Excerpt from my full article for Geekscape.net’s Fall TV 2015: Top 10 New & Returning Shows!

iZOMBIE

(Oct. 6th, 9pm, CW)

iZombie has been adorable fun right out of the gate since starting last season—which is an odd thing to say about anything having to do with zombies (compare to The Walking Dead). Versatile Rose McIver is perfectly cast as Olivia “Liv” Moore (get it?!) who became a zombie after getting scratched by one at “the worst boat party ever” on Lake Washington and, after waking a little less than dead, left her budding career as a doctor to become a medical examiner’s assistant at the Seattle PD morgue—which supplies her all the fresh brains her new zombie metabolism craves.

As a viewer, you eagerly follow her through the unfolding plots. Zombies themselves are a conceptually diverse tool in storytelling, allowing for grim commentary on various aspects of modern life. The fresh take that iZombie uses is in identifying with the zombie main character, relating to the isolation and the desire to connect with others—to fit in when you feel like an outsider. Will she let her family get close to her again? Will she get back together with her fiancé? Or will she eat them all as she fears she will? Meantime, Liv is out solving the murders of the victims who come through the morgue as a makeshift UGHAFC (Unusual Genius Helps Authorities Fight Crime) “police psychic” because she gets visions from the lives of the brains she eats. Not only that, it’s a delight each week to watch her act in strange new ways because she also takes on the victims’ habits, skills an personalities! (You could almost say she’s the next best thing to Tatiana Maslany’s performance of over ten clones and counting in Orphan Black.)

Her two closest cohorts turn in great performances too. Rahul Kohli as the medical examiner and closest confidant about all things zombie, Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti, and Aly Michalka as Liv’s befuddled bestie and roommate, Peyton Charles, use the elegance of their natural comedic timing even in dramatic service to the more heartfelt scenes. The effect is laughs and “feels” at all the right moments.

After more developments than I can list here during the first season, I’m really looking forward to everything that’s poised to unfold for season two of iZombie!