Hitchhiking to Oregon, Banner meets a fellow traveler, a homeless pregnant woman named Carrie. He accompanies her to a clinic simply called Matrix, and then proceeds to the nearby hospital where he has an appointment with geneticist Dr. Stan Rhodes. Rhodes may be able to isolate the genetic strands that transform Banner into the Hulk, though Banner naturally hasn’t shared many details of what problems his unique genes cause. Banner is nearby when another patient is brought in for Dr. Rhodes, a woman who’s missing her baby – and says Matrix took it. Banner leaves the hospital to double back and check on Carrie, but it just so happens that Dr. Rhodes is paying a visit to Matrix as well, and now believes he’s part of a sting operation. When Banner returns to the hospital, the injection he receives from Rhodes is not designed to help him, but is a dose of morphine large enough to kill him. His survival instincts kick in and the Hulk takes over…but the amount of morphine administered is enough to leave even the Hulk in a stupor.
written by James D. Parriott
directed by Jeffrey Hayden
music by Joe Harnell
Cast: Bill Bixby (David Bruce Banner), Jack Colvin (Jack McGee), Lou Ferrigno (The Hulk), Julie Adams (Ellen), Andrew Robinson (Dr. Stan Rhodes), Carl Franklin (Crosby), Diane Civita (Carrie), Mitzi Hoag (Chief Nurse), John Warner Williams (Dan), Sarah Rush (Young Woman), Gil Garcia (1st Detective), Judd Laurance (2nd Detective), Takayo (Young Nurse), Lillah McCarthy (Tina), Al Berry (Trucker), Ben Freedman (Man in Elevator)
Notes: This episode carries the unusual disclaimer “all characters, organizations, and events in this story are fictional”, either because the big mutating green guy lumbering around wasn’t enough of a clue, or because the production’s legal research department found a company named Matrix in a line of business adjacent to services for expecting mothers. Carl Franklin, later a director of such big-screen fare as Devil In A Blue Dress and One True
Thing, had been one of the stars of The Fantastic Journey a year earlier on NBC. Andrew J. Robinson was still in the midst of a lengthy string of “creepy” roles stemming from his career-making 1971 big-screen debut as the killer in Dirty Harry; he would later branch out into such roles as Liberace in a 1988 TV movie of the same name, President John F. Kennedy in a 1986 episode of the revived Twilight Zone, and the Cardassian tailor Garak throughout all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Diane Civita was a friend of showrunner Kenneth Johnson, and would appear in many of his later series, including V (as Harmony) and the pilot movie for Johnson’s TV adaptation of Alien Nation.
LogBook entry by Earl Green