So I kind of started watching iZombie. After pretty much running out of series to watch on Netflix I decided to give it a try. You know, just one episode to see if it really was as bad as I suspected…except it actually is surprisingly good.

Okay, okay – I admit: A zombie series with a very pretty girl as lead who actually does not even look like a “real” zombie and no evident walking corpses just sounds…well, bad. Like a Hollywood attempt to make everything beautiful – even the undead. But what you should know about iZombie is that it’s based on a comic book and they actually do a very good job of keeping the comic-elements in the series and well…you just get hooked. Like really fast.

A pretty white zombie

iZombie tells the story about Olivia “Liv” Moore a young girl who is about to have it all: A great career as a heart surgeon and a great guy who wants to spend the rest of his life with her. It all ends one night when Liv attends a boat party that is overrun by zombies. The next day she wakes up as an undead with a craving for brains. Her skin turns white as does her hair and she is forced to leave everything about her old life behind and starts working in a morgue – because as long as she regularly keeps eating brains at least she will not turn into a rotting mindless corpse.

Zombie vision

I know, it does sound incredibly shallow but the one thing that got me hooked is the fact of what happens when Liv eats brains: For the brief time that she “digests” the eating brain she also adopts parts of that person’s personality and gets visions of their lives and deaths. It’s a new concept to see a zombie with a conscience – and the way the adapt it is actually done pretty well. Of course the series does have a few cheesy parts and yes, many clichés as well. But like I said, I got hooked to the story – within the first 10 minutes actually.

No thank you to walking corpses

Yes, I can already hear all the fans of “real” zombies protesting – because honestly, the way zombies are portrayed in iZombie is far from the usual portrayal. But maybe that is part of why I like it. If I am being totally honest, I really do not like zombies all that much. I stopped watching The Walking Dead within the first 10 minutes (the moment that zombie-child appeared) and the one zombie movie I do actually like is Warm Bodies. So yeah, maybe the “traditional” zombie-concept just doesn’t work for me. But then again, there are people who like sparkling vampires so I guess it is alright to prefer non-traditional takes on certain mythologies.

So…if you ever run out of good shows to watch on Netflix – or like a little different zombie-story, maybe give iZombie a try. Even if it’s just so you can argue with me about how bad you really think it is 😉