AlthoughiZombieended in 2019, the five-season supernatural procedural managed to reinvigorate the familiar cop show setup with its inventive premise. Cop shows make up a substantial portion of TV’s scripted offerings. According toThe Hollywood Reporter, around a fifth of 2020’s scripted TV shows were police procedurals, and this figure was atypically low compared to preceding years. This makes it tough for networks to reinvent the police procedural, a genre that has been subverted, rebooted, revisited, and relied upon for decades on end. Appropriately enough, the seriesiZombiesuccessfully breathed new life into cop shows in 2015.
8 Things Most Fans Don’t Know About iZombie’s Rose McIver
If you haven’t watched the CW’s iZombie, you should. Starring actress Rose McIver, who plays Olivia Moore, is just fantastic.
AlthoughiZombieseason 6never happened, the show enjoyed critical acclaim and ran for five seasons that earned solid ratings. Starring Rose McIver as Olivia “Liv” Moore,iZombiewas a crime drama with a unique premise. Its heroine, Liv, was a medical resident who became a zombie and used her condition to help solve crimes. As an assistant at the King County morgue, she ate the brains of murder victims and temporarily absorbed their personalities. This allowed Liv, along with her colleague Ravi and her cop accomplice Clive, to solve murders iniZombie’s loose comic book adaptation.
iZombie’s Brain Gimmick Meant That Liv Was A Different Character Every Episode
Rose McIver’s Heroine Absorbed Different Personalities In Each Outing
What madeiZombiework so well was the fact thatiZombie’sheroine Liv was a different person in each new episode. The show’s protagonist never became tiresome, since every outing revolved around her absorbing the personality of a new person. From a dowager to a frat bro, to a dominatrix, to a sniper, the people whose murders Liv investigated were widely varied. This allowed each episode ofiZombieto give McIver an opportunity to stretch her comedic muscles as a versatile actor, and the contrast between Liv’s natural personality and that of her latest meal was often hilariously pronounced.
Law and OrderandBrooklyn Nine-Ninecould never change the entire personalities of their main characters on a dime.
What makesiZombiean underrated zombie comedy seriesis the show’s ability to reinvigorate both the police procedural setup and the zombie horror subgenre. While both of these formats have their fans, there is no denying that they risk staleness thanks to repetition. Even if viewers love Stabler and Benson or Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago,Law and OrderandBrooklyn Nine-Ninecould never change the entire personalities of these characters on a dime. Similarly, even the best zombie horror movies rarely manage to reinvent the humble zombies itself. However,iZombiepulled off both of these impressive tricks.
Liv’s Different “Brains” Made Sure iZombie Would Never Get Boring
An Ever-Changing Detective Made iZombie A Uniquely Eventful Procedural
AsiZombiecontinued,Liv’s personal relationships became as important as her crime-solving skills. However, whenever the personal drama between Clive, Ravi, Liv, and Liv’s roommate Peyton became too intense, the series always had its ingenious premise to fall back on. While other crime procedurals had to come up with increasingly elaborate storylines to keep their individual episodes feeling exciting,iZombiejust needed to come up with another intriguing person for Liv to show down on. Season 4 alone saw Liv become a bodyguard, a socialite, an actress, and a professional wingman whose job was teaching the art of seduction.
Rose McIver played a different character in every episode as well as consistently maintaining Liv’s persona between cases.
This diverse range of roles relied heavily on McIver’s central performance, but this paid off.iZombie’s inventive sci-fi comedygave McIver more to do than her later role in CBS’s sitcomGhosts, since the actor played a different character in every episode as well as consistently maintaining Liv’s persona between cases. Balancing personal drama and goofy, creative cases was tricky for the DC series, but the reliable structure of the crime procedural show ensured thatiZombiepulled this off. Notably, this was not the first DC series to rely on the format.
iZombie Was Not The Only Show To Turn A DC Comic Book Into A Crime Procedural
iZombie’s Approach Was Borrowed By Other DC Comic Shows
Although they were successful comic book adaptations first and foremost,many of DC’s biggest TV shows followed the procedural route.Luciferwas a textbook cop show, although its central cop was admittedly a little unusual, whileThe Flashgenerally followed the crime drama template as much as it relied on a more straightforward superhero series format. EvenArrowborrowed from crime drama procedurals in its pacing, resulting in a show whose tone owed as much toNCISandCSIas theSupermanandSpider-Manmovies.
However,iZombiewas unique in its ability to reinvent both the crime drama format and the zombie story. What madeiZombie’s story so perfectfor fans of both seemingly unrelated genres was the seamless integration of horror tropes into what was otherwise an atypically grisly crime procedural. Liv was nothing like most zombies, but she occasionally reminded viewers that she was among the walking dead, whileiZombieprovided all the fun of a classic crime procedural while feeling entirely fresh and different thanks to its premise.
iZombieis not currently streaming but is available to rent online.
