Great TV entertainment.
Based on a comic-book of the same name, created by Chris Roberson and Michael Allred, iZombie is the latest show from CW. Clearly aiming for the young adult demographic, we follow the exploits of undead morgue assistant Liv Moore (Rose McIver).
Liv has a promising career as a doctor, and her eagerness and skill is demonstrated in the opening scene, when she performs an emergency procedure on a quickly fading patient. Under pressure from a co-worker to go with her to a party, Liv’s fiance, Major (Robert Buckley), tells her to go and have some fun. Unfortunately, the boat-party turns into pure chaos after a new drug is taken that turns its users into brain-eating zombies. Injured then pushed overboard while trying to flee a zombie attacker, Liv wakes up inside a bodybag, to the horror of a medic who’d just pronounced her dead.
- iZombie
- by
CW - Cast
Rose McIver, Malcolm Goodwin, Rahul Kohli - First Aired
17 March 2015 - Ed’s Grade: B
*****
The story jumps 5 months, and Liv is no longer engaged to Major or training to be a doctor. But instead, she’s working at a morgue so she has easy access to brains — her new food of choice. Her bizarre behavior and new goth look hasn’t gone unnoticed, causing Liv’s mother and even her roommate, to stage an intervention. This is over fairly quickly, allowing us to move on to the fun stuff.
Morgue boss, Ravi (Rahul Kohli), is quick to notice the lack of brain material in bodies that Liv has handled, and being a zombie fan as well as a conspiracy nut theorist, he realises exactly what Liv is. Unfazed by Liv’s undead status, Ravi pokes, prods and takes Liv’s blood for testing, however, he has his reasons for doing so. The other main character in the first episode is Detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin), and he and Liv quickly team up to take down bad guys.
Liv craves brains most of the time, and when she eats them, usually covered in hot sauce, she can see and feel the dead’s thoughts, just like in Warm Bodies. This makes Liv the ideal person to help solve murder, then there’s the fact that she can’t be killed … again.
The witty dialogue is snappy, and while it’s not always clever, for the demo CW are going for, it’s pitched just right. The show also nods to its comic-book origins, with periodic comic slides appearing every so often. iZombie makes a great half-hour show, with high entertainment value, as long as you’re not looking for anything too deep. Although I swore to never watch another zombie show or movie again, I think I’ll make iZombie the exception.
