1 out of 5

Created by: Cameron Porsandeh

Covers season 1

Apparently we are so desperate for some new hard sci-fi on TV that enough of us will patronize dreck like ‘Helix’ to award it a season 2.  Generally, my opinion will align with the masses, so I can only assume that we were all tuning in week to week because… really… it can’t just be about this, right?  The show that’s dressed up like Twin Peaks, that ScyFy flashes “What’s Going On?” bumpers for the website during airtime, as though the twists are flying at us from all sides…  Certainly each obvious plot point is just leading toward something at least moderately original, yes?  I’ll give it one more week to prove itself and then…  Sigh.  And then I’m addicted to TV.  And we give it more than one week because it’s a god awful train wreck and we love to punish ourselves with 40 minutes of poor scripting and CGI.

Plenty of shows have underwhelming first episodes, or first story arcs, setting up the pieces that will pay off later in the season.  But as ‘Helix’ promised something a bit tighter via its ‘day 1′ = episode 1 structure, there would only be slightly less than two weeks of in-universe time to shuffle through what’s in store.  This could still work if that underwhelmingness turned out to be a simmer, but then the show would go for broke by flashing us results of the virus outbreak which kicks off events, and it was always exactly what you were expecting – crazed, drooling zombie-ers who, for whatever fucking reason, like to attack humans.  Oh, right, it’s a virus, so they’re doing this to spread the disease.

So CDC man Alan Farragut is called to arctic research station run by Dr. Hatake, as there have been reports of a wackadoo outbreak.  Wouldn’t ya’ know, one of the outbreak’s victims is Farragut’s brother, Peter, who had been banging Alan’s ex-wife Julia, who is a blah-blah-blah specialist in the viral field and thus along for the ride as well, miffing Alan’s current crushing-on-him Dr. Sarah Jordan, also a blah-blah-blah specialist.  Sweet, we love unnecessary soap opera plotlines crammed into our tightly-scripted sci-fi.  Correction: we don’t love this bullshit.  We don’t give a fucking fuck about the pensive Alan, or the bitchy Julia, or the too-sweet Sarah, so why would we care about their relationship woes?  And thus it becomes blatantly obvious that it’s just fluff to stretch out the little plot that’s there.  Which pretty much accounts for eeeeevvvvery aspect of the plot from here on out.

Upon investigating the outbreak, some mystery is stirred when it’s realized that Hatake is more interested in studying the outbreak than containing it, and details point to the virus being “made” for some external purpose or perhaps power…  Cool, fine, that’s more what we’re looking for.  Except any possible suspense is ruined by the lazy scripting devices of “Don’t worry about that right now…” excuses or Hatake looking away and ending every sentence ambiguously and cryptically, pretty much leaving everyone except for the main characters clued in to that he’s up to something.  And we also, very early, cross the line into expendable body count territory – just as we’re warming up to our main CDC crew, one of them is stupidly offed and the murder hastily covered up.  We didn’t really care about the character at that point, just starting to feel her out, really, so it was a bad sign – a kill intended to play to our non-existent sympathies and to trigger more conspiracy theories when we’re not sure what we’re conspiring against.

As the show unrealistically stumbles through its 13 “days”, all of this just continues to pile up.  There’s no reprieve.  Any semi-interesting moment has been telegraphed hours ahead, and the technique that was slightly appealing in the first couple eps – cutesy music with violent or dreary goings-on – quickly becomes cloying when you feel like there’s nothing really supporting the kitsch.  This outbreak story is nothing new for TV or movies, and ‘Helix’ doesn’t have anything fresh to add to the formula or the way in which it’s telling the tale.  The action is all humdrum, the direction drags, and setting aside the Ugh CGI, even the production is boring.  An arctic research station – fine, sterile whites and blues, expected – but they could’ve had more fun with the sets and outfits than all the stock labs and sweaters.

Piffle.  Here’s where I would try to offer some positives about whatever I’m reviewing.

*cough*