The Incredible Hulk
"Proof Positive"--
Jack McGee suffers from a nightmare of being pursued by the one thing he cannot catch--the Hulk. At the Register offices, reporter Garland eagerly tells editor Mark Roberts that McGee has missed yet another assignment thanks to his chasing Hulk leads. Roberts calls McGee in just in time to meet the publisher's daughter--and his interim replacement--Patricia Steinhauer, a headstrong, intelligent young woman full of ideas about the future of the
Register--among such ideas--no more Hulk stories.
Patricia: "We can get a broader readership base and at the same time, keep the American housewife--who by the way--has been highly underestimated."
McGee: "Err...what sort of changes?"
Patricia: "I plan to increase our circulation, and at the same time, put out a publication to be proud of."
McGee: "What sort of changes?"
Patricia studies McGee for a moment.
Patricia: "I don't like being interrupted, mister McGee. We're changing the tone of the Register. We're taking out the trash...no more fad diets, no more predictions, no more flying saucers unless they're spotted by the Air Force. We're going hard news all the way."
McGee: "Terrific--"
Roberts: "Jack, I don't think you realize--".
Patricia: "Now, you'll still work on some of your current assignment--the senator/secretary for example--great story, Id really like to nail this guy--"
McGee: "Ahh actually, I've got a couple of very strong leads on the Hulk right now--I'd like to stick with those."
Patricia: "Mister McGee, I thought you'd agreed...we're dropping the Hulk!"
McGee: "Oh that's ridiculous!"
Patricia: "Only hard news!"
McGee: "The Hulk IS hard news!"
Patricia: "The Hulk is no news--he's pure fiction!"
McGee: "You're wrong! I've seen him! I've seen what he can do!"
Patricia: "Come on, mister McGee."
McGee: "Look...uh baby, I think that you're making a--"
Patricia: "DON'T PATRONIZE ME, Mr. McGee!! The Hulk is out. "
McGee: "Mark, talk to her--you're making a mistake!"
Patricia: "Drop it, mister McGee. I have made my decision!"
Patricia slams a folder down in anger, but McGee imagines the Hulk (like Patricia--someone else he cannot control) smashing her desk in half.
Later, a co-worker is distracted by a picture of the Hulk falling to the ground. When she looks up, she sees McGee on the Register roof. Assuming the worst, she alerts Patricia, who confronts McGee. Manipulative as ever, McGee picks up on the suicide misunderstanding, and allows Patricia to "help" him--
McGee: "What'll you give me if I don't jump?"
Patricia: "The Hulk?"
McGee: "Heh You don't even think the Hulk is real. If I can prove to you that the Hulk exists, will you let me keep the story?"
Patricia: "Yes. Now will you please come away from the edge?"
McGee: "You gotta promise."
Patricia: "I promise. No will you please come away from there?"
McGee: "Mark, did you hear her?"
Mark: "I heard it! I heard it!"
Patricia: "Thank you, mister McGee."
McGee: "Oh, hey, baby call me Jack!"
Angered by his sexist remark and manipulation, Patricia continues to argue against the Hulk--
Patricia: "Look, I am not fighting this Hulk thing for my health! It's got three strikes against it--"
McGee: "Go on."
Patricia: "First of all, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the creature was born of my father's vivid imagination, and your not-too-shabby abilities as a reporter."
McGee: "Gee, thanks. And I intend to prove to you than the Hulk does exist! Number two--"
Patricia: "Secondly, you haven't even come up with anything new! It's the same old stuff--Hulk sighted, Hulk destroys, Hulk disappears!!"
McGee: "A good reporter will only bring in what he has actually seen himself, or what witnessed--reliable witnesses tell him! So number three--"
Patricia: "Three--you are obsessed with this story to the exclusion of all else!"
McGee: "That's not true--"
Patricia: "Ooohh, I have a file here on stories that have fallen by the wayside while you're out chasing fairy tales!!"
McGee: "Good old Garland. Turn in his own grandmother, wouldn't he?"
Patricia: "THAT's your whole argument for point number three?!?"
McGee: "I don't' know! Maybe you're right. Maybe I am obsessed with it! All I know is that this is the most important thing that's ever happened to me, and that I've gotta stay with it!
Patricia: "Why??"
McGee: "I don't know. Besides, it really doesn't matter, does it? I mean you made me a promise, didn't you? You told me that I could stay on the story."
Patricia: "IF you can prove that the Hulk exists!"
McGee: "Yeah, oh yeah, sure. Sometimes I forget just how ridiculous this whole thing must sound to an outsider..in the beginning, I didn't really believe the thing myself...."
McGee explains how he first heard of the Hulk, his initial disbelief, the encounters with David Banner & Elaina Marks, the explosion and--
McGee: "It killed the only two people* who really understood what it was, and there was nothing I could do to stop it."
Patricia: "Think about it, the shock of the explosion, two people are dying as you watch. There's nothing you can do to save them. So you create this monster to ease your guilt. Hallucination. Its nothing to be ashamed of."
McGee pulls newspaper clippings bearing the Hulk's image--"
McGee: "There's your hallucination."
Patricia: "Mr. McGee, do you believe in flying saucers?"
McGee: "Of course not. Yeah, I know, I know. It's a lid off a garbage can."
Patricia: "What about Bigfoot or the Loch Ness Monster?"
McGee: "I--I get your point. This is different."
Patricia: "Why? The people who see these flying saucers are just as sure of their sightings as you are of the Hulk! I'm just not convinced."
McGee: "Neither was I. But I had to find out just what it was that I had seen."
McGee admits many of his early leads were wasted time, until his second encounter with the Hulk (
"Final Round" ), and how he made it his mission to never be caught off guard again, using tranquilizer darts (
"Stop the Presses"), animal nets, or as he put it, "everything from the obvious to the obscure." He recalls the moment he accepted the near-unbelievable: the Hulk transforms back to a man, and his failure to capture the elusive "John Doe" (
"Mystery Man"). McGee then offers a highly questionable explanation for his pursuit
*
McGee: "...and this phenomenon, whatever it is that makes him a freak, its my responsibility as a journalist to expose it to the public and the scientific community. He has no right to deny the world the knowledge of what he becomes."
Patricia challenges McGee about the lack of outside coverage and eyewitnesses, only for McGee to try to explain it away by suggesting people ignore that which they cannot understand.That evening, McGee's latest Hulk dream is interrupted by a call from Patricia; she believes she can work with McGee, but the moment she asks him to drop the Hulk, the hard-headed McGee snaps at her--
McGee: "How can you be so ignorant?!?"
Patricia: "Listen to you! You're like an alcoholic when it comes to the Hulk, and the only way you're gonna be cured is to give him up entirely!"
McGee: "All right. I'll take the story to another paper!"
Patricia: "Ohh, like The Washington Post or TIME magazine, maybe? Why should they believe you any more than I do?"
McGee: "Okay, I'll work on it by myself!"
Patricia: "Fine! But as long as you're on my payroll, no matter what you hear about the Hulk or where you think he is, you don't touch it--understand?!? There is no more Hulk assignment, Mr. McGee, because there is no Hulk!"
At the Register, McGee (after angrily lashing out because a Hulk lead was trashed) approaches Patricia about the Hulk, trying to sell himself on the story instead of Garland. For all of his years of chasing the Hulk, he reveals a deep misunderstanding of the creature's motives--
McGee: "It's as if his only reason for existing is to destroy."
Trying to reach a sort of middle ground with the still-frustrated reporter, Patricia admits she's having her own struggles stepping into the job, and requests breathing room--enough to make her own decisions. Thanks to McGee's suggestions, she agrees to she will consider changing her mind about all things Hulk.
That evening, McGee is restless--his mind incapable of focusing on anything other than the Hulk. Against Patricia's orders, he is moments away from scheduling a flight to Gary, Indiana (where the Hulk was recently spotted), but thoughts of Patricia prevent him from betraying the woman now creeping into his Hulk-obsessed mind.
Later, McGee returns to the
Register offices, asking Patricia to see him; he tells her she was the only thing keeping him from flying to Indiana. It is clear he is edging toward spilling romantic feelings, but Patricia--sensing where he is going--flatly informs him that at the moment, her work is her life, and the need to earn respect for an inherited position. McGee is unsympathetic, believing her problems are that of one trying to leave the shadow of the privileged "daddy's little girl"; Patricia--instantly irked by his assessment--argue that her problems are real...unlike the Hulk. McGee storms out of the office.
Back at home, McGee receives a call from Gary, Indiana--specifically from Chuck Schlosser, the factory worker who not only spotted the Hulk, but the man he believes transforms into the creature. For the first time, an eyewitness verifies McGee's claim--the evidence he's sought for so long. By morning, Mark gets Patricia up to speed: McGee is on his way to Indiana...and he's quit the
Register. Perturbed and a bit shocked, Patricia manages to catch McGee's flight, where the irate reporter tells Patricia his intention to a curare-loaded dart gun against "John Doe"/the Hulk. Failing to convince the irate reporter to change his mind, she joins the trip.
Escorted through Schlosser's factory, the duo spot "John Doe,", but McGee--too eager to shoot the man--trips, falling down a staircase, alerting the mystery man, who flees through the factory until a series of accidents triggers a Hulk out--just as McGee, Patricia and Schlosser watch the angry creature rise, and easily outpace the trio as he makes his escape.
Patricia finally agrees that the Hulk is real.
Days later, Patricia happily shows McGee the latest
Register headline--
"HULK BLASTS FURNACE"
Although Patricia and McGee patch up their relationship, McGee's hope for romance is snuffed out by the impending return of daddy Steinhauer--meaning Patricia is out of a job. Mark bursts in with news of another Hulk sighting in Toledo, sending McGee on his way...with Patricia at his side.
NOTES:
This is not a cure-related episode.
There is no "Lonely Man" walking scene at the end of the episode.
Bill Bixby was absent from this episode (more on that in the weeks to come), only appearing in flashbacks. Regular Bixby stuntman Fran Orsatti doubled for the actor.
The episode: over the years, a few TIH viewers completely misinterpreted the important points of this episode, while missing the overall character history of Jack McGee:
- McGee's episode-opening dream did not mean he feared the Hulk in a literal sense. All one needs to do is recall his dialogue throughout the series, which supports the idea that his "fear" is the fear of being utterly incapable of capturing the Hulk. That inability reinforces his eternal frustration at being a failed writer; it does not matter what kind of journalist he was (pre series), by the time we encounter him in the pilot, he's an intrusive man slinging tabloid garbage, and made matters worse by hitching his fortunes to what the general public sees as a glorified Bigfoot tale.
- McGee has already hammered most of the nails in his coffin of unscrupulous behavior, but the fact he used a misunderstanding/concern about as serious an issue as suicide to emotionally manipulate Patricia served as another nail. That kind of behavior is not clever or funny at all.
More nails--
*
McGee: "...and this phenomenon, whatever it is that makes him a freak, its my responsibility as a journalist to expose it to the public and the scientific community. He has no right to deny the world the knowledge of what he becomes."
--someone might argue that he's turned a corner--a change of purpose, but. the series (up to this point) developed granite-hard motives for his pursuit.
Again, refer to his own words in
"Mystery Man"--
McGee: "Because the Hulk means escape! GET IT? Its the biggest story of the 20th century...you could pick up a Pulitzer for journalism! More importantly, I could get off the Register..I could stop banging out pap for the supermarket masses! I could get my column back!! I could write real stories!! Important stories!! I COULD BE SOMEBODY!!"
David: "And what happens to the Hulk??"
McGee: "I DON'T--probably just what you said would happen: my paper would bleed it dry. They'd have the world's biggest freak, they'd pull out all the stops--the hoopla, the exploitation, the whole King Kong sideshow!!"
David: "But the Hulk saved your life! You told me so yourself--don't you think you should help it???"
McGee: "Yes--but you gotta choose...that's all life is, you know, just choosing. It's you or the other guy!"
David studies McGee for a moment. The truth of it all (including what that means for his own life) sinking in.
McGee: "
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?? WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, JOHN--FIND THE HULK AND WALK AWAY?? YOU'RE KIDDING!!"
That was the real, unfiltered McGee--when pushed, he laid the truth all out and did not modify his position. It almost appears his "for science" line in this episode was used to placate Patricia, who held the Hulk story's fate in her hands. Moreover, his "for science" speech completely gives the middle finger to a human being's right to freedom and privacy--no one has an obligation to expose their condition in the name of science, or the dubious idea of the public's right to know.
Further, McGee's desperate pursuit of "John Doe"--to the point of cornering/threatening Banner's life (not the Hulk) with a curare-loaded tranquilizer in the forthcoming
"Equinox" (season three) erases this episode's very shaky attempt to humanize McGee,
In broadcast order (which the audience must accept as in-series chronological order), McGee does not now (or ever) believe David Banner to be among the living, and accepted Mike Cassidy as a lookalike thanks to this line:
McGee: "It killed the only two people who really understood what it was, and there was nothing I could do to stop it."
That does not leave much room for McGee thinking Banner is "John Doe."
Finally, a budding romance for McGee fades away as fast as it started. Patricia was a solid, interesting character, and deserved additional appearances. Sadly, that was not to be the case.
GUEST CAST:
Caroline Smith (
Patricia Steinhauer) --
- Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (NBC, 1979) - "Pilot" movie / "Awakening"
- Galactica 1980 (ABC, 1980) - "The Super Scouts: Part 1"
- Brave New World (NBC, 1980)
Walter Brooke (
Mark Roberts) made his TIH debut in this episode, and would go on to appear in
"Bring Me the Head of the Hulk" and
"Interview with the Hulk" from season four.
- Tales of Tomorrow (ABC, 1952) - "Flight Overdue"
- Inner Sanctum (NBC, 1954) - "Dead Level"
- Conquest of Space (Paramount, 1955)
- Steve Canyon (ABC, 1959) - "Project U.F.O."
- The Twilight Zone (CBS, 1961 / '63) - "The Jungle" & "A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain"
- Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (ABC, 1964) - "The Fear Makers"
- The Munsters (CBS, 1965) - "Yes Galen, There is a Herman"
- The Green Hornet (ABC, 1966-67) - series regular - D.A. Frank Scanlon
- The Invaders (ABC, 1967) - "The Watchers"
- The Andromeda Strain (Universal, 1971)
- The Return of Count Yorga (AIP, 1971) - with TOS guest stars Mariette Hartley, Roger Perry & Michael Pataki
- The Sixth Sense (ABC, 1972) - "Lady, Lady, Take My Life"
- The Magician (NBC, 1973) - "Ovation for Murder"
- The ABC Wide World of Mystery (Dan Curtis Productions, 1974) - "Nightmare at 43 Hillcrest"
- Stowaway to the Moon (CBS, 1975)
- Time Travelers (ABC, 1976) - Irwin Allen's failed pilot movie
- Gemini Man (NBC, 1976) - "Escape Hatch"
- The Six Million Dollar Man (ABC, 1974 / 1977) - "Population Zero" / "Death Probe: Part 1" & "Dark Side of the Moon: Part 1"
- Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (NBC, 1979) - "Testimony of a Traitor"
- Bring 'Em Back Alive - (CBS, 1982) - "Thirty Hours"
- Automan (ABC, 1984) - "Unreasonable Facsimile"
