iZombie: Come for the Brains, Stay for the Heart

I couldn’t resist the pun.

Seriously though – I tuned into iZombie because it was helmed by Rob Thomas, the same brains behind my all-time favorite television series,Veronica Mars. It’s no secret that Mars was renowned for its smart, snappy dialogue and its strong female lead – and iZombie has the potential to be a Mars 2.0.

I say potential because the pilot started out slow – I didn’t immediately care about the main lead, Liv, the way I did about Veronica. Liv’s life is just too perfect.

Er. Well, her life was too perfect. Alive Liv was so painfully type-A that I fully anticipate one of her flashbacks will include a color-coded map of her life’s ambitions crayoned out from when she was in kindergarten. Now that she’s a member of the undead, I guess the afterlife isn’t quite as neat.

Alive Liv was a kickass surgeon (intern? resident?) at her hospital who knew how to intubate a guy Nancy-Drew style at the first sign of asphyxiation. She had the perfect career and the perfect fiancé.

Even her frenemy respects her.

Which is what ultimately ends up tilting Liv’s world sideways. Liv’s frenemy invites her to a yacht party with designer drugs. Drugs which coincidentally turn people into zombies. Just say no, kids.

Even though Liv doesn’t partake, she gets scratched by someone who does – next thing she knows, she wakes up in a body bag.

After her death, Liv breaks off things with her fiancé for fear of turning him into a zombie, turns into a recluse, and gets a job at the morgue to satisfy her hunger for brains. Her supervisor finds out about her secret and agrees to help her find a cure for the zombie virus.

In the meantime, Liv starts to help out a homicide detective who thinks she’s psychic solve murders – turns out that when she eats a victim’s brain, she sees flashes of their memory and acquires some of their skills/habits (e.g. kleptomania and speaking foreign languages in the first episode).

She also spends her time juggling her secret from her disappointed family, fiancé, and best friend/roommate (Aaah! Aly Michalka from Disney Channel!) now that she’s radically changed her personality for no apparent reason *suspends disbelief that the entire universe overlooks Liv’s ghostly pallor and lust for brains and attributes it to PTSD*

All in all, iZombie looks to be a pleasant procedural with a quirky premise and talented cast.

Even though I’ve just seen the pilot episode, I feel like this show is going to come into its own in the way that other sharp, offbeat procedurals like Psych and Pushing Daisies have.

Give it some time, but at first glance, this show really does have potential, the brains, and the heart to succeed.