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Rating:  -
I think it is a shame that they could not put these last seven episodes on the fourth season.
Rating:  -
The final season of "The Incredible Hulk" consists of just 7 episodes and I'm not really all that sure as to how many of these were actual season 5 episodes. The fourth season was cut short due to a writers strike, had a late start and only 18 episodes. Before the fifth season got underway the show had already been canceled.
As is, this is easily the weakest season overall. Of the 7 episodes, three are worthy of the best the series had to offer.
1. The Phenom: BAD. Bad acting, bad story, lame Hulk action and an overall silly overtone ruin this one.
2. Two Godmothers: Nothing special. Stretches credibility, even by Hulk standards, weak writing and lame acting. OK Hulk-out in the middle but this is overall a forgettable affair.
3. Veteran: Pretty good. Overall a suspenseful episode with a good plot twist, solid acting, good Hulk action and some nifty flashbacks.
4. Sanctuary: Solid. I'd read some bad reviews for this one but I was pleasantly surprised. It's nothing special but it's entertaining nonetheless. I did find it odd to cast Diana Muldaur (previously cast as David's sister in the Season 3 episode "Homecoming") as the head nun.
5. Triangle: Solid. OK affair in which David falls for a woman but fate rears it's ugly head and sends him on his way once again. Nice twist in the end and this proved to be Jack McGee's swansong in the original series.
6. Slaves: BAD. Nice scenery, nice location, OK story and good actors on paper but all is for naught in this very lame episode. Horrible sequences and beyond bad acting performances sink this puppy. It's a credit to Bixby that he managed to keep a straight face among these actors who are not having a good day.
7. A Minor Problem: Good. At least the series ended on a high note with this suspenseful and somewhat offbeat episode. Good story, eerie atmosphere in the beginning and great Hulk action ensure that the final episode is a gem for Hulk fans.
I wish the series had had a proper conclusion but the TV movie "Death of the Incredible Hulk" at least provided some form of closure to fans. This fifth season is a no-brainer purchase for fans and if they're anything like me, they'll find that overall this is a real keeper, just as the first four seasons.
The extras are solid. A nice 18 plus minute featurette with Ken Johnson and co. and a great gag reel which displays Bixby at his comical best.
Rating: -
Don't make me angry.You wouldn't like me when i'm agnry. The most famous line Kenneth Johnson ever wrote in television history. Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno is back. THE INCREDIBLE HULK:The Complete Fifth Season will be released on October 21st,2008. THE INCREDIBLE HULK:The Complete Series will be released on the same day along with the new THE INCREDIBLE HULK Movie.
Rating: -
I'm so very excited that the fifth and final season of The Incredible Hulk is finally here. During the late seventies and early eighties, I really enjoyed the show and hated it when it got cancelled. Bill Bixby was my all time favorite actor and although he died in 1993, his spirit will live on by his best roll as Doctor David Banner. Although he did not want to be in the show at first, his agent, incouraged him to do so and it became the greatest show that he was ever in. I was also sad that there were several episodes that were never filmed and I wish that they could have been because when the series ended, it left serval unanswered questions such as when Doctor David Banner finally be cured of The Incredible Hulk. That was finally answered by the final television movie of the series known as "The Death of The Incredible Hulk", which I highly reccommend for any Incredible Hulk fan. I felt glad for Lou Ferrigno as The Hulk because Bill Bixby incouraged him throughtout the entire series and he became a great actor because of it. However, I felt sorry for Jack Colvin, who played investigative reporter Jack McGee because although his articles of finding The Hulk was never resolved in the capture, they became his obsession and through it all, he became a better actor. Jack Colvin died three years ago but Bill Bixby, his spirit lives on.
Rating: -
I'm so excited that The Incredible Hulk's short-lived 1981-82 Season is finally coming out on DVD this Fall in mid October and it's about time too, especially since I've been dying to see my favorite episodes from The Incredible Hulks abbreviated 5th Season complete and uncut like they were shown originally on CBS back in the Fall of 1981 before CBS had cancelled The Incredible Hulk all of the sudden in November of 1981, due to budget cuts and a slight decline in ratings, except Universal makes each DVD commercial-free, unlike how all the episodes get shown on the Sci-Fi Channel, since Sci-Fi edites too many scenes and adds too many commercials in between like I have previously explained in my other review on The Incredible Hulk's Fifth Season and I can hardly wait to add the Hulk's 5th Season to my Incredible Hulk DVD collection from the first 4 seasons.
Additionally, Universal should've also had the front cover of The Incredible Hulk-Season Five DVD say "The Final Season", just like they did with KNIGHT RIDER-SEASON 4 and THE A-TEAM-SEASON 5 to inform people that those were the last seasons for those shows and that no more DVD's for those shows were going to be in the works from now on, since KNIGHT RIDER only had 4 seasons and THE A-TEAM only had 5 seasons, which is also why it would've been practical if they would've also put "The Final Season" in front of the cover of THE INCREDIBLE HULK's 5th Season, since THE INCREDIBLE HULK only had 5 seasons and will no longer have any more seasons of THE INCREDIBLE HULK in the works or underway after this one, since THE INCREDIBLE HULK's short-lived 1981-1982 Season was the last season of this show throughout it's whole 4-year run on CBS.
So now that Universal is finally about to release THE INCREDIBLE HULK's final season on DVD this Fall, I'm just eagerly awaiting for Universal to release THE ROCKFORD FILES Sixth Season on DVD, since that was Rockford's final season throughout THE ROCKFORD FILES whole 6-year run on NBC.
In addition, The Incredible Hulk's Fifth Season would've been better if they would've had Jack McGee(Jack Colvin) in more 5th Season episodes, but for some reason McGee was no where to be found nor even mentioned by anyone in this season with the exception of the "Triangle" episode, despite the fact that McGee was always mentioned in the 1981-82 Season introduction credits as the investigative reporter from "The National Register" pursuing the Hulk for a murder he didn't commit along with the fact that David Banner(Bill Bixby) was still on the run and would move onto a different place at the end of each episode like he always did in the first 4 seasons, especially after David's second hulk-out.
Rumor also has it that creator(Ken Johnson) was blamed for this show cancelling on such short notice, due to the fact that Johnson and CBS could never come up with an agreeable budget for this show and that Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno(The Hulk)found it quite difficult to work with Ken Johnson, which therefore resulted in Ken Johnson to compromise with CBS by making The Incredible Hulk's Fifth Season only half a season.
Something else that baffles me is The Incredible Hulk episode guide indicated that CBS had unofficially announced in July of 1981 that they were cancelling this show with no plans for a 5th Season in the works, but "The Phenom" episode was the Season Premiere to The Incredible Hulk's Fifth Season on Friday October 2nd, 1981, which was shown a week later on CBS after showing a repeat from the Hulk's Fourth Season the previous week, which was "The First" episode.
Unfortunately, the 1981-82 Season was cut short after only 5 episodes, since CBS had ended up cancelling The Incredible Hulk after only 7 weeks during it's 5th Season run on CBS in the mid Fall of 1981, but for some reason CBS had decided to bring back this show on the air temporarily in the Spring of 1982 to finish off The Incredible Hulk's short-lived Fifth Season with 2 more episodes back in May of 1982, despite the fact that CBS still didn't have a series finale episode for this show.
Unfortunately, CBS still didn't have a series finale episode for this show, which therefore indicated that at the end of The Incredible Hulk's very last episode "A Minor Problem" that David and McGee still had a lot of unfinished business with the Hulk since David still obviously hadn't succeeded at finding a cure to his horrific ordeal with the Hulk yet with no McGee in the "A Minor Problem" episode on top of that.
Somehow I have a feeling it would've been more practical if Universal had just added The Incredible Hulk's 5th Season to it's 4th Season DVD, since The Incredible Hulk's Fifth Season of this show was only an abreviated season that was cut short with only 7 episodes along with the fact that The Incredible Hulk's Fourth Season was it's last full-season throughout it's whole 4-year run on CBS even though the Hulk's Fourth Season had 18 episodes in it, unlike the Second and Third Seasons, which had 22 episodes apiece.
In other words, Universal probably should've combined THE INCREDIBLE HULK's 5th Season on it's 4th Season DVD the way Universal had combined both seasons of BUCK ROGERS on the BUCK ROGERS:IN THE 25TH CENTURY DVD that was released back in November of 2004, since BUCK ROGERS 2nd Season wasn't a full-season, unlike BUCK ROGERS 1st Season along with the fact that the Second Season of BUCK ROGERS got a very late start, since Buck's 2nd Season was unsuccessful and didn't finally get started till January of 1981, but NBC eventually ended up cancelling BUCK ROGERS by September of 1981, due to a huge plummet in ratings.
Therefore, if Universal had combined The Incredible Hulk's Fifth Season episodes to The Incredible Hulk's Fourth Season DVD, it would've had a total of 25 episodes on it instead of 18 episodes, but I have a feeling that Universal's reason for not combining The Incredible Hulk's 5th Season on it's 4th Season DVD was perhaps due to Universal wanting to get more money out of their customers due to all the budget cuts we've had from the recession going on right now, due to George Bush, Jr's presidency.
Fortunately, The Incredible Hulk wasn't cancelled because of low ratings, but was unfortunately cancelled because the special effects on this show got too expensive due to budget cuts from the recession we had back in 1981-1982 during Ronald Reagan's presidency along with the fact that THE INCREDIBLE HULK had the most expensive special effects on TV at the time.
In other words; CBS probably wouldn't have ended up cancelling The Incredible Hulk as soon as it did if we hadn't had such a weak economy when Ronald Regan got elected president in November of 1980.
Therefore, The Incredible Hulk probably wouldn't have cancelled all of the sudden when it had if it weren't for Reagan and all the financial mess he caused us back then.
Something else I noticed about this season was that the Hulk wore the same exact kind of blue jeans in every single episode of the Fifth Season, which the Hulk wore in just about every episode in the Fourth Season, which I suspect was to help the producers of the show economize, due to cost cutting issues from the bad economy we had back in the early 1980's, due to Reagan's presidency.
Therefore, it was almost as if the 5th Season of The Incredible Hulk was somewhat of an extension of the Hulk's 4th Season, since the introduction to The Incredible Hulk's Fifth Season was identical to the introduction to The Incredible Hulk's Fourth Season along with the fact that the Hulk wore the same exact blue jeans in all the 5th Season episodes, except The Incredible Hulk's 5th Season wasn't as significant nor as sophisticated as The Incredible Hulk's 4th Season was, along with the fact that Jack McGee was no where to be found in this season since McGee hadn't been shown in any 5th Season episodes with the exception of the "Triangle" episode, which was one of the last episodes of The Incredible Hulk, since "Triangle" was the 3rd to the last episode of this show throughout The Incredible Hulk's whole 4-year run on CBS.
Therefore, I kind of started wondering what had happened to Jack McGee in the 1981-82 Season along with the fact that McGee(Jack Colvin) was always being mentioned in the credits during the introduction to The Incredible Hulk's Fifth Season as the investigative reporter who has continuosly kept pursuing the Hulk convinced that the Hulk was a murderer while David(Bill Bixby) had continued searching for a cure to his horrendous infliction with the Hulk, but McGee was still no closer to capturing the Hulk or discovering that David Banner was the Hulk in the "Triangle" episode than he was in the first 4 seasons of The Incredible Hulk either, which clearly indicated that McGee ended up failing once again and that McGee had been unsuccessful with tracking the Hulk throughout The Incredible Hulk's whole 1978-82 run on CBS.
In addition to that, I found it quite odd how McGee was never able to make the connection and discovery that David Banner was still alive and that David Banner was the so-called "John Doe" who was the Hulk along with the fact that McGee came so close plenty of times to being directly face to face with David Banner on top of that before managing to keep slipping through McGee's fingers again and again leading McGee to another dead end.
In addition to why the 5th Season wasn't quite as good or as solid as the 4th Season was because the 1981-82 Season of The Incredible Hulk didn't have any episodes showing clips from previous episodes or from previous seasons either, unlike the first 4 seasons of The Incredible Hulk had.
Additionally, the abreviated Fifth Season didn't have any 2-parted episodes either, unlike the 4th Season and most of the other previous seasons either, which somewhat made this 1981-82 Season less interesting and perhaps made the 5th Season the weakest and least successful season of them all throughout The Incredible Hulk's whole 1978-1982 run on CBS, especially since this show was cancelled all of the sudden in it's Fifth and final season without sufficient warning on top of that.
Therefore, I partly blame Reagan for The Incredible Hulk cancelling all of the sudden back in the mid Fall of 1981, because of all the financial mess and budget cuts that Reagan caused back then.
This 1981-82 Season also takes me all the way back to memory lane when we had the recession back in 1981-1982 during Reagan's presidency and when THE INCREDIBLE HULK was on CBS's Friday night-line up at 8PM followed by THE DUKES OF HAZZARD at 9PM and then top off by DALLAS at 10PM back in the early Fall of 1981, which of course was before THE INCREDIBLE HULK was unfortunately cancelled all of the sudden in November of 1981, which therefore resulted in THE DUKES OF HAZZARD taking over the 8PM time-slot on CBS's Friday night line-up eventually.
This season also takes me all the way back to memory lane when CBS's motto was "Reach For The Stars" and when CBS had temporarily brought THE INCREDIBLE HULK back on the air for 2 weeks in the Spring of 1982 on Wednesdays during the same time-slot as THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO at the time on ABC, since THE GREATEST AMERICAN HERO was on at 8PM followed by THE FALL GUY at 9PM and topped off by DYNASTY at 10PM as part of ABC's Wednesday night line-up, which reminds me that CBS's motto back then was "Reach For The Stars", since that was CBS's motto from the Fall of 1981 thru the Summer of 1982.
It was also interesting seeing
-Peter Mark-Richman in the "Triangle" episode before his co-starring days on SANTA BARBARA and after his co-starring days on GENERAL HOSPITAL
-Bill Boyett in the "Veteran" episode after his co-starring days as Sgt. MacDonald on ADAM-12
-Anne Lockhart in "The Phenom" episodes after previously guest starring in the "Captive Night" episode
-Paul Koslo in the "Veteran" episode after previously seeing him guest star in the "Long Run Home" episode
-Robert Donner in "The Phenom" episode after previously coming out in the "Sideshow" episode
-Charles Napier in the "Triangle" episode after previously guest starring in "The Slam" episode
-Dick O'Neill in "The Phenom" episode after previously guest starring in the "Fast Lane" episode
-Mickey Jones in the "Triangle" episode after previously guest starring in the "Long Run Home" and "Ricky" episodes
-Sandra Kerns in the "Two Godmothers" episode after previously coming out in the "Jake" episode and before her co-starring days on CHARLES IN CHARGE
-Henry Darrow in the "Sanctuary" episode before his co-starring days on SANTA BARBARA and after his co-starring days on GENERAL HOSPITAL
-Bruce Gray in the "Veteran" episode after his co-starring days on ALL MY CHILDREN
This Incredible Hulk-Season Five DVD also has some interesting bonus features like hilarious outakes from the first 4 seasons of The Incredible Hulk and also had a bonus feature with creator(Ken Johnson) and producers Jill Sherman-Donner, Karen Harris, and Bob Steinhauer describing their experience on working with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno and how it was like for them running and producing the show throughout it's whole 1978-82 run on CBS.
The bonus feature also explains to us how it was like for Ken Johnson and all the producers when CBS had decided to cancel the show all of the sudden on short notice without Universal or any of the producers knowing The Incredible Hulk was going to be cancelled in the Fall of 1981, even though the ratings on this show were still very good, which was why everybody including Ken Johnson were so baffled when CBS had uncermoniously announced in the Summer of 1981 that they were cancelling The Incredible Hulk, even right after completing a succesful 4th Season while Johnson already had 7 episodes in the can underway for the 5th Season, but according to Ken Johnson part of what led to THE INCREDIBLE HULK's cancellation all of the sudden was because the president of CBS at the time(Harvey Shepherd) felt that the Hulk was getting tired and this show was running out of steam, despite the fact that the ratings on this show were still pretty strong when CBS took this show off the air on such short notice.
Therefore, Ken Johnson had to compromise with CBS by only making the Fifth Season of THE INCREDIBLE HULK an abreviated season by cancelling the show in mid November of 1981 instead of cancelling it immediately in the Summer of 1981 or in September of 1981, but the primary reason for CBS cancelling THE INCREDIBLE HULK was due to cost cutting issues.
Therefore in order to prevent THE INCREDIBLE HULK from being cancelled by low ratings, CBS had to cancel this show on short notice with only half a season since they would have had to cut back on the special effects on the show by having David do only 1 Hulk-Out per episode instead of having 2 Hulk-Outs per episode or they would've had to stop showing all those magnificient special effects with the tearing of David's clothes during the Hulk-Outs, which would've started making the shows special effects and the Hulk's feats of strength a lot less impressive.
Bob Steinhauer also explains on the bonus feature on how he felt that all Hulk fans got cheated when CBS had cancelled THE INCREDIBLE HULK on such short notice in November of 1981, but because of CBS, not the producers, which I happen to agree with Steinhauer on, especially since this show was summarily shuffled off all of the sudden like Ken Johnson said on the bonus feature.
So now that Universal has finally released THE INCREDIBLE HULK-Season 5 out on DVD and has all 5 seasons of the Hulk out on DVD, I can now hardly wait till Universal releases THE ROCKFORD FILES-SEASON 6 out on DVD so I can add Rockford's Sixth Season to my collection of Rockford DVD's, especially since THE ROCKFORD FILES short-lived 1979-80 Season was the final season of THE ROCKFORD FILES, just like the Hulk's short-lived 1981-82 Season was the last and final season of THE INCREDIBLE HULK.
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