Helix was a show that could only be called “much anticipated”.  The latest offering by Battlestar Galactica rebooter Ron Moore, this was the latest genre show from Syfy to premiere.  Considering that Syfy has had a solid run of new dramatic series in recent years, at least in terms of getting them off the ground, there was a lot of hope that this would be the next Galactica.  Even if, by many accounts, the premise of the show sounded like a mixture of The Thing meets The Andromeda Strain.

 

In a way, it was exactly like Galactica; at least, a lot like the third season of Galactica, which started off with a promising bang, and then descended into ever-more-ridiculous interpersonal relationships and reveals that left the audience stretching their heads.  There’s even a game-changing season finale, though I suspect that this will end up getting a much better follow-through in Helix’s second season.

 

I’m hard pressed to summarize what the first season of Helix was even about, but I’ll give it a go.  A corporation called Ilaria, run by a council of immortals, has decided that it is necessary to eliminate the vast majority of the mortal human race.  The reasons aren’t entirely clear, but to that effect, Ilaria commissioned the creation of a supervirus (Narvik), one that humans would be all but defenseless to combat.  Narvik would be constructed to allow “activated” immortals to be immune to the virus, of course.  Narvik-A is your typical deadly virus, while Narvik-B turns people into semi-intelligent pseudo-zombies called “vectors”.

 

Ilaria also wanted a cure to Narvik, which was a bit harder to develop.  The idea is that Ilaria can release Narvik into the human population, wait until enough people have died, and then make the cure available.  Of course, not only would this allow Ilaria to effective control the entire world, it would also make the remaining mortals dependent on Ilaria for survival.  Clearly there is more to it than that, or at least, there is a hint of such.

 

All of this comes to light when Dr. Alan Farragut of the CDC is called in to investigate an apparent outbreak.  Why?  Because his brother, Peter, was working with Dr. Hatake, the head of Arctic Biosystems, and became infected along with a lot of other people.  Soon enough, everyone turns out to be related in some crazy way, most notably Julia Walker, who was once raised at the facility in a secret room and carries the latency for immortality, which her father (Dr. Hatake) activates when she becomes infected.

 

It’s as crazy and haphazard as it sounds, and that’s only scratching the surface.  Hatake spends the entire season keeping secrets, even when he’s obviously lying through his teeth, and when questioned about his methods and choices, simply tosses out lines like, “If you only knew!”.  The biggest problem with the first season of Helix is that it never feels like the writers even knew what story they wanted to tell!

 

There seemed to be one purpose for this first season: tell the backstory of Ilaria’s plan with the Narvik virus, introduce the creepy “vectors”, and set up Alan as the only one to stop Ilaria from destroying the world.  Much of which, it seems, is going to happen in the “real world”, not the corridors and labs of Arctic Biosystems.  Having the action take place at Arctic Biosystems was just a convenient way to set the stage for the real story and deliver exposition, it appears.

 

Which is all well and good, except for that little problem that the inter-connections between the characters, not to mention the out-of-nowhere reveals of immortals trying to control the planet, are delivered with all the subtlety of Sci-Fi Saturday camp.  Even worse, by the end of the season, it’s all but obvious that the “outbreak” was intentional, which doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense.  Hatake had the knowledge and resources to create the Narvik virus and had been working on the project for decades, and Alan’s team figures it out within the space of less than two weeks.  It defies reason.

 

My only guess is that we’re supposed to believe that Hatake and Peter wanted Alan and Julia to get the cure or be “activated”, and thus set up the scenario in which Alan could be the one to develop the cure.  The “outbreak” would have been the smokescreen to keep Ilaria out of the picture until the cure was in hand and Hatake could destroy the virus and keep the cure for save-keeping.  Which is all fine, but did not in any way actually require an outbreak and the deaths of dozens of people!  In fact, without the outbreak, the moment Alan’s team arrived, Hatake and Peter could have whisked them off to a meeting room, explained the situation, and dispensed with the ridiculousness in the first place!  (Or just imagine any number of more reasonable scenarios than the insanity that actually transpired.)

 

The campy impression of the series is only heightened by the occasional scene that is clearly set on a stage, where the shading of the green-screened elements doesn’t even come close to matching the lighting on the actors.  Some of the scenes are so bad that one is actually impressed at the abilities of the cast; they do everything possible to sell scenery that rivals 80s Doctor Who!

 

Perhaps the most perplexing thing about Helix is that it earned a second season.  That’s not necessarily a knock on those who enjoyed the show; personally, I’m hoping that the radical shift in focus that the season finale presented is going to give the writers a reason to focus on their strengths.  Rather, Helix wasn’t exactly a blockbuster, and while it’s still early enough that Syfy isn’t carrying the cost of the production, it definitely looks like the show is straining to stay within budget.  The bulk of the season hovered around 1.3 million viewers.  By comparison, Alphas averaged almost 1.8 million viewers in its first season, and barely earned its second season before cancellation.  Helix is going to need a lot of help to survive past the next 13 episodes.