A doctor presumed dead after a radiation accident walks across America under false names, helping the people he meets, hunted by a reporter who wants a photograph.
For a whole generation this was the Hulk. David Banner is officially dead, moves from town to town taking casual work under a series of assumed surnames, and tries not to be provoked. Each week he fails, and the transformation is played as a private catastrophe rather than as an action beat.
The format is the western: a stranger arrives, helps somebody, and has to leave before he is recognised. It ran for eighty episodes across five seasons on CBS.
Show detailsWhat the eighty does not include
The series began with a two-hour pilot broadcast on 4 November 1977, and a second feature-length pilot followed later that month. The eighty episodes ran from 1978 to 1982.
This entry records the first broadcast date and the eighty regular episodes, which means the date and the count are describing different things. The reference article has the same inconsistency, and its own two pages disagree by a day about the second pilot’s date.
The forty-nine minute runtime is the median of a stated range and does not describe the pilots, which were feature length.
How it connects
This one sets these up.
Sources
- The Incredible Hulk (1978 TV series), Wikipedia
- List of The Incredible Hulk (1978 TV series) episodes, Wikipedia
Facts last checked on Sep 7, 2026
Released: November 4, 1977