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CW has picked up the unfortunately titled comic adaptation iZombie which will be run by Rob Thomas and Diane Ruggerio of Veronica Mars and star Rose McIver, who provided some of Masters of Sex's best moments as the naive doctor's daughter. So they've done the impossible, they've made me interested in a zombie TV show.

AND Tom Cavanaugh of Ed will be in the network's the Flash adaptation as well

domino harvey wrote:CW has picked up the unfortunately titled comic adaptation iZombie

The comic wasn't bad, but the real appeal was the artwork of Mike Allred, who did the cover for Criterion's Seduced and Abandoned. Otherwise it's a not terribly original story about Zombie girl who hangs out with a ghost and a werewolf and encounters a variety of other supernatural beings. Considering the comic was fairly slow to begin with and was canceled after three trades, I have a hard time seeing this stretched into a series. But given the plucky yet sarcastic heroine and the fact that the first volume was about uncovering a mystery I suppose Thomas would be as good a fit for the material as anyone.

So iZombie is the most delightful comfort viewing of recent memory. I've seen it frequently described as Veronica Mars meets Pushing Daisies because, well, that's pretty much what it is (with a much heavier leaning on the VM portion). But if you're going to lift/copy/reinstate the formula, why not do it with a high level of skill and the actual creative team behind one of those late, great series? Eight episodes in and everything is already turning a corner towards potential greatness as the show gradually goes from case of the week focus to the simmering background complications increasingly finding their way into every aspect of the series. The show is clever and funny and all of the actors do their level best to be charming and likable (and Rose McIver ably leads the charge), but most of all it's like watching the West Wing right after SportsNight-- it's different, but not exactly. The voice is still there, the thematic recurrences, the structures. This more than even the movie last year is Veronica Mars's continuation, a spiritual one. If you loved what that show did well, you'll love this, even if you like me could care less about the trendy subject matter (which is normalized so quickly by the series that it loses any kitsch value fairly early on). Thankfully, like "Teenage girl detective," "Zombie ME solves crimes" merely serves as the attention-grabbing logline but not the whole picture. And it's been renewed, so you can watch knowing there's some level of investment that'll be returned!

The PTC hilariously warns that watching the show could lead to actual cannibalism

The more programs like iZombie are shown, programs that portray practices like cannibalism as normal and even exciting, the more desensitized to the idea viewers become. And from desensitization follows normalization, and from that follows practice.

Since this is serialized and CW shows don't stay up long enough on Hulu or On Demand to get fully caught up, I imagine it will take the show's eventual season one release on Blu-ray or streaming for others to actually give this a shot, but I'm happy to report that the rest of the season matched up to my effusive initial response. And as Rob Thomas proved over and over with Veronica Mars, he is especially adept at delivering a satisfying conclusion to a season-long storyline, which he does here in the finale via a Tarantino-esque massacre set to "Der Kommissar" that is one of the most cathartic uses of violence in recent memory (and will forever chain that song to that sequence in my mind)

UPDATE No Blu-ray but it's not getting dumped into the Archives either: First season out on DVD in September

I caught up with this on Netflix and am really glad I did. I've been starved for something like this show ever since Supernatural became a rinse, repeat cycle of past seasons. The show has that awkward suddenness of a pilot that plagues this genre of TV - brief intro of characters, then sudden calamity and half-explained affliction. Despite the rather silly lore of the show, it does offer a fresh take on the tired zombie subject matter, making them more into Buffy's vampires than Romero's moaning brainless. I think that alone is enough to give it good marks. The show starts out dumber than most in the supernatural detective show arena, but thankfully lifts itself from Ghost Whisperer territory with its wit and storylines and smartly begins stepping away from the mystery-of-the-week writing. The villain of the show is kind of a Spike from Buffy derivative, but by the second half of the first season he starts to work better within the framework of the show. I am very excited to catch up with this latest season though as the final scene of the first left it open for the writers to go much deeper down the rabbit hole of how Liv's zombie-ism affects those around her.

I've been hesitant to gush here since no one else seemed to bite but the show has only gotten better in its second season, with some great self-aware gags (like playing with Clive's underwritten character by having him harbor hilariously unlikely pastimes like Baja cooking) and a deepening of the various longterm villainous threads (similar to how Veronica Mars' second season devoted much of its time to complicating everyone's life) and the effect the zombies, Liv included, have on the non-afflicted. This is the show I most look forward to, to laugh and enjoy the characters and get caught up in the ever-deepening story. It's a shame the CW makes it so hard to get caught up with the show while the season is in progress (Hulu only keeps the last five eps, On Demand doesn't even have the current one), but you're in for a real treat, esp since it got renewed so they'll have time to expand and explore their mythology further

CW's never been very good about giving people access to earlier episodes sadly. For a while Time Warner on demand didn't even have anything for the station. Of course TWOD is horrible in general but that's a different discussion.

And yet still totally unavailable (legally) in the UK. Bah!

mfunk9786 wrote:Renewed for a 3rd season, apparently against all odds

TVBytheNumbers was always predicting a renewal, as the show's numbers were always pretty good for the CW, TV Grim Reaper had an apparent grudge against it from the get-go and weren't as impartial in their predix

domino harvey wrote:UPDATE No Blu-ray but it's not getting dumped into the Archives either: First season out on DVD in September

They decided to dump it in the Archives after all...but on Blu-ray!

I started watching this a few weeks ago and give thanks for your recommendation. It fills the Veronica Mars shaped hole in my heart admirably.

Holy shit, news of the year!

Let joy be unconfined! Series one and two have appeared in HD on UK iTunes.

Pre-order for blu-ray releases are on Amazon for July 12

Second season now up on Netflix

Escaped the Rob Thomas curse and was renewed for season four!

After finishing yet another revisit of Veronica Mars, I was hankering for more Rob Thomas and finally gave this show a shot. I shouldn't be surprised how much I'm enjoying it, with the high concept of Liv's personality-adoption still getting milked deep into the margins of its writing and acting potential. This is a case where the mystery-of-the-week episodic structure works miles better than the average crime programmer by adding this extra variable of psychologically-fused-yet-curbed possession which inspires infinite creative liberties. Rose McIver's demeanor underplays just how diverse her talents are, taking a less intense method than Tatiana Maslany did in Orphan Black but no less impressive- a bit moreso even, when you consider that she needs to remain grounded to her familiar 'self' and also loose, venturing into imaginative terrain, simultaneously. Whether playing a cheerleader, a frat bro, an irritable old man, a sociopath, or any number of other souls, her disciplined control allows her to transcend clichés and locate the more idiosyncratic, rich details of the same stereotypes, developed with careful thought and effort through craft. It's a great show for many reasons, but it's McIver's wielding of Thomas and co's writing that keeps me hitting next episode on Netflix, just like Bell's fit for the material is what elevated his best show into compulsive art. Speaking of, all the running jokes of VMars nods are a delight

Finally finished this series and the last two seasons left a lot to be desired. I didn't mind the final season as much as most apparently did, but the reveal regarding the role of a certain paternal figure is squibbed too hastily when it demands the narrative heft attentively granted to these kinds of arcs in the show's first half. A shame really- you can tell the creative juices were still kicking around the writer's room, but nobody was overseeing the execution of these ideas with the care necessary to harness their organizational power. The finale's swift cleanup of its delicious baddies felt disrespectful to the audience's longstanding investment by transforming them into one-note vehicles of reactivity and evil, which they were very much not until the end there