Following up on the super-creepy trailer that Syfy released earlier this month for Ronald D. Moore’s new drama Helix, Syfy has released an extended trailer, which fills out the plot a bit more, adding onto the suspense from the original trailer by teasing some interesting conflict.
Executive produced by Ronald D. Moore, Steven Maeda and Lynda Obst, Helix stars Billy Campbell as Dr. Alan Farragut, the head of a CDC outbreak field team that’s called to investigate and attempt to control a potential outbreak at a high-tech research facility in the Arctic. The situation is serious, and as the above trailer indicates, it’s also personal, as Farragut’s brother Peter (Neil Napier) appears to have fallen ill. Whatever this virus is, it seems to have some severe side effects, which take a pretty drastic toll on people’s physical (and possibly mental?) wellbeing.
The disease side of the story seems set up almost like a horror, especially when we consider that these people are contained in this middle-of-nowhere icy location. And the trailer hints that there’s more going on here than what anyone seems to be prepared for, so I’m anticipating mystery ask well.
And then there’s the matter of who’s in charge. One of the things the trailer seems to tease is that this Arctic facility is set in a place where there’s no jurisdiction. There are 106 scientists from 35 countries, not to mention military people. Who exactly is in charge here?
I got to visit the set of Helix last month. One of the things co-Executive producer Cameron Porsandeh told us was that the chain of command at this facility isn’t very rigid, which kind of complicates things:
Dr. Hiroshi Hitaki, it’s his facility. The CDC has a type of jurisdiction. It’s never entirely clear who’s in charge. Yes, you have military people there, with its own agenda as well. If there was a rigid hierarchy, a lot of these processes would move in a more efficient way, but because there isn’t, these characters are at odds with each other. And there’s really no way to enforce the hierarchy regardless. I said this earlier too, but it really is the wild west, in a sense, because even if there were rules, they wouldn’t follow them once the shit hits the fan, and shit is about to hit the fan. So, all rules are off.
Exciting stuff!
Here’s a photo of a prop monkey that I took on the set:
See more photos here.
Helix returns on Friday, January 10 at 10/9c on Syfy. The cast includes Billy Campbell, Hiroyuki Sanada, Mark Ghanime, Jordan Hayes, Kyra Zagorsky, Catherine Lemieux and Meegwun Fairbrother.
