A WEEK-OLD TV SERIES PILOT REVIEW OF iZOMBIE

Title: iZOMBIE

Rose McIver plays Liv Moore, with a name as ironic as ironical names get… She does Live More… After death, the ex-doctor, now a zombie, works in a morgue, feeding on brains after hours with NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD playing on a loop; although WARM BODIES would really fit since the same concept of the brain giving insight into the former owner is the basis of the plotline... Only now, insights are clues and crimes are solved... Think of iZOMBIE as NIGHT OF THE WARM QUINCY.

Year: 2015 Grade: B+

So it's not such an original concept in that particular regard... The rushed fashion they skip past the how, when and why felt a bit awkward… And Liv’s workmate, who figures her secret within the first fifteen minutes, is annoying… But when unlucky vice turned homicide detective Clive Babineaux and Liv partner up – he thinks she's a psychic, not a braineater – everything clicks.

Rose McIver is extremely cute even with a powdery white face: a narcissistic Goth chick with an excuse. And in the cop role, Malcolm Goodwin is vulnerable enough to need a partner; tough enough to seem legit; and insecure enough as a cop that needs help at a job he’s mediocre at in the first place. 

Constructed by expository squares liken to a comic book, befitting the graphic novel origin, and moving in a brisk, modern pace through narration, one particular standout visual has Liv peaking into her ex fiancé's house while he plays a video game with his new girlfriend involving, of all things, killing zombies: A creatively heartbreaking moment for our revived starlet, whose death is only the beginning of her problems… Let’s just hope the show keeps as fresh as the pilot, and doesn’t start rotting from within. So far so good. And while catered to youngsters, there's a old soul lurking beneath its millennial flesh.