iZombie – Season 1 Review

iZombie

There are two previous shows that iZombie heavily reminds me of: Psych and Heroes. But don’t worry, iZombie is better than both of those. It features a woman pretending to be a psychic as she aids the local police, only the catch is that she’s really a zombie who’s been eating the brains of the victims to stay alive. The fact that the brains give her new memories and personality quirks was a cool idea, until I realized we’d seen this before in the form of Sylar from Heroes. Regardless, Liv is a fun character, and it’s entertaining to see what the “brain of the week” does to her. It’s just strange how some brains affect her more than others, according to the whims of the writers.

In fact, the writing can be pretty clunky overall as it strives to squeeze in as many zingers as possible. Why does everyone need to have a witty comeback for everything? That said, it should come as no surprise this is a somewhat lighthearted show. At least, the first half of Season 1 is. Things get a little darker near the end as the overarching plot becomes more relevant. It’s weird, then, how the show continues to shoehorn in the weekly murder case when the stakes are so high. I started to get a little annoyed with the character Liv in the same way I was annoyed with Jessica Jones; her selfish reluctance to do anything about the big bad guy just gets more people killed.

Which brings me to the finale, something that was both a good and bad kind of frustrating. It left a lot to look forward to in Season 2 but didn’t deliver a very satisfying payoff with the antagonist. And, by the way, the bad guy’s whole operation teetered on ridiculous. He, too, is a zombie who deliberately infects rich people so he can sell them brains at a high price. How is this a sustainable business model, though?! In the end, you realize there are just way too many zombies in Seattle, and that detracts from Liv’s uniqueness. But I hesitate to keep calling them zombies, anyway, since they act and look more like vampires. Whatever you think of them as, the characters and the detective aspect of the show are enjoyable, and I’ll definitely check out Season 2 when I have the chance.

Reviewer

Clark
I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.

Published by

Clark

I love gaming so much, I wrote a book about it.