MeTV's SuperSci-Fi Saturday Night

[Christopher]

And hell, the show we're reviewing right now is about a good, upstanding, compassionate guy who ultimately solves his problems by getting angry, turning into a super-strong creature, and tossing people around.

Honestly, that's often kind of bothered me about the premise -- that implicit assumption that brute force solves things. I would've liked to see more stories where the Hulk's rampages caused problems rather than solving them. But that might've required a different format, something with Rick Jones or an equivalent character as a second lead who tried to calm and contain the Hulk before he got out of hand. And it would probably have been a non-starter in the '70s TV climate, where lead characters had to be pure and heroic to a fault and never actually be in the wrong. Note how adamant David always was about not committing crimes, glossing over the fact that he was committing serial identity fraud and tax evasion on a continuing basis, not to mention the various scams, thefts, and break-ins he undertook in pursuit of a cure, not to mention the large-scale vandalism and property damage he was constantly responsible for yet always evaded paying damages for by fleeing the scene of the crime. There's also a case to be made that he's guilty of reckless endangerment of anyone he gets involved with.

 

[The Old Mixer]

There's also faking his own death, which I believe is a federal crime.

On the vandalism/property damage note, they do often play beats where David offers to help/clean up after a HO. Clearly he's concerned about what the creature does, but his #1 priority is to not get caught by McGee...if, for no other reason, than to maintain the series premise.

 

[Christopher]

On the vandalism/property damage note, they do often play beats where David offers to help/clean up after a HO.

Do they? I've actually had the opposite impression, that he rarely seems interested in repairing the damage as opposed to just trying to skip town as soon as possible afterward. He's always worried about whether anyone was hurt, but he doesn't seem to feel much sense of responsibility for the property damage. (How likely would an insurance company be to pay out on a claim for damage by a big green rage monster?)

 

[The Old Mixer]

They've definitely played those beats more than once, but typically following a FHO. Of course he has to hit the road after the SHO, that's the formula.

ETA: In fact, I'm pretty sure they've done episodes in which wanting to make up for damage that the Hulk caused is what motivated David to stick around for the rest of the episode. Pretty sure that was the case for "The Waterfront Story," IIRC, and there have probably been others.

 

[Christopher]

ETA: In fact, I'm pretty sure they've done episodes in which wanting to make up for damage that the Hulk caused is what motivated David to stick around for the rest of the episode. Pretty sure that was the case for "The Waterfront Story," IIRC, and there have probably been others.

No, in "Waterfront," his willingness to stick around was a consequence of the feelings he'd developed for the female guest star. As I said in my review at the time:

Interesting departure from the formula for the season finale: We begin with a Hulk-out (the first of a record three in an hourlong episode) and with David itching to leave town. It helps sell the depth of his connection with Josie that he actually decides, for the first time, to change his mind and stay.

 

[The Old Mixer]

IIRC, that was a pre-episode HO...I think he was motivated to stick around after the regularly scheduled FHO to make up for damage to the bar.

 

[Christopher]

Well, maybe David wanting to help fix the damage was more common in earlier episodes than later ones, since I noticed its rarity in my recent binge that started in mid-season 3.

 

[David Bixby]

Do they? I've actually had the opposite impression, that he rarely seems interested in repairing the damage as opposed to just trying to skip town as soon as possible afterward. He's always worried about whether anyone was hurt, but he doesn't seem to feel much sense of responsibility for the property damage. (How likely would an insurance company be to pay out on a claim for damage by a big green rage monster?)

In The Antowuk Horror, David was keen to help repairing the damage caused to the store by the FHO. Ditto in Stop The Presses for the trashed kitchen. Additionally, Metamorphosis. The common link in those three cited examples is the fact that the incidents occurred in David's place of work.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Getting a bit ahead of where we're at, but I'm watching "Bring Me the Head of the Hulk" from Season 4...David makes an offhand reference to his "old first sergeant"--I'll take this as additional evidence supporting that David was indeed an army medic!

 

[RJDiogenes]

It was a country song, and as somebody who lived in the South during that era, I'd say that it was more of Southern thing than a Reagan thing. That cultural divide goes back to at least the '60s and is still with us today.

Certainly it's a Southern thing and it's certainly gotten worse instead of better over time, but it still represents a sea change in the Zeitgeist. Reagan was both a result of it and an exacerbating factor thanks to his cult of personality. It was pretty jarring at the time, but if you look back you can see the signs and symptoms of it coming. Another example would be the change of attitude of the audience toward Wolverine in X-Men.

And hell, the show we're reviewing right now is about a good, upstanding, compassionate guy who ultimately solves his problems by getting angry, turning into a super-strong creature, and tossing people around.

Despite that, I really wouldn't characterize TIH as a show that endorses violence, vengeance, and vigilantism.

 

[Christopher]

Getting a bit ahead of where we're at, but I'm watching "Bring Me the Head of the Hulk" from Season 4...David makes an offhand reference to his "old first sergeant"--I'll take this as additional evidence supporting that David was indeed an army medic!

Yeah, when I heard that line, I thought of the questions you've raised on that point. I agree, it does make it seem pretty likely that he was in the service. The question is when. Bixby was born in 1934, so he would've been 19 when the Korean War ended -- but I found a reference online saying that David Banner's birthdate was sometime in the first half of the 1940s, without attribution. At any rate, it seems likely his military training was during peacetime. (My father, who was born in 1933, was drafted into the US Navy in peacetime. He never set foot on a watercraft, doing his tour at a base in Maryland, and he achieved the rating of Musician, Third Class by the end of his brief service.)

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Odd, as it's only been two in real world time.

They're counting the actual airdate years.

I made a note of this line, so I think this must be when I started to get emotional....

Bixby was a master at selling the most emotional of moments, and for me that happened when Banner told his sister he did not want to spend another Thanksgiving alone. Right at that second, one can recall his being separated from any longstanding connection (usually tragic) we have witnessed since the beginning, and how he carries that heartbreak every day.

David running frantically into the woods to avoid being seen was kind of comic-booky.

Oh? Wouldn't you tear into the woods like a wild man if you did not want anyone...anyone most hit with the belief you are dead?

-26:45...another nightmare-triggered metamorphosis. I don't think any old nightmare will do it...they've always been from intensely personal nightmares, not just general stress.

Yes---and Banner (in "Brain Child") had clearly stated the transformations have several triggers--in other words, he's not suffering from anger management issues.

Also, if I'm reading my note right...it looks like they used one of the stock shots of the Hulk changing back to David when David was turning into the Hulk during the FHO.

I don't think so--the tearing shirt was the same color as Banner's, and the background appeared to match the lab wall.


What would be an ineffectual FHO in less personal circumstances is actually very effective and telling...the creature wants to confront his father, but doesn't want to hurt him.[/quote]

Part of Kenneth Johnson's brilliance in adapting a superhero best known for rage and attacks is that his Hulk--unlike any Hulk adaptation to follow--was effective in showing that Banner and Hulk were not completely separate personalities. The Hulk was a "monster" in a sense, but he was also the man with a sense of morality and a long memory. It was not just "Hulk smash!" and its off to the next act of destruction.

David gets knocked out instead of Hulking Out twice in this episode. Guess his healing factor helps explain how he bypasses the concussions.

Good call. If he can heal from drugs and bullets, it would be easy for his system to recover from a fall.

If the Hulk's gonna cry, I'm gonna cry...!

I did not cry, but its a great, memorable moment overall in the series.

That last scene works on so many levels. Even McGee barely being in the episode works so well for the story, given his role in this one scene. The pathos of David having to leave his family on a moment's notice just before they were going to sit down for Thanksgiving dinner together...compounded by the fact that they offer David's own plate to give David a chance to escape...compounded by those lines from McGee above, that so clearly apply to David. And even the gesture of offering McGee David's place doesn't come off as a cynical, ulterior-motivated gesture, but as a genuine one...offering the ultimate hospitality to David's nemesis by allowing him to take David's own place....

Offering McGee a plate was playing him; if the Banners were too defensive, angry or evasive in behavior, his suspicion would only intensify. They understand that the man who has made David's life a living Hell is standing before them, so they had to seem like the innocent, cordial survivors. The Banners have no love or understanding for a man who has made his life's work profiting from and trying to catch their David.

Ah...hadn't caught that. I'd think it was actually an error, though. I was definitely under the impression that Elaina was somebody David had met in college.

Well, again, the pilot makes a couple of college references, but now we have another piece of her past and just how close she was to David.

In all of your quoted passages, you left out what to me was always the most memorable line from the episode: "But it's not for you...it's for that damn doll."

I was truly surprised at how emotionally effective the episode was. I went in a little jaded, expecting it not to hold up to its place in my memory. But there were so many moments in the episode that really got to me, at least as powerfully as they ever would have. If anything, my own life experiences made the episode even more poignant than it would have been the last time that I saw it.

It really says a lot about how well Bixby has portrayed Banner to this point that the audience would be invested enough in his character to be so moved by these moments. And Ferrigno deserves his share of the credit...he carries a couple of the most emotionally powerful scenes in this one.

I would argue that they set a standard so high for superhero adaptation casting, that few TV series or films since TIH have been that successful--Maguire as Parker/Spider-Man, Evans as Rogers/Captain America, Cavill as Kent/Superman, Gadot as Diana/Wonder Woman and the most recent Batmen. Considering the flood of adaptations after TIH ended its run in 1982, that's a very short list.

I have to wonder how much of what makes the episode work gets cut for syndication, in favor of servicing the mechanics of the who-gives-a-crap jeopardy plot.

Not sure. I'm watching the full episodes, but I could not imagine the syndicated version cutting the emotional meat of such an episode.

Ugh...that piece of crap ending to Banner's journey doesn't deserve the honor of being mentioned in the review for this episode.

Agreed. As far as I'm concerned, the Hulk reunion movies deserve to be forgotten as much as Legends of the Superheroes and The Star Wars Holiday Special.

In The Antowuk Horror, David was keen to help repairing the damage caused to the store by the FHO. Ditto in Stop The Presses for the trashed kitchen. Additionally, Metamorphosis. The common link in those three cited examples is the fact that the incidents occurred in David's place of work.

All true--Banner is usually returns to inspect and offer help for damage caused by the Hulk. Any other behavior would ake him appear to be uncaring.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Bixby was born in 1934, so he would've been 19 when the Korean War ended -- but I found a reference online saying that David Banner's birthdate was sometime in the first half of the 1940s, without attribution.

Going by Ma Banner's tombstone in this episode (d. 1949) and the age of the actor playing David in those scenes (about 12 at the time if I found the right guy), David was 3 or so years younger than Bixby.

They're counting the actual airdate years.

Pilot aired in November of '77. "Homecoming" in November of '79.

Oh? Wouldn't you tear into the woods like a wild man if you did not want anyone...anyone most hit with the belief you are dead?

He usually evades McGee in a more subtle manner...he doesn't break into a frantic dash.

I don't think so--the tearing shirt was the same color as Banner's, and the background appeared to match the lab wall.

It's a stock headshot of David changing back, with a black background, at -26:38 by the Netflix timer.

I did not cry, but its a great, memorable moment overall in the series.

I didn't bawl like a baby, but my eyes moistened at several points in the episode.

Agreed. As far as I'm concerned, the Hulk reunion movies deserve to be forgotten as much as Legends of the Superheroes and The Star Wars Holiday Special.

I liked some aspects of the first one. I was especially intrigued that Banner had managed to settle down and avoid changing for two years.

 

[Christopher]

There are things I like about both of the first two revival/backdoor pilot movies, although I'm not convinced of their "reality" in the show's continuity. The Thor movie is too fanciful for the generally grounded world of the show, although I rather like its character work with Donald Blake and Thor. I think the Daredevil movie is a better fit to the show's universe and is a fairly good DD pilot for its time, but it has some continuity glitches relative to the series (and seems to completely ignore the previous movie, as well as being completely ignored by the subsequent movie even though they had the same writer and director). As for the third movie, it's the only one I've never seen more than once. All I really remember is that awful ending.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Thor was corny fun, and I always imagined that the late-70s Marvel TV series/movies took place in the same universe, so he'd fit a bit better in a world that also has Spider-Man, Captain America, and Doctor Strange.

 

[Christopher]

Thor was corny fun, and I always imagined that the late-70s Marvel TV series/movies took place in the same universe, so he'd fit a bit better in a world that also has Spider-Man, Captain America, and Doctor Strange.

Well, as I said, TIH always felt more grounded than those other shows -- aside from gamma mutation, the only fanciful elements it had were the vague Asian mysticism of "The Disciple," the precognition of "The Psychic" and "Deep Shock," and the throwaway strong AI of "Brain Child."

Then again, CBS flirted with doing a Hulk/Spider-Man crossover while both shows were on the air -- I think it was scuttled by Spidey's quick cancellation. If that had happened, I'd be more open to the idea of TIH's universe encompassing more fanciful elements -- heck, it'd be kind of like the originally grounded, street-level universe of Arrow expanding to include metahumans, magic, aliens, time travel, and parallel worlds. But it would've been kind of a mismatch if it had happened, since Spider-Man was your standard '70s action schlock while TIH was a more thoughtful drama. It'd be like crossing Star Trek:TOS over with Lost in Space.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Eh, different comic books in a shared universe can have radically different tones and focus. If the Hulk was a little more grounded, it was because that was the world that David was traveling in. And the show wasn't that grounded/serious...it had its cheesy, formulaic elements.

 

[Christopher]

And the show wasn't that grounded/serious...it had its cheesy, formulaic elements.

Of course it did, but these things are relative. All the comic-book shows of the era had formulaic elements, so TIH was forced to include them too, but it was the one show of its era that rose above mere formula and reached a level of sophistication that its contemporaries never even attempted. Just as Star Trek had some of the same formulaic tropes and schlocky elements as Irwin Allen's shows, yet still rose above them and had elements that they lacked.

This was the gist of my personal disagreement with the local-news TV critics about the show. They tended to dismiss TIH as being just as schlocky as its peers because it had the same formula elements (like the obligatory two superpower sequences per episode), but I recognized the superior quality that it had despite the formula elements that it had forced upon it by the network. I understood that every show was under pressure to conform to set formulas, but that the best shows were the ones that managed to do something fresh and distinctive within the parameters of those formulas. So you had to grade a show's worth, not in terms of what it would ideally be if there were no imposed formulas, but in relation to what other shows with the same formulas are like. And by that standard, The Incredible Hulk was a cut above all the rest.

Also, the formula elements you're talking about were not the kind of things you'd see in other SF/fantasy shows. Those shows used stock elements like mad scientists and aliens and Bigfoots and the like. TIH's formulaic elements were the kind you'd see in more mundane dramas -- organized crime stories, drug addiction stories, serial killers, forest fires, teen runaways, Most Dangerous Game pastiches, that sort of thing. It's formula, but it's a different genre's formula. TIH avoided most SF/fantasy elements beyond the core premise, while other superhero shows often embraced them (despite still doing plenty of more conventional crime plots).

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Pilot aired in November of '77. "Homecoming" in November of '79.

It is counted as follows:

Year one: 1977 pilot movies.
Year two - 1978: all of season one and part of season two
Year three- 1979: the remainder of season two & part of season three.

That's the only way the writer could claim Banner's journey has lasted three years.

He usually evades McGee in a more subtle manner...he doesn't break into a frantic dash.

D.W. is his father--you have to imagine all his father had to experience learning/accepting David died in a fire, then suddenly seeing this dead son; David could not risk that kind of hard shock to his father, thus the frantic escape move.

I liked some aspects of the first one. I was especially intrigued that Banner had managed to settle down and avoid changing for two years.

Yeah, but that one plot element just as easily could have been a footnote, or voice over at the end of the TV series--much like the original Dark Shadows had a wrap up V.O. in its series finale. Yes, at the time "A Minor Problem" (the series finale) was before the cameras, no one knew it would be the finale, but as earlier S5 episodes were airing, they most certainly knew it had been cancelled and probably had enough time to call Bixby in for a wrap-up V.O. using the same "had been Hulk-free for two years" line as a somewhat satisfying coda.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Eh, different comic books in a shared universe can have radically different tones and focus. If the Hulk was a little more grounded, it was because that was the world that David was traveling in. And the show wasn't that grounded/serious...it had its cheesy, formulaic elements.

Formulas are in all series--including modern series which some viewers seem to think are breaking new ground (they are not). From the Marvel Netflix (and ABC) series, certainly the CW DC shows, to GoT and the arena-filling police / F.B.I. dramas, they all have patterns that were seen not only in recent history, but in some cases, decades ago. The Incredible Hulk was grounded and did not dip into what crippled the superhero series before and after it thanks to not being pressured to cater to fanboy desires (as in the Irwin Allen-esque if it works, "do more" command), trying to compete (and often failing) with big budget superhero movies (starting with most post Burton Batman TV productions), and the format restrictions usually in place for most continuing character series (e.g. "Big Bad" single story or arc / "will they - won't they" romances / protagonist loses confidence after some sort of loss only to come roaring back / Big Bad season-ending threat, etc.).

For the most part, TIH did not take that road of well-used plotting, which is why it cannot be compared (as a negative) to any other comic adaptation.