco (Alberto Ruiz).

The first season is generally held in high regard and the show, during its run, tried to tackle many difficult subjects, including drug abuse and racism in the army. However with costs spiralling, the decision was made to change the format. So gone was the all-male cast battling their way through the dirt and the enemy and in comes the Company’s relocation to Tan Son Nhut Base on the periphery of Saigon, where they now conducted more limited engagements. This also coincided with the introduction of female characters and in many minds rang the death knell for the show as a whole.

Still, it’s not been shown on television or released recently, so if you’re a fan then here is your chance to rewatch all sixteen episodes spread across five DVDs, including Saigon: Part 1, Saigon: Part 2, For What It's Worth, True Grit, Non-Essential Personnel, Sleeping Dogs, I Wish It Would Rain, Popular Forces, Terms of Enlistment, Nightmare, Promised Land, Lonesome Cowboy Blues, Sins of the Fathers, Sealed with a Kiss, Hard Stripe and The Volunteer.

The picture is presented in its original 4:3 aspect ratio with a soft picture from its encoding, but with the original music track, including 'Paint it Black' by the Rolling Stones, which was removed from the original American DVD release.

Discs one to four hold the episodes with the extras being confined to disc five, First up is the rather excellent The Story of Tour Of Duty - Part 2 (28 min, 43 sec) with contributions from the most important member of cast and crew, which looks at how the changes being made for the second season moved the show away from reflecting the war to chasing the ratings and cutting costs. The disc also contains Cast and Crew, Character Biographies, Original Cast Biographies, Original Crew Biographies, Action Stills, Behind the Scenes Stills, Publicity Stills, Synopses and Glossary of Tour of Duty Military Terms.

Whilst not as good as the first season, the presentation, with the extras, should please any fan of the show and proves that just because a show is old doesn’t mean you can’t produce a box set with real added value.

7

Charles Packer