# Helix (SyFy)



## Lenny (Jan 4, 2014)

*Helix* is described by SyFy as:



> Helix is an intense thriller about a team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control who travel to a high-tech research facility in the Arctic, Arctic Biosystems, to investigate a possible disease outbreak, only to find themselves pulled into a terrifying life-and-death struggle that may hold the key to mankind’s salvation or total annihilation. However, the lethal threat is just the tip of the iceberg, and as the virus evolves, the chilling truth begins to unravel.



And you know, they might not be exaggerating that much. The first two episodes are due to air on SyFy on 10th January 2014 (and in the UK on Channel 5, sometime late-January), and as a treat SyFy have released the first fifteen minutes of the first episode: Helix Season 1: First 15 Minutes - YouTube

Parts of the setup sound quite convenient, and I'm not yet convinced I could care about the characters, but after the first fifteen minutes I'm already tense, and quite intrigued. I'm hooked!

Attached to the series are Ron Moore ([new] *Battlestar Galactica*), and Lynda Obst (*Contact*, and the upcoming *Interstellar*), who will be executive producers, and Steven Maeda (who has written for *The X-Files* and the second series of *Lost*) as day-to-day showrunner.

Reading about it on Wikipedia, it sounds like it could be a very interesting series - each episode takes place over the course of one day within the story universe, and rather than using flashbacks (which are usually presented as objectively true), characters will experience feverish hallucinations, which introduces a wonderfully unreliable narrator.

Trailer!


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## Lenny (Jan 11, 2014)

Intelligent main characters (mostly), science that gives the impression it's been well thought out, lots of tension, oodles of intrigue, moments that make you jump, an exciting story... I'm loving *Helix* so far!

The only complaint is that it might lean a little too heavily on well-established tropes (you get flashes of *The Andromeda Strain*, *The Thing*, and *Alien*. I'm sure there's more that I just don't know), but it uses them so well that you can't hold it against Helix.

Very much looking forward to future episodes.


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## ctg (Jan 11, 2014)

I felt there was strong resemblance from the Andromeda Strain and as much as I loved BSG, I cannot see Ronald D Moore doing wrong with this one. Even if he does Caprica's, but it doesn't look that way. Certainly not from the beginning.


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## Handra (Jan 11, 2014)

Lenny said:


> Intelligent main characters (mostly), science that gives the impression it's been well thought out, lots of tension, oodles of intrigue, moments that make you jump, an exciting story... I'm loving *Helix* so far!
> 
> The only complaint is that it might lean a little too heavily on well-established tropes (you get flashes of *The Andromeda Strain*, *The Thing*, and *Alien*. I'm sure there's more that I just don't know), but it uses them so well that you can't hold it against Helix.
> 
> Very much looking forward to future episodes.



Definitely agree! I loved the pilot, I thought it was excellent. Brought back those familiar Lost chills. I do hope it moves away from the virus tropes of Andromeda Strain, The Thing e.t.c. because it looks like it could have so much potential.


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## Lenny (Jan 12, 2014)

The third episode is up online. I couldn't resist. It was awesome. I'll refrain from any discussion until Saturday.

---

For UK viewers, it looks like *Helix* will be starting on Monday 20th January at 22:00, on Channel 5, with the same double episode that was shown in the US.

Helix to air on Channel 5 in the UK | Entertainment Focus


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## Lenny (Feb 15, 2014)

With episode seven, we are now over halfway through the series. Anyone still watching?

Even now I couldn't give one jot about any of the characters, but the show is interesting enough to keep holding my attention, and the way it's burning through mysteries really keeps the pace up.

I still recommend the series, and I'm excited to see what happens as we barrel towards the last couple of episodes.


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## ctg (Dec 4, 2014)

Helix will be back at January 16th on Syfy (US) and in the UK at some point in April.

If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend getting the first season and binge watching it over the holidays. This is what they say about the next instalment:



> Syfy has announced that some big changes are coming to Season 2 of the show, and from the looks of this trailer, it seems those changes are only going to be good (also creepy, did I mention creepy?). While Season 1 primarily stayed put in the Arctic Biosystems lab, Season 2 will get our favorite CDC scientists, still headed up by Dr. Allan Farragut (played by Billy Campbell), out of the labs and into the great outdoors. Upon the discovery of the corpse-filled (plus one lucky survivor) boat that we see in the sneak peek, Dr. Farragut and his team will be heading out to the island that seems to have started this entire mess. Of course, the island is not just your average tropical paradise.


 http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Helix-Season-2-Extended-Trailer-Creepy-Kind-Awesome-68737.html


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## willwallace (Dec 5, 2014)

Well, that looks completely different from season one. The artic was getting boring though.


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## Lenny (Dec 5, 2014)

willwallace said:


> Well, that looks completely different from season one.



It does! Although the first series started very well, it didn't grip me at all by the end, and I was considering giving it up completely... but that trailer is sucking me right back in.


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## willwallace (Dec 5, 2014)

The story itself was good,  but I agree about the characters,  never really cared about them.


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## ctg (Dec 8, 2014)

Second Season Cast

















What is this mansion they're showing in the shots? CDC secret lab or something? It cannot be in that "Island", can it?


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## willwallace (Dec 8, 2014)

Looks too "old-timey"  to be a CDC lab, must be on the island...


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## BAYLOR (Jan 1, 2015)

Season 2 looks interesting.


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## markpud (Jan 8, 2015)

Looking forward to S2.. the first was a real roller-coaster AKA wildly throwing out plot twists like confetti... From the look of the s2 photos etc it doesn't seem to tally with the s1 coda where they were sat at a cafe in France(?) but I'm game for another season of zombie virus, immortals and general craziness!


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## Jesse412 (Jan 17, 2015)

Season 2 episode 1 "San Jose" 



Spoiler



Caleb looked creepy as hell in the gas mask especially at the beginning of the episode when he knocked out Dr. Walker.  The new island setting is pretty eerie and I think they nailed the atmosphere well.  I like that this season seems to be split between two time periods.  "You've never seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?  What kind of an American are you?" made me laugh.  Nice to see Steven Weber show up.  Interesting reveal that Dr. Farragut is on the island hiding as a member of the cult.


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## ctg (Jan 17, 2015)

I was impressed on the beginning of the second season, because it truly and somewhat weirdly connects back to the first one. And the twist that they make is in class of its own. It is almost as if you're watching Inception. And that makes this even more impressive because Syfy series has lately been on absolutely abysmal levels. I haven't even bothered to watch them, as their stories haven't been especially interesting. But Helix, and its apocalyptic strains are ... pure quality in my mind.  

So I hope that they won't cock this one up, because it would be so sad to ditch producer that has brought out series like Farscape and the new BSG. And in my mind Helix is standing among them at the moment. Therefore, if you haven't done it already binge watch the first series and tune into the second one as it looks to be first real treat in the spring season.  



Spoiler



I thought at the beginning that Narvik had been released into the population and the immortals had been waging a war against the humanity, but when they stepped into the boat, and saw those sponge like mushrooms growing from the corpses I knew that it wasn't the case. We were into something that a major number of gamers had seen in the "Last of Us." 

The game of the year that depicted mushrooms zombies and deepening row with the survivors. And Juliana in thirty years later is in that case. She knows that the immortals aren't going to survive the long game if she doesn't find the cure to this strain. However, what we don't know is that has that strain mutated during those three decades, and that fact makes this so much interesting as we see how this whole thing got started.


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## markpud (Jan 21, 2015)

Spoiler



The time jump reveal with the decomposing Rabbit followed by Day 10,000 (ish) was a great twist. It may become hard to sustain over the course of the season though...

I guess substituting the Arctic for an isolated island is somewhat of an upgrade. Interested to find our what happened in Paris between seasons - I think it was mentioned that he blew up the Ilariya office?

High hopes that one of the surprise hits of last year will continue in good form


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## Jesse412 (Jan 31, 2015)

Episode 2 "Reunion" 



Spoiler



was kind of boring.  Not much actually happens.  Sarah finds that Alan is on the island and he refuses to help them.  In the future Julia digs up Alan's grave and discovers it's not his body.  I thought Steven Weber was surprisingly creepy as Michael the cult leader though.



Episode 3 "Scion"  



Spoiler



Nice to see Dr. Hatake show up and I honestly wasn't expecting to see him in the future with Julia.  I like that he's all crazy and hallucinating.  The kids stoning Kyle nearly to death while The Brady Bunch song played was funny.  The dinner table scene at the end was kind of awesome.


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## ctg (Jan 31, 2015)

This new disease isn't as scary as Narvik B.



Spoiler



The islanders, or should I say cultists are far scarier than anything that fungal infection can produce. And those in the inner circle have gone bonkers, where as the mushroom people are predictably crazy. You could even claim they draw parallels to Last Of Us infected. "They might look people, but they aren't there any more," is what Ellie told Sam, and that fact applies to these infected as well.

What I couldn't understand was how Sarah could had known about the stages? Sure she's a highly qualified doctor, but even then she could not have observed whole cycle in three days that they've spent in the island. So how could she had known what stage that infected was when he attacked her and Peter?

Maybe that was a mistake that the writers had slipped in the script , or maybe it was just her intuition. Nevertheless, it looks to me that whole team is still wandering in the dark, not really knowing anything other than that the disease origins are in some rare breed. Breed that they've not seen before. And that makes me believe that Brother Michael had nothing to do with the breed in the first place.

Or then maybe it just an illusion, similar kind to ones Hirosi is seeing in his head. But that is what happen to people who aren't used to being isolated from other ones. They go crazy after a while, or then it's something that comes with the immortality.


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## markpud (Feb 6, 2015)

Spoiler



Last season had a "making it up as we go" feel and this season gives me the same feeling in many ways. Although we can only presume they have some good way to resolve things in the 2 timelines and have somewhere to go afterwards?

The infected islanders don't appear as much of a threat as the Narvik infected did. Plus there's more places to run/hide compared to the Arctic base... 

Question is, how long has this been going on, given the number of skulls & bones on this island?!

Also, the "hand-job" scene was, umm. I have no words actually. Not sure what the dynamic between those 2 is. And if brother Michael is involved in the disease stuff at all. Perhaps his splicing skills have been taken forward without his knowledge?


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## Jesse412 (Feb 14, 2015)

Episode 5 "Oubliette"  



Spoiler



Can't believe Peter snitched on Allen. I'm enjoying Steven Weber as the creepy cult leader.  I don't think I've seen him play a villain before.  Great reveal at the end that he's an immortal.  Wasn't expecting that old lady to be his daughter either.


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## markpud (Feb 15, 2015)

Spoiler



The cult leader Michael being Silver Eyed was spoiled in the trailer after last week's ep. Which was a shame... so he's been there for 500 years and has told his children he's the only one of his kind.. I wonder if this is a long-term Ilaria plan, or a rogue immortal?? Like Hitaki last season, he could be running experiments on humans, just that his experiments have been running much longer.

It is now a bit confusing as we have an immortal cult leader, Peter is secretly working for Ilaria, and Dr Kyle is in league with... someone! Alan is undercover within the cult, but not any more.. and Sarah's still pregnant after getting stabbed in the gut?

Loved the eyeball injection scene, and the hasmat suit chase through the orhard.


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## markpud (Mar 17, 2015)

Spoiler: Ep 7 - Ectogenesis



Dr Kyle made a bad choice to partake of the honey, especially as the coast guard were just coming round the corner to blow the heads off those infected folk..

The fact that this remote island with little or no modern tech has the facility to keep a foetus alive is unlikely.. or is the foetus keeping itself alive at this point? It seems far too big to have come from Sarah's womb, when she wasn't past the first trimester in terms of "showing" etc. Will Landry live to see another hand-job, and what will Amy do about it if not?!


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## willwallace (Mar 17, 2015)

I don't think this season is as good as the first was, so far.  It's not bad, but the storyline is kind of confusing, to me at least.  hopefully they start pulling the threads together soon.


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## ctg (Mar 17, 2015)

willwallace said:


> I don't think this season is as good as the first was, so far. It's not bad, but the storyline is kind of confusing, to me at least. hopefully they start pulling the threads together soon.



This season is excellent. Much better than the last one. They only need to find the tree.


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## markpud (Mar 18, 2015)

On the whole I preferred the total isolation of the Arctic base, and the fact that we had no idea what was going on re Illariya etc. This season has felt like spinning wheels at times, but I'm still enjoying it.


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## Lenny (Mar 18, 2015)

The first half of the first series was fantastic, but I felt it got bogged down with the Ilaria stuff very quickly, and plummeted sharply with the introduction of Mr. Scythe - enough to remove it from my "Must Watch" list. This second series, whilst not reaching the same heights as the first, I think is more consistent, the special effects are fewer (I'm not sure how many more times I could have sat through a sweeping shot of the outside of an Arctic base that looked like it was built in MS Paint), and the Ilaria bits are much less terrible (though that weird girl is definitely on par with Mr. Scythe) - not enough to re-instate it on my "Must Watch" list, but enough to keep it on the "Eh, If I've Nowt Else, Why Not?" list.

One thing they have kept the same over both series, which I like, is the breakneck speed at which they go through storylines! Other shows would have twenty-odd episodes and spend a quarter of them on things *Helix* introduces and resolves within fifteen minutes.


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## markpud (Mar 18, 2015)

Lenny said:


> One thing they have kept the same over both series, which I like, is the breakneck speed at which they go through storylines!


100% agreed! They don't mess about as the Michael situation proves again..


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## willwallace (Mar 18, 2015)

markpud said:


> 100% agreed! They don't mess about as the Michael situation proves again..



That was unexpected, although in hindsight, the ruins of the compound in the future pointed to him being out of the picture one way or another.


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## markpud (Mar 18, 2015)

Yeah but once he resurfaced in the future... 



Spoiler



I didn't expect him to be finished off so quickly! But again with the fast spinning plot wheel-o-fun!


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## markpud (Mar 24, 2015)

Another fun episode...



Spoiler



We found the tree! Dr Kyle is losing it rapidly. Landry is the hunchback of Notre-Dame (and also squished into the floor presumably), and he's also Amy's sister, so eww incest!

The revelations that Sarah was only "silvered" successfully because Julia was recently "silvered" and her DNA hadn't yet solidified or whatever... was interesting. I forget how Hitake converted Julia last season though?

Is Sergio also dead after that fall?

The army base is gone, so we have a few more guns but no way off the island again? Or at least the coastguard will have to send a ship from elsewhere...

All building nicely towards the finale!


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## Lenny (Apr 4, 2015)

Spoiler: 2.12: Ascendant



As cool as the time-jumps in the first half of the series were, they spoil scenes such as the one that ended this episode - Alan and Julia facing off with guns, threatening to kill the other, screen goes black, gunshot... and we know that neither are in real danger. Julia will show up thirty years later looking for Alan's rumoured grave. At most, Alan may have been mortally wounded, but it wouldn't be the best decision to off him unless the creators are absolutely certain they're being cancelled, so he's most likely safe.

Even though it's looked, from the beginning, that present-Julia would fail in her quest to stop Narvik-C, I'm starting to think that she does actually succeed - she manages to get the fungus back to Ilayria, and convinces them of its ability to make people infertile, within the next 24 hours (though it would make for a more exciting story if Julia was too late to prevent a first wave of Narvik-C in some remote country or continent - we could then have a third series where the CDC team is trying to cure a zombie population in an urban setting). She does all the gene-splicing, everything is sorted in a couple of years, the population starts becoming infertile, and then, in twenty-odd years time, after a generation or so of everyone, including the immortals, eating the descendants of the fungus genes, Michael's final Gift to the people is discovered - the fungus causes infertility in people, and is highly dangerous to his kind. Bish bash bosh, immortal plague, leading nicely to future-Julia having to return to the island, and Mother, to try and rediscover the CDC's original cure for the mortal-afflicting variant of the disease.


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## ctg (Apr 4, 2015)

I don't know what happened to the thirty years into the future thing, but I do hope Helix gets one more season. It certainly deserves one to explain things they cannot explain in this one, and if they do it, maybe they should for sake of sanity try to give a bit more room for the writers to expand on what's been missing in this and in the first season.



Spoiler



I don't think immortal baby will make it off from the island. Also it looks like the final episode will have a proper confrontation between the US Navy and the crazy people, because if the future spoilers the monastery is in ruins and there's an abandoned destroyer sitting in the island harbour.





> *March 12, 2015* – Syfy hands *12 Monkeys* a second season renewal, leaving _Helix_ with an uncertain future. _12 Monkeys_ hasn’t exactly been a ratings beast for the network, but it swings slightly higher ratings and is critically-acclaimed.
> 
> *March 10, 2015* – Syfy makes some room in its heavily populated slate by dumping *Ascension*, _potentially_ opening the door for a _Helix_ Season 3 renewal. It’s worth noting, however, that _Ascension_ averaged higher ratings than _Helix _– though the ‘limited event series’ space opera was always something of an experiment, albeit one the network had high hopes for.
> 
> *January 20, 2015* – _Helix_ Season 2 opens to a 0.3 18-49 rating and 1 million viewers, down three tenths on the series premiere (0.6) and one tenth on last summer’s Season 1 finale (0.4). Not the infectious return _Helix_ was looking for to help those Season 3 hopes, but Syfy will wait to see how the upcoming episodes do, while assessing the performance of its other series, such as *Ascension *and _*12 Monkeys*_.


 http://seriable.com/helix-cancelled-renewed-season-3/


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## Lenny (Apr 11, 2015)

Spoiler: 2.13: O Brave New World



Welp, I was totally wrong! 

Caleb being Soren - with Soren having an extended role, we should have seen this one coming, what with the fella in the future looking the right sort of age to have been born this decade. I think the extra eye is what threw me.

Ilaryia playing Julia - maybe should have seen this coming, too! Still, a nice twist, and one that's going to put Julia up against Ilaryia. Though not with Alan, seeing as she did not know that...

Alan and Hatake are killing the Immortals! - was everyone on the island in the future put there by Alan? I wonder why Hatake would agree to go along with creating a virus that targets Immortals? And what happens to Jordan in thirty years, particularly as she, eventually... ?

[Jordan] throws her lot in with Ilaryia - huh. Probably something to do with Ilaryia being the only people who can help her keep her child alive. If so, you'd expect her to become quite knowledgeable about pregnancy, so her position in 2029 would make sense. I wonder if she's also working within Ilaryia, using them to try and age her child?

On the subject of aging, Alan is Immortal - poor guy. Didn't expect this one. When the doctor shook his head, I assumed it meant nothing could be done for Jordan's child and that it had died (come on, a lingering shot of a stuffed toy in the waiting room clearly means it's a children's ward!), and I made no connection to her locking the door to Alan's room. Though I did wonder why, if her child had died, Jordan still had her jar-carrying backpack on her shoulders in Alan's room.

Kyle turning in Peter - this one confuses me a little. I get why he'd turn in Peter, but I thought Kyle was there for Alan, seeing as Alan was the internationally-hunted criminal who had blown up some buildings. Surely whichever authority Kyle was working for know the difference between two brothers?

---

I'd assume a third series might also jump forward in time, and would deal with the infertility of the population, and see Alan and Hatake working on TXM-7.



A third series would be nice, but it's looking improbably - *Helix* has gone from around 1.5 million viewers in the first series, to just 500,000 this series. A huge drop for something that wasn't widely watched in the first place, and not something that would help the chances for a third series which, you'd assume, would have a large CGI budget.


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## ZombieWife (Apr 12, 2015)

It's a solid show.  I don't feel like it gets enough PR and advertising here in the states, though.


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## ctg (May 1, 2015)

> The Syfy show *Helix,*created by Cameron Porsandeh and produced by Ronald D Moore will not be returning for a third season.
> 
> THR reports that the series, which starred Billy Campbell and Kyra Zagorsky as CDC scientists fighting a potentially devastating outbreak, first in the Arctic and then in St Germain, has been cancelled after two seasons.
> 
> ...


 http://www.scifinow.co.uk/news/helix-season-3-cancelled-by-syfy/


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## Lenny (May 1, 2015)

Ah well. Not a huge surprise.


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## willwallace (May 1, 2015)

I hate when shows just end with no resolution.  Maybe Netflix will pick it up and finish it in one last season.


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