See the front lines of pandemic virus war—thanks to The Weather Channel?

Of all places, The Weather Channel wants to show us why dramatic antidote mixing is only a small part of Contagion situations.

The Weather Channel

You know the drill: Broken test tube infects patient zero, who infects everyone else, society runs amok, white-coated scientists (or the empty labs they left behind) save the day. But that’s not really the drill. If you watch Virus Hunters on The Weather Channel starting this week, you’ll learn that scientists keep the world from global outbreak in a much more thought-out (and less apocalyptic) way.

The six-part series is based on Spillover, David Quammen’s book about nature’s biggest viral mysteries, which was nominated for a PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Although sometimes TV adaptations can take liberties with science, there's no need to worry about whether it will land on the cutting room floor this time around, as Quammen told Ars he’s helping out as an executive producer with the production.

“It’s going to really geek on the science," says Neil Katz, an editor with Weather.com. "It’s going to be geeky science tales merged with mystery tales. When the infections first appear, and people start dying—murder-mystery may not be the right word, because it’s strange to think of viruses as murdering people, but they can be like that. And scientists from all over the planet are brought in quickly to try figure out what’s killing people and why, then track that down.”