Recently an article from Giant Freaking Robot popped up that caught my eye. In it, the author talks about a former SyFy series called "Helix". The show was a science fiction horror series and was helmed by legendary writer Ronald D. Moore. The famed sci-fi genius, who made Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica into must-sees was trying his hand at a new genre and its first season went as well as you could hope.
It was your run-of-the-mill zombie story, that featured Star Trek alum Billy Campbell (Thadiun Okona) and famed character actor Hiroyuki Sanada. Kyra Zagorsky, who had a run for a while with various sci-fi and supernatural shows, also co-starred. The show had some heft to its writing, with Steven Maeda, famed X-Files writer. With the actors of high quality and some of the best writers the world of sci-had to see, it looked like the show would be a slam dunk.
It looked like a surefire hit. Initially, it was close to two million viewers at the start of the series. Those numbers were fairly close to the top-rated shows on the network, like Eureka (4.1 million) and Battlestar Galactica (3.2). Had Helix kept the fan support at or near that number, it's likely the series would've gotten the conventional 'SyFy 5'. But poor writing and convoluted concepts like immortality and a holistic cult derailed the series.
The concept of the show started to fracture at the end of the first season, with the series starting off strong but failing to develop beyond a solid idea. Stuck in the Arctic, a zombie outbreak of sorts breaks out on the lower level of a science base, forcing the CDC to act and send agents in.
From there, you'd expect something akin to The Walking Dead or World War Z. Heck, any number of Borg-centric episodes in Star Trek would've been a solid basis for this concept. Instead, probably due to the fatique that the zombie media was facing already in 2012, Helix went off the rails.
Telegraphed betrayals, outlandish motifs, a child who is immortal, and other dogged concepts flooded the last few episodes of the season, turning fans off. It wasn't the masterpiece we had hoped it'd be. While Star Trek fans were delighted to see Jeri Ryan as a regular character for the season, they didn't get the same bang for their buck as the series continued on.
The whole thing fell apart in season two. While Steven Weber made for some interesting scenes, the story had lost its luster and any concept that was worth saving died with the new developments that had to be made to keep the show going.
Some may see this as a forgotten masterpiece by Moore, but I remember it as an utter flop that had all the potential in the world. You'd be best advised to miss out on this series, as you'll only grow ever more disappointed with what could've been had it been made in a different era.