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SyFy's Helix Season 1 (1 Viewer)

mattCR

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Premiered tonight. A new twist on the super-virus of the future and a team wrking t deal with the results.. Ron Moore (BSG) etc. all involved.

Decent to solid premiere.
 

jcroy

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First episode didn't really catch my attention at all. (Though the premise of this show is something that is up my alley).

I'll watch the next several episodes to see whether things improve or not.
 

joshEH

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Just watched this on Hulu. Solid premiere.

Nine minutes in, and somebody already said "Frakked up."

The third leg of the love triangle is either going to die, or there will be some rage-zombie lovin'. So I'll stick around for either result.
 

mattCR

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Well. the second episode, available on demand lays out a ton of ... just damn. This is kind of a mix of a bunch of different concepts, but this is like '28 days later' told from the side of the virus designer. The second episode I thought built on and improved the core, and it is definitely one of the creepier things I've seen hit TV in a while; there were more then a few moments that completely caught me off guard.

Love the soundtrack.
 

dana martin

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caught the pilot, last night as well, and was happy that SyFy, have finally decided to go with something good for a change, Moody as hell, and as matt mentioned, I love how completely disarming the use of the soundtrack is. It's the elevator ride to hell;

I know it got a full season of 10-13 episodes, does anyone know if this is a limited run, like AHS, one season and that is it?
 

dana martin

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there was an interview with RDM about this, considering that his is producing it, and if this was going to use some of the ideas that was in his "The Thing" script, because of the similarities of location, and outbreak, he stated no, that the script was all the two writers, but maybe a little tweaking, but it was a great story, like his work on ST:TNG or BSG or Carnival, the guy can write damn good entertainment, so I am waiting to see what this has in store. by the way. Syfy has a pretty good website dedicated to this , you don't need to get a shot in the hand to get complete access, but I haven't seen any monkeys, either.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Billy Campbell was predictably terrific as the head of the CDC team and Hiroyuki Sanada was suitably menacing and mysterious as the head of research at the facility. Jeffrey Reiner, who has become a reliably great TV director on shows like "Friday Night Lights", "The Event", "Awake" and "Homeland" as well as the pilot for "Caprica", did a great job setting the mood and establishing a very creepy environment for this story. It's a credit to Brad Turner that his second half felt like a seamless continuation. I like that there was at least some effort to keep the atmospherics and horror tropes from overwhelming the drier scientific practices and procedures. Neil Napier makes a great vampire-zombie.On the other hand, the script managed to cram in just about every cliche of the genre into the first 80 minutes of story, and the supporting cast seems to come from Syfy's sub-par Canadian central casting. I swear, Syfy must do for out-of-work Canadian actors what the Law & Order franchises do for out of work Broadway actors. Jordan Hayes and Kyra Zagorsky were beautiful but unexceptional as Farragut's current and former proteges. Mark Ghanimé is in a tough spot because the show's trying to do so many things with his character simultaneously: he's the soldier who's actually a desk jockey/engineer but actually is a cold-blooded killer and may or may not be operating on the US military's behalf. If that doesn't always track well, it's not a huge surprise. But by far, Catherine Lemieux is the worst of the pack. Her performance would have felt at home in a Syfy Original Movie, it's so bad. Her over-the-top redneck/Southern accent ebbs and flows from scene to scene, and she's in no way believable as a CDC scientist. I did think she brought something interesting to scene where one of the escaped infected confronted her in the monkey pen, but otherwise she was just awful.
 

DaveF

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I watched the 90-min premiere with limited commercial interruptions. The first half was splendid, or very nearly so. It was austere and moody. The aural irony from the score was perfectly unsettling. I haven't felt that off kilter perhaps since the videogame Portal, and it's use of Smooth Jazz juxtaposed to the struggle against a maniacal supercomputer. The second half lost the minimalism. It wasn't as extreme a shift as with last years The Amercians, with its dramatic shift in soundtrack and cinematic lighting after the pilot. But it was noticeable. It became more pedestrian in the second half.Bit it kept key bits. That jaunty tropical tune that shows up when it should be X-Files ominous music. The leads are moody. And the makeup is amazing for infected Peter. And the CG fx is competent.It's not a watershed like the BSG miniseries was. And I'm not sure it's as good as the surprising Defiance. But the start was creepy, sci-fi fun. And it's not totally zombies (I've realized that I'm not a zombie fan). So I'll give it a go.
 

DaveF

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Adam Lenhardt said:
But by far, Catherine Lemieux is the worst of the pack. Her performance would have felt at home in a Syfy Original Movie, it's so bad. Her over-the-top redneck/Southern accent ebbs and flows from scene to scene, and she's in no way believable as a CDC scientist. I did think she brought something interesting to scene where one of the escaped infected confronted her in the monkey pen, but otherwise she was just awful.
Her scene doing the dissection, listening to that crazy jaunty music, was super. And I liked her character. She's not an impossibly beautiful woman. But nor is she playing an impossibly quirky genius. The actress could be better. The accent was on a slip-n-slide ride as it caromed about. But the character is a balance the show benefits from.
 

dana martin

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Cerebral, is the best I can say of the second ep, no happy up lifting music, Campbell does a great job, admitted a few things do get a clearer picture. and I love the usage of hallucinations, but the great part is nothing is just given away. Still trying to figure the tremor in the hand, and the scar on the back leaves more open questions. Every time I see that black blood, I keep expecting Mulder and Scully.

looking forward to see how this continues. I don't see a happy end to this
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Decent third episode. The destruction of the satellite uplink creates a locked room environment much like the island environment of And Then There Were None.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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She was credited as a guest star in the first four episodes, so it didn't surprise me that she wasn't long for this world. That being said, her manner of death was absolutely horrific.
 

Joe_H

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Agreed on the way she died, but if anyone had to go I'm glad it was her. Like mentioned above by others, I found her to be terrible in the role, and the slipping accent was driving me crazy.
 

dana martin

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Adam Lenhardt said:
She was credited as a guest star in the first four episodes, so it didn't surprise me that she wasn't long for this world. That being said, her manner of death was absolutely horrific.
this weeks ep, well I wouldn't use horrific to describe use Doreen's death, but then I am balancing this and AHS: Coven, so but I can see how, use the person to get the answers you need, then make them go away.

Tumor=Tremors, is there a possible cure in this place?

Alan trying to save Peter and everyone on the lower level, is the most compassionate person on this, but will that change, also liked the fact that his brother said he was there doing shi* work, so what did they not want him to know what was going on?

Hatake - ok the eyes in the first ep was freaky, but what makes him immune, that he can stare one of the infected in the face and it just leaves him alone
 

mattCR

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dana martin said:
Hatake - ok the eyes in the first ep was freaky, but what makes him immune, that he can stare one of the infected in the face and it just leaves him alone
This will be the ongoing mystery part.. what is going on with this mutant DNA that's being freight-trained. And, who is it that is completely immune to it?
 

NeilO

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dana martin said:
this weeks ep, well I wouldn't use horrific to describe use Doreen's death, but then I am balancing this and AHS: Coven, so but I can see how, use the person to get the answers you need, then make them go away.

.....

Hatake - ok the eyes in the first ep was freaky, but what makes him immune, that he can stare one of the infected in the face and it just leaves him alone
Ever since Doreen found the monkey I thought she wasn't long for this series and now she's gone. What is the soldier going to do with the information? We know he can communicate with his employers, but just what do they want?

Somehow the virus has some subservience to Hatake in it? Just weird how he could walk right by.

And Walker was at the base in her youth and doesn't remember it. Hatake knew her then?
 

dana martin

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NeilO said:
And Walker was at the base in her youth and doesn't remember it. Hatake knew her then?
wife brought up that Hatake, "adopted" the guy from security, so maybe she was the first child that he tried to "Mold" in a different image, but something happened so she went away, if so we are talking about a God Complex, the likes of which hasn't been seen on TV before.
 

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