Forgotten Television: iZombie

Seattle medical resident Liv Moore (Rose McIver) is a workaholic and when a coworker invites her to a party, her fiancé, Major Lillywhite (Robert Buckley) convinces her to go.  While there, several people take a new designer drug called Utopium while also drinking the Max Rager energy drink, the combination inadvertently leads to a zombie outbreak, and Liv gets scratched, infecting her.  She now hungers for brains and if she does not eat them, she will turn into the stereotypical “brainless” zombie.  Liv breaks up with Major in fear of infecting him and takes a job at the coroner’s office so that she will have access to brains without having to kill anyone. A side effect of consuming brains is she sees flashes of the brain owner’s life before they die and temporarily takes on aspects of the owner’s personality as well. Her boss, Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) figures out Liv’s aliment and begins to study her in hopes of finding a cure.  At first Liv becomes withdrawn and hopeless but after helping detective Clive Babineaux (Malcolm Goodwin) track down a killer using her new abilities, her un-life begins looking up as she has a new purpose.  But all is not rosy, the drug dealer who helped spur the zombie outbreak, who is also now a zombie, is out and about making more!

iZombie is an American supernatural crime procedural drama based on the DC Comic book series of the same name.  The series was developed for television by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggiero-Wright with the comic book being created by Chris Roberson and Mike Allred.  The series ran on the CW for five seasons starting on March 17, 2015, and ending August 1, 2019 with a total of 71 episodes.  The first four seasons of the show got high praise and critical acclaim, but the last season seemed to suffer, possibly from Rob Thomas being preoccupied with the revival of Veronica Mars that was running concurrently leaving audiences and the cast very disappointed.  The show also faced some legal troubles, when Robert Knepper, an actor on the show was accused of sexual impropriety.  Twice the studio conducted investigations and twice found no wrong doings while he was on set.  His character had a recurring role in seasons 2-4.

This isn’t really a forgotten show, since it lasted five seasons and only went off the air six years ago, but I think it was a neglected show, at least by me.  I am not a big zombie fan and so when I saw the adverts for this series, I basically ignored them.  What I didn’t realize was how cleverly written and wonderfully acted this show was.  And in addition, it is basically a sci-fi crime procedural and that’s practically my favorite genre, combining my two loves, sci-fi and murder mysteries.  I feel like I missed out on watching this show in its initial run and now have five seasons I must catch up on. Rose McIver does a wonderful job showing both the incredibly driven “before Liv” and in contrast to the more somber “zombie Liv” who eventually finds a new purpose in her ordeal. Rahul Kohli is endearing as her boss, friend and confidant who is attempting to create a cure to give Liv her actual life back.  Both Malcolm Goodwin as Clive Babineaux and Robert Buckley as Major play their respective roles with charisma and ease.  One thing I absolutely love is how the character names seem to have secondary meanings.  Olivia “Liv” Moore’s name, for someone who is undead, the name “Live More” seems apt.  Babineaux, the detective’s surname, is prominent in Louisiana and conjure visions of Voodoo and by relation, zombies.  Chakrabarti, is a Sanskrit word meaning one whose wheels are rolling, which is as close as I could get to describing Ravi’s job within the series and finally, Major Lillywhite, seems to be a clean cut all American overly perfect specimen of a man. I may be reading too much into it, but I love little details like that.  Overall, I was shocked at just how much I enjoyed watching the first episode of this series and can’t wait to watch it all!