User Reviews

David Baxter (isn't it great the way they keep coming up with surnames beginning with B for the ever-travelling Banner?) is a school caretaker who suspects a pupil of being the victim of abuse from his father. As usual Banner sticks his nose in where it is not wanted and ends up saving the day - via a couple of hulk-outs.

What makes this episode stand out more so than others is a number of things:

1. The first 15 minutes or so makes for some uncomfortable viewing in my opinion. Maybe it's my 2009 head but the whole interaction between David and the Kid smacks of how these were more innocent times. Banner buys the kid an ice cream and even takes him back to his apartment for God's sake - without the knowledge of the school or his parents. The audience knows Banner is a stand-up guy - but this could so easily be construed the wrong way.

2. Banner - (a) a dead man and (b) a suspected murderer and (c) a man with no valid ID - gets a job at a school for young kids??? How did that happen? Aren't there any procedures in place to vet these guys?

3. Banner shows us (for the first time in the series, I think) that he actually has a home. A quite-sizable apartment in fact. An interesting curio for series-watchers if nothing else.

For all the discomfort and the madness of trying to fit in 2 hulk-outs into the episode - the story-telling here is quite good. Banner having to use his alter-ego to finally get the abusive father to recognise that it all stemmed from his own childhood. No need for those namby-pamby psychiatrists here - a big green, non-speaking monster sorts it all out.

One more stand-out moment here - the transition from Hulk to Banner is fairly standard fare in most episodes but here there is a different approach to it. A continuous shot showing the Hulk and Kid walking down a dark alleyway towards the camera - whereby the closer he gets, we see him transform back into David Banner. A neat trick and very well done for the time.

As I said before in a previous comment on an earlier episode - this series has its ups and downs but this for me is one of the better episodes. Bixby again confirming his watch-ability on screen.

7/10

Now this is an episode which makes me think season 2 might truly be better than season 1. As groundskeeper at a school, David meets a boy who is obviously being physically abused. Being David, he has to take action to stop it.

The episode is pretty much excellent from start to finish, but two points stand out. One is a bit where the boy, at his father's demand, brings him a can of beer. This simple act is translated into one of the most terrifying scenes of this series yet, a gripping portrayal of the constant fear which haunts families living with domestic violence.

The second is the rousing condemnation of the modern "mind your own business" mentality. It builds to a fever pitch when David, seeing the father in the midst of beating his son, frantically appeals to the neighbors to call the police, only to be repeatedly denied. There's no question that the frustration one would feel in David's situation would be enough to transform him into the Hulk.

I have to deduct major points for the inappropriately cheerful ending, though. When you hear the smiling mother and son remarking how Dad will be back home in two months, you can't help but feel offended, even after all the good this episode has done. I'm no expert, but I can't believe that two months of psychiatric treatment is a 100% guaranteed cure for an abusive personality, or even that there is a 100% guaranteed cure. I understand why they wanted to make things seem hopeful, but they should have done just that: Offer viewers hope, not a promise of a miracle cure that undoes all the hurt, pain, anger, and distrust wrought by domestic violence in two months. Ignore the ending, though, and this ep is just great.

this is one of my favorite episodes of one of my favorite classic shows. For a campy show like The Incredible Hulk this episode is very serious. The premise is that David "Baxter" working as a grounds keeper in a school when he finds out that a student is being abused by his father. The episode does everything perfectly such as showing David and the child's (his name is Mark) friendship. a lot of people hate this show for being dated but to me it was great because of the portrayal and respect for the character of the Hulk. But this particular episode stands out to me because of the social commentary it tells about child abuse and how well it portrays it. I used to debate whether my favorite episode is the first part II or this one but after watching them both this is clearly my favorite episode.

Like the disease of the week, Incredible Hulk would tackle issues every now and then, . . . . and then.

This one was child abuse. David had to intervene when he worked at a school with a young man whose father was beating him, because Poppa was recalling his own father.

As it is, Dad was also a wife beater. The terrified wife was played by Sally Kirkland.

A predictable episode with the abusive father breaking down when he can't intimidate the Hulk.

Yet there is a blooper from this episode that made the Dick Clark-Ed McMahon show, and no, it isn't in the episode.

When Bill Bixby is confronting Sally Kirkland about her husband, he says "your husband is a wife-beater" or he said child-beater, which doesn't sound right.

But the blooper, Bixby yells, oh so very serious, "your husband is an egg-beater!" The funny thing is, the blooper was always cut before we see any reaction from Bixby or Kirkland. I wonder why.

Did they not laugh?