The series pitch was developed by Cameron Porsandeh and submitted to Sony Pictures, where Lynda Obst revised it alongside him before it was pitched to Syfy.

When Sony asked Porsandeh which major science fiction TV writer he'd want attached, he jokingly named Ronald D. Moore as if naming a movie star he'd want to date, and Moore actually joined the project and helped develop its overarching mythology.

Although Ronald D. Moore pitched several key concepts for the series, the pilot script itself was written solely by Cameron Porsandeh.

A defining structural feature of the show is that each episode represents a single day of story time, meaning the entire 13-episode first season takes place within less than two weeks of in-universe time.

Unlike series such as Lost, Helix avoids traditional flashbacks; instead, characters infected with the virus experience feverish hallucinations of past traumatic events, and these scenes are presented as unreliable, potentially inaccurate memories rather than objective flashbacks.

The Blu-ray release included a featurette called 'Fabricating the Plague,' detailing the state-of-the-art effects techniques used to create the staged appearance of the virus and achieve the right amount of gore.

Helix's first season received generally positive reviews, holding a 79% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and 67% on Metacritic, with critics praising Billy Campbell's lead performance.