Helix Quarantines You WIth Three Chilling New Teasers

Usually it takes J.J. Abrams involvement with a TV show to turn it into an endless promotional campaign, but Syfy is trying to make everyone on Earth aware that Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica) has a new show on the horizon, the sci-fi thriller Helix. They’ve been releasing promo after promo on a day to day basis leading up to the series’ premiere on Friday, January 10, and we have the latest three for you. While it seems like (and probably is) overkill, each clip is as strong as the next, and Helix honestly does look like one of the better original projects Syfy has gotten around to making in recent years. Thankfully, I no longer think it looks like a ripoff of John Carpenter’s The Thing, but how different it is remains to be seen.

The clip seen above, “Two Weeks” was released around two weeks before the premiere – timely! – and drives home the fact that the disease unleashed at the Arctic Biosystems research facility will not be taking its time in spreading to the rest of the population, and Dr. Alan Farragut (Billy Campbell) says it could take over all the major cities of the world in just four weeks. It’s an evolving virus that they’re dealing with, and it isn’t clear exactly how it can be spread, but we do know that it turns those infected into veiny, feral, blood-faced maniacs.

It also isn’t clear if these previews are only showing us scenes from the first episode, or if they’re incorporating the entire season into this. The team of CDC scientists is quarantined as soon as the outbreak occurs, but I can’t imagine they introduce the zombified victims in the very first episode, because it doesn’t seem like they’d be able to retain that kind of high-intensity drama for the season’s 13 episodes. And I dare not think of how the story may change if it gets picked up for another season.

Beyond showing just how trapped and seemingly helpless everyone is, the below clip refers to the base sending out a distress signal, so it’s possible not all of the narrative will take place in the Arctic. And it plays up the whodunnit angle, making it look like one or more of the doctors are to blame for bringing the deadly organisms into existence. Somebody’s always got other plans.

And what the hell is this thing?

Finally, this shortened clip shows the team heading to the research station, plus a bunch of black ooze leaking out of a body bag. Those kinds of images are the ones that make me excited for Helix, because I have no idea what they mean.

Luckily, we’ll find out what this mystery is all about in just a couple of weeks, when the first two episodes of the series air back-to-back with limited commercial interruption. I assume at least one of those commercials will be a trailer for MegaShark vs. Helix Monster.