‘China Beach’ Sets Clock Ahead to 1985 This Season : Television: The ABC series will go beyond the confines of wartime Vietnam to other Asian areas and the U.S.

“Quantum Leap” isn’t the only series that will be traveling through time this season.

Beginning with tonight’s season premiere at 9 on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42, “China Beach” will no longer be anchored at the medical and recreational center in 1968, but instead will be leaping from 1967 to 1985 and from Vietnam to the United States and elsewhere in Southeast Asia.

“As much as we love the area of the ‘60s, we also now feel that we and the audience know these characters--and (want to find out) what has happened to them since,” executive producer John Sacret Young said. “That time of their lives was so crucial and intense that the effects of it play out over years, just as they have in all vets’ cases. Since we as a country and my generation have been dealing with that war and its impact, why not deal with it on that show?”

Tonight’s episode, the first of a two-parter that concludes next Saturday, begins in 1985 with a Boston reunion between Boonie (Brian Wimmer)--the lifeguard with a mysterious soldiering past but now a disabled veteran--and surgeon Dick Richard (Robert Picardo).

Then the scene shifts to 1967 Vietnam and the first days of Richard’s and Colleen McMurphy’s (Dana Delany) service in Vietnam.

The conclusion deals with how K.C., the resourceful prostitute and businesswoman portrayed by Emmy-winner Marg Helgenberger, became pregnant before arriving at China Beach, and her decision to give up the child. The episode returns to 1985 when Boonie’s adopted daughter Karen (Christine Elise) learns the truth about her real mother.

“The idea is that the characters will be true to themselves--and the audience, who has a relationship with the characters, will be able to identify with what they are going through and interested in seeing the new places and surprises in their lives,” Young said. “It’s a little like seeing someone after five or 10 years. They’re still the same person, but they’ve been through changes, both good and bad. We’re trying to capture some of those curves, and yet at the vortex is the Vietnam experience.”

It is McMurphy who will undergo the most changes this season. She will experience marriage and divorce; battle alcoholism; quit nursing, but later return to the profession and suffer Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and come through it.

“We’ll see what coming home and being home was like for her and how it was difficult for her to be in Kansas,” Young said. “We’ll see her go on a long journey through the ‘70s of ups and downs, coming into the ‘80s with some awareness finally (that) what she said was only a single experience, Vietnam, in fact could color the rest of her life.”

“China Beach” almost didn’t make it to this season. Last spring, its status was uncertain as ABC was assemblying its fall schedule. A move from 10 p.m. Wednesday (where it had won its time slot) to 9 p.m. Monday fueled fears among fans that the show would be cancelled.

ABC did renew the show, but gave it an order for only 16 episodes, six fewer than a full season. The network again moved “China Beach,” this time to 9 p.m. Saturday, opposite two NBC series that finished in Nielsen’s Top 10 last season, “Golden Girls” and “Empty Nest.”

“I’m not sure what ABC’s expectations are, but the (ratings) numbers we get on Saturday night will be less than we got on Wednesday night, because there are less people watching (television), and certainly less people watching who would typically watch ‘China Beach,’ ” Young said. “This is an extraordinarily difficult time period.”

Beginning next Saturday, “China Beach” will serve as the lead-in to “Twin Peaks.”

“My hope is (that) all of its attention will rub off on us,” Young said. “I think we would do better if the shows were flopped and we were on at 10 o’clock, because our audience is very similar to ‘Golden Girls’ and is a 10 o’clock audience. I think ‘Twin Peaks’ will probably have higher ratings than we do, but I’m not so sure from its reruns that it’s in the right place.”

Despite his frustration over the show’s scheduling, Young still believes it has a future beyond this season. The decision to bring the characters only up to 1985 and not the present was made to allow for those years to be dealt with in subsequent seasons.

However, Young does confess to a certain pessimism about the series from its outset.

“When I did the pilot, I was not at all certain it would get on the air,” Young said. “I was just glad to do it because it was unusual and unique and, its own small way, was making a small contribution to the veterans in bringing their stories to a larger recognition. Each year you feel like it could be the last. This year, our goal is to say, last or not, this is going to be the best.”