National Geographic’s six-part limited series The Hot Zone, inspired by the true events detailed in Richard Preston’s international best-seller of the same name, tackles the harrowing tale of a global crisis that never was.
Starring Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actress Julianna Margulies as Nancy Jaax, the six-hour, edge-of-your-seat thriller will premiere in Asia on May 28 at 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. (Hong Kong time), same day as the U.S..
The limited series is produced by Fox 21 Television Studios, Lynda Obst Productions and Scott Free Productions. Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson serve as showrunners and executive producers, with Jeff Vintar as a co-executive producer.
Joining Margulies in the cast are Noah Emmerich, as Jaax’s husband, Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Jaax, who does not hesitate to risk his life during the operation to contain the Ebola virus; Topher Grace as Dr. Peter Jahrling, a virologist for the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, who butts heads with Nancy Jaax over the best way to contain the virus; Liam Cunningham as Dr. Wade Carter, Nancy’s vital ally in the race to prevent the virus from spreading; James D’Arcy as Travis Rhodes, a Center for Disease Control official and Carter’s former assistant and current nemesis; and Paul James as Ben Gellis, a lab tech at the pathology lab in Virginia, assisting Nancy and Dr. Jahrling.
The Hot Zone begins with a terrifying look back to 1980, when an unsuspecting doctor in Kenya examines a patient with symptoms unlike anything seen before. Flashing forward to 1989, a colony of primates has become sick at a research facility in Virginia, just over 30 kilometers from the US Capitol, and sample tissues are sent to Nancy Jaax (Margulies), a lieutenant colonel with USAMRIID, the US Army’s main facility for defensive research into countermeasures against biological warfare.
Jaax’s instincts and experience tell her she is seeing something far worse than a run-of-the-mill primate infection. Despite the skepticism of her colleagues Dr. Peter Jahrling (Grace) and Col. Vernon Tucker (Wisdom), but with the support of her husband, Lt. Col. Jerry Jaax (Emmerich), a US Army veterinarian, and her mentor Dr. Wade Carter (Cunningham), she pushes forward to find the truth.
Through Nancy’s perseverance, scientific testing reveals the dire truth of the situation, forcing the Army into action to contain an outbreak. The series also flashes back to the late 1970s to see how Dr. Carter and Travis Rhodes (D’Arcy) first tracked, studied and attempted to contain Ebola in Africa. But will the lessons they learned help stop this disease from hitting the human population? A dramatic, high-stakes scientific thriller with a courageous and determined heroine at its core, The Hot Zone brings true science and human drama together for a gripping tale that still resonates today.