Babalao

This episode was disgusting. Apparently black followers of Voodoun are all stupid primitives, who don't know what fireworks are until the white man explains it to them.

Now, certainly I could go on about how silly the plot is, or how hammy the acting is, but it was The Incredible Hulk, and the 70s. Silly I can deal with. What I cannot deal with is such blatant racism and xenophobia directed at a disenfranchised minority religion.

Certainly, it could have been better. And I have no problem with religious leaders as villains (certainly there are plenty in real-life), but that doesn't make every person associated with the religion a drooling idiot.

Well, you can't win 'em all. The third season of "The Incredible Hulk" is the best when it comes to stand-alone episodes but this turkey is the worst offender of the bunch. Season four's "Half Nelson" and season five's "The Phenom" did manage to outdo "Babalao" in terms of being bad, but still, this is pretty horrendous. Overall "The Incredible Hulk" was a good show despite the relatively absurd subject matter.

Thankfully the show's creator Kenneth Johnson found an angle that really worked and he achieved some very good moments with his stellar cast (Bixby, Ferrigno and Colvin) and a solid writing crew. However, as with most series, the show did offer a few offenders and "Babalao" is the first really bad Hulk episode.

Credit to Bixby, he doesn't falter as David Banner here, as he's spewing one ridiculous line after another. The story is meant to be somewhat mystical, with an evil sorcerer known as Babalao terrorizing the folks in New Orleans. Well, the less said about the story here the better.

There is one good Hulk-out here, though. The New Orleans setting is always lovely to look at but there ends the positive concerning this episode. It doesn't reach the "it's so bad it's actually kinda' good" heights like Season Five's "The Phenom" but it's pretty bad.

David Banner(Bill Bixby) is assisting a Dr. Renee DuBois(played by Louise Sorel) in New Orleans during the Mardi Gras as they try to help the local population who are held in a grip of superstitious terror by a local witch doctor/con man named the Babalao(played by Bill Henderson) whose elaborate act is denying the people the proper medical care they need. Determined to drive them both out, the Babalo and his henchman try to scare them off with voodoo, then physical intimidation, as David is once again forced to become the Hulk... Disappointing episode telegraphs all its punches too early, leaving just a standard and uninspired crime plot. Bixby does his best, but episode fails.

This time David plays nurse to a New Orleans doctor who is competing with a voodoo con man for the neighborhood health care.

Heroes fighting to save superstitious folks from voodoo con men was a common enough plot line at the time, but I found this example to be offensively condescending. For starters, Babalao doesn't have any special tricks to get people to believe in his power, just some cheap props and a husky voice. Though some of his patients are cured psychosomatically, the overall message seems to be that voodoo followers are such gullible hicks that they'll believe anyone who claims to be a powerful voodoo priest just because they say so.

Second, David's pretty doctor boss does the voodoo act herself, because if she didn't, people wouldn't believe that she could cure them. Admittedly I know very little about the voodoo religion, but as a rule, believing in a religion doesn't mean disbelieving the effectiveness of scientific methods. The way David and the doc talk to their patients ("The doctor wanted you to have this, uh, mojo") is positively insulting.

This is not to say that this episode isn't entertaining. There's a great funny scene with McGee, and lots of unintentional humor too. Example: Babalao, after making a very cryptic statement about how he intends to take care of David and the doc, lets loose with a cheesy villainous belly laugh, while his partner blandly remarks, "If you say so." But it's all very b-movie in form and content, in a series which typically strives to be much more. And the essential plot has been done elsewhere without blatantly insulting voodoo followers.