I got my first look at the Television pilot of the 1970s live-action version of the Incredible Hulk with Bill Bixby playing the title role. The series begins with some promise.

Dr. David Banner feels guilty after he was unable to rescue his wife from their burning car. He takes part in research of people who did save others in times of crisis with superhuman strength. He discovers that while he shares similar genes with them, the son was omitting a low amount of Gamma radiation on the day his wife died.

Upon reaching this discovery he, of course, sets about to inject himself with 300,000 units of Gamma radiation but puts it on maximum level, but unbeknownst to him a technician had amped up the output of the machine and hadn't bothered to calculate how much it actually could give and so Dr. Banner got himself nearly 2 million units of Gamma radiation.

We probably shouldn't dwell too much on this because the science of superheroes is always silly when you think about it, we've just learned better to keep a straight face over the years and to try and make our scientific leaps a little more plausible.

Unfortunately, the pseudo-science and its methods took up quite a bit of time in this pilot which was distracting. The story showed definite potential in two ways. The action was good. While this wasn't the CGI creation of the recent films, the Hulk in Live Action looked pretty good for being from 30 years ago.

In addition, while radically changing the comic book character, they managed to capture the sort of sadness and tragic nature of the character that makes him connect with audiences. Banner and the Hulk are both quite a bit misunderstood.

Overall, I'll look forward to another look at Bill Bixby's Incredible Hulk.