Welcome to Stop>Drop>Watch, a new LRM feature where we recommend recent or current TV shows (and movies) you may have missed, stopped watching, or simply want to try out. With DVRs, streaming services, and on-demand it’s easier than ever to discover new stuff, but the amount of content makes it hard to choose what to watch. We’re here to help!

The CW’s iZombie

We’re mostly a genre fan site, and as such, it’s easy for us to get caught up in all the typical capes, tights, and cheap leather outfits. Hey, it’s in our nature, what can we do? But it’s easy to forget sometimes that the comic book medium goes well beyond that of the superhero stories, and one such comic is that of iZombie, created by writer Chris Robertson and artist Michael Allred.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UndyIFo_jZ4

The CW, currently the king of the DC superhero series, took its core premise, and turned it into a perfect blend of an average episodic and serialized storytelling in their TV show of the same name, which is about ot start its fourth season.

The story follows a character Olivia “Liv” Moore (get it?). After going to a boat party, a zombie outbreak occurs, leaving her pretty much dead…only not. She awakens to find herself craving something strange: Brains. By and large, zombies can pass for normal humans, but when deprived of brains for too long, they turn into your stereotypical, flesh-hungry drone. Luckily for her, she takes a job working at the King County morgue, and after she inadvertently outs herself as a zombie to her boss (who is unbelievably cool about the whole thing — he’s also an amazing character), she’s pretty much free to eat all the brains she needs to survive from the dead bodies.

RELATED – Why You Should Stop, Drop, & Watch The CW’s Arrow

But there’s a catch. When she eats the brains, she gets random visions of their lives that are triggered by random events. She then uses these visions to help Detective Clive Babineaux solve recent murders either involving the deceased or those they are close to.

Yeah, I know, this sounds like another garbage procedural show, and I thought so as well. However, after getting about halfway through the first season, it became clear to me that the showrunners had more in mind than a simple cop procedural.

Where You Should Start Watching:

Without a doubt, you need to start from the beginning. Despite the seemingly episodic description, this is a show that becomes more heavily serialized the more you get into it. With each season, the zombie mythology grows ever more complex and intricate, and the relationships are ever-changing, so there’s no coming in midway through without losing something along the way.

Luckily, while this is a standard network TV show, there aren’t nearly as many episodes as standard shows per season. Season 1 consists of 13 episodes, Season 2 (for some reason) has 19, and Season 3 has 13. As such, it doesn’t have as many pacign problems as a lot of network shows on The CW (I’m looking at you, The Flash).

Why You Should Be Watching iZombie:

As I mentioned at the very beginning of this piece, iZombie is a show that manages a perfect balance between an episode TV show and a serialized one. Pretty much every episode contains some sort of monster of the week. However, more often than not, you may get halfway through an episode, only for that “crime” to get solved, leaving an extra 20 minutes or so for them to lay more foundation on the ever-thickening plot of the main story, which involves the overall zombie conspiracy.

In addition to our lead character being a zombie, she also has to cope with the fact that there are many others out there. In fact, there are so many other zombies out there hiding their secret lives that an underground brain-selling business has started to emerge, which leads to many other strange goings-on in town. Needless to say, things get sticky very quickly, and the conspiracy only gets deeper as the show goes on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFSfIuqLvIs

Perhaps most interestingly, this is a series that doesn’t fully rely on a status quo. Sure, the base premise of Liv eating brains at the morgue is pretty intact, the circumstances of those around her, her relationships with them, and their involvement in the whole zombie conspiracy changes frequently, keeping you on your toes as to who is allied with who, who knows what, and whether or not we should trust them. Frankly, it’s a fun, well put together soap opera, and I love every second of it.

It also helps that iZombie has one of the more interesting and likable antagonists in Blaine McDonough. He starts off the story as a drug dealer who is inadvertently responsible for the zombie outbreak, due to the mixture between the drugs he was selling and a certain energy drink partygoers were drinking on board the boat. He’s funny, creative, enterprising, and while I was quick to paint him as evil initially, it becomes clear partway through that there’s more to this guy than meets the eye.

Where You Can Find Episodes And Seasons of iZombie:

As of right now, you can catch all three seasons of iZombie on Netflix (sorry, no Hulu), and with Season 4 premiering later this month on February 26, 2018 on The CW, there’s no better time to binge this fun series. Between the superhero stories of The Flash and Arrow on The CW, this is a welcome reprieve.

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