User Reviews

This is a real good episode of TIH with Bixby's wife at the time playing a psychic who can 'see' future incidents about people purely by touching them.

But the thing that really stands out here is the structure of the episode and the amount of story angles covered in the short run-time. First of all the episode opens up with 2 kids running from a cop down into an alleyway - where the hulk is spotted. One of the kids - we learn later - dies from a blow to the head for which the creature is blamed. Normally TIH episodes are purely formulaic in so far as we get a good 15 / 20 minutes of plot build up before Banner transforms to the Hulk. But here it is instantaneous. Although, we do not see the transformation - we do see the creature as the credits come up.

The initial incident is then almost forgotten about by the episode and instead we concentrate on Benet (the psychic) and her rather cursed blessing and her meager existence. It's very tragic that Benet's character contemplates suicide early in this episode as she felt powerless to prevent a young boy's death. Her own (and Bixby's) son died soon after and she ended up taking her own life on the grave of her son's on his first anniversary of his death. Bixby was never really the same after those incidents - and who could blame him for that.

Anyway - the episode also throws in some psychic visions, a grubby,sleazy landlord, 2 hulk-outs, a Banner suicide attempt, McGee turning up and almost catching Banner and a wrap up at the end to explain the initial shots of the kids running away. All neat and tidy in 45 minutes.

A very interesting episode and one of the best in my mind. The only downside here was Benet's acting - to say she was a little stiff sometimes is to say the glaringly obvious. But Bixby more than makes up for it. Watch the scene where he finds out that the kid has died and he believes that the creature has killed him. The pain and anguish in his face is far and beyond the token stuff you normally associate with television. Brilliant.

8/10.

This one really took me by surprise. I think it's best for the series to avoid fantasy elements for consistency's sake, so I wasn't pleased to learn that this episode centers around a woman who can really and truly see the future of anyone she touches.

Once things got going, though, I was hooked. The episode manages to make future visions feel like a natural part of the series, and psychic power is shown to be as much of a curse as a gift quite poignantly without wallowing in it. The way Annie (the psychic, superbly played by Brenda Benet) walks down the street, trying not to brush against anyone she passes, is beautiful.

But this is not just an episode about Annie. This one episode is truly about Banner/the Hulk. It seems that once again the Hulk has hurt someone - and this time, the victim dies. David's response is to commit suicide. Of course we know he won't do it and will be back for next week's episode, but Bixby really plays it as if this is the last time he'll ever play David Banner, making the scene one of the most gripping and moving of the series yet.

Plenty of plot turns follow, as McGee gets deeply involved and Annie reveals her remorse over botching a kidnapping case. (I don't get how her power can help solve kidnappings, though, unless she just happened to encounter the victim before the kidnapping took place.) The race to save McGee is marvelously exciting. There's a nice ambiguous ending, as Annie hugs David and gets a vision that we don't see. This is one episode that does it all: insight, action, tragedy, human drama, and even a bit of murder mystery.

Belinda Benet would talk about her psychic powers in this episode and profess that she contemplated suicide when she was younger.

How tragically ironic that she would that very thing for real after the death of her and Bill Bixby's six-year-old son.

Other than that, the episode involved a gang and a member whose death was blamed on the Hulk.

Perhaps one of the few out-of-the-usual-routine episodes, as a cop sees the Hulk toward the beginning, not halfway thru the show and at the end, as the majority of the other episodes do.

And how about that David Banner suicide attempt? Off a balcony into an alleyway? You'd figure Banner might have known of a more Jack Kervorkian approach.

Or maybe this was the best approach?

I never really cared for Brenda Benet as an actress. There was just something about her I did not like. There are other actors/actresses I feel the same way about. However, I just again watched the episode and found myself drawn in to the story, and mostly because of the way Brenda worked off of Bill Bixby. Throw in a good part for Jack Colvin and you have a wonderful episode. Others have commented on the suicide of Brenda a few years later and the passing of Bill and Brenda's child. It's sad that I read she took her own life by the grave site of their boy exactly a year to the date of his death. Bill Bixby blamed her for the boys death which probably did not help her situation. I partly blame him for her death. Anyway, I was watching the special features with Kenneth Johnson, the creator and he said Bill had them write this episode for their son to show his parents getting along. Even with all the sadness surrounding what happened afterwards, this is a special episode.