8.9/10100 votesLoading...#1 - Under Siege
Season 1 Episode 14 - Aired 2/11/1988
The men of Bravo are certain that Westmoreland has not yet informed the enemy that they are losing, as Firebase Ladybrid continues to come under daily long-range artillery fire. Suddenly a helicopter approaches and lands despite the fact that the base is taking fire. It is the new company commander -- Captain Larry Heath -- a man who initially wins over the favor of his troops with gifts, but he proves to be a complete fanatic. Heath wants to attack despite the fact that it appears that the base is about to be attacked. Zeke and Goldman set them men to putting up a defense and get in trouble because of it. A large attack proves that Anderson was right when the firebase is over-run and Doc Matsuda, with only 15 days left of his tour of duty, is killed when he refuses to abandon his patient.
Director: Stephen L. Posey
Writer: Steve Bello
8.7/1066 votesLoading...#2 - Doc Hock
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 9/30/1989
Goldman reveals to Zeke that it may be time for him to move to a desk job. Alex is glad to see Myron back but tells him that she is going to take the Paris job. Elsewhere, Taylor, Percell and Ruiz tease a new recruit who is a pacificist. Taylor knocks the new medic, Hockenberry on his butt. Zeke is just as horrified as the rest when he is told by Doc Hock that he won't carry a weapon. Afterwards, Anderson meets Goldman's replace, a no-nonsense but wet-behind-the-ears new LT who thinks he already knows everything there is to know. Zeke also learns that he has received a promotion. Alex arranges a final going-away party for her and Myron. Alex ends up missing her plane to Paris but not because of the party but because she has a chance to do an exclusive and dangerous interview with a VC officer. After getting out of the interview, Alex meets Myron in Saigon, for there last dinner, before going to Paris. As Alex waits for Myron in front of the restaurant, a bomb explodes, killing her with
Director: Randy Roberts
Writer: N/A
8.7/1056 votesLoading...#3 - Acceptable Losses
Season 3 Episode 16 - Aired 2/17/1990
Team Viking takes off on another Fontaine mission, where they run into heavy contact. McKay arrives back at the LZ to rescue them, only to end up being fired on by missiles. He has no choice but to leave without Taylor, Ruiz and Private Woznaik. They attempt to make it back to their own lines on their own. The team goes back to check for their men -- McKay gets tricked by the VC and nearly killed -- only Taylor's self-sacrificing smoke grenade gets the chopper pilot back up in time. Wozniak ends up dead of a snake bite, leaving Ruiz and Taylor on their own. As the days pass, Taylor and Ruiz are replaced by two new soldiers, including 44-year-old PFC Thoams ""Pop"" Scarlett, a lifer with a unique perspective on the war.
Director: Bradford May
Writer: N/A
8.6/1074 votesLoading...#4 - The Hill
Season 1 Episode 21 - Aired 4/30/1988
Goldman and Nikki have a great time on a brief R&R that they spend together on China Beach. Their reunion is marred by the fact that Nikki refuses to marry him, fearing he will be killed in combat. Goldman returns to Firebase Ladybird to find that his unit has been assigned to help take Hill 1000. They've taken it before and lost it before. And this battle promises to be the worst. Even after the bunker is finally taken, it is found empty. They go back down so that a plane can spray a defoliate. They must go back and take that hill yet again. Horn has, in the meantime, gotten in trouble with a young -- and new -- officer. Sitting at the bottom of the hill and awaiting the court-martial, he sees a wounded Taylor and he decides to go back with his buddies and fight. Horn is seriously wounded and sent home.
Director: Robert Iscove
Writer: Steven Phillip Smith
8.6/1059 votesLoading...#5 - Thanks for the Memories
Season 3 Episode 8 - Aired 11/18/1989
The men of Team Viking are receiving medals in a ceremony in recognition of their heroism. In the midst of the ceremony, General Higgins arrives and reads out Brewster. Higgins thinks Brewster should have kept his mouth closed about Phu An. Higgins leaves with the threat that he will destroy Brewster if the colonel keeps ""forcing the issue"". Anderson talks with Percell who is off drugs, finally, and is now spending time at the Psych Ward. Doc calls home and finds out that his girl friend is sleeping with someone else. Brewster takes the story of Phu An to the press and is relieved of duty.
Director: Paul Lynch
Writer: N/A
8.5/1060 votesLoading...#6 - The Volunteer
Season 2 Episode 16 - Aired 5/16/1989
A young desk clerk seeking to prove himself is assigned to Anderson's platoon.
Director: Stephen L. Posey
Writer: Steven Phillip Smith
8.5/1060 votesLoading...#7 - The Luck
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 9/23/1989
News that Goldman and Anderson are missing and believed dead devastates the platoon and Alex.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.5/1052 votesLoading...#8 - A Necessary End
Season 3 Episode 6 - Aired 11/4/1989
McKay has a date with a ""killer"" blonde but on the way to take her shopping he ends up hitting a child with his jeep and comes in contact, for the first time, with a makeshift orphanage where he decides to get involved with the orphans. Doc finds Purcell high on grass and drugs. Purcell leave in a huff, seeking more drugs, and ends up arrested and assigned to a ""shit burner"" detail. Goldman goes to Brewster to report the massacre. Later, Goldman and Anderson are briefed on a mission into Cambodia to kidnap a defecting NVA officer. Percell tries to desert.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.5/1059 votesLoading...#9 - Green Christmas
Season 3 Episode 11 - Aired 12/23/1989
Christmas finds Team Viking the bush trying to capture prisoners in Cambodia. Doc tries to show compassion to one of the captured men... who turns out to be able to speak English. Anderson and Goldman exchange Christmas gifts, back at camp. Ruiz takes flowers to Susanna. Taylor finds that he misses Johnson. Team Viking prepares for a Christmas party at the orphanage. Meanwhile, Sgt. Marvin Johnson returns home and finds out that bigotry is alive and well there.
Director: Helaine Head
Writer: N/A
8.5/1054 votesLoading...#10 - And Make Death Proud to Take Us
Season 3 Episode 13 - Aired 1/20/1990
Newbie replacements arrive, including a young man that gains Anderson's attention as he and Team Viking return from the field, as the boy proves to be 15 years old. FNGs are moving in all over Team Viking. Goldman (suffering from the same shortage of room) finds himself bunked up with McKay. Team Viking gets assigned a recon mission based on Fontaine's information. Anderson and Goldman spend as much time as possible breaking in the new guys. Zeke and Myron head out with 18 FNG's. Anderson's unit stops to dig in a defensive position to work from, but before completing the bunkers they are attacked by the enemy, and due to outstanding bravery and courage, a few actually survive.
Director: George Kaczender
Writer: N/A
8.5/1062 votesLoading...#11 - Dead Man Tales
Season 3 Episode 14 - Aired 2/3/1990
Team Viking earns a 3-day pass and then promptly gets itself in trouble because of their brawling. While the major is reading every one out about this, a shot from the jungle kills him. Anderson assigns Bell and Doc to work at the orphanage and takes the rest of them out. Goldman is sent out to find the sniper ""or else"". McKay's new gunner opens fire on the Americans below him -- by mistake -- killing a large number of them. The Team gets thoroughly drunk and Bell climbs up on the top of a building and ends up falling to his death. When the others realize what has happened they decide to get him listed as KIA. McKay, meanwhile, goes after the sniper himself!
Director: Bradford May
Writer: N/A
8.5/1058 votesLoading...#12 - Road to Long Binh
Season 3 Episode 15 - Aired 2/10/1990
All of the enlisted men of Team Viking end up with food poisioning. Goldman is forced, because of that, to take on an assignment himself that he had intended to assign to someone else, drafting Anderson to come along. They pick up a deserter who Anderson has known as the ""ideal"" soldier for years. As the two men spend time together they talk about their early meetings, etc. Zeke gets a letter from Johnson. The next day Digby (the deserter) escapes before Anderson and Goldman get there but is recaptured. They start off to Long Binh prison. Digby has been a soldier for 14 years but gave it up when some soldiers started to give him and his Vietnamese wife a hard time. Digby ends up saving their lives, a number of times, and he ends up ""accidentally"" escaping
Director: Steve Dubin
Writer: N/A
8.5/1058 votesLoading...#13 - The Raid
Season 3 Episode 20 - Aired 4/28/1990
The monsoon seasons starts. Pop goes back to the States for his son's funeral, only to be blamed for the death of his son (by his wife). Goldman is upset over Beller's suicide -- feeling that the ex-friend was only another type of victim of the war. Brewster enlists Goldman for a volunteer mission to rescue MIA/POWs. AN ex-POW (very fragile) comes back to Vietnam to help plan the mission. Doc is still on base but no one will speak to him. Doc goes to talk to Goldman, begging to be part of the rescue mission but gets refused. The mission turns out to be a nightmare. The POWs were moved before the Team got there, Griner is blinded, Pop and McKay are hurt and get shipped to a hospital in Japan, Brewster is hospitalized at China Beach.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.4/1084 votesLoading...#14 - Roadrunner
Season 1 Episode 11 - Aired 1/7/1988
One of a GI's big events is the arrival of his mail. When Zeke opens his mail to find that his ex-wife, it is to find that she is complaining that he is not writing letters home often enough to their 3-year-old daughter. Zeke already has enough responsibilities... this one isn't wanted. However he has little time to worry about it before he finds himself out on patrol. Goldman orders the squad forward when Anderson warns that they are walking into trouble, Anderson scouts out ahead and ends up in a near-lethal mortar barrage. Anderson is nearing his limit when he finds out that the squad's next destination is a valley where Zeke's last outfit was nearly wiped out. Anderson fights going tooth-and-nail and it is obvious to everyone that Zeke is falling apart. There is little time to help him, though, as the men have to consider their mission first. The squad ends up going after a downed flyer... and while Zeke continues to deteroriate.
Director: Jim Johnston
Writer: Robert Burns Clark
8.4/1091 votesLoading...#15 - Pushin' Too Hard
Season 1 Episode 12 - Aired 1/14/1988
Anderson, Goldman, and Captain Wallace are checking out a new weapon that has been added to the platoon's arsenal: a flamethrower. Zeke and Goldman are unhappy that the next mission will also include a beautiful female reporter -- Vicky Adams. Zeke fights against the woman's urges to ""get the good stuff"" and his own men's attempts to impress her -- at the risk of their own lives. A prisoner is caught and tells the unit that they are surrounded by an NVA regiment. Wallace refusees to go back to safety, though, and a bad situation continues to get worse and worse.
Director: Bill L. Norton
Writer: Steven Phillip Smith
8.4/1095 votesLoading...#16 - USO Down
Season 1 Episode 13 - Aired 1/21/1988
A USO band comprised of three female dancers, a sax players, and a singer, completes their performance at an outlying base, and are rushed to a helicopter to be flown to their next destination. None of them get a chance to even change their costumes. The helicopter is shot down and the entire crew is killed. Meanwhile, Bravo company is out on a recon, and Taylor who is on point, thinks he must be going crazy when he sees the girl in hot pants and leather boots. Bravo company takes the girls with them but can't call in for help because the radio's batteries are dead.The USO people make the transition to ""soldier"" with various degrees of success.
Director: Ronald L. Schwary
Writer: Jim Beaver
8.4/1078 votesLoading...#17 - Angel of Mercy
Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 4/9/1988
In a small South Vietnamese hamlet, an NVA officer arrives to brief his men that they will soon begin infiltrating towns and villages through-out the country in preparation for the Tet Offensive. Meanwhile, Bravo is in the bush, while Baker is losing a battle with his dysentery. As he ""answers the call of nature"" he sights VC closing on the unit and then, pulling his pants up, gets a frog down them, and starts screaming. As the American's come running, a fire fight starts, ending with the capture of an NVA Colonel Trang. Goldman catches a bullet in the helmet and in his jacket as they try to retreat. Though saved by his clothing, he still does need to go to the hospital along with Anderson, who is hit with shrapnel. While Goldman and Anderson recover, Trang dies under mysterious circumstances during interrogation.
Director: Bill L. Norton
Writer: N/A
8.4/1054 votesLoading...#18 - Promised Land
Season 2 Episode 11 - Aired 4/4/1989
Word of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination lowers black soldiers' morale,
Director: Helaine Head
Writer: N/A
8.4/1062 votesLoading...#19 - Hard Stripe
Season 2 Episode 15 - Aired 5/9/1989
While out on patrol, the unit stumbles across CIA recruiter Jim Doyle. He has taken possession of a case of Russian-made sniper rifles, and claims that finding him there was an accident. It is obvious that Goldman and his men have been used by Doyle to provide himself with an escort out of the bush. They get ambushed on the way out. They get most of the rifles back, but Zeke and Myron wonder why they were ambushed by Montagnards, a group known for their loyalty to Americans. Goldman decides to investigate Doyle and enlists Alex's help. Doyle learns he is being investigated and leans on Zeke to get the lieutenant to stop. McKay tries to convince Goldman that he should take a non-combat job ""for Alex's sake"". Taylor is upset because a soldier named Smith gets his sergeant's stripes before Johnson gets them, and Taylor think race has something to do with it.
Director: Jim Johnston
Writer: Jerry Patrick Brown
8.4/1054 votesLoading...#20 - Cloud Nine
Season 3 Episode 7 - Aired 11/11/1989
Taylor, Ruiz and Johnson go in search of Purcell after he goes AWOL. They look for 3 days, finally being taken to a heroin parlor by three drug dealers. Danny refuses to leave and the 3 thugs won't let the soldiers force Danny out. Later, Anderson and Team Viking are trying to find a road that is part of the Ho Chi Minh trail. When they find the road they return to the base where everyone knows about Danny. Brewster tells Goldman to solve the problem and Goldman insists upon talking about the massacre. Brewster puts his own career in jeopardy as he tries to get the army to deal with Phu An massacre. Anderson (under pressure from Goldman) organizes a commando raid and goes into Cholon to spring Purcell -- who then is forced to go through cold-turkey withdrawal. Brewster is ordered to shut up about the Phu An massacre.
Director: George Kaczender
Writer: N/A
8.4/1056 votesLoading...#21 - I Am What I Am
Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 12/2/1989
Team Viking goes out to capture a Soviet chopper but ends up surrounded and captured. Luckily the mission was just practice. Myron discovers that his father -- Gernal Goldman -- is back on the base. His father has 2-3 months left to live because of cancer. While Myron and his father fight, Johnson attempts to decide if he should re-up or go back to the World. A Mexican/American WAC takes up with Ruiz. Johnson finally decides to go back to the States. Percell wonders if he is yet ready to return to the field. Anderson and McKay butt heads when McKay tries to take over the leadership of a mission.
Director: Bradford May
Writer: N/A
8.4/1054 votesLoading...#22 - World in Changes
Season 3 Episode 10 - Aired 12/9/1989
McKay decides he is personally going to get the sniper who has been taking out helicopters... but with Anderson and Goldman on the ground and him in the air, HE ends up the next target, crashing and killing his co-pilot. Johnson, with only 72 hours left, gets a bad case of ""short timer's nerves"". Meanwhile a crazy CIA operative -- Duke Fontaine -- takes several VC suspects up in a helicopter and starts throwing them out until one of them will talk. Anderson and the team are going to go out after a VC-recruiter and get permission for Johnson not to go but because Johnson has decided that he ""must stick to the routine"" he ends up going. Taylor and Johnson are captured by the VC and tortured by a sadistic Vietnamese man.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.4/1056 votesLoading...#23 - Odd Man Out
Season 3 Episode 12 - Aired 1/6/1990
lor is expecting to be promoted at any moment, and opens his mail to find a letter from Johnson talking about how great things are back in the World. Anderson is forced to tell Taylor that he has been passed over for promotion. Taylor starts to deal with the black/white issue -- badly. Percell goes to a black ""bar"" to get Taylor when it becomes obvious that Taylor isn't coming home unless someone goes to get him. Goldman is told that Team Viking is going to go on a mission being dictated by a local Vietnamese Province Chief. The man is going to trade permission to use his village as a base for artillery (which will save many American lives) for the team's going to get his wife). Only after the team agrees do they discover that the woman is pregnant (with another man's child), sick and running from her husband.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.4/1059 votesLoading...#24 - Three Cheers for the Orange, White & Blue
Season 3 Episode 19 - Aired 4/14/1990
Anderson & Pop are having a good time at a local bar when a young trooper turns up and gets insulting to Pop -- it turns out to be Robby (Pop's son). The Phu An Board of Inquiry starts. As the situation develops and Beller realizes what his men did -- he had blocked it out -- he kills himself. Zeke and Team Viking go out with Robby on another SOG mission. They end up getting sprayed with Agent Blue. Before the end of the day, Robby ends up killed, leaving Pop to bring his son home in a body bag.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.3/1096 votesLoading...#25 - Burn, Baby, Burn
Season 1 Episode 6 - Aired 11/5/1987
In a time of great racial tension and violence in America, the same problems were carried over to Vietnam, where it was not unusual for bars -- or sometimes entire sections of towns -- to cater only to whites, blacks or hispanics. To wander into the wrong ""territory"" was a mistake that could lead to violence and death. Taylor and three of his brothers encounter such a problem when Percell asks them to meet him at what turns out to be an all-white redneck bar. A fight breaks out between one of the blacks, Tucker and a KKK member, Innis. Both end up in Bravo Co, and while on a patrol, Tucker's friend is killed when Innis fails to provide coverage. Racial tensions mount. As the black soldiers discuss their own people dying at home to obtain some equal rights, they see Innes put up a Confederate flag. Violence breaks out, and, in the end, Johnson gets accused of starting it. A conflict at the brig nearly ends in gunfire but, in the end, Tucker -- the trouble-maker is transfered out and thi
Director: Reynaldo Villalobos
Writer: Steven Phillip Smith, Steve Duncan, L. Travis Clark
The Best Episodes of Tour of Duty
Every episode of Tour of Duty ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Tour of Duty!
The trials of a U.S. Army platoon serving in the field during the Vietnam War.
Genres:War & PoliticsDramaAction & Adventure
Network:CBS
Best Episodes Summary
"Under Siege" is the best rated episode of "Tour of Duty". It scored 8.9/10 based on 100 votes. Directed by Stephen L. Posey and written by Steve Bello, it aired on 2/11/1988. This episode scored 0.2 points higher than the second highest rated, "Doc Hock".