Married

DVD, The Incredible Hulk S2 (Married)

They went for it in a big way, starting Season 2 with a feature-length episode, which I was not expecting. I should have guessed - not only had they done two feature-length episodes at the start of Season 1, but with the title telegraphing the episode's plot, forty-five minutes just weren't going to be enough to see David meet someone, get married, and then get unmarried before the end. Unless it started with him settled somewhere and already married, perhaps thinking his wandering days were over. It didn't begin like that, though, Banner is still on the run, both from the authorities, and towards any hope of a cure for his big, green problem. This time he happens to choose the wrong woman to help him, as it turns out she's about to die and has given up work. Maybe it wasn't the wrong woman after all, as his discovery of her condition leads him to open up quite quickly to her in a touching moment, even showing her a newspaper clipping of Hulk from 'Terror in Times Square' - it helped she was already a follower of his work (do they never show photos of scientists? She clearly doesn't recognise him!), and there's the necessary hope that they can help each other, either through her hypnosis techniques or his sample of green giant-ness. Handy that David's inherently trustworthy and approachable nature left her unperturbed that this stranger who was so insistent she help him follows her home and breaks into her house (admittedly, in order to save her from a seizure)!

The episode itself doesn't quite get along so fine, as, due to the situation of two people spending time with each other, the episode is overly lovey-dovey (though David's bad John Wayne impression and Caroline's Elmer Fudd were most amusing!), and working on a science project wasn't the most riveting plot development so there's not much to get your teeth into compared to the usually tighter forty-five minute episodes. I think I mentioned this problem of pace in the other feature-length episodes, but it's very apparent in this one. Not to say there's nothing to enjoy: the hypnosis-induced scenes of David (Benton, as he initially calls himself this time), in a desert dune-scape, facing off against the Hulk, are fascinating merely for the fact that we're seeing him and the creature on screen together, but also for the bare landscape and dreamlike actions of trapping the creature in increasingly tough prisons (thick netting, a cage of steel bars and a metal vault), which he always breaks out of to menace again. It's an interesting metaphor for the mental and emotional struggle David always goes through and these scenes are probably the highlight of an otherwise fairly mundane episode.

I would have thought the budget fairly low on this episode, aside from those scenes, until we get to the one big action sequence where Hulk tears apart an entire floor of a house belonging to a creep whom Caroline has run off with when news of her poor test results arrive (what about patient/doctor confidentiality? David rings up the hospital after finding the discarded paperwork, and Caroline gone, says he's a friend, and is given a run down of her situation!). Thanks to the hypnosis sequences we see plenty of the Hulk, but there are only four actual Hulk-outs in an episode that's twice the size of the usual, and one of these is a repeat of his first ever metamorphosis from the pilot when trying to change a car tyre in a storm unleashes the rage inside. From this experience I feared it would become a clips episode, an excuse to save money and show by showing scenes from previous episodes, recounted by David in order to bring the audience up to speed in case they hadn't watched Season 1. I was glad that this sequence, and the one in which we see the death of his wife, were the only clips used, and they worked fine in the context of his work with Caroline.

The second Hulk-out we see, and the first new one, is in her house, thanks to the hypnosis, where he's inflamed by the memories and starts smashing up her place - I noticed that the transition stage in the makeup between Banner and Hulk appeared to have improved a little, unless it was just the lighting giving it an eerie effect, as later in the episode it didn't look any different. They still hadn't managed to get the merging right between transitions, though it didn't really matter. I thought he was actually going to change when he first breaks through her glass window and cuts himself, but that was just an illustration to show that after Hulking out his regenerative abilities greatly increase. After this encounter, Hulk takes off to the beach, once again showing his relationship to children is a gentle one - the adults at a beach party all flee at the sight of him, leaving a small boy to stare without fear, Hulk eventually moving off. Later, this same child does an impression of the creature on the beach when he smashes up his sandcastle, perhaps a comment on the susceptibility of children to copy what they see, but probably not, as this series was probably quite violent for its time (all about turning into a rage-filled giant and smashing things up!), and yet was a family programme, so it could be seen as ironic that a theme like that could be garnered from it!

Hulk also saves Caroline, which again shows his 'good' side - I've never quite understood why Hulk does these things since he's just a ball of rage and violence, but it must be David's own feelings of compassion for others that comes through, though the creature probably doesn't know what it's doing. Hulk-out three is the aforementioned party-crasher with the Hulk ripping up the bad guy's house, preventing a catastrophe for the sozzled Caroline and another girl that's been picked up by the nefarious pair for their enjoyment. This time it's the men's prevention of him trying to reach Caroline, who's going to have another fit, and throwing him over the internal balcony that sets off the time bomb in his head, resulting in major building destruction. I must say that the bad guy's bald pate, revealed under a fine head of hair in response to uncovering him as bad news, was a nice parallel, but didn't look too real! The next Hulk-out occurs thanks to a nightmare, which is problematic for poor David - even in his sleep he can't be safe from it! At least this time Caroline's able to get a skin sample from a surprised Hulk, something that could aid her own health, though sadly it's all too late as we find out in the fourth and final Hulk-out during a hurricane - David has to get her to the hospital, but her pain is so great that she leaps from the car and dashes into the rain, Banner being bumped by a car, then halted by electricity terminals that have blown down in his path. I guess Hulk's immune to electrocution since he easily tosses them away, though it's too late to save Caroline.

It's no surprise she died instead of surviving to provide David with a backup and assistant. It was a pretty safe bet for him to marry a terminally ill woman (though before it happened I was thinking it wouldn't be a real marriage because he wouldn't be able to give his real name, but you clearly see on the marriage certificate that it was 'David Banner'), in terms of the series being able to reset itself. It's ironic then that this episode doesn't end with him walking down the road, the lonely man, instead he's on the beach amid the wreckage of the storm, after the little kid has come over to say something nice. The boy needs talking about. He serves a purpose in demonstrating Hulk isn't a danger to children, and there's some tragedy from Caroline accelerating her illness through exertion to save him from drowning in the sea, but his parents need a stern talking to! The same Mother that abandons him on first impulse at fear of seeing Hulk (eventually running back to scoop her child out of the way), also lets him run around on the beach on his own all the time. And just when I was thinking it wasn't safe for the boy to be playing by the sea alone, he almost drowns. Then, to cap it all, shortly after recovering from this, and right after a hurricane, he's allowed back on the beach again under no visible supervision! I know times were different back then, but really…

Mariette Hartley was fine as Dr. Caroline Fields, but I was trying to remember where I'd heard the name before. It wasn't till after, I realised she'd been in the original 'Star Trek' a decade before this episode, playing Zarabeth in 'All Our Yesterdays'! (It was fun to see another Trek actor who was much easier to recognise playing a receptionist: a young Rosalind Chao, Keiko O'Brien on 'TNG' and 'DS9'!). She might have made a good addition to this series as a regular, but of course in those days they kept things pretty much the same from week to week, not wanting to change the format. Nowadays they wouldn't think twice about having a new character for a season which they could have killed off even more dramatically after we'd invested more into her, but you have to watch these things in the context of their time and not complain at their style. At least they had the ongoing plot of Jack McGee, always on the cusp of discovering David's identity, and this continued here. I'd wondered if they might just drop the character as he generally doesn't have a big part to play, but this time, though his appearance was as brief as ever, he comes closest to seeing David than ever before when Banner opens the door to him after the beach party Hulk-out! It was very fortunate that the reporter was facing away at the time, but he must have found it strange to hear the door open (he starts to turn round), then close, then open again! Maybe he just thought this woman was an oddball?

With no changes to cast or credit sequence, and no differentiation from Season 1 (they showed the episode title onscreen which they didn't always do), this looks to be following the same template as before, which is no bad thing, though I did wonder if this, the first 'full' season, with almost twice the episodes of the first, would do things differently, add a new character, or have more ongoing plot elements. I'm fine with the series as it is, but I hope McGee's role isn't just to provide close call after close call (although you can't get closer than he did in this episode!), and that some development occurs. It's difficult to make any major changes, of course, as the series has to follow Banner's life on the run, getting mixed up with a new group each week, solving a problem, but never able to solve his own, which makes the series so sad. So, not the best return for the series, or the most exciting start, but here's to what's coming next - I have no idea.

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