The Quiet Room

This ep asks you to leave your brain at the door, which I guess is only appropriate, since it takes place at a sanitarium. One of the doctors has developed a brain surgery which restores even the most violent patients into happy, well-adjusted members of society. The pace is too slow from the start; it's immediately apparent from the dialogue's many variations of "What a wondrous cure for mental patients the benevolent Dr. Moreau has created!" there's something rotten in a back room, but the episode takes 13 minutes to get to that point.

The secret is Dr. Moreau's surgery also makes the patients susceptible to mind control, and he plans to sell the procedure to the highest bidder. David makes off with a videotape of evidence, but realizing he's about to be caught, he chucks it under a bush.

Here's where the episode loses all credibility. Moreau and his henchmen inexplicably cannot find the tape. Whenever they ask "Where did you hide that tape, David?", I wanted to shout "Did it occur to you to check the place where you found him, geniuses?" But the stupidity gets much worse: they plan to use Moreau's surgery on David. When Moreau tells Dr. Hill this, she shrugs, as if performing experimental brain surgery without the permission of the patient or his next of kin were something doctors do every day instead of a guaranteed ticket to prison.

A lot of drama is built around the hidden tape, so I guess the writers were shooting for an award for Most Anticlimactic Resolution, because not only does Moreau get the tape in the end, but it turns out he was going to show it to Dr. Hill anyway. Which also makes no sense, because all showing her the tape does is introduce the risk of her turning against him. Still, the mental patients are fun, so the episode isn't a *total* loss.

David 'Balland' is working as an orderly at Valley View Sanatorium, when he discovers that a doctor is performing unethical experiments of mind control on the patients.

Then, David is put in a straitjacket and locked up to keep him quiet after he confronts the mad doctor about his unethical methods and threatens to show his incriminating video to the authorities ... later, his straight jacket is ripped up when the Hulk enters the picture, but Banner is caught again after his transformation and is drugged. The videotape, however, is lost in the grounds somewhere ...

Quite an entertaining episode with an interesting setting -a sanatorium. David, at first, thinks the doctor is a genius as all the patients suddenly are cured, but later learns that mind control methods are used.

David is working at a mental hospital as an attendant. While marveling at the work of Dr Murrow who seems to be curing violent patients with surgery, he later walks in as the doctor is viewing a tape that in fact, shows that Murrow is conducting clandestine mind-control experiments and his "surgery" is in reality, high-tech lobotomies making the subject more easily to obey orders (along the lines of The Manchurian Candidate). Murrow reveals some of the staff were in fact patients and because David has witnessed the tape, demands he cooperate...or be committed himself. David chooses to run for it-and then absconds with the incriminating tape, hiding it in some bushes in the garden. Before he can escape, he's beaten unconscious by two attendants and...wakes up in a straitjacket, strapped down in a padded cell-"The Quiet Room" of the title. His one ally-the female Dr. Hill who David seems to have developed a liking to- is called and Murrow tells her he's homicidally paranoid and must be medicated immediately and prepared for the surgery. Of course,in view of doctors,and attendants, Banner thrashes and struggles telling Dr Hill he's lying -"he's gotta be stopped,don't let him get the tape!"- which only worsens his case. As they go to prepare some powerful medication, he panics, hulks out,bursts out of the straitjacket and escapes-briefly onto the hospital grounds-and is re-captured and given a double dose of meds and is restrained in bed again. A fellow patient, "Houdini" helps him with another escape attempt which fails. David begs Dr Hill to listen to him,("We're always here to listen" she says therapeutically)and she in turn implores him to reveal where he hid the tape- but she begins to believe something in his story, and she agrees to reduce his medication and take his restraints off-but he's still scheduled for surgery. Finally, another patient finds the missing tape and Dr. Hill sees it- but plays along. As he's wheeled to surgery,he knows his fate depends on whether she will help him or will it take the power of the Hulk, or both?

A familiar theme explored in episodes of Mannix, The Rockford Files and films like The Fifth Floor-of when sane,desperate pleas are seen as insanity given the surroundings of an asylum, a corrupt doctor's diagnosis and how will the "sane" victim prevail? In one scene, he begs a laundry truck driver to help him get out-the driver only turns him into the attendants as he clings to a bag of laundry in sheer desperation-"Look I'm not a patient here..I have to get out" Banner(in pajamas) pleads, and the driver goes "Sure buddy, just get in the truck and I'll let you know when it's safe". Later, Banner appears completely resigned,pacing about his padded cell everything working against him, Bixby acts the character as if, this time, he's truly given up.

The truth is that even in 1979, patients couldn't be involuntarily operated on so while it was an excellent episode, it had some far fetched elements that were more out of the 1940's.

Another winner from Hulk writers, and story editors, Karen Harris and Jill Sherman, and it also happens to be one of my favorite episodes of the series. Why? Well, it's got a worthy and very credible adversary - in this case a deranged psychologist who has nothing less in mind than the controlling of his patients' minds with a controversial surgical technique. Sure, it smacks of The Manchurian Candidate, but it's eerily believable here. Everyone in the hospital seems to be under his spell, and he can oppress any troublemakers simply by keeping them in a constant, heavily drugged state and saying they're insane, like he does to David.

Lots of other good stuff going on here - I liked the way they didn't waste any writer's time setting up David's situation: he starts off as an orderly (it's explained that the head nurse noticed his credentials and promoted him from janitor) and he goes from there. And there's a clever take here on the witnessing of David's transformation - a bunch of patients literally see him change back from the creature. But of course his identity's safe, since who's going to believe mental patients? And maybe I'm wrong but that scene where the Hulk throws a safe out the window to break free from his "Quiet Room" seems an awful lot like the (spoiler alert!) scene at the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest when the Chief hurls that sink out the window to allow his escape. I'm just saying.

If I had any qualms about the show, it would have to be that I the doctor's master plan wasn't 100% clear or credible. The videotape he took was of a guy whom he ordered to shoot a girl, but that guy should've been someone he just operated on, to make it clear. And maybe some more realistic explanation of how the surgery does actually affect behavior, instead of some scientific gobbledygook, could've helped.

But overall, a very solid show. And, despite its time period (they were still calling mental health facilities "sanitariums") it's not too dated. Two excellent hulk-outs, one involving a straitjacket, the other a frustrating phone call as the heroine is undergoing a very involuntary surgery. Penultimate season two show is no wonder why the series was a ratings dynamo and was easily picked up for season three.

BTW: That videotape is an actual VHS videocassette. Since this is early 1979, it's most likely the first time the mass viewing audience ever saw such an item. It was definitely the first time I ever did.

David Banner(Bill Bixby) is working as an orderly in Valley View Sanitarium interested in the work of Dr. Morrow(Philip Abbott) who has shown progress with subduing the rage in violent patients. Unfortunately, Dr. Morrow is also conducting illegal and unethical mind control experiments for nefarious reasons, and after David witnesses such a session, grabs and hides an incriminating audio tape, but is captured after and put in a strait-jacket. Of course, that will not hold the Hulk, and after David escapes must find his way to get the tape back and expose the bad doctor. Fine if disturbing episode has poor David in a bad predicament that only the Hulk can solve.