Dalbert Pringle "He was green with rage!"Considering that this late-1970s, live-action, superhero, TV series came out prior to the wonders of CGI wizardry - I really did try to cut it some serious slack.But, the truth is - "The Incredible Hulk" was pretty corny stuff and muscleman, Lou Ferrigno (as the Hulk incarnation) looked utterly laughable and, yes, downright silly in that horrible fright-wig of his.Anyway - Judging by how marginally entertaining the episodes of this program's first season were - I do find it truly baffling that "The Hulk" actually endured for 5 seasons in all.

uvathm If you remember the 1970s you will perhaps realize that film and television were not the best at distributing comic book adaptations until the year of 1978. This was partially due to the lack of visual effects which would encompass the characters in a realistic setting if they ever to arrive on the big screen."The Incredible Hulk" was one of the first comic adaptations to ever be distributed on the television screen. What could have been laughable television show about a giant green monster strutting around smashing things, instantly became a classic hit when it was deemed a serious and realistic drama for the time.The show follows the compassionate and likable character Dr. David Banner who had been attempting to discover the secrets of human strength after his wife died in a car explosion. Banner is obsessed with finding these answers of hidden strength and ultimately renders himself to unpredictable experiment. He exposes himself to gamma radiation which unfortunately results in a horrifying metamorphosis. Whenever Banner becomes angry or outraged he transforms into massive green monster which we all know and love as the incredible hulk.After the hulk is discovered and pursued by an investigative reporter named Jack McGee, Banner goes on the run hoping to stay hidden until he can find a way to cure himself from his dreadful manifestation I first discovered "The Incredible Hulk" In my teens when I was greatly entertained by comic books. When I first viewed the show I realized that it was different but different in a good way. Yes, the scenes with the hulk are slightly outdated but the story is where you really get involved. The show only features the hulk for about fifteen minutes at most sometimes even less.People I'm acquainted with often complain that the hulk itself does not gain enough screen time. Simply this is because this show is not entirely about the hulk. Its a serious and persuasive drama that tells the story of man who has a condition that he desperately wants to rid himself of. The show may not be entirely faithful to its comic book counterpart but I believe the decision to alter the story line was well apprehended.The hulk in this setting is more realistic and strays away from the comic book cheesiness. I honestly have to admit that this is one of the best live action comic adaptations to date. This show is well remembered and was apart of many people's childhoods. I greatly enjoy this series and I hope you will to.

Philip King We were spoiled back in the 70's and 80's with American Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Drama series with gems such as The Six Million Dollar Man, The Bionic Woman and many more but my favorite has to be The Incredible Hulk.I remember watching this many years ago and when i saw the whole series was available in a DVD box set i had to have it.When you watch them all on DVD you soon notice how many actors and actresses re-appear throughout the series in different parts and most i decided to check out on IMDb to what else they have been in and most go through all of the TV series i mentioned above and more.The 1st season stand-out is the 1st for obvious reasons, add the 2nd episode and you are all sorted and ready for this monster of a journey. Another is Never Give A Trucker An Even Break which uses a LOT of stock footage from the Steven Spielberg Duel movie, also we have...well...pretty much all of the 1st season is a highlight as its all still new and fresh.Season 2 starts with Married a 2 parter and earned Mariette Hartley an Emmy as Best Actress in a Drama series. Another 2 parter i have to mention is Mystery Man part 1 and 2 where David Banner and the ever present Reporter Jack McGee spend most of the time together but with Davids face covered in bandages Jack never gets to see him in this one. The Hulk does save Jack in this one and i think it may be the start of the turning point for Jack starting to believe.....just a little...that this green monster isn't so much of a monster after all like he 1st thought. Kindred Spirit is another one worth mentioning where David joins an expedition that found evidence that there may have been another Hulk many many years ago.The 3rd season doesn't have the cracking start like the 1st 2 had, i think Mystery Man would have been a good one to start season 3 but again we are treated to the mini mysteries with lots of scenes of David always loosing a a fight and then lots of shirt ripping and The Hulk taking care of business just how we love it to be. In this season we have David loose his sight in Blind Rage, we see David be a Magician's assistant in My Favourite Magician and mention that he knows nothing about being a magician (Little amusing as he place a Magician in another good and successful series), we get to meet David's Sister and Father all of which makes season 3 also a must see.WOW season 4 starts with a cracking opener Prometheus a 2 parter that is more like a movie than a TV series. Here we get to see David stuck half way between David and The Hulk, then getting captured and then...oh you will have to watch to find out. We get the gangster style episode Goodbye Eddie Cain directed by Jack Colvin.The episode we thought we would never see, King Of The Beach where top billing goes to Lou Ferrigno, not just as the hulk but as Lou with a speaking role and doing what he does best, working out. What a treat we get, we get Lou AND The Hulk in the same shot...brilliant...and they still managed to make it look like The Hulk is much taller than Lou.Still with season 4 we are again given a great 2 parter called The First where we get to see another Hulk and the 2 Hulks go head to head. I have to say the other Hulk is awful and way too camp but very tall...i won't give any more away than that...but this would have been entertaining enough to be a good season opener. This is followed by The Harder They Fall where we see David paralyzed, so what will happened with him in this state and he turns into The Hulk?? watch it and see. Then we have Interview With The Hulk where Emerson Fletcher, a colleague of Jack McGee at the National Register manage to get a lead on The Hulk and convinced David to do an interview which he captures on tape. Now i thought these tapes may surface again in a later episode but we don't know what ever happened to them other than Emerson had them again. A future story could have been made from this one. The rest of the season is OK and nothing special...maybe because we had been spoiled so much with earlier episodes in this season but still remains the best season.Season 5 starts as OK like season 4 ended which led me to believe that these episodes were just left over from season 4 and i read somewhere that they were apart from the final 2. This season's last 2 episodes Slaves and A Minor Problem felt like they may have been the real season 5 episodes. A Minor Problem was the final episode of The Incredible Hulk, it was a good one but certainly not a series ender. I understand that everyone was keen to carry on with the series but no one really said why it ended, maybe it was costing too much?It's Sad that both Bill and Jack are no longer with us. There was talk of other episodes that had been thought about, i think Bill or Lou may have mentioned one about The Hulk talking and director Kenneth Johnson had an idea about bringing David's Sister back into it and needing a blood transfusion from David. Love to see those two.This is my 1st review on IMDb and all i have left say is long live The Hulk. :)

Navaros The narration during the opening credits of The Incredible Hulk claims that this show will present a serious context and an epic, story-based, developing struggle with David Banner searching for a cure to his condition of transforming into the Hulk beast involuntarily.Yet, that is *not actually* what the content of the show presents. Almost every single episode follows the exact same, very silly, simplistic formula. A formula that never changes or evolves. The worst part is, the formula has almost *nothing* to do with *the Hulk* whatsoever. The narration belongs on a different, *better* show --- not the show they *actually made.*Really, "the Hulk" on this show is just a superfluous gimmick that is barely related to the content of any episode. They could have made almost exactly the same show, with *no* Hulk scenes or references, with *very few* changes to any of the scripts. This show is basically just: "A drifter goes from town to town doing odd temporary jobs and/or befriending locals whom he asks for money and hospitality from" + "a few tacked on scenes of a Hulk creature smashing some things, then running away". The tacked-on parts *include* the "fights" Banner gets into before the Hulk comes, because they too are contrivances that need not be present in these "drifter story" scripts.Subtracting the Hulk scenes from the equation wouldn't take away much from the show, because they don't add much to the show in the first place. "The Incredible Hulk" premise is *mostly irrelevant* to the *content* of this show. The vast majority of screen-time is spent showing Banner be Dr. Phil to every "random stranger of the week" he meets. The formula of this show is: 90% "David Banner: Self-Help Guru" and 10% "The Hulk appears and uses the environment in some way to 'boff' the bad guys (Ie: pulling the rug out from under them) or throws them around a bit (the Hulk never actually punches anyone with his fists in this show) and then runs away just in time to avoid being captured." All that self-help content is *completely irrelevant* to the premise of "The Incredible Hulk", therefore the amount of screen-time it gets is *ludicrous*.This show has no on-going story whatsoever, it is 'episodic.' Which means that by the limitations of this primitive storytelling-killing formula, there is no way they could have developed Banner, Hulk, or his quest for a cure even if they wanted to, unless they *first* had the fortitude to discard this primitive formula completely. Perhaps this show is a victim of it's times, as primitive 'episodic'-handicapped stories were 'the norm' back then. But it is what it is, and now in 2008 it is apparent that The Incredible Hulk's lack of any story or character development whatsoever does not bode well for it's standing in history as an artistic show. Banner & the Hulk start again from zero at the beginning of every episode, therefore everything that happens in the series is a moot point since it has zero relevance to evolving Banner's or the Hulk's story in any way. Nothing *meaningful* ever can or does happen.In the comics, the Hulk speaks. He's an intelligent being capable of communication. In this show, he's dumbed-down to a big green ape who is incapable of doing anything other than grunting, running, lifting, smashing, and throwing things. Hulk remains dumb for the whole series. You *already know* what's gonna happen with the Hulk *before the episode starts*, because it always follows the *exact* same formula. There's no reason to *care* about the Hulk presented in this series since he's just a big dumb green ape with no potential to change in any subsequent episodes.Banner's quest for the cure is almost completely ignored. Granted there are a scant few episodes that deal with this, but for something that is central to the show to be ignored *most of the time* is absurd. *Especially* since the opening narration before every episode drives home that searching for a cure is *supposed* to be what the show *is*, even though it generally has *nothing* to do with that!Banner spends almost *zero* screen-time looking for a cure. All he ever does with his time is hang out with locals, or take temporary jobs. Time spent looking for a cure seems to be non-existent. This show ignores/abandons it's own opening narration "Banner is looking for a cure" premise by refusing to devote screen-time to showing Banner doing it. As with the Hulk, the Banner character never grows or changes on this show one iota. The maximum amount of development that Banner got was in the pilot where he changed from being obsessed and angry all the time about not helping out his wife, to mellowing-out and completely forgetting about her. However, that is the *entire extent* of all the development Banner *ever* got in the series. After the pilot, he's *exactly* the same character from the first episode to the last.If they *did* make the show into an epic story where Banner, the Hulk, and the search for a cure, all got developed in a new and continual way in each and every episode -making every episode truly *matter*- it *could* have been one of the best shows ever made: a work of art rather than merely entertainment. On the plus side, Bill Bixby's acting is excellent. He's very sympathetic and convincing. Bixby had an inherent quality about him that simply makes people wanna like him. However, his fine acting can only go so far since he was given *nothing* to work with on the script level. This show is marginally entertaining, but *not* as a *Hulk show*.By abandoning & ignoring it's *Hulk* premise, The Incredible Hulk, fell epically short of it's potential for greatness.