Airdate: The Vietnam War

SBS premieres PBS history series The Vietnam War from Saturday, with a double episode.

This is a 10 part series co-directed by Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The War, Brooklyn Bridge, Statue Of Liberty, The West) and took 10 years to make.

Narrated by Peter Coyote, this aired in the US in September.

Directed by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, The Vietnam War tells the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. Featuring testimonies from more than 60 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides, it brings the war and chaotic epoch it encompassed viscerally to life. The Vietnam War also features an all-star soundtrack, including recordings from The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Simon & Garfunkel, Janis Joplin and more.

Season One, Episode One: Déjà Vu (7.30pm)
After a long and brutal war, Vietnamese revolutionaries led by Ho Chi Minh end nearly a century of French colonial occupation. With the Cold War intensifying, Vietnam is divided in two at Geneva. Communists in the North aim to reunify the country, while America supports Ngo Dinh Diem’s untested regime in the South.

Episode Two: Riding the Tiger (8.30pm)
President Kennedy and his advisors wrestle with how deeply to get involved in South Vietnam. As the increasingly autocratic Diem regime faces a growing communist insurgency and widespread Buddhist protests, a grave political crisis unfolds.

Saturday, 9 December at 7.30pm on SBS.