*Minor Spoilers Follow. Nothing to major so don't worry ready away*
"Your not Dead, your Undead theres a difference" is said by Ravi, Liv's work colleague at the Morgue and its something major that I took away from this pilot. While normal zombies can be classed as dead because there basically brain dead with just the need to feed still being there, Liv is different she still functions as a human being. Theres just the small issue of that she eats brains and sees visions of how that person died, oh yeah and she has to eat everything covered in hot sauce to really get some sort of taste from what she's eating. IZombie has been on my radar for a long time now and normally I won't get to excited for a show because I know how bad pilots can be and its normally about pushing past the pilot because its just setting everything up and everything gets better after the first episode. That really is not the case with this show from beginning to end this show was awesome there really is no other way to describe it. Its funny, intriguing and is awesome. Im going to try and avoid spoilers as much as possible because I really want to just get as many people to watch this as possible because I have a feeling this show could have a strong future.
So lets start off with the major plus of the show which is that it doesn't try and get away from the fact that its based on a comic book, if anything it just uses that as a basis and expands on that. The whole pilot is based around Liv 5 months on from dying during a party infested by zombies now having to try and deal with being a zombie herself. As well as that she also has to deal with the fact that her family think that she's losing it and that she's got PTSD because all she does is spend all day in bed and gave up a career as a doctor to work at a morgue. I mean come on anyone would go a little crazy having been attacked by crazy people at a party you didn't really want to go to right? But where as most pilots will just throw as much at you as possible to pull you in which they are meant to do because they want you to watch their show IZombie doesn't. It relies upon the fact that its a zombie show, she has visions of what happened to the person and how they died when she eats their brains and that the new cop at homicide Babineaux believes Liv is a psychic.
One of the stand out parts of the pilot is the chemistry between Babineaux and Liv as they have to work together to find the killer of a young Romanian girl that Liv might eaten the brain of. So you know theres that. Over the course of the episode Liv narrates to the audience how she ended up here and how sometimes maybe just being the flesh eating monster people think Zombies are would be better then trying to hide it from everyone. But hide it is what she does and over the course of the pilot you get the feeling that while it isn't easy she is learning how to manage it with the help of Ravi. But back to her and Babineaux they have this great back and forth over the course of the pilot as she starts to put the pieces into place for him. Its stupid and you get that feeling of how can you be falling for all of this but where as any other show this would be a bad thing IZombie just uses it to its advantage because its not trying to be a serious show. I feel one of the hardest things for a new show on Zombies in the TV market is differentiating its self and giving you a answer to "well what makes you different to other zombie show" and in many way its not. It follows that trope of that Zombie bites you, then your infected and you become a flesh eating monster like normal. But what really makes it different in my opinion is the cast because Liv, Ravi and Babineaux are fantastic but more importantly it doesn't take itself seriously and is very self aware. Having Liv look in at two of her friends playing a zombie video game and her watching night of the living dead and commenting on how different she is. Its never worried about being self aware of itself and how different it is.
The pilot manages to cram a lot into an hour but without ever really feeling like its just throwing everything at you, it still feels like its keeping stuff close to its chest. That is backed up by the end of the episode which I won't spoil but it intrigued be quite a bit and made me really excited for the next episode. The show while being a DC property doesn't feel like a superhero show because it isn't one, its a comic book show but its more a detective show with a twist more then anything. It already has that case of the week vibe about it with that underline story that we get little bits of across the season until the big finale. It feels like a Buffy or an Angel a show of the late 90's early 2000's which might be a big thing to say but thats what it feels like as we have are small team working on cases and crimes together. I don't know how long they can keep Babineaux out of the mix on that fact that Liv is a zombie but for now I'm happy with the pace that they have set and its a pleasant surprise.
I have nothing but praise for this show and I hope that it carries on across the season because its a show that really doesn't have a lot of potential to be brilliant. I didn't want to go into to many spoilers because its something that I feel is better for everyone to find out for themselves because this show is a real surprising treat for people like me that didn't know anything about the comic. Pilots never normal grab me but if more shows can take IZombies approach then I would be a happy man
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