iZombie

There are only a few shows that catch my attention straight out of the gate. Even one of my favorite programs of all time, Firefly, didn't wow me when I first watched the pilot episode. So when Hollywood comes out with a winner like this one, I feel I need to spread the word.

iZombie is a series that airs Mondays on CW, the home of other great comic-based tent pole shows, The Flash and Arrow. It's a little different from those two shows in that it's less superhero action, more crime/buddy cop comedy, and that it stars a woman in the lead role.

The story focuses on Liv Moore, a med student who has a happy, stable life with her loving family, sweet fiance, and bright future as a Doctor. One night she decides to live a little and go to a big party she's been invited to. Unfortunately, a zombie decides to crash the party and Liv is among the casualties lying in a body bag on the beach in the morning.

Naturally, she gets back up.

Now needing brains in order to survive, she takes a job as a medical examiner in order to feed off corpses before their committed to the ground. While she needs the brains to keep from turning into a mindless, well, zombie, she finds out that eating them also allow her to see flashes of the owners' last moments of life, as well as adopt a few character traits.

What's a young woman to do?

Well, if your in a series developed for television by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero, the pair behind the awesome Veronica Mars, then you decide you need to fight crime to a nice, upbeat voiceover track.

The show really does feel like Veronica with zombies in it. The lead actress, Rose McIver, has almost as much adorable pluck as Kristen Bell did and still manages to portray Liv with a vulnerability that makes you hate the fact that she can't tell her family that she's actually already dead.

Speaking of, Liv's family and friends look like they'll play a pretty big role in the show. Aly Michalka of Hellcats plays Liv's best friend, Molly Hagan is her mother, Eva, and Robert Buckley plays her estranged fiance, Major Lilywhite. The pilot episode's B plot is focused mainly on how worried these folk are that she's changed so much since the boat party and essentially become a closeted shut in, dropping out of school, leaving Lilywhite, and spending all her time at the new dead end job.

Her job is where we meet the two supporting cast members, Rahul Kholi as Dr. Chakrabarti, Liv's boss in the morgue, and Malcolm Goodwin, Detective Clive Babinaux, a cop who thinks that Liv is a psychic thanks to Chakrabarti.

The second episode introduces David Anders as Blaine, a former drug dealer who turned into a zombie at the same boat party Liv attended and is apparently going to play the main antagonist of the series' first season.

 

The first two episodes that have aired show us a quirky little show that offers a much lighter tone than other zombie media out there. If you want gory, depressing melodrama, then you should probably be catching up on The Walking Dead. If you want campy B-movie type action, you should try out ZNation.

But if you're looking for something a little bit funny and sweet, but with just a hint of that undead color (or lack thereof) you should give iZombie a try.