Template:Featured Article/02 2012

"The Beast Within" is the fourth episode of season one of the sci-fi/superhero television series The Incredible Hulk, which aired for five seasons from 1978 to 1982. The episode was directed by Kenneth Gilbert and written by Karen Harris and Jill Sherman. It first aired on CBS on Friday, March 17th, 1978. In this episode, David Banner takes up a job at a zoo so that he can get close to a scientist who may hold the key towards controlling his anger issues. Doing so however, drops him in the middle of a conspiracy between several of the zoo's administrators. Plus, the Hulk fights a gorilla!

David Banner assumes the alias of David Bradburn and takes up a job as a janitor at a zoo. His true reasons for accepting the position however is so that he can get close to Doctor Claudia Baxter, a scientist who has been working on a theory concerning behavioral traits in animals. After engaging in some chit chat with the chief custodian, Joe, David manages to get himself introduced to Doctor Baxter. She dismisses him at first, and it becomes clear that she is a woman completely consumed by her work. David shows off his scientific prowess and Claudia realizes that he is more than just a mere janitor.

Claudia invites David into her laboratory where they discuss the theory that aggressive behavior in animals may be biochemical and not psychological. This is a theory that interests David at length, but he does not reveal why. Claudia is also knowledgeable of the work of the "late" David Banner, whom she considers brilliant albeit long-winded. Claudia has developed a compound called AGD-4, which she uses in her test subjects. Together, Claudia and David agree to further Banner's theories by testing an experimental behavioral process on a gorilla named Elliott. Read more...