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iZombie: The hope of the zombie is alive in Seattle

368934.jpgAfter several solid seasons, a TV show has earned a right to take some risks, and push the envelope a little. Indeed, a lack of imagination is often a sign the show's days are numbered. On the other hand, straying too far from the show's core story often alienates the fan base that is necessary to the show's continued existence. The reason I bring this up is because it is relevant to the new season of iZombie. Over the past three seasons, the show has developed an intriguing take on the zombie genre, namely, they live secretly among humans with the only telltale sign of their difference being that they are paler than most humans and, of course, must eat human brains to survive. This concept works well with the story of Liv Moore, played by Rose McIver, a zombie working as police medical examiner, who helps her partner, police detective Clive Babineaux, played by Malcolm Goodwin, solve crimes by eating the brains crime victims which allows her to assume the victim's personality and memories. In essence, it was a cop-buddy drama that focused on life from a zombie's perspective including her relationships with her human supervisor Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli), her human roommate Peyton Charles (Alyson Michalka), and her human boyfriend Major Lilywhite (Robert Buckley); as well as her tensions with fellow zombie and sociopathic killer Blaine DeBeers (David Anders). As such, the show is enjoyable and based on its zombie backstory, and comic book style, there are quite a few directions it could go under its such a creative framework.

In season four, so far its looks as if the creators decided to throw that old framework out the door. The season begins in the aftermath of last season's mass infection of Seattleites with the zombie virus. Seattle has now become a walled-off zombie sanctuary of sorts, with zombies living openly with humans in the city, but cut off from the rest of the country. As a result, the previous seasons' focus on Liv, Clive and Ravi solving crimes, has expanded considerably. Now there are stories concerning zombie on zombie crime, which is being handled by Filmore Graves, a zombie security firm lead by Chase Graves (Jason Dohring), the zombie that perpetrated the mass infection of Seattle. There is also the whole question of how to feed zombies without killing humans, as well as the ongoing question of whether or not a cure for the zombie virus is possible; which Ravi, having taken both the virus and an the antidote is working to achieve. The show's creators still allow plenty of human-zombie interaction to keep the central emphasis of the show on Liv and Clive. Indeed, now that zombies have been "outed" the human-zombie tensions seem to be the creators' reflection on inter-groups tensions that are increasingly common within contemporary American life.

With so many strands at play, season four could make for a television series nightmare, as some strands might reveal themselves to be stupid (re: Filmore Graves), and others not given enough time to develop properly (re: Ravi-Peyton-Blaine triangle), and of course, the suppression of the core story that made the show great. However, if the creators are up to the task, this season could be exactly the type transformation or rebooting that is necessary to sustain the series for another three years. So far, the show has adeptly kept it interesting -- is there any other show that uses its characters' names as well as iZombie? Only time well tell.

What do you think?

Written by lao.san on Mar 4, 2018

Comments

Fody posted 5 years ago

One of the best TV shows ever! ;)

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