Sci-Fi Storm

Syfy greenlights an eight episode order for Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge (working title), a competition series featuring ten aspiring creature creators competing to out-imagine one another in a series of challenges where they will build everything from mechanical characters to whimsical beasts, bringing high-end inanimate creature designs to life. The contestants compete for $100,000 and the opportunity for the job of a lifetime – a contract working at the world-renowned Jim Henson’s Creature Shop™. The announcement was made today by Mark Stern, President of Original Content, Syfy.

Brian Henson serves as lead judge on the series. Henson is the Chairman of The Jim Henson Company and the Creature Shop. An award-winning writer, director and producer, he is also a creature designer and performer taught by the master, his father Jim Henson. His long resume in movies and television includes iconic roles like Hoggle in the fantasy classic Labyrinth and the dog in the groundbreaking anthology series The Storyteller. Henson has also produced and directed such television projects as Farscape, Muppets Tonight and Dinosaurs. His film directing credits include The Muppet Christmas Carol and Muppet Treasure Island. Henson was part of the team that first created and utilized the Henson Performance Control System, a powerful custom-based interface for puppeteers, which won an Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (Scientific and Engineering) Award in 1992. He also led the Shop’s work in creating the revolutionary digital puppeteering technology, the Emmy Award-winning Henson Digital Puppetry Studio.

“As Face Off does with SFX makeup application, Jim Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge showcases the incredible imagination and artistry of lifelike creature construction,” said Stern. “We are honored to partner with The Jim Henson Company and Brian Henson on this series. The Creature Shop has set the bar for a caliber of work that is unmatched in quality, design and sheer imagination.”
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Jeri Ryan (Star Trek: Voyager, Body of Proof) is set to join Syfy’s newest original scripted series Helix for a multi-episode arc. Ryan joins a cast led by Billy Campbell (The Killing, Killing Lincoln) and Hiroyuki Sanada (The Wolverine, 47 Ronin) on the 13-episode drama series, executive produced by Ronald D. Moore (Battlestar Galactica, Outlander), Steven Maeda (Lost, The X-Files) who is also showrunner, and Lynda Obst (Sleepless in Seattle, Contact).

Ryan will portray the beautiful and charismatic Constance Sutton, the Chief Operating Officer of Ilaria Corporation, owner of Arctic Biosystems, the research facility where the series takes place. Charming and savvy, Sutton is used to getting her way at any cost.

Jeri Ryan is best known to science fiction fans for her role as Seven of Nine on the series Star Trek: Voyager. Most recently, Ryan has been a familiar face on primetime network television as Dr. Kate Murphy in ABC’s Body of Proof. She was also a series regular in Boston Public as Ronnie Cooke, the CBS legal drama Shark opposite James Woods, and NBC’s Dark Skies. In addition to her recurring roles on projects like Two and a Half Men, Law and Order: Special Victims Unit and Leverage, Jeri Ryan has also appeared on the big screen in films such as Down with Love and Dracula 2000.

Helix is an intense thriller about a team of scientists from the Centers for Disease Control who travel to the high-tech research facility Arctic Biosystems, to investigate a possible disease outbreak, only to find themselves pulled into a terrifying life-and-death struggle that may hold the key to mankind’s salvation or total annihilation. However, the lethal threat is just the tip of the iceberg, and as the virus evolves, the chilling truth begins to unravel.

Campbell stars as Dr. Alan Farragut, leader of the Centers for Disease Control outbreak field team called upon to investigate and control a potential outbreak. Sanada also stars as Dr. Hiroshi Hatake, director of Arctic Biosystems and its mysterious viral research program.

Helix also stars Kyra Zagorsky (Supernatural) as Dr. Julia Walker, Mark Ghanimé (Emily Owens, M.D.) as Major Sergio Balleseros, Jordan Hayes (House at the End of the Street) as Dr. Sarah Jordan, Meegwun Fairbrother as Daniel Aerov, Catherine Lemieux (White House Down) as Dr. Doreen Boyle and Neil Napier (Riddick) as Dr. Peter Farragut.

Helix is produced by Tall Ship Productions, Kaji Productions and Lynda Obst Productions in association with Sony Pictures Television. Prolific director and producer Jeffrey Reiner is directing the premiere episode of Helix.