If you like your zombie viewing to be a little more like Shaun of the Dead/Night of the Living Dead than The Walking Dead (and without the word ‘Dead’ in it), then you should already be completely up to date with iZombie.
But just in case you’re not, and you’re looking for your next weekend binge sesh, let’s quickly hash out why the series is heaps charming and deserving of a decent hunk of your precious time.
IZombie, based on a DC comic book series from 2010, is that rare show about the undead that doesn’t take itself too seriously, an entirely unsurprising fact considering it’s the bb of Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas (no relation to wuss-rock band Matchbox Twenty).
So of course it also features a strong as hell, witty voiceover-bearing lady lead in NZ actress Rose McIver.
You may recognise McIver from last year’s tragic A Christmas Prince, or better still from one episode of Xena: Warrior Princess in the ’90s, a show that remains very important to me, okay, back off.
She’s so TINY.
Anywho, the basic set-up of iZombie, which is running on three seasons and 45 episodes so far, is that our heroine, McIver as Seattle medical resident Liv Moore, turns into a zombie at a boat party. So she does the logical thing one does when they suddenly have an unerring appetite for human brains – she gets a job performing autopsies at the local morgue and feeds on dead people, mixing their brains with hot sauce and noodles, like a true chef. Smart.
The old adage goes ‘you are what you eat’: consuming those brains temporarily imbues her with the deceased’s memories and some of their worst personality traits, which proves useful when the deceased is the victim of a murder. Moore teams up with cop Clive Babineaux to help solve those crimes, passing herself off as a psychic. Oooft, there’s already a lot here. There’s zombies and murder and we’re barely past the pilot. And that’s before we’ve even mentioned her blossoming friendship with boss Dr Ravi Chakrabarti, who sets to work on a cure for zombie-ism, or her relationship with her now-ex-fiancee, Major Lilywhite.
Mmmph.
We’re not going to spoil the rest of the show – isn’t that enough of a taster – but we will say that by the end of season three things have certainly escalated to full-blown epidemic level, and there’s plenty of tension between humans – most of whom have only just become aware of their brain-eating fellow citizens – and zombies. It’s less quirky police procedural now and more…. well, the stakes are a lot higher. But there’s still plenty of bants.
IZombie is the zombie show for people who are not into zombie shows – there’s not a lot of moaning and trudging forwards, but there’s still a healthy dose of blood ‘n guts, intrigue and complex relationship dynamics. Plenty to munch on.
Also this video exists of the cast goofing off/mostly trying to rap, and it’s glorious:
The official trailer for the upcoming season should fill in some of the gaps, but will also present heaps more questions, which can only be answered if you park your tush on the couch and catch up on the first three seasons on Stan, before season four premieres on February 27.
