iZombie - Season 3

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

I've really liked it the few times when it's not a "case of the week thing." After a while procedurals kind of bore me.

I don't know what to make of Vivian yet. I wonder what she and Liv were discussing at the end.

I know Blaine lost his memory and he's acting all nicey nice because of it but him and Peyton is just weird.

Speaking of Blaine, I thought he actually killed his dad? Guess not.

Greg Cox, Liv and Major were on military brains but it was only mentioned twice and wasn't that noticeable

 

[Christopher]

I don't know what to make of Vivian yet. I wonder what she and Liv were discussing at the end.

Yeah. That scene reminded me how much I dislike the modern tendency to put long, dialogue-free pop-song montages toward the ends of TV episodes. Don't waste all this time showing me characters sitting around not talking! Use the time to let them do more talking! And having them talk but not letting us hear what they're saying is even worse. I guess there are times when that can work, when you know the gist of what's being said -- like when someone is being told a loved one has died and reacts with shock grief. That's often a surreal, detached enough experience that giving the audience some distance from it can be fitting. But this was a case where it seemed like we should've been clued in on the conversation.

 

[Greg Cox]

Greg Cox, Liv and Major were on military brains but it was only mentioned twice and wasn't that noticeable

Oh, I picked up on that, but it was mostly used as a plot device to keep the plot moving until they finally had time to let Liv process her grief over her boyfriend's death. It wasn't like she had to cope with any inconvenient new character traits or anything.

(Christopher: sorry to drop out of our dialogue earlier. It was getting very in-depth and I had some urgent work stuff to deal with.)

 

[Christopher]

Oh, I picked up on that, but it was mostly used as a plot device to keep the plot moving until they finally had time to let Liv process her grief over her boyfriend's death. It wasn't like she had to cope with any inconvenient new character traits or anything.

I saw it more as part 2 of the same story that began in the season finale. After all, it picked up literally just minutes afterward. Generally there's enough of an interval between episodes for the brain to wear off. I actually found it interesting that we got to see that process this time and have the wearing off of the personality be plot-relevant, rather than just the personality itself. In this case, the inconvenience came from the loss of the soldier-brain character traits.

 

[YLu]

It's interesting. Superheros and science fiction tend to clash this way. Traditionally, comics avoid the fact that their premises (aliens, shrinking rays, Norse gods hanging out in NYC) would cause profound social changes in real life, in order to have Superman and the Fantastic Four hanging out in a world that more or less resembles our own. (WATCHMEN'S big idea, back in the day, was to reject this approach and try to imagine how the existence of superheroes would affect the world in real life.)

Kieron Gillen wrote an interesting short piece about this. He makes the point that, despite the sci-fi trappings, superheroes really draw their appeal from the same place urban fantasy does -- they allow us to pretend or imagine the real world is a lot more interesting than it seems, that fantastical things are going on just past the corner of our eyes. "What if there's magic secretly happening all around me?" "What if Thor just flew past my window when I wasn't looking?" Superhero writers are resistant to diverging from the real world because the more they do, the more that fundamental appeal gets diluted.

He states that superheroes/urban fantasy does for geography spiritually what le parkour does for it physically. I always liked that comparison.

 

[Christopher]

Kieron Gillen wrote an interesting short piece about this. He makes the point that, despite the sci-fi trappings, superheroes really draw their appeal from the same place urban fantasy does -- they allow us to pretend or imagine the real world is a lot more interesting than it seems, that fantastical things are going on just past the corner of our eyes. "What if there's magic secretly happening all around me?" "What if Thor just flew past my window when I wasn't looking?" Superhero writers are resistant to diverging from the real world because the more they do, the more that fundamental appeal gets diluted.

I dunno, that doesn't work for me. I'd rather explore worlds that are different from our own. I don't want the fantastic stuff to be hidden around the corner -- I want to imagine living in a world where the fantastic stuff is out in the open, a world that's better or at least interestingly different than the one I'm stuck living in. I want to see the fantastic elements of the world having an impact on it rather than being muffled and constrained so that they don't threaten the precious status quo. The latter is too limiting from a storytelling perspective, both because there are a lot of stories you can't tell without having a wider impact on the world, and because it requires too many stories to be about keeping the secret, which just gets repetitive.

 

[Greg Cox]

Kieron Gillen wrote an interesting short piece about this. He makes the point that, despite the sci-fi trappings, superheroes really draw their appeal from the same place urban fantasy does -- they allow us to pretend or imagine the real world is a lot more interesting than it seems, that fantastical things are going on just past the corner of our eyes. "What if there's magic secretly happening all around me?" "What if Thor just flew past my window when I wasn't looking?" Superhero writers are resistant to diverging from the real world because the more they do, the more that fundamental appeal gets diluted.

He states that superheroes/urban fantasy does for geography spiritually what le parkour does for it physically. I always liked that comparison.

That's an interesting observation. And, yeah, part of the whole wish-fulfillment fantasy is that Superman and Spider-Man exist in a recognizable version of our world, complete with bus stops, barber shops, bank robberies, grumpy landlords, high school dances, etc. Peter Parker is an ordinary kid in an ordinary high school--which makes the Amazing stuff, when it happens, all the more Amazing. As opposed to say, a world, where Reed Richards and Tony Stark and Hank Pym have completely transformed modern society through their amazing discoveries, and large numbers of Americans worship Thor and Odin and Hercules!

Not that the latter approach can't have its rewards, too. (Hi, Watchmen, The 4400, etc.) But then you're talking some kind of alternate history sci-fi scenario and drifting away from the core appeal of "super" heroes doing miraculous things in our world.

Digression: the Legion of Super-Heroes, despite its legion of devoted fans, has never quite managed to break beyond cult status. I wonder if that's in part because teenage superheroes seem less "super" in the astounding, futuristic setting of the 31st century, where exotic technological marvels and strange alien creatures are just an everyday part of the background. In other words, does the sf setting undercut the superhero fantasy?

 

[Christopher]

Not that the latter approach can't have its rewards, too. (Hi, Watchmen, The 4400, etc.) But then you're talking some kind of alternate history sci-fi scenario and drifting away from the core appeal of "super" heroes doing miraculous things in our world.

But to me, when a work of fiction is predicated on violations of physical law of the sort that usually exist in superhero stories, that precludes it being in our world. It makes it obviously a fantasy, which is why I get impatient with the attempt to pretend it's in our world when there's no way it could be.

When I wanted a story that let me believe superheroes could actually exist in the real world, I created the concepts and characters of Only Superhuman, a future where advances in bionics and genetic modification made real superhuman powers possible within the realm of physical law. That's something that I can believe in as an extension of the real world -- something that could actually happen someday. I'm more comforted by the belief that we really could build a better future, that a world of heroes could someday be achieved in real life, than I am by the fantasy of an alternate present that's forever impossible and unattainable.

 

[Greg Cox]

But to me, when a work of fiction is predicated on violations of physical law of the sort that usually exist in superhero stories, that precludes it being in our world. It makes it obviously a fantasy, which is why I get impatient with the attempt to pretend it's in our world when there's no way it could be.

But do you see where the appeal of the fantasy can sometimes lie in imagining that its happening to people like you and me, in a world enough like our own that that the fantastic elements stand out more? Look at 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. There are absolutely no new ideas regarding vampires in that book, but what makes it work is that King makes his small town and its people feel utterly believable and lived-in, so that when the unnatural elements intrude, they're all the scarier for taking place in believable, realistic setting where they don't belong.

Same with superheroes. A guy leaping over tall buildings in a single bound is more jaw-dropping if it takes place in downtown Metropolis than in some exotic transhuman alternate world where such feats are commonplace. It's about evoking the "sense of wonder" effect of the awesome and the miraculous.

That being said, you can also have fun trying to take a more science-fictional approach as in, say, I Am Legend (with regards to vampires) or Almost Superhuman (with regards to superheroes). Indeed, one of the things I really like about your book is that it's a fascinating hybrid of mix science fiction and superheroes, which is neat and different.

But that's just one approach to the material, that leans more heavily on the sf end of the spectrum. There's a whole rainbow out there and, to my mind, you can enjoy a story without having to believe that it could somehow conceivably happen someday. You can enjoy an Arabian nights adventure, for example, without having to believe that flying carpets and magic lamps have some basis in reality. Or worrying about the long-term societal effects of flying carpets on trade and industry.

(Altough that could be a fun idea to explore.)

Says the guy who just wrote a novel about Humpty Dumpty and Mother Goose.

 

[Christopher]

But do you see where the appeal of the fantasy can sometimes lie in imagining that its happening to people like you and me, in a world enough like our own that that the fantastic elements stand out more? Look at 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. There are absolutely no new ideas regarding vampires in that book, but what makes it work is that King makes his small town and its people feel utterly believable and lived-in, so that when the unnatural elements intrude, they're all the scarier for taking place in believable, realistic setting where they don't belong.

For a single story, sure. But for an ongoing series, as I said, it limits the long-term storytelling possibilities if the impact of the extraordinary phenomena always has to be reined in or quashed or negated. Good writing in any genre is about actions and consequences. It's the consequences of a story's events that give it stakes and meaning. An unwillingness to alter the status quo of a show's world imposes an artificial limit on the potential consequences of an event, and that weakens the storytelling.

This isn't just true of stories set in the present, either. Look at Deep Space Nine's first season. In the span of just a few episodes, we were introduced to the technology to create adult clones within days ("A Man Alone"), the technology to heal any disease and even death ("Battle Lines"), and the technology to transfer a dead person's consciousness into a new body ("The Passenger"). Collectively, those technologies should've revolutionized civilization and eliminated death forever. Only one of the three, the nanites in "Battle Lines," was given a limitation that prevented its wider use, but that limitation was artificially imposed and could've been overcome with further study. The other two were given no limitations precluding their continued use. But they were all ignored thereafter, their consequences undeveloped, and that made the stories less plausible.

Same with superheroes. A guy leaping over tall buildings in a single bound is more jaw-dropping if it takes place in downtown Metropolis than in some exotic transhuman alternate world where such feats are commonplace. It's about evoking the "sense of wonder" effect of the awesome and the miraculous.

But it's easier to believe in a superpower or sci-fi phenomenon if it has the transformative consequences on society that one would expect it to have, rather than having society just artificially remain stagnant despite the existence of these extraordinary aspects. It's the Reed Richards is Useless problem.

After all, your analogy here doesn't really work. Most comic-book universes are ones where the existence of superpowered beings and extraordinary phenomena are commonplace. Much of the fun of the Marvel and DC universes is how ubiquitous all these wild, bizarre things are and how normalized they've become in everyday life. These are worlds where the existence of aliens is common knowledge, where the ancient Amazons or Atlanteans have an ambassador to the UN, where the bizarre and extraordinary is part of everyday life. (Have you read the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl issue where Doreen tries internet dating and ends up on a date with a guy who turns out to be a "superhero truther," convinced that all superheroes, villains, gods, monsters, and the like are government propaganda and false-flag operations? In that world, it's the disbelief in the extraordinary that puts one out of touch with reality.)

So it's not the same as the sort of series we're talking about where the extraordinary is a secret from the general public or is considered a hoax, the kind of story that allows us to pretend it's taking place out of sight in the real world. There used to be a number of superhero TV shows like that -- the bionic shows, The Incredible Hulk, The Greatest American Hero, early Smallville, Birds of Prey -- but there have been plenty of others where the heroes were publicly known, like Batman, the various Superman series, Wonder Woman, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Flash (1990), Power Rangers (kinda hard to fight giant monsters in secret), and the like. And the "common knowledge" approach is used in most of the current superhero franchises -- X-Men, MCU, DCEU, Arrowverse, Powers, Powerless (that's an interesting double bill), etc.

So I'm kind of lost by the equation of superhero fiction with "This is secretly going on in our world" fiction. Those two genres don't really overlap that often.

But that's just one approach to the material, that leans more heavily on the sf end of the spectrum. There's a whole rainbow out there and, to my mind, you can enjoy a story without having to believe that it could somehow conceivably happen someday.

Well, like I said, it doesn't have to be about science. It's about the internal believability of any fictional world, no matter how fanciful its laws. If it stands to reason that a given thing should have an impact on the world and it's artificially constrained from doing so, that's either a failure of believability or a missed storytelling opportunity. Because consequences and impact are interesting.

After all, speculative fiction is "What if...?" literature. It's about asking "What if X happened?" and positing an answer. It's all about exploring the ramifications of an unreal premise. So when any work of speculative fiction -- whether it's SF, fantasy, horror, or anything in between -- poses a premise and chooses not to explore its ramifications for fear of diverging from the real-world status quo, I see that as a missed opportunity.

 

[Greg Cox]

Depends on the effect you're going for. "Exploring the ramifications" is an intellectual exercise. A horror story, on the other hand, is more about trying to produce an emotional effect, or using supernatural plot devices as metaphors for guilt, madness, despair, anxiety, and other psychological states. And, of course, some stories are about individuals as opposed to "the world." (The Incredible Shrinking Man is about Scott Carey and his personal journey, not about the effects of shrinking radiation on the wider world.)

Similarly, a fantasy tale may be more about evoking a sense of thrills and wonders than working out the logical ramifications of its world. Does anybody really care how the giant roc in the Sinbad stories fits into the lost island's ecosytem? I think not, because the intent is to evoke a sense of wonder and peril.

Granted, wonder or fear or excitement is not incompatible with logical world-building, but you have to consider what kind of story you're telling.

Probably depends on how you define "speculative fiction." Are we just talking the John W. Campbell school of sf, as exemplified by Astounding back in the day, or are we embracing Weird Tales as well?

(This could probably make a good panel discussion sometime.)

 

[Christopher]

Depends on the effect you're going for. "Exploring the ramifications" is an intellectual exercise.

I don't think so. I'm talking about where you take an ongoing series in the long run, whether you limit yourself to doing the same kind of "We must keep the secret" stories forever, or allow your show's premise to grow and evolve. Secret-keeping stories get tedious after a while. That's an emotional reaction on my part -- I'm bored with the same thing over and over. In the case of iZombie, we've had two years of Liv solving cases of the week. Now we have an arc that's about the more fundamental questions of her existence and her ability to survive in the world, and about whether her choices could actually change the world or save it. And that's a much bigger, richer story than we've had before. It interests me because it's new. That's as much an emotional reaction for me as an intellectual one. For all that I grew up with Spock and McCoy as my role models, I never accepted the premise that there's a dichotomy between intellect and emotion. Intellectual questions are emotionally engaging to me.

A horror story, on the other hand, is more about trying to produce an emotional effect, or using supernatural plot devices as metaphors for guilt, madness, despair, anxiety, and other psychological states. And, of course, some stories are about individuals as opposed to "the world." (The Incredible Shrinking Man is about Scott Carey and his personal journey, not about the effects of shrinking radiation on the wider world.)

That's a movie. This is an ongoing series. If there were an Incredible Shrinking Man series (somehow -- I guess either he'd stop shrinking at some point or would be able to shrink at will to Fight Crime), and it had spent two seasons exploring Scott's personal journey on an intimate scale, would it be so wrong if the third season started to open up the scope of the premise a bit more and start exploring story possibilities it hadn't already used, like what might happen if the shrinking radiation were harnessed and used by the villains, or if there were a whole community of people who'd been shrunk in the same way and had to fight for their place in the world? (Although that's more like Land of the Giants.)

Look at it this way. Would you want a sequel to a movie or novel to be exactly the same story over again, or would you want it to find some new angle on the premise?

Similarly, a fantasy tale may be more about evoking a sense of thrills and wonders than working out the logical ramifications of its world. Does anybody really care how the giant roc in the Sinbad stories fits into the lost island's ecosytem? I think not, because the intent is to evoke a sense of wonder and peril.

Again, it's not strictly about logic and plausibility. That's just one possible means to the end. The end is about developing new story possibilities for an ongoing series, not artificially trapping yourself into doing the same limited range of stories over and over because of a resistance to diverging from the status quo. I like worldbuilding and scientific extrapolation because, for me, that's a good way to find new story possibilities, by following a chain of logic from a cause to an interesting effect. That analytical approach works for me as a way of finding my way to new stories. But coming up with new and fresh stories is the goal of the exercise.

Probably depends on how you define "speculative fiction." Are we just talking the John W. Campbell school of sf, as exemplified by Astounding back in the day, or are we embracing Weird Tales as well?

I use "speculative fiction" to encompass all fiction that's based on imaginative and unreal premises, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, alternate reality, and the like. Heck, the case can be made that all fiction is speculative fiction -- that mainstream fiction is a specialized subset of speculative fiction that limits itself to the known world in the present or past, with the speculation being limited to imaginary characters, institutions, locations, and events. The existence of, oh, Charles Foster Kane or Mayberry or WKRP or the Jed Bartlet administration is no less counterfactual than the existence of Steve Austin or Themyscira or SHIELD. It's just a more constrained speculation.

 

[Skipper]

If anyone is interested, in Big Town they try to imagine what would happen if Reed Richard had shared its technology with the world...

 

[YLu]

For a single story, sure. But for an ongoing series, as I said, it limits the long-term storytelling possibilities if the impact of the extraordinary phenomena always has to be reined in or quashed or negated. Good writing in any genre is about actions and consequences. It's the consequences of a story's events that give it stakes and meaning. An unwillingness to alter the status quo of a show's world imposes an artificial limit on the potential consequences of an event, and that weakens the storytelling.

But altering the world is only one way to change the status quo. You can have characters themselves undergo major changes, or make a change in their personal community that has no real effect on the larger world. In stories about secret societies, you can have all sorts of changes that greatly affect those societies without having it impact the wider culture, oblivious to any of those going-ons. There are vast swaths of fiction -- slice of life dramas, sitcoms; hell, arguably the majority of fiction -- that runs on this more personal kind of change and not any change to the world.

So forcing the world to stay the same is perhaps a limitation of a sort. But if so, it's only a limitation in the same sense that a low-key historical drama is limited by the fact that it won't use supernatural elements. There is still so much range and so many story possibilities even with that avenue closed, and that avenue would have clashed with part of the appeal in the first place.

So I'm kind of lost by the equation of superhero fiction with "This is secretly going on in our world" fiction. Those two genres don't really overlap that often.

The overlap is not the secrecy but that the weird stuff has no real effect on the world. People still act like people in the real world. When a cop in a gritty Batman comic is making no headway interrogating a criminal, he'll treat that as a dead end instead of calling in a psychic to help (except in stories where he doesn't). The same goes for a cop in an urban fantasy story (unless that cop is the urban fantasy protagonist's One Friend on the Force). In the urban fantasy story, the reason he doesn't is that he doesn't know telepathy exists. in the superhero story, the reason is Just Because. Either way, the result is the same.

The overlap is that instead of treating the weird stuff as some alternate reality divergence point, it's treated as a layer roughly imposed atop our reality and all its ways, imperfectly co-existing. To put it another way: A writer might do a story where Captain America tries to stop the atom bomb (and I'm sure some have). A writer will not do a story where he succeeds at it.

---

One thing to consider is that, in a lot of these "the public doesn't know the truth" stories, part of the appeal is that the protagonist, despite their connection to the weird stuff, is still an everyperson. When they're not dealing with the weird stuff, they're living lives much like yours or mine, with relationships and work troubles and so forth. That all-important relateability. If the lid on the secret were blown, logically they'd enter celebrity status where government and media alike are investigating them, and that everyperson quality would get blurred. Superhero stories, where the weird stuff is public knowledge, get around this with secret identities. But in most "the public doesn't know" stories, that's not really an option -- everyone *within* the weirdness community knows the protagonist's secret, typically -- so instead the community itself is the secret.

 

[Christopher]

But altering the world is only one way to change the status quo. You can have characters themselves undergo major changes, or make a change in their personal community that has no real effect on the larger world. In stories about secret societies, you can have all sorts of changes that greatly affect those societies without having it impact the wider culture, oblivious to any of those going-ons. There are vast swaths of fiction -- slice of life dramas, sitcoms; hell, arguably the majority of fiction -- that runs on this more personal kind of change and not any change to the world.

Of course you can, but the point is, this is not one of those types of show. iZombie is specifically about something that can change the world radically, i.e. the zombie virus. It's a riff on the "zombie apocalypse" trope about a zombie infection bringing the downfall of civilization. That obviously hasn't happened in the show, and it probably won't, but the threat of it has been an undercurrent in the show from the start. And since this isn't the 1970s anymore, we expect shows to expand on the potential of their premises over time, to advance and evolve their narratives rather than artificially remaining stagnant. So it only stands to reason that, over time, the writers would explore how various groups of people -- on both sides -- respond to the dangerous ramifications of this infection. That's the natural escalation of the storytelling beyond what we had in the first two seasons. This potential has always been a part of this show from day one; it's just been subtext until now.

So forcing the world to stay the same is perhaps a limitation of a sort. But if so, it's only a limitation in the same sense that a low-key historical drama is limited by the fact that it won't use supernatural elements.

Again, though, this is a show about something that could change the world, or at least raises very interesting large-scale questions beyond just "can this solve the murder of the week?" So you might as well be talking about a supernatural show not using supernatural elements. It's odd to suggest that there's something foreign about the development of the concepts that have been built into this show's premise all along.

One thing to consider is that, in a lot of these "the public doesn't know the truth" stories, part of the appeal is that the protagonist, despite their connection to the weird stuff, is still an everyperson. When they're not dealing with the weird stuff, they're living lives much like yours or mine, with relationships and work troubles and so forth. That all-important relateability. If the lid on the secret were blown, logically they'd enter celebrity status where government and media alike are investigating them, and that everyperson quality would get blurred.

Not necessarily. The world could learn about zombies without learning that Liv is one.

Besides -- shows change over time. They evolve. That's normal for modern shows. Status quos don't remain forever fixed by default. Secrets can and do come out. Characters' situations change. It's not unusual anymore.

 

[Greg Cox]

And, honestly, I was mostly reacting to sweeping statements like "that's what science fiction should do," (emphasis mine) which seemed much too broadly prescriptive. And balking a bit at the idea that idea that iZombie, in particular, should be more about exploring the global ramifications of a zombie plague than having fun with zany brain-eating antics.

It's funny. There's a modern notion that serialized, evolving storylines are inherently superior to old-fashioned episodic TV, but I tend to think that both approaches have their pros and cons, along with all the various gradations in-between.

GHOST WHISPERER, for instance, was a show that worked much better as a procedural than as a serial. The ghost-of-the-week eps, as formulaic as they were, worked: they each had a beginning, a middle, and an end. But whenever the show tried to do some big, continuing story arc, it turned into a muddle--perhaps because it over-complicated what was essentially a very simple premise: Melinda talks to dead people and helps them into the light. Simple, but effective.

And need I mention THE X-FILES? The monster-of the-week episodes were great and hold up well when rewatched years later, but the increasingly convoluted "mythology" eps don't hold up nearly as well, IMHO. I confess I skipped over them the last time I did an X-FILES rewatch.

 

[DigificWriter]

Personally, unless it's a show with a specific aim that requires it to be solely serialized (Game of Thrones, Westworld, Riverdale, Emerald City, Battlestar Galactica, Arrow), I'd rather watch a show that features both "episodic" and "arc" episodes, as I feel like episodic stuff gives you a chance to get to know the characters more.

iZombie is basically "Veronica Mars with zombies", which means that, for better or worse, it's never going to completely lose its episodic/procedural-based storytelling... nor should it, because there's more than enough room in it for both the episodic and the arc-based.

 

[kitik]

If anyone wants more iZombie, check out the first episode of Dimension 404 on Hulu (it's a new sci-fi anthology show). It stars the guy who plays Major as a lonely guy who's just looking for love.

 

[Christopher]

And balking a bit at the idea that idea that iZombie, in particular, should be more about exploring the global ramifications of a zombie plague than having fun with zany brain-eating antics.

Where did I ever say it was a binary choice? Good writing is about balancing different elements, not embracing one to the absolute exclusion of all others. Of course the "antics" will still be part of the show, but they've never been the absolute exclusive thing the show was about. As with most modern shows, the episodic/procedural elements have tied into and advanced the larger, evolving arc. This is just the further evolution of that arc. In the first season, it was mostly about individual or small-scale responses to the situation, albeit building in scope over the season -- Liv adjusting to her new life, Blaine's zombie-feeding business, Major's investigation, Ravi's search for the cause/cure, etc. At the end of the season, they opened up the story more by bringing in Vaughn Du Clark and establishing his plan to eliminate all the zombies to cover up the effects of Max Rager. And that element drove the arc of season 2, with Vaughn blackmailing Major to "kill" the zombies, sending his daughter to spy on Liv, etc. This is where the storyline started to evolve beyond "good zombie fighting bad zombies" toward "zombies endangered by humans." And the introducton of Vivian and Filmore Graves is the next logical step in that evolution -- given that humans would see zombies as a threat and try to eliminate them, how would zombies respond to that threat? That's a question worth exploring.

So there's nothing new here. It's not like new showrunners have come in and changed the approach. This was never just a "brain-of-the-week" show. There's been an evolving plan all along, one thing leading to another, the scope of the storytelling broadening in a logical way from season to season. I don't see how bringing in Filmore Graves is any more disruptive than bringing in Vaughn.

It's funny. There's a modern notion that serialized, evolving storylines are inherently superior to old-fashioned episodic TV, but I tend to think that both approaches have their pros and cons, along with all the various gradations in-between.

And I will never understand the insistence on treating the two as mutually exclusive or inimical elements. That's like debating whether food should be sweet or savory. They're both ingredients in the mix, and a complete meal has elements of both. It's just a question of what balance you use. I think it's important for anything told in individual installments to make each installment worthwhile on its own, but I also like it when the consequences of one episode are remembered later and have the impact that they would plausibly have on the characters and situations, rather than being completely forgotten in the name of an artificially unchanging status quo. For instance, "The Inner Light" is probably the best episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, but it was hurt by the fact that what should've been a life-changing experience for Captain Picard was all but completely ignored thereafter. Strong episodes are good, but strong episodes having a lasting and believable impact on subsequent episodes are better.

And need I mention THE X-FILES? The monster-of the-week episodes were great and hold up well when rewatched years later, but the increasingly convoluted "mythology" eps don't hold up nearly as well, IMHO. I confess I skipped over them the last time I did an X-FILES rewatch.

That's because they were making up their "mythology" as they went along, using it as an excuse to raise an endless series of questions without having any actual answers in mind, so it was recognizably incoherent. LOST was the same way. But I don't think that's the case with iZombie. As I said, its story arc has been evolving in a plausible, natural way from premise to consequence. It's not just tossing in random complications for the sake of obfuscation; it's thinking through the ramifications of its premise and following where they lead. Filmore Graves isn't a gratuitous twist, it's the next logical outgrowth of the existence of the zombie virus.

Heck, that's why I like it. I hate it when shows toss in random complications that don't make sense. I lost interest in both The X-Files and LOST, in part because of that incoherence. I like the new development in iZombie because it is coherent and organic in the context of the show's premise.

 

[DigificWriter]

To expand on Christopher's point about the Filmore Graves story being a natural evolution of the show's narrative, it was implied rather heavily in the premiere that Vivian's husband was being blackmailed/extorted for brains by Blaine, meaning that Vivian's been slowly cultivating her Zombie utopia/"D-Day" plan since Season 1.