Viruses are never a good thing on screen, are they? Always changing people into something horrible. Ever since Danny Boyle’s 2002 classic 28 DAYS LATER had people afflicted with the ‘Rage Virus’, making them go completely nuts and try to eat human flesh, countless films and television shows have used similar ideas to the extent that it’s kind of got a bit stale. Now, SyFy’s new series HELIX seems to be following the trend, featuring such couldn’t-be-more-clichéd lines as:
‘What’s it doing to him?’
‘It’s… changing him’.
‘Into what?’
Award-winning writing right there.
I can’t be too harsh on HELIX just because of that though. An extended trailer has been released for the first season and it actually looks pretty good, despite the apparent similarities to 28 DAYS/MONTHS LATER (a running infected victim about a minute into the trailer looks like it has been plucked straight from one of those films). Set in a research base in the Arctic (a nod to THE THING, perhaps?), HELIX follows a group of CDC scientists as they struggle to survive and find the truth about what is going on. As it is from the producers of such hit shows as LOST and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, it certainly is promising to say the least. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are massive twists that turn the story and it’s predictable concept on its head, just like how it turned out LOST was never about a bunch of plane-crash survivors trying to get off an island.
The show’s cast is led by the brilliant Hiroyuki Sanada (familiar to English-speaking audiences for his roles in THE LAST SAMURAI, SUNSHINE and THE WOLVERINE), who plays research director Dr Hiroshi Hataki. Co-starring are Kyra Zagorsky, Mark Ghanimé, Jordan Hayes, Meegwun Fairbrother, Catherine Lemieux and Neil Napier.
