Helix Teaser Trailer Still Looks Like John Carpenter’s The Thing

By Rudie Obias | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

“Play God. Pay The Price.” In 2014, Ronald D. Moore will release two science fiction TV shows for two prominent cable networks. The first is the historical fiction/time travel series Outlander for the premium network Starz. The other is the sci-fi thriller Helix for Syfy. The network has released a new trailer for Helix, which makes the TV series look more and more like the TV version of John Carpenter’s The Thing.

Exclusive to EW, the Helix teaser trailer shows off more of the cast and the series’ Arctic backdrop. It also features the mysterious black goo we’ve seen in earlier photos, and which appears to lurk within the underground laboratory’s walls.

Helix follows a group of CDC scientists stationed at a secret lab in a remote area of the Arctic. Sent to investigate a possible global outbreak, they soon discover something terrifying just beneath the icy surface.

The trailer creates a great sense of atmosphere that feels more like horror than hard science fiction. The comparisons to John Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing are apt. At its core, the series is about a group of people, stranded in the extreme cold, confronted with a mysterious threat as it picks them off one-by-one. It sounds like The Thing to me!

It will be interesting to see what Ron Moore and the writers of Helix will do with that interesting premise, but it seems like the series will tackle whether or not this mysterious black goo is natural or if it’s man-made.

With only two months until Helix premieres, it’s likely that Syfy will release more teasers for their new series soon. So far, the cable network has released a bunch of smaller teasers, leading up to this extended look at the series. Helix will join M. Night Shyamalan’s new TV series Proof and Bryan Fuller’s High Moon as Syfy’s new genre offerings for 2014. Proof will follow the son of billionaire tech moguls who, after his parents are killed in a horrific car accident, offers a large reward to anyone who can find proof of life after death. Fuller’s High Moon takes place in the distant future and is a space Western set around colonies established on the Moon.

Star Trek: Voyager actress Jeri Ryan was recently cast in a recurring role on Helix. She will play the beautiful and charismatic Constance Sutton, Chief Operating Officer of Ilaria Corporation, owner of Arctic Biosystems. She will join Billy Campbell, who plays Dr. Alan Farragut, leader of the Centers for Disease Control outbreak field team, as well as Kyra Zagorsky, Mark Ghanimé, Jordan Hayes, Meegwun Fairbrother, Catherine Lemieux, and Neil Napier.

Helix will debut on January 10, 2014 on SyFy.