Before most of the world worried very much about bio-hazards, epidemiology of virulent diseases, and flare-ups of lethal diseases in hotspots that might infect and spread throughout civilization - there was "The Burning Zone".
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This show was a kind of a trendsetter. It was unique, in my experience, in being a TV series that combined religious themes with a scientific/medical plot.
Maybe not every week but pretty often, there would be this supernatural thread to an episode. Either in the form of one of the characters, or the backstory, or both.
The first episode I saw was one where there were these people who needed blood to survive. And in biting other people to get it, they would infect them.
Not particularly original sounding, right?
But this one was different. The locale where the thing originated was remote and exotic - but not the one you are used to its origin being.
And yes, it is spread by a pathogen, but one with some very interesting characteristics: for instance, telepathy.
But what made it really good is that the disease had a sort of racial memory. And it was ancient - really ancient. Made Dracula seem like a pup it was so old.
They managed to sort of tie that in with a well known event from the Bible. I won't say which one it is and you probably won't guess. But if you see the show - that particular episode that I am talking about - then you will know what I mean.
And they tied the weakness of that organism into that event very well too. It was an extremely well written episode, I thought. It was not the first one in the series. It was the first one I saw though, and it really brought me in.
The writing for the show was excellent in most episodes and the acting was really good.
Here is a little background on the series itself.
The team was tied to the highest levels, or should I say innermost, of the government. Mostly just through their boss - and he was secretive and played his cards pretty close to the chest. Kind of "need to know" basis.
Most of the team was made up of doctors. Especially the brilliant researcher type of doctors, and field medicine wonder kids.
The team had a good base, a lab, and that helped set the atmosphere of the show very well. There were contaminants, diseases if you will, and you did not want them getting into people's suits - or out of the lab. In this show, contagion - very often - was the "bad guy".
The series reminded me a little bit of "Poltergeist: the Legacy". I think it is because of some of the similarities. Even though that series was all about purely supernatural enemies and this series is about medical/scientific ones with latent relgious overtones, the nature of the protagonsists were remarkably similar.
Both series had a guy at the top who had a lot more of the answers than anybody else, though he was not all-powerful - and he shared what he needed to but did not burden his team with a lot of stuff they did not need to know or might dishearten them. And he was tied into a big, secretive organization which they worked for but were not as intimately tied into as he was.
Both series had a body guard type who was like a former mercenary with some kind of government or military experience in his past.
Both shows would have the teams informed of some kind of emergency and then, most of the time, they would have to leave their expensive headquarters and go out into the real world for part of the show. They would often bring clues about the problem back to their HQ to study, ponder over, discuss - and sometimes, do battle with.
"The Burning Zone" - like "Poltergeist: The Legacy" - was a pretty good show. I think overall I preferred the latter but I enjoyed both very much.
If you are looking for a show with some scientific folk who cast religion in a positive light and have some spiritual themes then you will probably like this show a lot. If you want to see some bad-ass, evil, monsters try to rip the good guys to shreds and ultimately get vanquished, you will probably prefer the other series I mentioned.
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