The zombie apocalypse has come, but it’s not the shambling groan-fest that we’ve come to expect from bleak zombie flicks. No, these zombies are a little pale and have ghostly white hair but otherwise defiantly put the “living” in the living dead. Liv Moore, our crime-fighting heroine, is such a zombie. (I guess you could say she puts the “Liv” in living dead.) Of course, you could argue that if they’re not mindless then they’re not really zombies, but rest assured that the more conventional variety of zombie make an appearance on the show too.
It’s a silly premise, no doubt about it. Liv’s diet consists almost exclusively of human brains and hot sauce, which would usually be disgusting except for how Liv so casually goes about her routine: head to work at the police morgue, perform an autopsy, extract the groceries, chuck them together with some noodles and hot sauce in the microwave, and dig into lunch. It’s so ridiculous, but we’re talking about a TV show whose title theme features the lyrics, “I’m already dead” – it’s just the kind of show iZombie is. Perhaps this wackiness is a result of the show’s comic book origins – a heritage clearly acknowledged by the cel-shaded intro sequence. And the punny scene titles. And even the episode titles. So many puns…
And yet iZombie is really a character-driven show. The zombie mythos is intriguing and undeniably different from what we’ve seen before in popular culture, but at the end of the day it’s not the setting or story that draws me back to each episode, it’s the characters.
In life, Liv was a passionate, driven woman with a promising career in medicine; now she struggles to see the point in getting up each day. As the series begins, we see her detached indifference beginning to thaw as she gets into solving crime. She begins to reconnect with friends and family, develops empathy for those involved in the cases she investigates, and learns to dream once more. In short, she begins to rediscover her humanity – and there’s no better metaphor for appreciating life than seeing a zombie rise from defeatism.
Days I could have spent sucking the morrow out of life, I spent building a resume for a life I’d never have. There were parts of me that were dead even before I became a zombie. So maybe that means it’s possible for parts of me to spring to life even now that I’m dead.
So Liv’s burgeoning humanity is one of the show’s draws. Another major entertainment factor is her rapport with Ravi, her boss at the police morgue. Right off the bat, these two are downright hilarious to watch. Their contrasting personalities clash in a swift flow of wit and sarcasm that’s just pure gold. Add a green detective into the mix and you’ve got a goldmine of comedic dialogue.
Finally, where the show really comes into its stride is with the side-effects Liv experiences when she eats a brain: she assumes some of the deceased’s memory, skills, and personality traits. Not only does this give the actress Rose McIver an abundance of diverse temperaments to portray – which she absolutely nails – it also teaches Liv something about life that she’s since forgotten.
When she eats the brain of an artist, she learns to better appreciate life’s beauty. When she eats the brain of a heartless sociopath, she learns the importance of empathy for others and remorse for wrong choices. When she eats the brain of someone with heightened paranoia, she learns to better trust the people who care about her. Each episode brings a different brain and with it different challenges for Liv to overcome, both in the murder case and within herself. Again, this works mostly because Rose McIver has the acting chops to pull it off with credibility. Incidentally, it wasn’t until I heard her speaking in an interview that I learnt she’s a Kiwi – her American accent is spot-on.
So now I know how a TV show about a zombie can be so fun to watch. But I’ve only seen the first five episodes, and there’s signs of darker times on the horizon yet – it wouldn’t be a zombie show without the looming threat of an outbreak of Romero-style zombies, after all. It’ll certainly be interesting to see where iZombie ends up this season.
Zombies. I heard we’re finito – is that true? Has over-saturation buried us? I dunno, I think we’re gonna surprise some people, I mean, what did LL Cool J say? “Don’t call it a comeback,” right?
Observations 