Thursday, July 3, 2014

Helix TV show review



Jun. 9 Helix: I watched the pilot to this Syfy original series back on Jan. 11, 2014.  They aired the second ep “Vector” right after so I saw that too.  On imdb.com:

“A team of scientists are thrust into a potentially life-or-death situation in this thriller, which begins with the group being deployed to the Arctic to secretly investigate what could be a disease outbreak.”

It starts off with “2 Days Ago.”  Dr. Hiroshi Hatake (Hiroyuki Sanada) and his security guard are in bio hazard suits.  They enter a hallway and there is this happy music playing in the lab.  Interesting contrast.  A man is dying as they look at his throat vibrating.

Guard: What is that?
Hatake: Progress.

Cut to CDC office in Atlanta.  Dr. Alan Farragut (Billy Campbell) talks at a meeting.

Alan: There was an outbreak.  You will make sacrifices.

Artic Bio Systems said there is a retrovirus and 2 people are dead.  Julia Walker (Kyra Zagorksy) is Alan’s ex-wife and she tells Alan the news.

Julia: The 3rd patient is Peter.
Alan: My brother.

Day 1.  They fly there.  Dr. Sarah Jordan (Jordan Hayes) and Dr. Doreen Boyle (Catherine Lemieux) are there.

Doreen tells Sarah that Julia slept with Alan’s brother Peter.

They meet Hatake and get injected a chip in their hand so they can enter all the bases.  106 scientists work there.  Julia and Alan go to see Peter and they wear bio hazard suits.  The guard Daniel (Meegwun Fairbrother) said that Hatake adopted him.

Julia draws Peter’s blood and it’s black.  Peter attacks them with a needle and Julia injects Peter with a sedative.

Doreen and Sarah look at a skeleton with black sludge as blood.  Doreen takes off gas mask.

Doreen: It’s not airborne.
The solider Sergio (Mark Ghanime) is also an engineer.
Doreen sees hair that belongs to a monkey.

Julia talks to Hatake.
Hatake: You get more done without outside distractions.

My opinion: That’s true. 

Peter was working on 20 boxes of things when he got infected.  Julia and Alan look at Peter’s vlog (video log).

Sirens rings and Peter escapes.  He is up the ceiling and in the air ducts. 

Hatake: We’re going to put gas in ducts and knock him out.

Doreen and Sergio look for monkeys, even though the guard Daniel says there aren’t any.  They find a lock and Sergio uses liquid nitrogen to freeze the lock to enter.

Alan crawls through vents.

Doreen and Sergio sees cages that smells like monkeys.  A monkey runs away.

Alan sees blood and sees his brother.

The monkey grabs Doreen’s face and Sergio hits it.  They look at the monkey’s body.

Alan also sees a man and he’s chained up in the vent.  He’s dead.

Sarah and Julia research.

Sergio creates this technology and puts it outside.  All these little dead monkeys are in the snow.

The cells in Peter are changing. 

The happy song that was playing at the beginning of the episode is playing again as Peter is walking.  Peter uses the hand that he cut off from the dead man in the air ducts as blood splatters.

Day 2.

3 scientists tell Sarah about how Peter bit them.  They’re in a blue LV room/ isolation unit.

The second episode called “Vector.”

Doreen cuts open a monkey and hears something.  It turns out there are 3 other scientists that have been affected and are running around in the facility.  Alan, Sergio, and Daniel look for Dr. Tracy and her room is empty.  Tracy approaches Doreen.  Tracy looks sick with red eyes and is paranoid.
Julia hears something in vents.  The shelf falls over.

Daniel manages to tie one sick scientist up.

Scientist: How come you can’t evacuate us?
Alan: We’ll take you to the hospital and the doctors and nurses will get infected.  They kiss their kids and they go to school.  The disease will spread.  We can’t evacuate, but we won’t abandon you.

Peter (Neil Napier) attacks Sergio.

Hatake and Julia look at the rats.  The rats break through glass and kills another rat.

The 3 scientists in the isolation unit are getting antsy.  Sarah is grabbed by Bryce with a needle.  Alan enters with a bio hazard suit and takes off his suit and says: “We’re in this together.”

Alan (to Sarah): It’s not airborne anyway.

One scientist is trying to leave by getting on a snowmobile.  Daniel stops him.

Scientist: Unregulated research sounds great and all, but until you actually do it.  We have to tell everybody.
Daniel stabs him.

Doreen brings Dr. Tracy in.
2 scientists run and traps Sarah and Doreen with a sick doctor.

Alan confronts Hatake.
Alan: This is the worst virus I’ve ever seen.

Daniel buries body in the snow.

Sarah’s hand is shaking.

Hatake takes off his eye contacts and his eyes are glowing.

Julia is taking a shower and that happy song is playing.  Peter enters and he throws up blood in her mouth.

My opinion: This is a good show.  The promos advertised it was the producers of Battle star Galatica and The X-Files.  I’m not a fan of those shows.  I didn’t connect with the characters or story, so I didn’t watch it after the second episode.  If you like sci-fi shows, you may like this.

Comparisons:

Sci-fi story set in the north: It reminded me of the Borealis TV movie that was also from Syfy.


A scary story about disease being spread.  The side effects are people become aggressive and kill: That’s like the movie 28 Days Later and I love that movie.

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