iZombie was a very underrated series that aired for five seasons from 2015 to 2019 on The CW. The first season included 13 episodes that aired during the spring and summer of 2015. The series starred Rose McIver, Malcolm Goodwin, David Anders, Rahul Kohli, Robert Buckley, and Aly Michalka. The premise of the show is that a medical student, Olivia Moore, played by Rose McIver, is turned into a Zombie during a boat party. She ends up distancing herself from everyone in her life (to keep them safe) and starts working in the police morgue, where she starts to help a new detective, played by Malcolm Goodwin, solve murders. He thinks she is psychic, but she really gets visions of the murder victims by eating their brains. The only person who knows she is really a zombie is her boss at the morgue, played by Rahul Kohli, who is trying to help Liv find a cure for zombieism. It is another series based on a comic book created by the showrunners of Veronica Mars.
The show is a blend of a case-of-the-week procedural and a serial with larger story arcs playing out throughout the season. The serial arcs eventually come together by the end of the season. It does take a couple episodes to find its groove, but it does so relatively quickly and the formula works well. It sets up a larger story with multiple "bad guys," one of which is played by the great David Anders (from Alias and Heroes) and another that reveals itself later in the season and carries into season 2. Liv's ex-fiance, Major, played by Robert Buckley, has an increasing role in the story as the season goes on, and Aly Michalka, who plays Liv's roommate Payton, is the main recurring character of season 1.
The show was originally only released on DVD and then given an MOD Blu-Ray release. The extras are the same on both the DVD and Blu-Ray and are very light. Those include a few deleted scenes and a portion of the 2015 Comic-Con panel discussion. The comic-con thing is about a half hour and provides insight into what the showrunners were going for, like not adhering strictly to the comic and how the actors approached their roles. One thing to keep in mind, however, is that while the show ran for 5 seasons, only the first three seasons were released on physical media. This is due in large part to a licensing issue that affected season four and then Warner Brothers just decided not to release season 5. You may be able to find bootleg DVDs for the last two seasons, but there were no official releases. So, if you are someone who wants a complete collection of TV series on physical media, you may just want to stream the show.
While some who were familiar with the comic book may hate that the show really just uses the comic as the guide and does not follow it to a t may not like the show, I think anyone who is into the more supernatural/superhero genre of shows and movies who does not fall into that category should give it a chance. It is well written and has a talented ensemble cast with actors who were recognizable but not necessarily household names (and others for whom this is really their first big break). Rose McIver does a great job as Liv and has the range as an actress to play a range of characters because she essentially takes on a new personality each week. She owns the role so much that it is hard to imagine anyone else doing as good a job with that role. Whether you stream the show or buy it on physical media, it is definitely worth checking out. The series was a mid-season pickup and, as such, did not get a ton of hype like many of the shows that start out right away in the fall (that was pretty much reserved for The Flash on the CW in 2015).
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