ABC’s 152-Episode War Drama Is Still One Of The Best Ever Made 74 Years Later

Published Sep 24, 2026, 8:14 AM EDT

Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020.

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While ABC's seminal war drama might have aired over 60 years ago, the show’s formative influence on the war drama genre as a whole stays relevant to this day. The war drama has been a TV staple for decades, although it has changed as much as the war movie in that time. Glossy, big-budget miniseries like Band of Brothers and The Pacific were among the biggest war shows of the 1990s and 2010s, but Apple TV’s Masters of the Air failed to replicate their unalloyed success in 2024.

Similarly, before workplace sitcoms were a commonplace sight on TV listings, one of the first masterpieces of the genre came from the unlikely setting of a mobile army hospital unit. Based on Dr. Richard Hornberger’s novel MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors and director Robert Altman’s 1970 movie adaptation of the book, MASH was a shockingly sharp anti-war satire that somehow doubled as the blueprint for later workplace sitcoms like The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Abbott Elementary.

Set in Uijeongbu, South Korea, MASH somehow managed to turn the backdrop of the Korean War into a home for warm character comedy. However, MASH never ignored the harsh realities of war, and its dark sense of humor was carried over into later, less explicitly comedic war dramas like Generation Kill. That said, even before MASH had set its many viewership records throughout the sitcom’s long run, ABC’s war drama Combat created the genre’s blueprint back in 1962.

ABC’s Classic War Drama Combat! Still Holds Its Own Today

Image courtesy of MovieStillsDb

Beginning in October 1962, Combat lasted 152 episodes across five seasons before the show wrapped up its run in 1967. Focusing primarily on Vic Morrow’s Sergeant "Chip" Saunders and Rick Jason’s Second Lieutenant Gil Hanley, Combat bounced between the story of these two US soldiers as they fought in German-occupied France during World War II. Noted for its early attempts at realism in the war drama genre, Combat was a huge hit with viewers.

With a gigantic ensemble cast of famous guest actors including stars like James Coburn, James Caan, Mickey Rooney, Leonard Nimoy of Star Trek: The Original Series, Robert Duvall, Tom Skerritt, and many, many more, Combat was never short of star power. However, viewers shouldn’t assume that the series offered a glitzy, romanticized image of warfare based on its starry cast.

On the contrary, Combat was notable precisely for its downbeat tone and realistic, grounded vision of life in the military. Years before movies that responded to America’s invasion of Vietnam, like Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, and Casualties of War, would explore the horrors of wars more deeply, Combat was an early, sobering image of war on screen where heroism or adventure were replaced by drudgery and death.

Combat! Was The Prototype For The Modern TV War Drama

Credit: MovieStillsDB

While the starry supporting cast of Combat calls to mind the astounding lineup assembled by Band of Brothers decades later, the show’s true influence on the war drama genre goes much deeper. Everything from MASH to Band of Brothers to the aforementioned Generation Kill absorbed some of its dark, gritty depiction of war from Combat, which was the first major mainstream war drama to strip conflict of its drama and thrills.

Despite all the show’s notable guest stars, most episodes of Combat were unapologetically bleak and didn’t glamorize the reality of the war. For a generation who had experienced combat first hand, the show was an early attempt to do justice to the horrors of war, albeit one that was hamstrung by the limitations of network TV censorship.

Decades later, it is undeniable that Combat no longer hits as hard after generations of shows like The Wire and Oz normalized graphic onscreen violence, R-rated explicit content, and mature storytelling. However, Combat’s ability to strip away the glamorization of so many war narratives still makes the prescient ABC drama one of the greatest war shows of its era.

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  Charles Macaulay

  Capt. Baumer

• Chris Robinson

  Paul Villers

• Cindy Eilbacher

  Cynthia

• Dean Stockwell

  Rob Lawson