Helix: Season One

HELIX:
Two days ago there was an outbreak at a research facility in the Arctic killing two people. Calling the Center for Disease Control to help with the outbreak are Dr.'s Alan Farragut (played by Billy Campbell) and Julia Walker (played by Kyra Zagorsky). Once at the biosystems research facility, Alan learns that his brother Peter (played by Neil Napier) has been infected with some mysterious plague and it's now causing him to act wild and lash out at everyone. Afraid of an outbreak that could not only kill everyone at the facility but possibly the world, everyone at the facility fights to keep the plague controlled and locked down. While the army has it's own agenda at the facility and with the plague, so does Dr. Hiroshi Hatake (played by Hiroyuki Sanada) as he seems to be helping himself without anyone really knowing of his true goal.

SEASON ONE:
Helix is one of the better science fiction shows that I've seen being aired on television in a long time. It's plot is nothing new nor does it break new ground with it's ideas but sometimes the right execution of a idea can go a long way. In the case of Helix, they have executed this show better than most and thus the show was quite good. It breaks down like this, there's some mysterious killer virus/plague that's killing anyone that gets infected with it, well after it makes them go all crazy where they chase after everyone while having black ooze coming out of them. There are secrets being kept by pretty much everyone that's in the facility, the CDC people trying to help, the government military guys, and the doctors that have been at the facility, and because of that everything is going to hell pretty quickly.

This show has all the typical structure for a drama series, which is why I say it's nothing new or break through for a show. The characters have problems with each other, of course, they have secrets, of course, there are relationships happening between some, of course, and some of them are lost, of course. As for the individual episode plots, they are pretty much the typical as well with secrets being kept, some characters uncovering more clues, some hiding them from others, and while each episode the plot progresses to show that there is more going on in the facility then what's been told at the start. It also uses the tatic of giving us just enough information to make us want to watch more, while only revealing just enough to make it drawn out.

So, yes the show does have all the usual suspect for a science fiction show, it's a plot that's been told before, but it has more going for it. One is that it's always interesting to watch a show that's got government secrets going on, it could be the end of world if they can't discover the source, and all the secrets are just fun to watch. There's also the fact that the cast is really good, for the most part they all mesh well together, and the effects being used on the show is amazing. What makes this show stand out the most though is that it looks and plays out more like a movie than a television show. Even though it's 13 episodes and I watched them all at once, that was a very long sit down, but it played out like a long movie. If the credits where taken out between each episode, I would have said that this was just a long movie. How it's shot, the way the episodes are edited, it's what make the show flow so well and why it's good. This show has a entertaining value to it, it's also a good show for conspiracy lovers, and it's just all kinds of crazy.

BLU RAY:
As far as the look of this show on Blu Ray, it's just as good as the show is. This show is supposed to look like they are in the Arctic and because of the bland sets the details are shown to be just that, bland. It looks real, though when seeing some of the black ooze blood the detail could have been a little less sharp. Audio levels are clear and even so that I heard everythign without fighting the volume levels. There are some weak points to the Blu Ray however. Those being the case and how the 3 discs are held. Discs 1 and 2 are just stacked on top one another, leaving it very easy for the discs to get scratched. Also, the list of episodes is on the back of the cover but it's being blocked by the discs. So if you are wanting to read about any plot of the episodes, you either have to take out the discs or take out the cover to read. Good show, looks good, sounds good, but poor packaging and considering the price people pay for Blu Ray I expect better made cases.