Helix

Normally, it takes a TV show multiple episodes before it completely goes off the rails and re-interprets or ignores characterizations of its own characters. Not Helix, the new SyFy channel TV show about a potential plague and the CDC's attempts to halt it.

The show had a stellar pilot episode. The sets were well-made and interesting, the characters were broadly written but well-defined, the story was interesting and engaging, and the actors were adept. My only quibble was the small amount of melodrama inserted from the beginning -- the fact that Julia had slept with Peter while married to Alan. I loved how the show used very little music, outside of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?". The direction was competent. I was thinking that this might be a nice, new addition to my TV watching.

And then I watched episode two.

The premise of Helix is that a secret base full of scientists working on groundbreaking and cutting-edge research in the Arctic concoct a deadly pathogen that gets loose within the base and could start an outbreak of epic proportions. The CDC is called in to help analyze and resolve the situation. Once there, the CDC starts to discover things are worse than they imagined, and the pathogen actually mutates people.

By episode two, you already have people acting like idiots... er, I mean, "typical" horror-movie walking fatalities waiting to happen. These supposedly smart scientists who have worked on these types of issues before, are suddenly:

• Working alone, many levels away from support and other people, with her back to the only door in/out of the lab she is in, even though she knows there are loose, pathogen-plagued individuals wandering around who cannot be found (and at least one of which has proven quite dangerous). You cannot be surprised when an infected gains access and threatens her.
• Putting three possibly infected people together in one room even while she sees clear evidence of infection and the three are all physically larger and stronger than she is and they are exhibiting paranoid behaviors. You cannot be surprised when the three gang up and threaten her trying to secure their release.
• Acting in such a lackadaisical fashion about the people they think may be infected in general. You cannot be surprised when the three women are overwhelmed by the infected and they all get loose.
• Ignoring the team leader.
• Alan asks his ex-wife repeatedly to work on one aspect of the pathogen and she constantly ignores him, does her own thing, and confronts (or tries to confront) him about his decisions. When she finally actually does what he asks, she finds out revelatory information about the pathogen that may have changed their protocols and analysis had she actually done it much sooner (for example, when first asked).
• Alan tells everyone that they must go everywhere with a buddy. Everyone ignores this rule whenever it is convenient to the story to do so, and people are killed, infected, and harassed because of doing so.
• Julia goes off to take a shower on her own, and is apparently infected by Peter in a pseudo-rape/aggressive sexualized encounter (his "kiss" spreads the infection and he attacks her when she rebuffs him and forces his kiss on her in a very aggressive, powerful context) scene in the shower (while he is fully clothed and she is completely naked, of course).
• Lying to each other. Alan tries to convince the obviously evil and "in on it" head of the research group that they must be straight with each other in order to resolve this problem and save everyone's lives, yet then turns around and doesn't share everything he's learned with his teammates.
• Being obtuse to the obvious and strange behavior of the head of the research group as he is obviously and verifiably lying to them over and over.

Now, looking at the list of idiotic behavior, you note that vast majority of them were performed by the female cast members. That's strike one. You notice that each is a behavior that people with intimate knowledge of viruses, pathogens, behavior, and disease control simply would not do, and is certainly against the characters and their backgrounds as presented in episode one. That's strike two. You notice they put the "hot chick" into a situation where she is naked and assaulted, fulfilling the standard "rape fantasy" aspects of any horror movie. That's strike three.

What looked to be an interesting and challenging TV show has turned into a typical, and badly written, horror archetype by the second episode. After watching them both, I am unsure whether I will even go back for a third helping, let alone finish out the season.

ADDENDUM (1/19/2014)

After watching the third episode, where the characters, in particular the female characters, continued to act in ways that are, at best, hard to fathom for trained professionals in their capacity, I had to delete the season pass and write off this series. It's too bad, as it has a lot of promise and the first episode was so good.