Memorable, crazy movie

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Watched every episode when it first aired and again over the last two weeks. Think I appreciate it even more now, as I'm a lot wiser (and unfortunately a lot older too -grin. Doesn't time fly when you're having fun!), so I have a better understanding of the impact of this war, the different points of view, the psychological impact etc. What I did notice now, and can't remember noticing back then, are the flaws. For instance blowing up a bridge, placing the explosives just above the waterline, then the bridge blows way up top? A mite odd I say. Ruiz firing the M60, never hitting anything. Well, not really a surprise cos he doesn't seem to be aiming at anything either. At some point he was firing direction sky? Maybe he been smoking something weird. Grenades explode meters from the targets, yet the enemy dies each time.Biggest bummer is that they left the fans of the show -which must have been a vast amount- hanging after season 3. Least thing they could've done was give us 1 or 2 more eps to wrap it up.Anyhow, in spite of that, I think it's a brilliant series, must see. One of a kind. To this day. Cast is great. The insight, depth of emotions and issues addressed are great. The way Sgt. Anderson holds the whole lot together, brilliantly done! Terence Knox was definitely an excellent choice. So I'm giving it a big 10.

We (America) left Vietnam in 1975 as North Vietnam took over the country. Although I was a kid, I recall the evening news with Walter Conkrite providing such vivid imagery as did the coverage of the protests and riots against the war. Our country was almost torn apart by the contrasting opinions about the war and the loss of so many Americans and Vietnamese. Our healing process was very slow and continues even now. The Tour of Duty TOD - show was the first TV show that took on the war. TOD was developed and aired at a point in the healing process were the show was more acceptable than one or two years earlier. TOD had a good cast and the writing was very good. The TOD sound track was fabulous and to this day when I hear "Paint It Black" I usually think about TOD. I'm surprised that no station or network has thought to rerun the series. TOD is more than worthy of your time to watch it. CWO, USMC, Retired

The best with the TOD series is actually not the level of realism...it is the acting one should appreciate. Small and grand scenes, both those with a high degree of realism ( like most combat scenes ) or those being grossly unrealistic ( like the knife killings of sentries, on both sides ) are excellently acted. The characters are highly credible, even in the most incredible scenes. Language, behaviour and mimics are simply top class. I would imagine that the acting could be enjoyed even if you are not interested in military history or war movies.The one completely unrealistic feature of TOR is the actual numbers of "contacts" and the wide variety of events that the group gets into. Capturing high ranking NVA officers and female soldiers of the NVA, clearing out tunnel complexes and recapturing POWS, civic actions in Montagnard villages may all have happened during the war, but all those events with a single regular army unit? No way... As to the saving of Baker by his brother, apparently there was not one single POW with the Viet Cong or NVA saved by American forces in the entire war. The Baker saving was thus a fairy tale by all standards.Again though, the performance of the actors, and with few exceptions, also the "makeup" and clothing/equipment in the scenes, is close to superb. The characters are dirty, torn and bloody when they should, clean, shaved and reasonably well patched when they reasonably should. The jungle can obviously not be mimicked perfectly, unless filming on the actual location, but is realistic enough.The acting and realism in details by far outweighs some of the larger less logical or unrealistic scenes.

This show is fantastic! Great stories, interesting characters. You really felt an attachment to bravo company as they lived through the hell of nam. Its a shame its not on dvd still. It is a thousand times better than the crap that gets shoved to us these days cause it has good acting, great scenery, and high quality production. Each episode is like watching a mini movie about the Vietnam War. If only they would get rid of all the cheap and crappy reality TV stuff today and make shows like this again. One gets a feeling that we'll never see anything made like this on TV again...