Helix - Season One

A friend whom I hadn't heard from in weeks text me out of the blue a few months back and said "Hey, have you seen the new 'Helix' show yet? It's awesome!" From that point on, I was hooked on the 13-episode SyFy channel show and you can get hooked too with a new three-disc Blu-ray set of "Helix - Season One." The Blu-ray doesn't disappoint in the bonus features department, either.

The concept of a show about a virus outbreak in a research facility in the Arctic may not sound original, but the SyFy channel made "Helix" fun, adventurous, scary, and well worth a watch. When the Centers for Disease Control gets called in to investigate (the team is headed by actor Billy Campbell), the show gains a compelling aura that's sustained over 13 breezy episodes.

In a nice move, Sony Pictures spreads the Blu-ray's special features over all three discs. Two of them, "Writing the Tension" (disc two) and "Fabricating the Plague" (disc three), are exclusive to the Blu-ray and can't be found on the DVD version.

On disc 1, we get "Ronald D. Moore: The Outlier of Science Fiction," an interview with the creator of "Helix" who's most famous for his re-imagining of "Battlestar Gallactica." The best feature of the 6 featurettes is "The Future of Disease," where the executive producer admits he got the idea of a virus show from a virus he had for months.

Disc 2 features "The Art of Isolation," a look at the confined setting of "Helix" and three minutes of outtakes. "Writing the Tension" interviews the writers from the show. "Fabricating the Plague" and "Dissecting the Characters" round out disc three, and there are deleted scenes of certain episodes, along with two audio commentaries both featuring Billy Campbell.

"Helix - Season One"
Blu-ray
www.sonypictures.com/Bluray