In many ways, cable was a godsend to my eclectic cinema tastes.

If you are a constant reader to this site, you will know that cable was the dawning of my appreciation for the odder parts of cinema, whether it be TV or movie.   Even more so with TV, with its myriad channels and late-night showings of forgotten shows that for most stations merely exist to pad out the weak night hours when they don't have enough informicals or repeats of Saturday Night Live.   And this practice seems to be a reoccurring one:  for every new channel that appears on the cable radar, there comes a need for more space filler and nothing beats this than seasons upon seasons worth of shows--hour-long dramas preferred due to easier scheduling--that in their time were worth something and now prepare wakening programmers to a fresh start at 6am for another day.

It's good for them, and good for me as well as some others.   Of course, while this seems good, it can change instantly.  As soon as a channel's output becomes more valuable, these shows are easily disposable and often are given the short end of the stick whenever something goes into overtime or falls out of schedule.   And so it was with all most of the cable channels you could get on basic cable during 1999.

I got cable soon as I got out of high school during 1997 and continued to the present date.  During that time, I put a lot of tape through three of the VCRs I owned (and still own).  Miles of it.  Eventually, I had to start retaping over episodes that I had wanted to watch but later disliked.  In short, I have a lot of tape in my room that is very well used.  And a lot of it is full of movies taped off AMC back when they didn't air a commercial in the middle of the movie.  Remarkable, huh?  But for every tape I think I know I own, sometimes I find something I've completely forgotten.

Today, it was an two-part episode of The Incredible Hulk, starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno as Dr. David Banner and his savage gamma-irradiated alter ego who became famous in the early '80s as a incredibly well done TV adaptation of a throwaway comic book character.   In fact, it was one of the only few episodes I have of Hulk on tape and for good reason:  it was back when I was taping shows in Super Long Play mode (the mode that allows you to get as much on a tape as humanly possible at the cost of quality of the show and strain on your VCR--your lesson for today) I taped most of Hulk in SLP and saved the two-part shows on Slow Play mode (direct opposite of SLP) because they were regarded as the finest episodes of Hulk.  And they were.  It's a good rule of thumb that any episode that was a two-parter in any sense (including the first two two-parters) was one of the best episodes to play on TV at that time.  Or were important or neat in some way that transcended the whole 'Banner goes into town/lame attempt to find cure/pathos/eventual anger and appearance of the Hulk/some neat-and/or-lame action scene/ending full of sadness' plot that the show reveled in.  But the beauty of this find in my room was that I found an episode I never bothered to watch for some reason.  In fact, it was never rewound from its original taping.  Maybe I just put it away and figured I would rewind and watch it at some later time that never came.  Either way, here I am a year later, and I finally rewound it and let "The First" run over me.

"The First" is a landmark in the Hulk's TV history for many reasons:  it was in the 4th (and last full) season of the show and generally regarded as the last really good story before the whole show fell into a rut which it never rose.  A rut that somehow took the above cliché of 'Banner goes into town...' and made it worse.  But it also explored another area of the Hulk mythology:  the appearance of another gamma-irradiated giant running about for reasons other than but similar to Banner's.  Hence, the true appeal of this episode:  for those interested in the conflict between Banner and his savage self it provided a chance for Banner to finally rid himself of his curse.  For those interested in seeing Lou Farrigno kick the crap out of another supercharged green man, here was there chance for a battle royale of gross proportions.   So in all, the episode did both well and could have provided a sad end to the whole series.  In fact, if you look at it in the right way, this is very much the series's swan song.

The basic plot:  David Banner follows up a lead of a doctor who was experimenting in psychology and radiation only to find that the doctor (now deceased)  succeeded in hulkifying his faithful gardener a few years ago.  This 'hulkafication' caused the gardener to undergo the Hulk process and hurt a few people.  But it also provided a regenerative effect that cured the gardener of his diseases.  Unfortunately, the deceased doctor cured the gardener and reduced him back to something the hick bullies of the small town kick around.   Banner gets a dose of the bullies hospitality after he sneaks around too close to the doctor's house where one of the hicks' brother was killed a year previous.   This results in him getting thrown in a well and turning into the Hulk.  The bullies see the Hulk, mistake it for their Hulk, and run off.  The gardener then offers to help Banner and for the first time in the series, Banner finally sees a timely end to his curse, but at a price:  the gardener will help only so he can get the 'curse' back so he can wreak vengeance.  And as soon as Banner finds a cure for both of them, the gardener undergoes the process and turns into a Hulk (played by Dick Durock, who also played Swamp Thing in both of the movies and the entire TV series...not bad).  And he proceeds to go nuts and destroy the town.

It should be mentioned that while the Dick Durock Hulk, while mentioned to be as powerful as the Lou Ferrigno Hulk, is also less muscular through taller...figure that one out.

Anyway, Banner decides to go after him by going to an older woman who was the Doctor's lover at one time.   While the Gardener Hulk goes nuts in town and causes the hicks to go after him, Banner and the lady form a plan to cure the gardener of the cure.  After knocking the gardener out, Banner gets him back to the doctor's house and attempts to use his cure.  But it doesn't work:  the hicks start burning the place down, which causes the gardener to become a Hulk again, break free of his bonds, and go after Banner.  Unfortunately, he also takes Banner's dosage of the cure and destroys it.  Heartbroken and horribly angry by his dream of normal life shattered (Bixby really does a great job here), Banner becomes a Hulk and both Hulks fight much to the happy cheers of several toddlers and adults in 1980.  Finally, Banner's Hulk destroys the gardener Hulk and as the house burns, Banner leaves on his journey to find another cure while the lady covers the story up with the police.

And indeed, while the plot is a bit bare-bones (and could feasibly written into an hour...but just) it moves at a good pace and hardly leaves the viewer feeling bored.  While the prospect of two Hulks fighting--the real reason I taped this episode--it just doesn't look that right.  Dick Durock is a good stuntman and quite an underrated actor (ever see Swamp Thing?), he just doesn't mesh with Lou Ferrigno and looks puny.  But no matter, the whole episode hits the high point with Banner screaming "Nooo!!" and turning into the Hulk.  In fact, I think that scene puts the whole Hulk TV show into context--while seemingly a show about a man and a monster, it is also quite a tragedy in itself.  One of the very things that got me addicted to the show one cold, sick day at home sometime around December 27, 1999.

BOTTOM LINE:  Still a fantastic series, worth watching.  While not a tightly packed show, one of the best this series has to offer if you're looking for monster-upon-monster fighting or for another dose of tragedy.  Truly excellent.  Four Stars out of Four.  There's a reason why Columbia House's RE-TV offers this episode for release.

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